78 LOBSTER FISHERY. 



feeble, ever-sliifting material, the Almiglity has curbed 

 the wildest fury of the raging sea, and made its very 

 rage build up its own barrier ! 



*' Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it 

 had issued out of the womb ? When I made the cloud the garment 

 thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it ; and brake up 

 for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors ; and said, Hitherto 

 shalt thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves 

 be stayed?" — Job xxsviii. 8 — 11. 



Several mackerel boats were hauled up on the beach, 

 and, while I stood, a party of stalwart fellows in Guern- 

 sey frocks and deck boots came running down with 

 rudder and oars, and, launching one of the skiffs, put 

 to sea ; for a report prevails that a shoal of Mackerel 

 had been seen in the ofSng, their first appearance this 

 season. Enormous lobster-pots lay about, to which 

 those used in Weymouth Bay are toys ; and a stout 

 rope, beset at intervals with great cork-floats, displayed 

 the device by which the position of these cages is 

 marked, and the manner in which they are raised for 

 examination ; while just oif shore a line of well-boxes 

 was floating, in which the captured Crustaceans are 

 kept prisoners of war, till occasion serves for convey- 

 ing them to market. 



Beyond the village the beach gave way to an iron- 

 bound shore, strewn with boulders and fallen masses 

 of stone, vast in dimensions, angular, smoooth and 

 white, heaped on each other in wild confusion. The 

 sea washed in among them, passing freely into their 

 interspaces, but not forming pools. Hence very few 

 sea- weeds were growing here, the surfaces of the rocks 

 being ever liable to be laid bare by the dashing of the 



