A DAY WITH THE MACKEREL. 131 



accompanied to put the lines in requisition, which were four 

 in number and fitted with sugar-loaf leads, two with leads of i 

 pound each for either quarter, and two others with leads of 2 

 pounds weight in front of them ; seven fathoms of line for the 

 2-pound leads, and nine for those of i pound, with two and a 

 half fathoms of snood attached to a revolving chopstick for the 

 two pounders, and three fathoms for the one pounders. Two- 

 thirds of the snood of fine hemp, the remainder of fine silk 

 line, or of the yellow silk known as barber's twist, used by shoe- 

 makers in sewing upper leathers. 



This is a corruption of ' Barbour,' the name of a manufac- 

 turing firm near Belfast, who must pardon the liberty taken by 

 the fishermen with their patronymic. 



We had not attained to the refinement of three lengths of 

 Salmon-gut for the hook, or that of the double Bridport snood- 

 ing for lines and snoods, but for lines used rather a fine three- 

 stranded Whiting-line, or else a double twine line of home 

 manufacture, spun up in six feet nossils (a nossil is a length 

 of snood spun up by aid of the nossil-cock, a fisherman's 

 spinning machine ; the length of snood determined by its 

 height from the ground see fig. 66, p. 216), and spliced together 

 to give the requisite length according to the practice of my late 

 old friend, Joseph Gibbs, of Budleigh Salterton, and other 

 natives of the fishing village of Beer, in Devon. Notwithstand- 

 ing this, the hook-link was fine, although not equal to gut, and 

 excited the admiration of old John, who, as he unwound the 

 snood, or sid as he called it, exclaimed, 'That there gare 

 (gear or tackle), sir, is vine enough to catch any vish in the say 

 (sea) ' f being commonly changed into v in the parlance of the 

 SW. Coast. Fine enough I believe such snood to be ; but I 

 prefer gut, as free from that tendency to foul characteristic of 

 wet silk, especially when spun very fine. 



Having handed over the baits, consisting of the usual thinly- 

 cut Mackerel tail, they are affixed to the hook by placing them 

 on a piece of soft flat cork, and forcing the point and barb 

 through the smaller end, the two stern lines are speedily tow- 

 ing in our wake, being made fast to the after-thwart, whilst old 

 John rigs out the bobbers or booms for the forward lines, 



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