The record-union., 1893-04-01
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright. 1891

the fishermen of Algiers, who are con-
glomerate race of Greeks, Italians, Span
! iards and Arabs; with the fishermen of
dogs; with Chioggian and Apulian fisher
men, those most majestic sluggards of all
Italy; with those of Barcelona, the giants
of the south of Spain; with Biscayan,
Breton and Cornish fishermen, super
stitious and sodden above all others; with
the brave, kind men of Claddagh at CAL
way, and those along the wondrous Kerry
coast; with the stern, yet tender, fisher
folk of Mainland; with the lazy fisher
men of the dreamy Azores, who, trans
ferred to American coasts, prove the most
valuable recruits to our coast-shore fish
ing fleets; with the cap and tasseled pes
cadores of Cuba, brigands all in looks
and ways; with the Squatty ESkimos of
the Labrador coast, satisfied with any
fruitage OF the deep which will barely
sustain life; with the crotter-fisher of the
North Scottish and Shetland Coasts, and
with our own brave Gloucester men who
risk their lives upon the Grand Banks,
and the 'Quoddy fishermen whose chief
quarry is the herring, all along the grand
! Maine coast to the mist-wreathed crags
| of wild Manan.
In many years OF intercourse with these
| lowly folk l have been continually i'm
| pressed with the almost indetinable and
| wholly indescribable sadness that seems
TO brood over and among all this class OF
people. 1t is in their cabins and homely
social life. 1t is in their voices and looks.
In repose it sets on their faces pitifully.
Reused into some great activity, in storm.
in taking fish, or in saving lives, they
have grand, earnest faces. these fisher
men. But, in the quiet hours, there
is something hunted and haunted,
wearried, worried, dreading and dread
| ful to be read in the lines OF sheir faces, in
the tremulousness of their voices, and in
the light which shines from their ewes
that all their brave and hearty ways can
not hide or disguise.
| 1t is as if the sea, from which they live.
had whispered i'll secret to each consci-
| BUSINESS some savage threat of reprisal; as
if over every little comfort, home Joy, or
well-earned content, hung the specter-
hand of fate coming closer to the inner
vision every time the fiSherman's heart
grew glad. In whatever degree this is
| universal, it seems to me to be more
marked among the fishermen of England,
| Ireland and Scotland than | have ever
| found 1t elsewhere revealed. | believe
Dickens saw and felt this at the old fish
ing port of Great Yarmouth when he Gre
ated out of his great and tender heart the
pathetic characters of the Peggottys-
simple, tender, true, scorning Daseness,
! resolute in all manly attributes, majestic
| in suffering and forgiveness and through
and over all the pathetic thread of sad
ness, quivering like an endless plant in a
| melodious though mournful song.
In this experience strange and tender,
weird and sad, pictures of fishing towns
and villages, sea-reaches and coasts innu-
merable, each one study for masters $
brush, are stored within the memory.
Here are few of their outlines:
| The mighty southwest of Ireland Kerry
coast, with weird Bray Head, and majes-
tic st. MichaePs Mount upon Great Skel-
| lig Rock, darkening along the eastward
| landward horizon, and at sea, lust to the
north of the great ocean liners way, the
| spring mackerel tleet-from Kerry ham
lets, from Man land and from France.
! altogether from 5000 to 1900 craft-fre-
quently SO densely massed that water
cannot be seen from tishing-smacl' s
deck; thousands of seagulls whistling
| and Tapping their white wings above:
and to the west sea-horizon of rose and
| orange where the setting sun still shows a
| flaming edge, while more than ten thou
/ sand luSty men, under a third as MANY
! flashing crutch lights set amidships OF
the smacks, are silently "shooung'' the
great brown seineS for the night
| Matchless Is that picture, ever tinted by
| the near presence OF fisher folk and their
storm whipped homes, you may see from
! Shetland's most ,somber seawall hight,
mighty, mourntul Fitful Head. 1t is the
! White Mountain OF the Norsemen, on
account of the luSter of its slate forma-
! ton. Its highest crag rises fully 900 feet
above the sea, but the legendary habita-
! ton of Norma, a bold, almost detached
| cliff lifting its sea front into point as
| sharp as church spire, is not more than
| -f,Nt1,t h. hat al
| accessible after rough scramble, and its
! sides.are the haunts of myriads of sea-
! fowl. Horrible, indeed, must be the
| place in time OF storm. But away down
! there below the sea is often as calm as a
| Highland loch. From the higher head
| land the whole of Shetland can be seen
waste, moor, hillock, valley, glen: land
without forests, split and serrated by the
! ceaseless gnawings Of the sea. Tremend-
| Gus precipices rise everywhere. Lochs
and tarns show without copse or Verdure.
| Shadowy ''hellyers" cut the seawalls
where the tide is ever at ebb or flow.
Here Is q fishing station; there a dreamy
hamlet. Yonder gravelly beach with
/ tlsh curers and their sodden toll; beyond,
a weird gio with a herd of seals turning
their shining sides to the low, red sun.
/ over all tlmy, dreamy, tender pres
ence, for, in the brief days before the
dark, long winter sets in, it is the fish
erman's 'peerie summer" in the Shet-
/ land Isles.
Strange, quiet, God-fearing souls are
! the fishermen of the Solway shores,
| whether they live on the Scottish side,
where every stream and brae and vale
has reminder of the immortal poet OF
the lowly who rests within the sound OF
| Solway's tide-thunderings, or on the
! English side, in rock-girt Cumberland,
! in the brae old house built from Rouan
walls. Giant frames have these folk, and
| wondrous hight, wide, fair brows, great
( blue or hazel eyes ana leOnine heads OF
tiaXen hair. L always remember them
with their apparent alertness OF attention.
an unconscious habit and attitude of list
ening. For, it is said, these folk can hear
the oncoming sweeps of the great tide
bore from the Irish Sea-which brings
! the harvest of fish and often terror and
death-for twenty miles away.
Long before this, if you are standing
on the cliff-edge above ancient Bowness,
| you Will see the fishers. waist deep in wa
ter, hurrylng on the tightening OF their
upright nets, which, for ten miles below,
seem like tiny fences of rush, and away
seaward, with your glass, you can see
! them scurrylng up from the ebb-slime
and sands toward safety and the shore.
Inen to your Impractical ears come the
faint reverberations OF a h0arse roar; and
soon, like n pillar of fame in the piay of
1Ee suAllRHl- lde great LnlSt-Danner OF the
advancing waters is flung from Scotland
TO England, almost from Critfel to Silloth
| and moves toward you like a lurid cloud
above a running battle. In a few mo-
ments more the .brilliancy of the phe-
| nomenon is greatest.
Preceding the advancing cloud along
the seethlng front of wall of water five
miles wide, glitter, foam and misses a
bank OF spume and spray, zoned
trimmed and interlaced with tiny rain
bows. The roaring of the believing wa
ter costs becomes deafening. For an in
slant you are enveloped by the cloud.
That passed, while you thrill with the