For gentlemen, what exercise should more delight them than ranging daily these unknown parts, using fowling and fishing for[320] hunting and hawking? and yet you shall see the wild hawks give you some pleasure in seeing them stoop six or seven times after one another, an hour or two together, at the skults[321] of fish in the fair harbors, as those ashore at a fowl, and never trouble nor torment yourselves with watching, mewing,[322] feeding, and attending them, nor kill horse and man with running, and crying, “See you not a hawk?” For hunting, also, the woods, lakes, and rivers afford not only chase sufficient for any that delights in that kind of toil or pleasure, but such beasts to hunt, that, besides the delicacy of their bodies for food, their skins are so rich as they will recompense thy daily labor with a captain’s pay. X.――THE GLORIES OF FISHING. Illustration: COD-FISHING. THE main staple from hence to be extracted, for the present, to produce the rest, is fish; which, however it may seem a mean and base commodity, yet who will but truly take the pains, and consider the sequel, I think will allow it well worth the labor. It is strange to see what great adventures the hopes of setting forth men-of-war to rob the industrious innocent would procure.... But who doth not know that the poor Hollanders, chiefly by fishing, at a great charge and labor, in all weathers in the open sea, are made a people so hardy and industrious? and by the sending this poor commodity to the Easterlings[323] for as mean,[324] which is wood, flax, pitch, tar, rosin, cordage, and such like,――which they exchange again to the French, Spaniards, Portuguese, and English, &c., for what they want,――are made so mighty, strong, and rich, as no state but Venice, of twice their magnitude, is so well furnished with so many fair cities, goodly towns, strong fortresses, and that abundance of shipping and all sorts of merchandise, as well of gold, silver, diamonds, precious stones, silks, velvets, and cloth-of-gold, as fish, pitch, wood, or such gross commodities? What voyages and discoveries, east and west, north and south, yea, about the world, make they! What an army, by sea and land, have they long maintained in despite of one of the greatest princes of the world! And never could the Spaniard, with all his mines of gold and silver, pay his debts, his friends and army, half so truly as the Hollanders still have done by this contemptible trade of fish....