BBITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHEB CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 565 



on by a province the resources of which are scarcely known, much 

 less fully developed, and having only a scanty and widely-scattered 



Sopulation of 124,000 souls, is powerfully demonstrative of the in- 

 ustry and enterprise of the inhabitants, and of the value and impor- 

 tance of the colony. Fish is the chief staple of the trade of this 

 province. The fishery is carried on principally on the eastern shore, 

 in and about Chedabucto Bay ; on the southern at Lunenburg, Liver- 

 pool, and Shelburne ; on the western at Yarmouth, Clare, Argyle, and 

 Barrington ; and at Annapolis, in the Bay of Fundy. The fish prin- 

 cipally taken are cod, herrings, mackarel, shad, alewives, and salmon. 

 The fisheries of Chedabucto Bay are remarkably productive ; indeed 

 cod is taken in the bay, and even in the harbours, and so are herrings ; 

 and the shoals of mackarel are immense. This fish is to be found 

 from June to October on the shore and in the harbours, in such quan- 

 tities that 1000 barrels have been taken in a sieve at one draught. 

 At the commencement of the season the fisherman obtains permission 

 from the proprietor of the beach to erect his hut, and occupy a 

 certain space for his boat and nets, for which he pays at the end of 

 the season a barrel or more of cured mackarel, and one-twentieth of 

 the aggregate quantity of fresh fish besides. The fishery is usually 

 held by shares ; the owner of the boat and nets taking one half of the 

 produce, and the fishermen he employs, the other, which is divided 

 amongst themselves. One proprietor has been known to receive 

 nearly 2000 barrels of mackarel in the year for his fishing grounds, 

 each barrel worth 17s. 6d. The quantity of herrings that throngs 

 Annapolis Basin is almost incredible; they are caught in weirs. 

 Herring fishing commences in May and continues generally to Sep- 

 tember, sometimes until November; at one time the fish remained 

 so long that they were frozen in immense masses in the weirs. After 

 being properly selected and cleaned, they are smoked, and packed 

 in boxes of half-bushel size, 200 fish in each box, and are shipped 

 for the West India market. The herring fishery on the other parts 

 of the coast is carried on in the usual way. Besides this " shore " 

 fishery, the Nova Scotians carry on a considerable cod fishery on the 

 Labrador shore. The fish is taken there, and generally brought to 

 the ports of this province to be cured. 



******* 

 As all the importance attached to this colony (Newfoundland) 

 has arisen exclusively from its fisheries, little has been done on shore 

 to claim our attention. The different settlements amount to about 

 sixty or seventy in number, and are scattered on the shores of the 

 eastern and southern sides of the island, but principally the former; 

 there are indeed some inhabitants on the western shore, near its 

 southern extremity, but they do not extend northward of St. George's 

 Bay, though the vicinity of that bay has proved extremely fertile. 

 ******* 

 Since several merchants, deeply engaged in the trade, have settled 

 here (St. John's, Newfoundland), and many industrious inhabitants 

 have by their consistent efforts raised themselves to comparative 

 wealth, and since the administration of justice has been placed on a 

 more permanent and certain footing than formerly, the state of 

 society has continued rapidly advancing in respectability and civili- 

 zation, and is now better than could be expected from a fishing station, 

 the internal improvement of which has been so uniformly discouraged. 



