5 NORTHiftX RUSSIA. 



fishing-smacks. We passed several out of sight of land. 

 They trawl over those endless banks for months, consign- 

 ing their cargoes from time to time to vessels which 

 convey them to British or continental markets, but the 

 same crew always remaining in the smack. There they 

 lie, pitching and tossing, reefing and tacking, hauling and 

 trawling, lying to and bearing away, night and day, 

 through mist, and spit, and salt sea-foam, with wet 

 nets, wet fish, wet sails, wet ropes, wet clothes, wet 

 skies! 



How cosy and comfortable is any returned convict, or 

 inhabitant of one of our well-regulated prisons, compared 

 with these poor fellows ! We would recommend " Four 

 months' fishing on the North Sea," as a sentence to be 

 passed upon all those genteel criminals who. would miss 

 the theatre and comfortable tavern. It would cool their 

 passions, improve their health, cultivate their good habits, 

 or kill them. 



After three days, we saw in the distant horizon a few 

 specks, and were told that they represented Jutland ; 

 then, by-and-by, came the Olrnan light ; then, some ten 

 hours after, the Skagen lighthouse, marking a low line of 

 sands, on which we counted five old wrecks ; then, 

 twelve hours farther, with occasional peeps of misty 

 streaks which were called dry land, the hitherto almost 

 unseen shores began to come nearer. In a few hours we 

 could see corn-fields, and trees, and then houses, both on 

 the Swedish and Danish coast, but no scenery worth 

 remarking, until at last, right ahead, at some distance, we 



