INDUSTRY OF WORLD-WILD IMPORTANCE. 329 



Fishermen from the isles of Guernsey and Jersey, with those 

 from the British American Provinces, had come from afar, 

 with their wives and little ones, and early in June settled in 

 log cabins, to remain during the cod-fishing season, which, 

 they supposed, would continue until September, when, with 

 their freighted vessels, they would embark on their perilous 

 voyage for home and a market. Their fleet numbered sixty 

 sail, with a scull-boat (in which a sail might be hoisted in 

 case of necessity) for each vessel. This fleet employed also 

 two sail-boats, with nets, to catch caplin for bait. Large 

 shoals of caplin, smelt, and spearing foraged about the estu- 

 ary and along the bay and coast, wisely intended, no doubt, 

 as food for salmon, cod, and other members of the Gadidce 

 family, besides the more ferocious monsters of the deep, 

 which seem to stop at nothing. During my stay of a week 

 among these fishermen, and from what experience I before 

 enjoyed with the class, I am forced to conclude, with Victor 

 Hugo and others who have studied the habits of men, and 

 deduced therefrom theories for the influence which their 

 avocations exert upon their dispositions, that fishermen are 

 the most amiable, patient, and obliging class of men in the 

 world. They are temperate, industrious, frugal, and affec- 

 tionate among themselves, and hospitable to strangers. 



THE CODFISH. 



The fleet sailed out of the harbor every morning, each ves- 

 sel taking a supply of bait as it passed the caplin-netters, 

 when they would come to anchor at certain distances apart 

 along the Banks, sometimes within a mile of shore, but more 

 generally from five to twenty miles, always following the fish 



