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towns of Maine, and to the sojourners among tliem, an attractive scenev 

 To watch, from the liead-lnnds and beaches, the movements of the 

 "herring-drivers," has been a recreation there, of some, for years. The 

 spectator sees a spacious liarbor, and the coves and indentations in its 

 neighborhood, most beautiiiilly hghted up, as with hundreds of lamps, 

 and each Hght heaving and falling with the motion of the sea. Far m 

 the offing the torches, no larger to the eye than a candle's flame, move 

 and dance, approach and cross each other, and then vanish away; 

 while nearer, and perhaps within a stone's throw of the position which 

 he occupies, their red flare will reveal every act of the fishermen, as, 

 lime after time, the fish are bailed into the boat. On ship-board, too, 

 when entering or leaving the Passamaquoddy, these lights, seen in all 

 directions, serve to relieve lonehness, and to excite interesting imagin- 

 ings. Set-nets and wears are becoming favorites again, and it is not 

 impossible that in a few years the torch-lights will be completely ex- 

 tinguished in some of the harbors, and be very much diminished in all. 

 The herrings intended for smoking are washed soon after they are 

 caught, and the scales of all that are Iht enough to shed them are lorced 

 oft" b}- tiiction, when they are salted away in casks. As soon as they 

 are sufliciently " struck" with the salt, they are again washed, spitted 

 or strung upon small round sticks, and hung up in the smoke-house. 

 In spitting, as well as in hanging them up, great care is necessar}'" to 

 prevent the fish from touching each other. They are placed, tier above 

 tier, upon wooden fixtures supported by joists until the house is full. 

 The distance irom the lower tier to the floor is commonly about seven 

 feet. Fires of wood are now lighted ; and the great art is to manage 

 these fires in a proper manner, inasmuch as they must neither be too 

 quick nor too slow, and at times they require to be extinguished. Rock- 

 maple wood is best ; but any kind of fuel green from the forest is prefer- 

 able to the old and water-soaked wood sometimes used, to the serious 

 injury both of the color and the flavor of the fish. The smoking occu- 

 pies several weeks. To cure herrings well, good w^eather is quite as 

 necessary as good fuel and carei'ully-tended fires. After being suffi- 

 ciently smoked, the fires are allowed to go out ; and as soon as the 

 house has become cool the fish are taken down, slipped from the sticks, 

 sorted into three qualities, and packed in boxes. The houses in which 

 tlie smoking is done are mere huts, without floors, and without other 

 finish than rough-board walls, and roofs of the same, battened with 

 slabs. In some cases, however, a wiser use is made of money, and 

 sufficient expense is incurred to erect durable buildings. The upper 

 part and the roof are always intended to be tight, both to retain the 

 smoke and to exclude the rain and damp. These houses are of various 

 sizes — some being large enough to hold one thousand boxes of the fish 

 on the sticks, while others will contain no more than a fourih part of 

 that quantity. The largest and best finished are the most economical. 

 The business of smoking herrings is confined mainl}" to the region of 

 which we are now speaking. The price in the markets to which they 

 are usually sent is sometimes ruinously low, and the fishermen are often 

 deprived of adequate recompense for their labor. The quantity ex- 



Sorted from the eastern part of Maine often exceeds eighty thousand 

 oxes in a year, while the average of ten years may be estimated at 



