I am to add that King James II. caused a spacious stable to be
built in the area of this camp for his running homes, and made old
Mr. Frampton, whom I mentioned above, master or inspector of them.
The stables remain still there, though they are not often made use
of. As we descended westward we saw the Fen country on our right,
almost all covered with water like a sea, the Michaelmas rains
having been very great that year, they had sent down great floods
of water from the upland countries, and those fens being, as may be
very properly said, the sink of no less than thirteen counties--
that is to say, that all the water, or most part of the water, of
thirteen counties falls into them; they are often thus overflowed.
The rivers which thus empty themselves into these fens, and which
thus carry off the water, are the Cam or Grant, the Great Ouse and
Little Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, and the river which runs from
Bury to Milden Hall. The counties which these rivers drain, as
above, are as follows:-
Lincoln, Warwick, Norfolk,
* Cambridge, Oxford, Suffolk,
* Huntingdon, Leicester, Essex,
* Bedford, * Northampton
Buckingham, * Rutland.
Those marked with (*) empty all their waters this way, the rest but
in part.
In a word, all the water of the middle part of England which does
not run into the Thames or the Trent, comes down into these fens.
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