102 
ST. HELENA. 
they cannot go they send the wife or child to perform a similar 
errand. Those men who prefer exclusively to follow the noble 
calling of fishermen number about eighty or ninety, but they area 
class who through years past have lived away from civilization ; their 
wives and children occupying small miserable huts, or nearly inac- 
cessible caves along the rocky shores, where they are altogether 
far removed, partly through their occupation and partly through 
their long-acquired habits of indolence and demoralization, from any 
beneficial influences. The men themselves, although there are some 
few exceptions, are for the most part satisfied to bring in just suffi- 
cient fish as will afford food and obtain a supply of Cape wine 
for a few days, when, after indulging in excess in the latter, and 
recovering from their half-stupefied state, they proceed out again for 
the same purpose. 
With the present materials it would be almost impossible to accom- 
plish anything to improve the fishery at St. Helena. It needs, however, 
but a small amount of capital, with suitable boats and tackle, and 
good steady fishermen with European energy, to make it successful; so 
great a prejudice exists, however, through the indolence of the present 
fishermen, that I doubt if any resident would undertake its manage- 
ment ; and until it is done by the Government, it is scarcely likely 
that a St. Helena fishery can become a source of profit by yielding 
an article of commerce. 
There are cod-banks close to the Island,* and in the year 1810, 
it is recorded that codfish of lbs. weight were caught in 1 1 1 
fathoms, off Lemon Valley. Such fish are never seen now, neither 
are the boats or men capable of going out to seek for them. 
Order Acanthoptf.rygh. 
Fam . Percidce. 
Centropristis, Cuv. 
*C. brasiliensis, Baraev. — The Deep-water Brown Mullet, 
* The banks that have already been discovered are four in number, as follows : — New 
Ledge, aboue six miles S.S.W. of the Island, with soundings of 25 to 45 fathoms and a bottom 
of rock and sand. Speery Ledge, about 4 miles nearer to the shore than the last, in 3 J- or 4 
fathoms water. Barn Ledge, about 2 miles off Prosperous Bay, in soundings of 4 to 16 
fathoms; and Goodwin’s Ledge, in soundings of 60 to SO fathoms, about 3 miles distant from 
the shore on the leeward side of the Island. The first three positions are to windward, and 
the weather often boisterous, so that the small fishing-boats now in use cannot remain long 
near them in safety and consequently they are unfrequented. 
