THE PLAYFELLOW. THE SETTLERS AT HOME. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., LUDGATE STREET. 1841. Price 3s. 6d., in Cloth. 249. u. 353. CHAPTER I. THE SETTLERS AT HOME. Two hundred years ago, the Isle of Axholme was one of the most remarkable places in England. It is not an island in the sea. It is a part of Lincolnshire-a piece of land hilly in the middle, and surrounded by rivers. The Trent runs on the east side of it; and some smaller rivers formerly flowed round the rest of it, joining the Humber to the north. These rivers carried down a great deal of mud with them to the Humber, and the tides of the Humber washed up a great deal of sea-sand into the mouths of the rivers; so that the waters could not for some time flow freely, and were at last prevented from flowing away at all: they sank VOL. I. B |