The record-union., 1893-04-01

r.
swept prismatic colors, and the Solway
| tide is in.
| This is the picture that comes to me
| from Ireland's craggy North. The east
| ern shore of wild Lough Swilly is a sue
cession of ruins, dainty villages, like
| Buncrana and Fahan and of pilgrim
! haunted Shrines. Over to the west are
wilder shores, huts, round towers, fishers
cabins, and here and there the patched
! sails of the herring fishers smacks lie
| white against the background of the
! headland 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 sod
! den, hopeless, hard. But they are brave
and as strong as iron. They have tre-
mendous frames, are brown as bronze,
| ana form groupings of startling impress
| siveness. They are simple and peaceable,
am told. But were pirates wanted, were
fleets TO be fitted out with men tor work
giving one a shudder to contemplate
| these sea giants would furnish incompa-
rable human, heartless flint. But if they
/ are flint, their wives are steel.
Above six feet in hight, broad and
| strong as their burly mates; with legs
| corded like a mans, and bare to the
knees; with arms long, crooked and
teShless as wood; with fiat, hairy breasts
| often barred from neck to the waist and
tanned by salt, sun and wind, to the color
| OF the mottled alder bark; with wide
| jaws, half toothlesS mouths, sunken
cheeks, eyes blue-black and flashing
| from deep, yellow sockets, and brows
! bushy and ragged with bristling hairs;
| with narrow, creased foreheads, and
| great, wide saffron-colored ears set
straight out from behind like dirty
wing and-wing" sails, and their square
| heads crowned by once black hair, faded
| into snuf-brown like an iIl-kept ami
| mails, which is matted and knotted upon
! the shoulders, and frequently to the
waist, and you have but the faintest pict-
ure OF this halt-animal who subsists upon
kelp, dulse, black oatcake, and half-raw
| fish that the buyers. who come to the
| beaches in their carts from Londonderry,
refuse as even unworthy Of sale to men
| dicant and crouching man-beast OF the
! town.
And the children of these?
| They drag out the same horrible lives,
! help make the British navy, or turn
! traitor to the brood of half-pirates be-
! hind, becoming the most renorseless of
| coasC-guard or mountain poteen-hunting
! officers. And yet how the old blood oc-
casonally blossoms through this limit
| loss degradation. y daughter of just
such an one as 1 have pictured was the
most perfect type of wild and simple hu =
/ man beauty 1 ever DeheId. Barelegged
and barehreasted as her mother, brown
as hazel nut, ignorantly innocent OF
| fear, for four copper coins she roWed me
| across Lough Swilly to where her faith
! er's work lay mending the seines, like an
| Amazouian man-Of-war' s-man, while |
sat tspeechless contemplating her marvel
! Gus beauty and majestic proportions,
! hating myself because | was not alto
| gether an artist, and wondering, in all
| reverence, why God, or Gods nineteenth h
! century civilization, could not wait upon
| the African missions for a little, and reach
! to and succor such as these.
Standing upon the huge headland above
ancient st. Ives another remarkable pict-
ure is yours. 1t is OF one of the most in
teresting fishing ports in Europe. The
| bay itself faces the north. At your feet
are purple heather and waving ferns
parted from the crystalline water by glist-
ening sands. TO the right and east the
green hillocks Of the Eastern shore.
Then the broad, yellow beach of Porth-
! cooking, or the FOresand. Dominating
this is the great headland of Pednolva.
Beyond, cleaning like field of gold, are
| the magnificent sands of Porthminster
and further still, the headland and rocky
islet of Godrevy, with The latter's white
lighthouse setting cameo-like between
| the purple of the seaWaIls and the trenu-
| lous blue of the ocean.
Before you, the silent, ,shimmering bay.
with a few white-wiIlged fishing craft
scarcely moving, it seems, the distance
! is so great from the hight where you
stand; the ocean, beyond, shining and
! blue and still; rythmic reaches of incom-
| ing tide waves, miles in length, adyanc-
! ing and retreatiug and breaking SOFTLY
upon the sheSing sands in tiny ridges Of
| sparkling sprtne, and here, to the west, a
| great jumbled mass of gray-old st. Ives
crouching in little pocket of the rocks.
like mass OF mossy stone in some
shadowy glen, sleeping away the cent
uries, unconscious of the thunderous sea.
Aside from these, and half hundred
! more picturesque spots that cannot even
be named, there are the sleepy hamlets
and sand shores of orange from Black
| wood TO Whitehaven, along the Irish Sea;
the miles of villages speaking the sides OF
| the winsome seacombes Of Somerset and
| Devon; the quaint scenes among the
| fleets and homes of the fishermen of Pen
zance, Falmouth, Plymouth and Tor
quay; the countless fisher haunts in the
seething chimes of the winsome Isle OF
| Wight; the drearler reaches of the Eng
hsh east shore where the battles with the
storms and tides are ever fierce and
strong; the wild, waling, Woful coast
from Yarmouth to Whitby, which has
seemed fated to be the scene of the oceans
saddest tragedies; the red roofs, the breezy
shores, the cleaning sands and the toss
! ing spray of Coldingham and North Ber-
wick, around to the south of the mouth
| OF the Forth; the snug town and harbor
the quaint old streets, the luscious fish
dinners and the screaming fish wives
OF Newhaven; the almost somber silence
ever brooding above the piers of Buck
Haven; the rocky walls, the steely blue
of the German Ocean, the awful storms
| and the great dIngy, cheerlesS fishing
| towns OF the east coast from Aberdeen To
Thurso; the brown crags, the emerald
| slopings and the Shadowy, moanful fiss-
ures OF the Shetland and Orkney shores.
with their Dutch and Morse color in faces
| and ways; and the drear, gray rocks and
putin haunted crags of the misty Heb
rides. where the brave, half-starved
! crofter-tisher battles all his life for mere
existence.
The customs, folklore and supersti-
tions which have been the natural out
! growth of their vocation, have been prac-
tically changeless Tor half thousand
years, and their portents and omens are
| countless.
All British fishermen note carefully the
first person upon whom their eyes alight
in the morning. Their luck for the day
will depend on whether the person is well
or Ill favored. A clergyman, a pig or q
/ cat are the most dreaded of all objects as
fleets are sailing out of the harbor The
sight OF either, or the discovery OF the
| footprint Of tiat-tooted person in the
sand, BODIES of all manner of i'll luck. and
to utter the name of a clergyman, or any
four-footed beast on board fishing boat.
would render the offender subject to bod
lily peril, and at least destroy all hopes of
success on that day.
Among many fancifui superstitions and
| curious weather omens, which | have
found to be universal with British fisher
men, are the following They never point
with the finger to another smack. If the
mistake occurs both hands are instantly
upraised and spread in the attitude of
blessing. Three idle strokes of a stick in
the sand, making a figure resembling a