436 CREEL-HAWKING. [CHAP, x. 



oyster-grounds are so well defined that battles upon that 

 question are never fought. 



Fisherrow has long been distinguished for its race of 

 hardy and industrious fishermen, of whom there are about 

 two hundred in all. They go to the herring-fishing at Caith- 

 ness, at North Sunderland, at Berwick, North Berwick, and 

 Dunbar, and about sixty men go to Yarmouth, on the east 

 coast of England, a distance of about 300 miles. Ten boats, 

 with a complement of eight men each, go to the deep-sea 

 white-fishing, and two or three boats to the oyster-dredging. 



The white-fishing of Fisherrow has long been a staple 

 source of income. At what time a colony of fishermen was 

 established at that village is unknown. They are most likely 

 coeval with the place itself. When the Eeverend Dr. Carlyle, 

 minister of the parish of Inveresk, wrote (about 1790) there 

 were forty-nine fishermen and ninety fishwives, but since that 

 time the numbers of both have of course much increased. 



The system of merchandise followed by the fishwives in 

 the old days of creel-hawking, and even yet to a considerable 

 extent, was very simple. Having procured a supply of fish, 

 which having bestowed in a basket of a form fitted to the back, 

 they used to trudge off to market under a load which most men 

 would have had difficulty in carrying, and which would have 

 made even the strongest stagger. Many of them still proceed 

 to the market, and display their commodities ; but the ma- 

 jority, perhaps, perambulate the streets of the city, emitting 

 cries which, to some persons, are more loud than agreeable, 

 and which a stranger would never imagine to have the most 

 distant connection with fish. Occasionally, too, they may be 

 seen pulling the door-bell of some house where they are in 

 the habit of disposing of their merchandise, with the blunt 

 inquiry, " Ony haddies the day?" 4 



While treating of the peculiarities of these people, I may 

 * Some of this information about Fisherrow is from Chambers' Journal. 



