1 
342 MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON THE SMELT IN NORFOLK AVATERS. 
not presenting the beauty of a Venetian Canal, certainly displaying 
all the quaintness and variety of its Dutch equivalent, and confining 
the black waters, in their sluggish course, between barriers of solid 
brick work, here in light, there in shade, but everywhere quaint 
and picturesque. 
Let the spectator, some darkblustry March night, place himself on 
the New Mill Eridge, and look down stream into the rushing mill- 
pool. Moored along the river on either side, he Avill see a dozen or 
more boats, each burning a flare over its side, bringing a portion 
of the boat into bright light, and increasing the blackness of the 
surrounding darkness ; standing upright in the boat is a man 
curiously attired in waterproofs, often of the roughest description, 
slowly he gathers up some object, half-seen in the partial illumina- 
tion, and with a sudden turn and a jerk, casts it from him into the 
water ; the sound of the splash is lost in the noise of the rushing 
flood, but the light shows a circle of broken Avater Avhere the 
mysterious object has sunk ; noAV he is slowly and carefully 
recovering the something from the seething tide, and after placing 
it in the boat, both he and his companion are seen bending over their 
treasure. The same thing goes on from the Avhole of the boats, 
repeated at short intervals, and the Avhole scene, from the irregular 
outline of the buildings sharp cut against the fleeting clouds above, 
to the dark abyss beloAV lighted by the flaring torches, accompanied 
by the loud rush of the rapid mill-stream forms a picture Aveird 
in the extreme, and not soon to be forgotten. 
These men Avhich Ave have just seen are smelting, and there they 
Avill stand, should fish bo plentiful, from dark to daAvn, patiently 
SAvinging their great casting nets into the Avater, as Mr. Lubbock 
justly says, ‘•'the personification of patience.” “Hour after hour,” 
says the same author, “does he persevere, moored exactly in the 
same spot, Avith a torch attached to the side of his broad flat- 
bottomed boat, flinging his immense casting-net, dropping the near 
side of it, at each throAV, Avithin three inches of the torch. One 
fortunate cast, if smelts sell Avell, may recompense him for hours 
of fatigue, Avet, and cold ; and he Avaits, like the loosing gambler, 
for the lucky throAV Avhich is to brighten his fortunes.” 
The Smelt Fishery in the rivers Yare and ’Wensum, Avhich form 
a junction at TroAvse llythe, some little distance beloAv the cit}', 
and are from thence to the sea knoAvn as the Yare, is almost 
k. 
