This excessive plenty of so good fish (and other provisions being
likewise very cheap in proportion) makes the town of Totnes a very
good place to live in; especially for such as have large families
and but small estates. And many such are said to come into those
parts on purpose for saving money, and to live in proportion to
their income.

From hence we went still south about seven miles (all in view of
this river) to Dartmouth, a town of note, seated at the mouth of
the River Dart, and where it enters into the sea at a very narrow
but safe entrance. The opening into Dartmouth Harbour is not
broad, but the channel deep enough for the biggest ship in the
Royal Navy. The sides of the entrance are high-mounded with rocks,
without which, just at the first narrowing of the passage, stands a
good strong fort without a platform of guns, which commands the
port.

The narrow entrance is not much above half a mile, when it opens
and makes a basin or harbour able to receive 500 sail of ships of
any size, and where they may ride with the greatest safety, even as
in a mill-pond or wet dock. I had the curiosity here, with the
assistance of a merchant of the town, to go out to the mouth of the
haven in a boat to see the entrance, and castle or fort that
commands it; and coming back with the tide of flood, I observed
some small fish to skip and play upon the surface of the water,
upon which I asked my friend what fish they were. Immediately one
of the rowers or seamen starts up in the boat, and, throwing his
arms abroad as if he had been bewitched, cries out as loud as he
could bawl, "A school! a school!" The word was taken to the shore