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towns of Maine, and to the sojourners among them, an attractive scene* 

 To watch, from the head-lands and beaches, the niovements of the 

 " herring-drivers," has been a»recreation there, of some, for years. The 

 spectator sees a spacious harbor, and the coves and .indentations in its 

 neighborhood, most beautifully lighted up, as with hundreds of lamps, 

 and each light heaving and falling with the motion of the sea. Far in 

 the offing the torches, no larger to the eye than a candle's flame, move 

 and dance, approach and cross each other, and then vanish away; 

 while nearer, and perhaps within a stone's throw of the position which 

 he occupies, their red flare will reveal every act of the fishermen,- as, 

 time after time, the fish are bailed into the boat. On ship-board, too, 

 when entering or leaving the Passamaqupddy, these lights, seen in all 

 directions, serve to relieve loneliness, and to excite interesting imag;in- 

 ings. Set-nets and wears are becoming favorites again, and it is not 

 impossible that in a few years the torch-fights will be completely ex- 

 tinguished in some of the harbors, and be very much diminished in all. 

 The herrings intended for smoking are washed soon after they are 

 caught, and the scales of all that are fat enough to shed them are forced 

 off by friction, when they are salted away in casks. As soon as they 

 are sufficiently " struck" with the salt, they are again washed, spitted 

 or strung upon small round sticks, and hung up in the smoke-house. 

 In spitting, as well as in hanging them up, great care is necessary to 

 prevent the fish from touching each other. They are placed, tier above 

 tier, upon wooden fixtures supported by joists until the house is fiill. 

 The distance from the lower tier to the floor is commonly about seven 

 feet. Fires of wood are now lighted; and the great art is to manage 

 these fires in a proper manner, inasmuch as they must neither be too 

 quick nor too slow, and at times they require to be extinguished. Rock- 

 maple wood is best ; but any kind of fuel green from the forest is prefer- 

 able to the old and water-soaked wood sometimes used, to the serious 

 injury both of the color and the flavor of the fish. The smoking occu- 

 pies several weeks. To cure herrings well, good weather is quite as . 

 necessary as good fuel and carefully-tended fires. After being suffi- 

 ciently smoked, the fires are allowed to go out ; and as soon as the 

 house has become cool the fish are taken down, slipped from the sticks, 

 sorted into three qualities, and packed in boxes. The houses in which 

 the smoking is done are mere huts, without floors, and without other 

 finish than rough-board walls, and roofs of the same, battened with 

 slabs. In some cases, however, a wiser use is made of money, and 

 sufficient expense is incurred to erect durable buildings. The upper 

 part and the roof are always intended to be tight, both to retain the 

 smoke and to exclude the rain and damp. These houses are of various 

 sizes — some being large enough to hold one thousand boxes of the fish 

 on the sticks, while others will contain no more than a fourth part of 

 that quantity. The largest and best finished are the most economical. 

 The business of smoking herrings is confined mainly to the region of 

 which we are now speaking. The price in the markets to which they 

 are usually sent is sometimes ruinously low, and the fishermen ai-e often 

 deprived of adequate recompense for their labor. The quantity ex- 

 ported from the eastern part of Maine often exceeds eighty thousand 

 boxes in a year, while the average of ten years may be estimated at 



