Page:Cæsarea; or, A Discourse of the Island of Jersey.djvu/13

 THE FIRST PART.

CHAP. i.

The Description of Jersey, the nature of y$e$. Soile, number of Inhabitants, theire occupations, hauens, Townes, fortifications & other principall things therein conteined.

The Isle of Jersey in M$r$. Cambdens accompt, & of others who hâve written of it, exceeds not twelve miles in lenght, & thirty or, at most, thirty six in compasse: but by a late more exact Survaye, it is found to exceed forty; and yet if one should measure it following closely the surface of y$e$. ground, y$e$. is to say descending with y$e$. Vallyes & then ascending with y$e$. Hills, there would be found a much greater proportion: for y$e$. whole Island esp̃ally towards the West, South & Southwest parts is a continued series of hills dales & meadowes lying betweene them, some indeed stony & barren as to corne, but for the most part capable of some kind of husbandry, as trees & Orchards, or at least pasture of sheepe, and fewell, Ferne Furzes & broome. It lay heretofore, about a hundred years since, allmost open, with fewe Inclosures in it & very fewe Orchards; the ordinary drinke of those times being, not as at p̃nt cydar, but a kind of meade made of hony as y$e$. principall ingrédient, of two sorts; the one called Vittoe, soe strong, that it made men drunk as cydar doth nowe; from whence there is still a Proverb vsed among the People: "Vous estes Envittoe," for one who knowes not what he doth: y$e$. other sort was called Boschet; for then the people