On the second day we reached a marshy and fenny country, which, owing to immense quantities of rain which had lately fallen, was completely submerged.

At a large town we got on board a kind of passage- boat, crowded with people; it had neither sails nor oars, and those were not the days of steam-vessels; it was a treck-schuyt, and was drawn by horses.

Young as I was, there was much connected with this journey which highly surprised me, and which brought to my remembrance particular scenes described in the book which I now generally carried in my bosom.
The country was, as I have already said, submerged--entirely drowned--no land was visible; the trees were growing bolt upright in the flood, whilst farmhouses and cottages were standing insulated; the horses which drew us were up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and 'greedy depths,' were not unfrequently swimming, in which case, the boys or urchins who mounted them sometimes stood, sometimes knelt, upon the saddle and pillions.

No accident, however, occurred either to the quadrupeds or bipeds, who appeared respectively to be quite _au fait_ in their business, and extricated themselves with the greatest ease from places in which Pharaoh and all his host would have gone to the bottom.
Nightfall brought us to Peterborough, and from thence we were not slow in reaching the place of our destination..