302 WANT OF HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION. 



[CHAP. vn. 



number of smaller craft used to fish inshore. These boats, 

 which measure from thirty to forty feet, are, with the neces- 

 sary hooks and lines, of the value of about 100. Each boat 

 is generally the property of a joint-stock company, and has a 

 crew of eight or nine individuals, who all claim an equal 

 share in the fish captured. The Buckie men often go a long- 

 distance, forty or fifty miles, to a populous fishing-place, and 

 are absent from home for a period of fifteen or twenty hours. 

 At many of the fishing villages from which herring or cod 

 boats depart, there is no proper harbour, and at such places 

 the sight of the departing fleet is a most animated one, as 

 all hands, women included, have to lend their aid in order 

 to expedite the launching of the little fleet, as the men who 

 are to fish must be kept dry and comfortable. Even at places 

 where there is a harbour, it is often not used, many of the 

 boats being drawn up for convenience on what is called the 

 boat-shore. At Cockenzie, near Edinburgh, several of the 

 boats are still drawn up in this rude way, and the women 

 not only assist in launching and drawing up the boats, but 

 they sell the produce taken by each crew by auction to the 

 highest bidder the purchasers usually being buyers on specu- 

 lation, who send off the fish by train to Edinburgh, Man- 

 chester, or London. 



From the little ports of the Moray Firth, the men, as I 

 have said, have to go long distances to fish for cod and ling. 

 As they have none but open boats, it will easily be under- 

 stood that they live hard upon such occasions. They are 

 sometimes absent from home for about a week at a stretch, 

 and as the weather is often very inclement the men suffer 

 severely. The fish are not so easily procured as in former 

 years, so that the remuneration for the labour undergone is 

 totally inadequate. A large traffic in living codfish used to 

 be earned on from Scotland ; quick vessels furnished with 

 wells took the cod alive as far as Gravesend, whence they were 



