30
The Voyage
Old Carpsthis place with the name of Fountainbelleau. In these Ponds, as also in the moat about the house, are conserved excellent Carps; some whereof were said to be an hundred years old: which though we were not bound to believe, yet their very white scales, and dull moving up and down, might make men believe that there are gray scales, as well as gray hairs; and decayed fishes; as well as decrepid men: especially when De Re Rust.Columella speaks of a fish of his acquaintance, in Cæsars fish ponds near Pausilippus, which had lived threescore years, and Gesnerus relates, that in a fish-pond near Haylprum in Suabe, a fish was catched anno 1497, with a brass ring at his gills, in which were ingraven these words: I am the first fish which Frederick the second, Governour of the world put into this Pond the 5 of October 1203. By which it appears, that this fish had lived two hundred and sixty odd years. But to return again to our Carps of Fountainbelleau, Its an ordinary divertisement here, to throw an halfpenny loaf into
the
