Thought he, I will try this trick.
CHAPTER XL
FISHES.
HUNGERFORD trowtes are very much celebrated, and there are also good
ones at Marleborough and at Ramesbury. In the gravelly stream at
Slaughtenford are excellent troutes; but, though I say it, there are
none better in England than at Nawle, which is the source of the
streame of Broad Chalke, a mile above it; but half a mile below
Chalke, they are not so good. King Charles I. loved a trout above all
fresh fish; and when he came to Wilton, as he commonly did every
summer, the Earle of Pembroke was wont to send for these trowtes for
his majesties eating.
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The eeles at Marleborough are incomparable; silver eeles, truly almost
as good as a trout. In ye last great frost, 168-, when the Thames was
frozen over, there were as many eeles killed by frost at the poole at
the hermitage at Broad Chalke as would fill a coule; and when they
were found dead, they were all curled up like cables. ["Coul, a tub
or vessel with two ears." Bailey's Dictionary.-J. B.]
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Umbers are in the river Nadder, and so to Christ Church; but the late
improvement of drowning the meadowes hath made them scarce. They are
only in the river Humber besides. [Aubrey's friend, Sir James Long,
mentions these fish as "graylings, or umbers". They are best known by
the former name. Dr. Maton states that they are still to be found in
the Avon, at Downton, where Walton speaks of them as being caught in
his time.
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