Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1893-04-01

wings above; and to the west o eee-hori-
Eon of rose and orange where the setting
sun still shows flaming edge; while more
than ten thousand lusty men, under q
third as many flashing orutch- lights set
amidships of the smacks, are silently
shooting" the great brown seinea for
the night.
i Matohless is that picture, ever tinted
by the near presence of fsher folk and
their storm-whipped homes, You may see
from Shetland's somber sea-wsll height,
mighty, mournful Fitful Head. 1t Is the
White Mountain of the Norsemep, on &C.
count of the lustre of its slate formation.
feet above the sea, but the legendary habi-
tation of Norma, bold, almost detached,
cliff lifting its sea- front into q point as
sharp as a church -spire, ia not more than
three-fourths that elevation. II Ia quite
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 q High
land loch From the higher headland the
whole of Shetland can be seen-waste,
moor, hillook, valley, glen; q land without
forests, split and serrated by the ceasaless
cravings of the sea. Tremendous preci-
piees rise everywhere. Loohs and tarns
show without copse or verdure. Shadowy
"hellyers" cut the sea walls where the tide
is ever at ebb or flow. Here q fishing sta
ton; there q dreary hamlet. Yonder 9
gravelly beach, with fsh-ourers and their
herd of seals turning their shining sides
to the low, red sun. Over all flmy,
dreamy, tender presence; for In the brief
days before the dark, long winter sets in
1t is the fisherman's "peerie summer" in
the Shetland Isles.
Strange, quiet, God fearing souls are the
fishermen of the Solwsy shores, whether
they live on the Scottish side, where ev
cry stream and brae and vale has re-
mindsr of the immortal poet of the lowly
who rests within the sound of Solwsy's
tide-t -thunderings, or on the English side,
In rockgirt Cumberland, In the brave
old houses built from Roman walls.
| Giant frames have these folk, and won
| drous height, wide fair brows, great blue
or hazel eyes and leonine heads of faxen
hair. I always remember them with
their apparent alertness of attention, an
unconscious habit and attitude of listen
ing. For 1t is said these folk can hear the
onooming sweep of the great tide bore
harvest of fish and often terror and
| death-for twenty miles awayl
| Long before this, lie you are standing
| on the cliff edge above ancient Bowness,
you will see the fishers, waist deep in
water, hurrying 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 scurrrYing up from the ebb-
| slime and sands towards safety and the
| shore. Then to your unpracticed ears
come the faint reverberations of hoarse
| roar; and soon, like pillar of fame in
| the play of the sunlight, the great mist
banner of the advancing waters Is flung
| from Scotland to England, almost from
Criffsl to Silloth, and moves toward you
| like lurid cloud above q running bat
| tie. In few moments more the bril-
| liancy of the phenomenon is greatest.
Preceding the advancing cloud along
| the seething front of wall of water five
| miles wide, glitter, fosms and Kisses o
| bank of spume and spray, zoned, trimmed
| and interlaced with tiny rainbows. The
roaring of the believing water-hosts be-
comes deafening. For an instant you are
| enveloped by the cloud. That passed,
while you thrill with the mystery and
awful grandeur of the spectacle, the great
| tide-head is abreast of you, q true tide
bore, such as breaks msjestieally into
| Minas and other estuariss of the Bay of
Fundy, cylindrical and straight as an ar
row across the Firth, and from six to eight
feet in height, which sweeps past with a
below and shrek like that of an hun
dred thousand coast fog horns bowling in
| unison; while close In its wake is hill
locky, tempestuous mass of waves bril-
| colors; and the Solway tide is in.
This is the picture that comes to me
from Ireland's craggy north. The east
l ern shore of wild Lough Swilly Is q sue
osssion OF ruins, dainty villages, like
| Buncrana and Fahan, and of pilgrim
haunted shrines. Over to the west are
wilder shores, huts, round-towers, fish
ers' cabins; and here and there the
patched sails of the herring fishers
of the headlsnds and hills. Here the
sweetest herring known to man are taken.
The brawny herring fishers of the north
are here in greatest numbers. They are
sodden, hopeless, hard. But thoy are
| brave and as strong as iron. They hsvs
tremendous frames; are brown as bronze;
and form groupings Of startling impress
siveness. They are simple and peacesble,
/ am told. But were pirates wanted; were
fleets to be fitted out with men for work
giving one shuddsr to contemplate; these
ea-giants would furnish incompatible hu-
man, heartless flint. But If they are flint,
their wives are steel.
| Above six feet In height, broad and
strong as their burly mates, with legs
corded like a mans, and bare to the knees;
with arms long, crooked, and feshless as
wood; with fat, hairy breasts often barred
from neck to the waist, and tanned by
salt, sun and wind to the color of the mot
tied alder bark; with wide jaws, half
toothless mouths, sunken chesks, eyes
blue-black and flashing from deep, yellow
sockets, and brows bushy and ragged with
bristllng hsirs; with narrow, creased fore
heads, and great, wide saffron colored ears
set straight out from behind like dirty
living and wing" sails; and their square
heads crowned by once black hair, faded
into enuffbrown like an ill-kspt animals,
which is matted and knotted upon the
} shoulders, and frequently to the waist
and you have but the fsintest picture ofthis
half animal who subsists upon kelp, dulse,
black oat-cake and haIf-raw fish that the
buyers, who come to the beaches In their
carts from Londonderry, refuse as even
) unworthy of sale to mendicant and crouch
ing man beast of the town.
And the children of thesea
They drag out the same horrible lives;
help make the British navy; or turn trail
tor to the brood of half. pirates behind,
becoming the most remorseless of coast
, guard, or mountain poteen-hunting, Off
GERS. And yet how the old blood occasion
ally blossoms through this hmitlsss degra-
datisn. A daughter of just such an one
! | as have pictured was the most perfect
, type of wild aud simple human beauty
, ever behsld. Bare-legged and bare breast
ed as her mother; brown as q hazel nut;
ignorantly innocent of fear; for four cop
! Per coins she rowed me across Lough Swil
Z ly to where her fathers work lay nendins
! the seines, like an Amazonian man
: | war's-man; while I sat speechless, contem-
{ plating her marvellous beauty and majestic
: proportions; hating myself because was
not altogether an artist, and wondering
, In all reverence, why God, or Gods nine
! teenth century civilization, could not wal
upon the African missions for little, and
' reach to and sucoor such as these.
Standing upon the huge headland above
y ancient st. Ives another remarkable pic
ture is yours. It is of one of the most in
> teresting fishing ports in Europe. The bay
J itself faces the north. At your feet ar,
= purple heather and waving ferns partet
|. from the crystalline water by glisteninl
= sands. To the right and east the greer
- hillocks of the eastern shore. Then tn
o broad yellow beach of Porth. cooking, O
!, the Foresand Dominating this In the grea
y headland Of Pednolvs. Beyond, cleaning
% like fsld of gold, are the msgnifcen
/ sands of Porthminster; and further stil
o the hesdland and rocky islet of Godrevy
s. with the latter's white lighthouse settin
., eaneo-like between the purple of the sex