The inhabitants, who are many and
poor, are chiefly maintained by the manufacture of knitting
stockings, which employs great part indeed of the county of Dorset,
of which this is the first town eastward.
South of this town, over a sandy, wild, and barren country, we came
to Poole, a considerable seaport, and indeed the most considerable
in all this part of England; for here I found some ships, some
merchants, and some trade; especially, here were a good number of
ships fitted out every year to the Newfoundland fishing, in which
the Poole men were said to have been particularly successful for
many years past.
The town sits in the bottom of a great bay or inlet of the sea,
which, entering at one narrow mouth, opens to a very great breadth
within the entrance, and comes up to the very shore of this town;
it runs also west up almost to the town of Wareham, a little below
which it receives the rivers Frome and Piddle, the two principal
rivers of the county.
This place is famous for the best and biggest oysters in all this
part of England, which the people of Poole pretend to be famous for
pickling; and they are barrelled up here, and sent not only to
London, but to the West Indies, and to Spain and Italy, and other
parts.
