fe4 NI&HT-FISHING AT AECACHdiT. 



enough the fishermen go out with the leister, and fish, as they 

 used to do long ago in the Tweed, from an illuminated boat. 

 Three men are required for each boat for the night fishing, two 

 to row and one to hurl the spear. As many as a dozen boats 

 may be seen nightly at this work, each with a brilliaiit flame 

 of light flashing from its prow ; the fish speared are muUet, and 

 they are mostly used for local consumption, the accession of 

 visitors in summer rendering a large supply of fish necessary. 

 There are illuminated fisheries in some other parts of France, but 

 that of Arcachon is the most prominent. The yield of fish, 

 however, is not large — indeed it could not be, when it is taken 

 into account that each individual fish has to be speared. Some 

 more economical mode of night fishing, if night fishing be 

 necessary, ought to be invented. A few scores of mullet are a 

 poor reward for three or four hours' labour of three men. 



The perpetual industry carried on by the coast people on 

 the French foreshores is quite a sight, although it is fish 

 commerce of a humble and primitive kind. Even the little 

 children contrive to make money by building fish-ponds, or 

 erecting trenches, in which to gather salt, or in some ' other 

 little industry incidental to sea-shore life. One occasionally en- 

 counters some abject creature groping about the rocks to obtain 

 the wherewithal to sustain existence. To these people all is 

 fish that comes to hand ; no creature, however slimy, that creeps 

 about is allowed to escape, so long as it can be disguised by 

 cookery into any kind of food for human beings. Some of the 

 people have old rickety boats patched up with still older pieces 

 of wood or leather, saUs mended here and there, till it is difficult 

 to distinguish the original portion from those that have been 

 added to it ; nets torn and darned tiU they are scarce able to 

 hold a fish ; and yet that boat and that crippled machinery are 

 the stock in trade of perhaps two or three generations of a 

 family, and the concern may have been founded half a century 

 ago by the grandfather, who now sees around him a legion of 

 hungry gamins that it would take a fleet of boats to keep in 

 food and raiment. The moment the tide flows back, the fore- 

 shore is at once overrun with an army of hungry people, who 

 are eager to clutch whatever fishy debris the receding water may 

 have left ; the little pools are eagerly, nay hungrily, explored, 

 and their contents grabbed with that anxiety which pertains 

 only to poverty. 



On some parts of the French coasts, and it is proper to 



