THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 307 



in 1816, by the celebrated Belgian politician Raepsaet, is 

 perhaps the most concise and interesting. But the pre- 

 vailing feature of these many disquisitions is the extreme 

 scantiness of the facts on which they are based. Beukelsz 

 is universally stated to have lived at Biervliet about the 

 middle of the fourteenth century, and been a " Stuyrman," 

 or skipper, and concerned in the herring fishery. The 

 year of his death has especially been the subject of much 

 controversy, being stated by some to be 1347, by others 

 1397, and by a few 1401. His family are proved by deeds 

 still extant to have been citizens of wealth and note, and 

 his coat-of-arms is said to have consisted of two crossed 

 " kaeckmeskens," or knives used in curing herrings (kaken) 

 after the manner invented by him, and to which his name 

 will be for ever attached. But how or by what circum- 

 stance he lighted upon his great invention is utterly 

 unknown. 



The operation called " kaken " is still in use with the 

 Dutch herring fishermen, pretty much, it would appear, as 

 first practised by Beukelsz. It is described in the same 

 constant terms throughout Dutch history, and consists in 

 opening and gutting the fish the moment the net is hauled 

 aboard, salting them carefully, and packing them in barrels 

 in a peculiar manner highly favourable for their conservation. 

 The barrels used were anciently called " kaecken," or " kaeck- 

 jes," and the name of the curing process is probably 

 derived from theirs.* 



With further regard to the great inventor's person it is 

 stated by all his biographers that the Emperor Charles V. 



N.B. I am not aware of an English term for the method of 

 curage here described. Whenever, in the course of this work, the 

 words " curage " and " cure " are used without a further expletive, they 

 will stand for curage in Beukelsz's fashion, or " Kaken? 



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