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

mOHG tnc F1SReEh6H-1he
Poet Travellers Masterly Pictures
of British Ceastyvise Scene and Folk
shown Through Crystal Lenses of
Wfnsome Words-Fervld Face and
Character Portraiture of These Pa
tient ToIIers of the Sea-Curious and
FancifuI superstitions.
LONDON, March 20.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Pilgriming In many lands, 1 have been
much among their waterstde folk-with
the fishermen of Algisrs, who are q con-
glomerate race of Greeks, Italians, Span
isrds and Arabs; with the fishermen of
Sicily, gloomy and voiceless as gipsy dogs;
with Chioggian and Apulian fishermen,
those most majestic sluggards of all Italy;
with those of Barcelona, the giants of the
south of Spain; with Biscayan, Breton
and Cornish fishermen, superstitious and
sodden above sill others; with the brave,
kind men Of Claddagh, at Galway, and
those along the wondrous Kerry coast;
with the stern yet tender fisher folk of
Manxland; with the lazy fishermen of the
] dreamy Azores, who, transferred to Amer
| lean coasts, prove the most valuable re-
cruits to our east-shoIe fishing fleets; with
the cap and tasseled pescadores of Cuba,
brigauds all in looks and ways; With the
sauatty Eskimos of the Labrador coast,
satiaied with any fruitage of the deep
which will barely sustat, life; with the
crofter- fisher of the north-Scottish and
| Shetland coasts; and with our own brave
1 a. IL hat
the Grand Banks, and the 'Quoddy fisher
men whose chief quarry is the herring,
all along the grand Maine coast to the mist
wreathed crsgs of wild Manan.
In many years of intercourse with these
lowly folk have been continually i'm
pressed with the almost indefnable and
wholly indescribable sadness that ssems
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 reposs Ii 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 something hunted, haunt.
ed, wearied, worried, dreading and dread,
full, to be read In the lines of their faces
in the tremulousness of their voices, and
In the light which shines from theil
eyes, that all their brave and hearty
ways cannot hide or disguise.
It Is as If the sea, from which they
live, had whispered in secret to each con
sciousness some savage threat of reprisal
| ss If over every little comfort, home 10!
or well-earned content, hung the spectre
hand of fate coming closer to the tnne
vision eyery time the fskerman's kear
grew glad. In whatever degree this !
universal, It seems to me to be NOR
marked among the fishermen of England
Ireland and Scotland, than I have eve
found it elsewhere revealed. ! believ
Dickens saw and felt this at the old fish
| ine-port of Great Yarmouth when he ere
: ated out of his great and tender hear
\ the pathetic characters of the Peggottyt
i-simple, tender, true; scorning basenes.
D resolute in all manly attributes; majesti
: in suffering and forgiveness; and throug
y and over all, the pathetic thread of sae
: ness, quivering like an endless plaint
q melodious though mournful song.
In this experience strange and tends
weird and sad, pictures of fishing town
!. | and villages, sea breaches and coasts tnn'
: merable, each one study for master
= brush, are stored within the memor.
Here are few of their outlines:
The mighty southwest of Ireland He
y ~ coast, with weird Bray Head, and m
iestic 81. Michaers Mount upon Gre
y SkeIlig rock, darkening along the eai
sf to the north of the great ocean line,
way, the spring mackerel fset-fro
|" Kerry hamlsts, from Man land and fro
! France, altogether from three to TO
r. thousand craft-frequently SO dense
rs massed that water cannot be seen from