OF ALL COUNTRIES 533 



scene of British adventure and another locality teeming 

 with associations for the student of history in later times. 

 More than two hundred and fifty years ago Massachusetts 

 had already twenty sail engaged in this occupation, and a 

 century and a half later the fishermen of North America 

 left no inconsiderable record in the military annals of that 

 country. At Louisberg they took a fortress defended by 

 250 cannon ; and in the course of two years of the Revolu- 

 tionary War they captured 733 ships together with property 

 amounting in value to twenty-five million dollars. The 

 records of Marblehead in particular serve as a comment 

 on Gray's well-known line upon the path of glory. In 

 1772 the voters of that town numbered 1203, in eight 

 years afterwards only 544 were left of them. Nor were 

 the succeeding generation unworthy of their fathers, and 

 the offspring of those fishermen who had perished for the 

 independence of their country manned the frigates of 1812. 



Immutable, immemorial China, on the far western coast 

 of the Pacific, with its highly developed industries and long 

 descended customs, the land from which many a product, 

 both of nature and of art, has found its way to western 

 countries, forms an appropriate connection between ancient 

 and modern times. Amongst other occupations fishing 

 received its full measure of attention, and the various forms 

 under which it is practised are far too numerous to be here 

 described, though a few of the principal must be noticed. 

 Rather more than a century and a half ago, the encyclo- 

 paedia, Koo Kin Too Shoo Tseih Ch'ing, in one thousand 

 volumes, was drawn up by Imperial authority, and two 

 articles on fishing are contained in it under the section Shuh 

 Teen. A few plates are to be found in connection with the 



