Dutchmen and Herrings 295 



by them without the prompt arrival of the fishermen 

 in pursuit. 



■ All round the sea coasts of Northern Europe the 

 Herring is to be found in its season, from the North 

 Cape to Ushant, but of all these countries where the 

 Herring is known and loved and caught, Holland 

 may probably claim the pre-eminence in antiquity 

 and importance. There was a time when the fisher- 

 men of the Netherlands supplied the whole of 

 Europe with Herrings from their sandbanks, which 

 are a characteristic feature of the Dutch coasts. Nay, 

 Holland itself is just a series of sandbanks wrested 

 from the sea, which is only kept from resuming its 

 ancient sway over the country by unceasing care, 

 and watchfulness over the dykes. Thus the Herrings 

 were, so to speak, at the Dutchmen's back doors, 

 and right profitable advantage did the sturdy Nether- 

 landers take of the fact. 



In the early days their method of curing for 

 export was rough and rude in the extreme. They just 

 piled the fish in heaps and sprinkled salt upon them. 

 And the condition of those fish in a week or so must 

 have been horrible. But people were not fastidious 

 then, and disregarded the laws of health pretty much 

 as they listed, being almost entirely ignorant of 

 them, though it must be admitted that the Dutch 

 were far in advance of any other nation in that 

 respect. 



But in process of time a great genius arose, William 

 Beukelaer, of a village near Sluys, who discovered 

 that by pickling Herrings in barrels they might be 

 really preserved from decay, be more portable, and 

 incomparably cleaner and more wholesome. It seems 

 to us now but a trifling and very obvious improvement 

 upon the old method, but such as it was it had a most 



