500 PROCESS OF CURING AND SALTING THE COD. Having thus explained the method of cod-fishing, it remains only to describe the manner of curing. Each saltinghouse is provided with one or more tables, around which are placed wooden seats and leathern aprons for the cut-throats, headers, and splitters. The fish having been thrown from the boats, a man is generally employed to pitch them with a pike from the stage upon the table before the cut-throat who rips open the bowels, and, having also nearly severed the head from the body, he passes it along the table to his right-hand neighbour, the header, whose business is to pull of the head, and tear out the entrails; from these he selects the liver, and in some instances the sound. The head and entrails being precipitated through a trunk into the sea, the liver is thrown into a cask exposed to the sun, where it distils into oil,† and the remaining blubber is boiled to procure an oil of inferior quality, and the sounds, if intended for preservation, are salted. After having undergone this operation, the cod is next passed across the table to the splitter, who cuts out the back bone as low as the navel, in the twinkling of an eye. With such amazing celerity is the operation of heading, splitting and salting performed, that it is not an unusual thing to see ten codfish decapitated, their entrails thrown into the sea, and their back-bones torn out, in the short space of one minute and a half. The splitter receives the highest wages, and holds a rank next to the master of the voyage; but the salter is also a person of great consideration, upon whose skill the chief preservation of the cod depends. allow the boats to come close to its extremity, for the ready discharge of their cargoes; it is generally covered over, as the rain will injure the fish, and on the same platform is the salt house, with the benches for the cutthroat, header, splitter, and salter, the two latter having in point of wages the precedence, and the two former being on a par. * Of late years the entrails and garbage are dropped into a flat-bottomed boat placed under the stage and taken to the shore for manure. + The livers taken from 300 quintals of cod fish ought to yield a ton of oil, but it sometimes requires more or less, according to the quality of the fish. FISH AT NEWFOUNDLAND. 501 From hence the cod are carriedin hand-barrows to the salter, by whom they are spread in layers upon the top of each other, with a proper quantity of salt between each layer. In this state the fish continue for a few days, when they are again taken in barrows to a square flat wooden trough (commonly called a ram's horn*) full of holes, which is suspended from the stage head in the sea. The washer stands up to his knees in this trough, and rubs the salt and slime off the cod with a soft mop. The fish are then taken to a convenient spot and piled up to drain; and the heap thus formed, is called 'a water-horse.' On the following day or two the cod are removed to the fish-flakes, where they are spread in the sun to dry; and from thenceforward they are kept constantly turned during the day, and piled up in small heaps called faggots at night. The upper fish are always laid with their bellies downward, so that the skins of their backs answer the purpose of thatch to keep the lower fish dry. By degrees the size of these faggots is increased, until at length, instead of small parcels, they assume the form of large circular stacks or piles; and in this state the cod are left for a few days as the fishermen say, to 'sweat.' The process of curing is now nearly complete, and the fish exposed once or twice to the sun are afterwards stored up in warehouses, lying ready for exportation. There are three qualities of cured cod-fish in Newfoundland. They are distinguished by the different titles of merchantable fish, and West India fish. Merchantable fish are those cured in the best possible manner, and having no apparent defect: Madeira are those having some slight blemish on the face, occasioned by an undue quantity of salt, or being sun-burnt; West India having, in addition to the defect of the Madeira, some cracks in the middle, or broken at the fins.† It will be evident when the foregoing statements are examined, that the cod fisheries of Newfoundland are to Eng Supposed to be a corrupt term from the French verb Rincer. + Merchantable fish are generally shipped for the Spanish, Portuguese, 502 EXTENT OF THE SEAL FISHES. land more precious than the mines of Peru and Mexico, and in truth if we consider that the vast quantities of fish* annually drawn from the banks and adjacent coast, it will be found that as the mere representative value of gold, its worth far exceeds that of the precious metals, to say nothing of the importance of the subject in a maritime, commercial and political point of view. Another fishery of great importance to the island and to England is that of seals for the sake of their skins and oil, which, though of comparatively recent commencement, was carried on during the last two years to the following extent: In round numbers there were in 1831, seals caught 744,000, in 1832, 538,000; in 1833, 438,000-and in 1834, 401,000.† Italian, and South American markets. Madeira and West-India fish are supplied to the West-Indies, and of late years a considerable quantity has been annually exported to the southern and western counties of Ireland. The west of England also consumes no unimportant quantity of salted cod annually. I think it was Lewenhoeck who counted the eggs in the roe of a single cod, and found them amount to 9,344,000: the vast reproduction of the species is not, therefore, a matter of astonishment. + The following return shews the sealing vessels from St. John's: DANGEROUS MODE OF CATCHING THE SEALS. 503 The fishing or catching of the seals is an extremely hazardous employment; the vessels are from 60 to 150 tons, with crews of from 16 to 30 men each, provided with fire arms, &c. to kill the seal, and poles to defend their vessels from the pressure of the ice. In the beginning of March, the crews of the vessels in their respective harbours collect on the ice with hatchets, saws, &c. and cut two lines in the frozen surface wide enough apart to allow their schooners to pass; an operation of great labour, as after the thick flakes have been sawn or cut through they have to be pushed beneath the firm ice with long poles. The vessels then get out to sea if possible through the openings, and work their perilous way to windward of the vast fields of ice, until they arrive at one covered with the animals of which they are in quest, and which is termed a seal meadow; the seals are attacked by the fishers, or more properly speaking, hunters, with fire arms or generally with short heavy batons, a blow of which on the nose is instantly fatal. The large ones frequently turn on the men,* especially when they have young ones beside them, and the piteous cries and moans of the latter are truly distressing to those who are not accustomed to the immense slaughter which is attended with so great a profit. The skins with the fat surrounding the bodies are stripped off together, the carcases left on the ice,† and the pelts or scalps carried to the vessels whose situation during a tempest is attended with fearful danger; many have been known to be crushed to pieces by the ice closing on them. Storms during the dark night, among vast icebergs, can only be imagined by a person. who has been on a lee shore in a gale of wind-but the hardy seal hunters seem to court such hazardous adventures, yet their native country ungratefully refuse to protect them in peace time against the encroachments of the French. The hooded seals sometimes draw their hoods, which are shot-proof, over their heads. The winter tenants on the Labrador coast say the young seal is excellent eating. IMPORTS.-The principal importst consist of bread, flour, pork and beef, butter, rum, molasses, wine brandy and gin, coffee, tea, sugar, oatmeal, salt, pease, and beans, lumber, * The value of the quintal of fish may be now estimated at from 8s. to 128. (the salmon per ton is from 31. to 47.); train oil, 18%. to 251. per ton; seal ditto, 217. to 251. do. ↑ At St. John's the staple imports for 1832, 1833, and 1834 were |