CHAP. V.

A Herring Breakfast.-Dutch Proverb.-The Wick Herring Fishery.— The Nets. How Herrings are caught. - Profits of the Fishery. — Fishing Returns. — Difficulty in raising Nets. - Dangers attending the Fishery. Origin of the Herring Fishery. - Enterprise of the Dutch. The first Herring Curer.-Monument to Beukel.-Export of Herrings.-Slaves fed on Herrings.-Rise of the British Herring Fishery.- Bounty on Herrings.-Statistics of the Fishery.-Natural History of the Herring. - Curious belief in the Migration of the Herring.--Habits of this Fish. - Superstitions connected with it. Goldsmith on Herrings.-The Food of Herrings.-Argument respecting Variety. Difference in the Quality of Herrings. - A Colossal Herring.

WE were not disappointed. I at least slept well, so well, that when my friend awoke me it was ten o'clock.

A good wash-how steamer stinks cling to one! and to breakfast; and such a breakfast. Herrings which a few hours before had been disporting themselves in the deep, came up in continuous detachments, dressed in a variety of ways. The Dutch have a proverb: "When herrings come in the doctor goes out." And it is pleasant to know that your real fresh herrings are as wholesome as they are good.

THE HERRING FISHERY.

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Our dog-cart had arrived from our shooting quarters, but to have left Wick without seeing the process of preparing herrings for shipment would have been leaving unseen a most remarkable sight. But before seeing how the herrings are cured, it will be well, on the principle of catching your hare before you cook him, to learn how they are caught, and obtain a little information respecting a fish which adds many thousands of pounds annually to our national finances.

The mode of catching herrings is too well known to render it necessary to enter into any detailed description. Suffice to say that the nets are made to form walls as it were of net-work, extending for many miles in length. It would be easy, of course, for the herrings to escape capture by passing under the nets, but being, happily for us, endowed with a determination to go a-head in spite of all difficulties, they plunge their heads within the meshes, and their gills acting like hook barbs retreat becomes impossible; while, on the other hand, the meshes are not sufficiently large to allow the herring's body to pass through them.

The Wick boats are provided with sets of nets 850 yards long, and manned by four men and a boy. The cost of each boat fully equipped for fishing is about 1501. The profits are estimated at 17. per barrel.

The take of herrings partakes, of course, in the glorious uncertainty attending fishing. Indeed, the

capricious habits of these fish renders the herring fishery particularly inconstant. Here for example are the returns of the fishery at Wick, for six nights in the week ending August 17th, 1859:

This arises from the

When the wind is high and every mesh is tenanted by a herring, the labour of raising the nets, which appear as they are drawn out of the water like sheets of burnished silver, is excessive. The labour is, moreover, always increased when by some accident the herrings die before the nets are raised. circumstance that while bodies of white fish such as cod, &c. float when dead; those of fish with comparatively small air bladders sink when life is extinct. Hugh Miller relates, that a few years ago the nets of fishers in the Moray Firth gorged with dead herrings could not be raised by the united exertions of three crews, and were obliged to be abandoned.

During fine nights all goes well and the fishing is prosecuted with little or no danger, but fierce storms not unfrequently strike the north-east coast. The boats

THE DANGERS OF THE FISHERY.

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do not, of course, venture out in the teeth of a gale, but sometimes a tempest suddenly comes on, and then Turner in his most spasmodic mood could not have painted the terrible misery and confusion that arises. Conceive if you can upwards of one thousand boats with their nets down struck by the storm blast. Amidst the thunder notes of the hurricane they strive to reach the haven from whence they sailed, but the open boats shipping water at every sea labour in the foaming ocean troughs, and the crews are glad to run, with loss of nets and tackle, for any creek where shelter may be found. Picture this, and you will feel how much is conveyed by the lines in the popular ballad of "Caller Herrin'":

"Wives and mithers, maist despairin',

Ca' them lives of men!"

When I was on the north coast of Sutherland, a Wick herring boat was towed into the harbour near Durness. She had been fallen in with between the Orkneys and the Scotch coast in a very damaged condition, and was drifting to the west without a living thing on board. What had become of her crew no one could tell.

The Dutch may be said to have originated the herring fishery. The duris urgens in rebus egestas whetted the Hollander's enterprise; who, unable with all his agricultural ingenuity to draw sufficient sustenance from his

water-logged country, was obliged to seek it in commerce and the treasures of the deep.

Very early in the history of Holland we find the people described as great sea fishers. The herring fishery in particular was pursued by them with extraordinary vigour. De Witt states that in his time every fifth individual in Holland was engaged in either catching, curing, or selling herrings.

During the years that the fishing was at its greatest prosperity, it was computed that 3000 vessels were employed in fishing off their own coast, 800 in fishing the seas round the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and 600 others off the east coast of England and Scotland.

This enormous fishery, which employed altogether 112,000 men, was in a great measure created by the discovery of the art of curing herrings by a Dutchman of the name of Beukel, in the early part of the fourteenth century, and consequent large demand by Roman Catholics for these fish.

Indeed, such was the importance attached to this discovery that the Emperor Charles V. visited Beukel's grave at Biervliet, and ordered a costly monument to be erected over it to commemorate his great services to his country. To this day the largest portion of our cured herrings are shipped to Stettin for consumption in Roman Catholic countries; but the Reformation, and the abolition of the Slave Trade, are said to have