many occasions put into that port. As for gentlemen--I mean, those
that are such by family and birth and way of living--it cannot be
expected to find many such in a town merely depending on trade,
shipping, and sea-faring business; yet I found here some men of
value (persons of liberal education, general knowledge, and
excellent behaviour), whose society obliges me to say that a
gentleman might find very agreeable company in Plymouth.

From Plymouth we pass the Tamar over a ferry to Saltash--a little,
poor, shattered town, the first we set foot on in the county of
Cornwall. The Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry-boats bad; so
that I thought myself well escaped when I got safe on shore in
Cornwall.

Saltash seems to be the ruins of a larger place; and we saw many
houses, as it were, falling down, and I doubt not but the mice and
rats have abandoned many more, as they say they will when they are
likely to fall. Yet this town is governed by a mayor and aldermen,
has many privileges, sends members to Parliament, takes toll of all
vessels that pass the river, and have the sole oyster-fishing in
the whole river, which is considerable. Mr. Carew, author of the
"Survey of Cornwall," tells us a strange story of a dog in this
town, of whom it was observed that if they gave him any large bone
or piece of meat, he immediately went out of doors with it, and
after having disappeared for some time would return again; upon
which, after some time, they watched him, when, to their great
surprise, they found that the poor charitable creature carried what
he so got to an old decrepit mastiff, which lay in a nest that he
had made among the brakes a little way out of the town, and was
blind, so that he could not help himself; and there this creature