Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-04-06

men oil Algiers, who arc ConglOmernte
race Of Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and
Arabs; with the fishermen of Sicily,
gloomy and voiceless as Gypsy 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 Bis
cayan, Breton and Cornish fishermen;
superstitious and sodden above all
Others; with the brave, kind men Of
Claddagh, at Galway, and those along
the woundrous Kerry coast; with the
stern yet tender fisher folk of Manx-
land; with the lazy fishermen of the
dreamy Azores, who, transferred to
American coasts, prove the most valua-
BILE recruits to our east shore fishing
fleets; with the cap-and- tasscled pesca-
dores 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 crofter.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 ! have been CON
tinually impressed with the almost in i.
detinabe and wholly indescribable sad
ness 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 fishermen.
But in the quiet hours there is some.
thing hunted, haunted, wearied, wor.
RED, dreading and dreadful, to be read
in the lines OF their faces, in the tremu-
lousness of their voices, and in the light
which shines from their eyes, that all
their brave and hearty ways cannot
hide or disguise.
1t Is as if the sea, from which they
live, had whispered in secret to each
consciousness some savage threat Of
reprisal; as If over every little comfort,
home joy, or wcll.earned content, hung
the spectre.hand of fate coming closer
to the inner vision every time the fisher
man . hNplb Ealth EllN. LII NudlGNEI
degree this is universal, IL seems to me
TO be more marked among the fishermen
of England, Ireland and Scotland, than
| have ever found it elsewhere revealed.
] believe Dickens saw and felt this at
the old fishing port of Great Yarmouth
when he created out of his great and
tender heart the pathetic characters of
the Pegottys; simple, tender, true; scorn-
ing baseness; resolute in all manly at
tributes; majestic in suffering and for
giveness; and through and over ALL the
pathetic thread of sadness, quivering
like an endless plant in melodious
though mournful song,
In this experience strange and tender,
weird and sad, pictures of tlshing towns
and villages, sea reaches and coasts, in
Vulnerable, each one study for a
masters brush, arc stored within the
memory. Here are few Of their out
lines:
The mighty south west of Ireland,
Kerry coast, with weird Bray Head
and majestic St. Michael's Mount upon
Great Skellig rock, darkening along the
eastward landward horizon; and at sea,
just to the north of the great ocean
liners way, the spring mackereI fleet
from Kerry Hamlets, from Man land
and from France, altogether from 5000
to 1000 craft--frequently so densely
massed that water cannot be seen from
fishing. deck; thousands of
sea.gulis whistling and Tapping their
white wings above; and TO the west, n
sea-horilon OF rose and orange where
the setting sun still shows flaming
edge; while more than 10000 msty men,
under n third as many flashing crutch-
lights set amidships of the smacks, are
silently shooting" the great brown
seines for the night.
Matchless is that picture, ever tinted
by the near presence of fisher folk and
their storm-whlpped homes, you may
see from Shetland's most sombcr sen.
wall height, mighty, mournful Fnful
Head. 1t is the White Mountain Of the
Norsemen, on account of the lustrc of
its slate formation. Its highest crag rises
fully 1000 feet above the sea, but the
legendary habitation of Norma, a bold.
almost detached, cliff lifting its sea. front
into point as sharp as a church.spire,
is not more than thrce-fourths that elc.
walton. 1t is quite accessible after n
rough scramble, and its sides are tho
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 Highland loch. From
the higher hendHnd the whole of Shrt.
land can be seen--waste, moor, hillock,
valley, glen; land without forests, split
and scrrated by the ceaseless cravings
of the sea. Tremendous precipices rise
everywhere, Lochs and tarns show
without copsc or verdure, Shadowv
"hellyers" cut the sea, walls where the
tide is ever at ebb or flow. Here d fish.
ing station; there drcary hamlet. Ion-
der gravelly beach, with fsh-curers
and their sodden toll; beyond, weird
gio with a herd of seals turning their
shining sides to the low, red sun. Over
all, fllmy, dreamy, tender presence;
long winter sets in, it is the fisherman 5
"peerie summer" in the Shetland 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 re-
minder Of the immortal poet Of the lowly
who rests within the sound Of Solway's
tide thunderings, or on the English side,
in roGk-glrt 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 lconine heads Of
flaxen hair. J always remember them
with their apparent alcrtncss OF attcn-
ton, an unconscious habit and atti-
tude of listening, For it is said these
folk can hear tho oncoming sweeps of
the great tide-bore from the Irish sea-
which brings the harvest of fish and
often terror and death-for 20 miles
away