Yet can it not be denied but that these of the Summer Islands[9] are blessed with the same privilege according to the saying of St. Paul, “If the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy.”[10] But to leave this privilege to them whom it concerns, and to describe to your Lordship the excellency of the place. First, the harbour is not only pleasant for air and prospect, but most sure for shipping, both small and great, being land-locked on all sides. The town is seated on the ascent of a hill, which besides the pleasure of variable objects entertaining the unsatisfied eye, such is the wholesomeness of the place (as the Governor[11] told me) that for the space of one whole year of the two wherein they had been there, died not one man, woman or child. This healthfulness is accompanied with much plenty both of fish and fowl every day in the year, as I know no place in the world that can match it. In March the eels come forth out of places where they lie bedded all winter, into the fresh streams, and there into the sea, and in their passages are taken in pots. In September they run out of the sea into the fresh streams, to bed themselves in the ground all winter, and are taken again in pots as they return homewards. In winter the inhabitants dig them up, being bedded in gravel not above two or three foot deep, and all the rest of the year they may take them in pots in the salt water of the bay. They are passing sweet, fat and wholesome, having no taste at all of the mud, and are as great as ever I saw any. In April and May come up another kind of fish which they call herring or old wives[12] in infinite schools, into a small river[13] running under the town, and so into a great pond or lake of a mile broad, where they cast their spawn, the water of the said river being in many places not above half a foot deep. Yea, when a heap of stones is reared up against them a foot high above the water, they leap and tumble over, and will not be beaten back with cudgels. Which confirmeth not only that of Horace, “_Naturam expellas furca licet_,” etc.,[14] but that also which was thought a fable of Friar Beatus Odoricus, namely, that in some parts where he had travelled, the fish in the springtime did cast themselves out of the sea upon the dry land.[15] The inhabitants during the said two months take them up every day in hogsheads. And with those they eat not they manure the ground, burying two or three in each hill of corn—and may, when they are able, if they see cause, lade whole ships with them. At their going up they are very fat and savory, but at their coming down, after they have cast their spawns, they are shot, and therefore lean and unwholesome. Into another river some two miles to the northeast of Plymouth,[16] all the month of May the great smelts pass up to spawn, likewise in troops innumerable, which with a scoop or a bowl, or a piece of bark, a man may cast up upon the bank.