in three times more than ever they did and our owne Ironworks be lost, as
almost half of them, he says, are already. Then I went and sat by Mr.
Harrington, and some East country merchants, and talking of the country
about Quinsborough, and thereabouts, he told us himself that for fish,
none there, the poorest body, will buy a dead fish, but must be alive,
unless it be in winter; and then they told us the manner of putting their
nets into the water. Through holes made in the thick ice, they will
spread a net of half a mile long; and he hath known a hundred and thirty
and a hundred and seventy barrels of fish taken at one draught. And then
the people come with sledges upon the ice, with snow at the bottome, and
lay the fish in and cover them with snow, and so carry them to market.
And he hath seen when the said fish have been frozen in the sledge, so as
that he hath taken a fish and broke a-pieces, so hard it hath been; and
yet the same fishes taken out of the snow, and brought into a hot room,
will be alive and leap up and down. Swallows are often brought up in
their nets out of the mudd from under water, hanging together to some
twigg or other, dead in ropes, and brought to the fire will come to life.
Fowl killed in December. (Alderman Barker said) he did buy, and putting
into the box under his sledge, did forget to take them out to eate till
Aprill next, and they then were found there, and were through the frost as
sweet and fresh and eat as well as at first killed. Young beares are
there; their flesh sold in market as ordinarily as beef here, and is
excellent sweet meat. They tell us that beares there do never hurt any
body, but fly away from you, unless you pursue and set upon them; but
wolves do much mischief. Mr. Harrington told us how they do to get so
much honey as they send abroad. They make hollow a great fir-tree,
leaving only a small slitt down straight in one place, and this they close
up again, only leave a little hole, and there the bees go in and fill the
bodys of those trees as full of wax and honey as they can hold; and the
inhabitants at times go and open the slit, and take what they please