250 THE SEA. 



of weather, or paid off, in the latter cases giving them board and medical attendance, if required, 

 at the lowest possible charge. It possesses a museum, library, and reading-room, and a 

 collection of charts and nautical instruments. The two lifeboats of Yarmouth have been 

 the means of saving several thousand lives. There is also a little church and mission for 

 fishermen and sailors near the beach, and a mariners' chapel. 



The mackerel fisheries of Yarmouth alone employ one thousand men, but the herring- 

 fishery is the most important source of revenue to the town, the produce exceeding one hundred 

 thousand barrels per annum, or one-fifth of the entire yield of the kingdom. A large number 

 of persons of both sexes are employed on shore in drying and curing the fish. The Yarmouth 

 boats with two masts (three during the mackerel season) are manned by twelve or thirteen 

 hands. They have the letters Y. H. and a number painted on the bows. They are now of 

 about sixty-five tons builders' measurement, many of graceful forms, and are fast sailers. A 

 single boat will often take a hundred and twenty or thirty thousand fish in one night. 



In salting herrings the fish are simply gutted and placed in the barrels in alternate 

 layers with salt. Having been allowed to remain in that condition for some few days the 

 barrel is found to contain a quantity of floating liquid, which is poured off ; more herrings 

 and layers of salt are added. The branding consists of affixing the month and day on which 

 they were caught and cured, the name and address of the curer, and the presence or absence 

 of the gills and alimentary canal. " Red " herrings are made so by first being placed in 

 salt for three or four days, then being hung on spits which hold about twenty fish 

 apiece. These spits are plunged several times in cold water, and after being sufficiently washed, 

 are then removed to the open air and dried. Next they are suspended from the roof of the 

 smoking-house, which has wood fires on the floor. Those for English use are smoked for ten 

 days or so, but those for exportation often remain as long as three weeks before being packed. 

 As has been mentioned elsewhere, they are used by the negroes of the West Indies as a 

 medicinal corrective to the bad effects of a constant vegetable and fruit diet. Bloaters are 

 cured more speedily. They are placed for a few hours only in a strong brine, are then spitted 

 and well washed in cold water, and are smoked very slightly for about eight hours only, when 

 they are ready for packing. 



And now for an incident which occurred some years since, and which was indeed a "struggle 

 for life," although eventually the sufferer was landed at Yarmouth. It is a sad truism that 

 danger is never so near to us as when we have least apparent cause to fear its presence, and the 

 narrow escape of a seaman, named Charles Hay man, from a melancholy death, with his vessel 

 in sight of his native soil, is only another of the many exemplifications of this stern truth. 

 He belonged to the schooner Osprey, of London, and had just made a successful passage from 

 Lagos, on the West Coast of Africa, with a cargo of palm oil. The Osprey was brought up and 

 anchored off the North Foreland, when a tremendous sea rose and tore her from her anchors, 

 driving her helpless and unmanageable into the North Sea. 



Those on board at once made signals of distress, which were seen by the gallant little 

 smack, Fear Not, truly a most appropriate name, and her sturdy crew at once went to the 

 assistance of the disabled schooner. The master of the smack offered to take the crew of the 

 0*prey on board, and the mate of the Osprey, believing her past all power of saving, gladly 

 accepted the generous offer. The hurricane was still raging furiously, and it was with the 



