to pass and re-pass to and from Portland: this inlet opens at
about two miles west, and grows very broad, and makes a kind of
lake within the land of a mile and a half broad, and near three
miles in length, the breadth unequal. At the farthest end west of
this water is a large duck-coy, and the verge of the water well
grown with wood, and proper groves of trees for cover for the fowl:
in the open lake, or broad part, is a continual assembly of swans:
here they live, feed, and breed, and the number of them is such
that, I believe, I did not see so few as 7,000 or 8,000. Here they
are protected, and here they breed in abundance. We saw several of
them upon the wing, very high in the air, whence we supposed that
they flew over the riff of beach, which parts the lake from the
sea, to feed on the shores as they thought fit, and so came home
again at their leisure.
From this duck-coy west, the lake narrows, and at last almost
closes, till the beach joins the shore; and so Portland may be
said, not to be an island, but part of the continent. And now we
came to Abbotsbury, a town anciently famous for a great monastery,
and now eminent for nothing but its ruins.
From hence we went on to Bridport, a pretty large corporation town
on the sea-shore, though without a harbour. Here we saw boats all
the way on the shore, fishing for mackerel, which they take in the
easiest manner imaginable; for they fix one end of the net to a
pole set deep into the sand, then, the net being in a boat, they
row right out into the water some length, then turn and row
parallel with the shore, veering out the net all the while, till
they have let go all the net, except the line at the end, and then
the boat rows on shore, when the men, hauling the net to the shore
at both ends, bring to shore with it such fish as they surrounded
in the little way they rowed. This, at that time, proved to be an
incredible number, insomuch that the men could hardly draw them on
shore. As soon as the boats had brought their fish on shore we
observed a guard or watch placed on the shore in several places,
who, we found, had their eye, not on the fishermen, but on the
country people who came down to the shore to buy their fish; and
very sharp we found they were, and some that came with small carts
were obliged to go back empty without any fish. When we came to
inquire into the particulars of this, we found that these were
officers placed on the shore by the justices and magistrates of the
towns about, who were ordered to prevent the country farmers buying
the mackerel to dung their land with them, which was thought to be
dangerous as to infection. In short, such was the plenty of fish
that year that the mackerel, the finest and largest I ever saw,
were sold at the seaside a hundred for a penny.
From Bridport (a town in which we see nothing remarkable) we came
to Lyme, the town particularly made famous by the landing of the
Duke of Monmouth and his unfortunate troops in the time of King
James II., of which I need say nothing, the history of it being so
recent in the memory of so many living.
This is a town of good figure, and has in it several eminent
merchants who carry on a considerable trade to France, Spain,
Newfoundland, and the Straits; and though they have neither creek
or bay, road or river, they have a good harbour, but it is such a
one as is not in all Britain besides, if there is such a one in any
part of the world.
It is a massy pile of building, consisting of high and thick walls
of stone, raised at first with all the methods that skill and art
could devise, but maintained now with very little difficulty. The