CH. XXXVII. HADDOCK-FISHING. 285 



The Highlanders who have assisted at the fishing 

 on the east coast now return home with heavier 

 bundles and purses, but lighter hearts ; however, I 

 fear that many of the inhabitants of the fishing 

 villages spend a great part of their hard-earned 

 wages in whisky instead of applying it to the 

 comforts of their families. Some are more pru- 

 dent, and lay the money by, in order that in due 

 time they may become owners of a herring-boat 

 themselves. 



The inhabitants, at least the males, of fishing 

 villages are an indolent-looking race, going about 

 all their land occupations in a slow and lazy 

 manner, and being for the most part remark- 

 ably ignorant. But we should bear in mind that 

 they spend their nights at sea, in laborious and 

 fatiguing occupation, exposed to cold and wet, 

 and that it is only during their intervals of rest 

 that we see them, when they are lounging about 

 half asleep, and leaving to their wives the business 

 of preparing their lines and selling the fish. 



The coiling of a long line, with about three hun- 

 dred hooks on it, is a mystery to the unpractised 

 and uninitiated. Each haddock -boat takes out 

 coiled lines with from two to three thousand baited 

 hooks upon them ; and yet so perfectly and skil- 

 fully are they arranged that they never catch or 



