32 



take position on the bnnks, anchoring in seventy or eighty fathoms of 

 water. Everything in readiness the chalonpes arc launched and sent 

 tmi at night to place the "ground-lines," to which are attached some 

 lour or live thousand hooks. When not too Ijoisterous, the.se lines are 

 examined every day, and the fish attached to the hooks split, salted, and 

 placed in the hold of the vessel. Meanwhile, the fish caught on board 

 bv the men not assigned to the boats are treated in the same way. 

 Tiie first fare is usual!}' secured in June, and carried to St. Pierre to 

 be dried. The second fare is cured at the same place; but the third — 

 if fintunately there be another — is commonly carried to France "green." 



This fi^shing is difficult and dangerous. It requires expert and dfiring 

 men. It is prosecuted in an open, rough, and often a stormy sea, and 

 fre(iucntly involves the loss of boats and their crews. 



The third fishcny, at St. Pierre and ^Nlicpielon, is similar, in some re- 

 spects, to that between Cape Ray and Cape John, on tlie coast of 

 Newfoundland. Boats, instead of vessels, are, however, employed in 

 it. The boats of the two islands are between three and four hundred 

 in number, and require two men to each. They go out in the morning 

 and return at night. Thus, as in all shore-fisheries, the fishermen always 

 sleep at their own homes. As this is the only business of the islands 

 nearly all the men, women, and children are engaged in catching or 

 curing. The season opens in April, and closes usually in October. 



We have seen the importance attached by France to her immense 

 American domains and with what pertinacity she maintained her pre- 

 tensions to the monopol}^ of the fishing-grounds. It remains to speak 

 more particularly than has yet been done of the two lone, bare, and 

 rocky islands that remain to her as monuments of the vicissitudes of 

 hum:ni c(jndition and of national humiliation. 



The situation of St. Pien-e and Miquelon commands the entrance of 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The growth of wood is insufficient even 

 for fuel. They produce no food, and the inhabitants are dependent on 

 France and other countries fjr supplies. The population of St. Pierre 

 in 1847 was 2,030, of which about one-quarter was "lioatlng" or 

 non-resident. The population of ^licpielon at the same time was 625. 



There are several Catholic churclies and schools, priests, monks, 

 and nuns. In 1848, a hospital, sufficiently commodious to receive up- 

 wards of one hundred sick ])ei-sons, was erected. The dwellings are 

 of wooch The government-house is of the same material, and plain and 

 old-fashioned. The streets are narrow, short, and dirty. The official 

 personages arc a governor, a, commissary or minister oi" mnnno, a har- 

 bor-master, and some inferior fimctionaries. The military, limited by 

 treaty to fifty men, consist of about thirty gens d'armes. Upon the sta- 

 tion is a single armed ship, though other armed vessels are occasional 

 visiters. The present light-house was erected in 1845, at a cost of 

 80,000 francs, and, well built of brick, is a substantial edifice. 



Such are the two islands — two leagues in extent — which remain 

 to the power that once possessed the whole country bcjrdering on the Mis- 

 sissippi, the limitless regions penetrated by the St. Lawrence — Acadia, 

 from Canseau, in Nova Scotia,, 1o the Kenncbcck river, in Maine; the 

 island of Cape Breton; and the hundred othier isles of the bays of the 

 northern and eastern possessions. 



