once, and I considered that a whale coming up to Wisbeach on a tide
would certainly stay there; not indeed for the delights of the town (of
which I say nothing), but because there would be no room to turn round;
and a whale cannot swim backwards. The only fish that can swim backwards
is an eel. This I have proved by observation, and I challenge any
fisherman to deny it.

So much for Wisbeach, which stands upon the River Nene or Nen, which is
the last of the towns defended by the old sea-wall--which is the third
of the Fen ports--the other two being Boston and Lynn, which is served
by two lines of railway and which has two stations.

Very early next morning, and by one of these stations, another man and I
took train to a bridge called Sutton Bridge, where one can cross the
River Nen, and where (according to the map) one can see both the
sea-walls, the old and the new. It was my plan to walk along the shore
of the Wash right across the flats to Lynn, and so at last perhaps
comprehend the nature of this curious land.

* * * * *

When I got to Sutton Bridge I discovered it to be a monstrous thing of
iron standing poised upon a huge pivot in mid-stream. It bore the
railway and the road together. It was that kind of triumphant
engineering which once you saw only in England, but which now you will
see all over the world. It was designed to swing open on its central
pivot to let boats go up the River Nen, and then to come back exactly to
its place with a clang; but when we got to it we found it neither one
thing nor the other. It was twisted just so much that the two parts of
the roads (the road on the bridge and the road on land) did not join.

Was a boat about to pass? No. Why was it open thus? A man was cleaning
it. The bridge is not as big as the Tower Bridge, but it is very big,
and the man was cleaning it with a little rag. He was cleaning the under
part, the mechanisms and contraptions that can only be got at when the
bridge is thus ajar. He cleaned without haste and without exertion, and
as I watched him I considered the mightiness of the works of Man
contrasted with His Puny Frame. I also asked him when I should pass, but
he answered nothing.

As we thus waited men gathered upon either side--men of all characters
and kinds, men holding bicycles, men in carts, afoot, on horseback,
vigorous men and feeble, old men, women also and little children, and
youths witless of life, and innoce