Compared with Crowland, Ely was quite a dry place: there the abbey church and conventual buildings stood upon a hill and on firm hard ground;[132] but here all the edifices stood upon piles driven into the bog, and instead of a high and dry hill, there was nothing but a dead wet flat, and unless in those parts where the monastery and the town stood the ground was so rotten and boggy that a pole might be thrust down thirty feet deep. Next to the church was a grove of alders, but there was nothing else round about but water and bogs, and the reeds that grow in water. In short this Crowland, both in the situation and nature of the place, was a marvel even in the fen-country; and, certes, it was different from all places in any other part of England. Lying in the worst part of the fens, it was so enclosed and encompassed with deep bogs and pools, that there was no access to it except on the north and east sides,[133] and there too only by narrow causeways. Even in the summer season the cattle and flocks were kept at a great distance, there being no pasture-land upon which they could be placed without danger of seeing them swallowed up; so that when the owners would milk their cows they went in boats, by them called skerries, and so small that they would carry but two men and their milk-pails. There was no corn growing within five miles of Crowland. The greatest gain was from the fish and wild-ducks that were caught; and the ducks were so many that the Crowland fowlers could at times drive into a single net three thousand ducks at once; and so the good people called these pools their real corn-fields.[134] For this liberty of fishing and fowling they paid yearly to the Lord Abbat a very round sum of money: and, we ween, the abbat and the monks had ever the choice of the best fowls and fishes they caught. That holy man Guthlacus, who had laid the Crowland devils, and who had cut the sluices that led from the fetid pools to the flowing rivers, had also made the causeways which gave access to the town and monastery. These narrow but solid roads of wood and gravel ran across the deepest marshes, and had willows and alders growing on either side of them: they were marvellous works for the times; and do we not see in our own day a pyramidal stone on the causeway leading to the north, inscribed with the name of Guthlacus?[135] Much had this beatified anchorite done to alter the face of the country; yet many of the foulest pools remained and could not be purified. The town was separated from the abbey by a broad stream, and three other streams or water-courses flowed through the town,[136] separating the streets from each other; the streets were planted with willows; and the houses raised on piles driven into the bottom of the bog; and the people of one street communicated with the people of another street by means of light flying-bridges or by means of their skerries. A bold people they were, and hardy and dexterous withal, for their lives were spent in