COD FISHING. 221 



he had ever known, that fish were scarce, and did not take 

 the bait well. Each man fishes two lines, two hooks on 

 each line, bait one capelin. Between every two men a 

 large box is placed, into which they put their fish, and the 

 rapidity with which they haul up their fish, unhook them, 

 and put on a fresh bait can hardly be believed by a lands- 

 man. In a 30-ton schooner there are generally eight 

 hands ; in smooth water four of them fish in the schooner, 

 and the remainder in boats alongside, two in each boat. 

 They fish on the ' half-line ' principle, i. e. each man 

 keeps half the fish he catches as his pay. Each schooner 

 has a drying stage on shore. The livers are exposed to 

 the sun on boughs ; the oil runs out into puncheons 

 placed underneath, and the cod-liver oil thus procured 

 pays for the salt. 



" At the very extremity of the East Point stand the 

 lighthouse and provision store. The prospect from the 

 top of the former is uninviting enough on three sides 

 water, and on the fourth a great brown plain, miles in 

 extent, as flat as a table, and dotted over with lakes 

 and ponds. The only occupants of the lighthouse were 

 Mons. D. and a servant girl. When we saw him in the 

 middle of June he had not had a letter or. a paper, nor 

 had he seen a soul, since the previous autumn, when his 

 son (who is the paid lighthouse keeper) and his daughter- 

 in-law went off to Quebec. The old gentleman was half 

 glad to see us, and half afraid of us, and I am bound to 

 confess that our appearance was against us. Elsewhere 

 I am often taken for a lumberman or an Indian, but in 

 Anticosti (I say it with no small pride) I passed for a 

 'boss' of a fishing schooner. My boots, socks, and 



