FitzStephen calls the river "the great fish-bearing Thames." Howel in his _Londinopolis_ says: "The Thames water useth to be as clear and pellucid as any such great river in the world, except after a land flood, when 'tis usual to take up haddocks with one's hand beneath the Bridge." Harrison (1586) writes: "What should I speak of the fat and sweet salmons daily taken in this stream, and that in such plenty after the time of smelt be past, as no river in Europe is able to exceed it." Even in the last century stray whales and porpoises used to find their way up on the tide. The Saxon foredwellers must have had their fill of fish. Even the Thames swans can be traced back to the fourteenth century in a document relating to the Tower.[32] William Dunbar in 1501 wrote:-- Above all ryvers thy Ryver hath renowne Whose beryall stremys, pleasant and preclare Under thy lusty wallys runneth down Where many a Swanne doth swymme with winges fare. Stow's account of the smaller streams "serving the city" is the most unfortunate in the classic survey, and entirely untrustworthy. In the hollow some distance west of Ludgate was a tidal inlet; a part of its bed has (in 1900) just been exposed in New Bridge Street; the name Fleet, indeed, must express a tidal creek. Early in the twelfth century the district beyond it is called _ultra Fletam_.[33] The inlet gave its name to the bridge and street passing over it from Ludgate. Rishanger calls the latter Fleet-Bridge Street. Henry II. gave to the Templars a site for a mill _super Fletam Juxta Castelum Bainard_, and all the course of the water of Fleet and a messuage _juxta pontem de Flete_. A messuage on the Fleet was also given to them by Gervase of Cornhill, _Teintarius_, and this record is interesting as giving us the calling of the great Londoner treated of so fully by Mr. Round.[34] Gervase was one of the most important personalities in twelfth-century London, and it is not commonly realised that members of the crafts so early held power.