now THEY CATCH FISH AT OLA. 399 
never did I see any thing like the scene that then came 
off near the mouth of this small stream. 
When we arrived, the natives were stretchino; across 
this stream a heavy seine, made from the sinews of the 
reindeer and other animals: we found it some thirty feet 
wide, and only waist-deep at high water, and its current 
by no means as rapid as is usual in those high latitudes. 
We crossed to the other shoi'e in a “dug-out,” and, put- 
ting our bundles on the bank, seated ourselves upon them 
to see how they fished at Ola. 
On either bank they had strong posts driven near the 
water’s edge, to which the seine ^yas to be seciared ; and, 
as the flood-tide was now pretty well done running, we 
were just in time to sec the commencement of the sport. 
As we were thus seated upon the bank, we could see 
whole shoals of the unsuspecting salmon swimming 
quietly up stream with the slackening tide; and, as this 
latter obtained its height, the seine was drawn tightly 
from post to post and its foot secured to the bottom by 
heavy stones. Thus all of the fish that had passed up, 
and which would naturally return to the sea with the 
ebbing tide, would be stopped by this seine and fall 
an easy prey to their active enemies. 
It was an exciting moment when the first returning 
shoal bi'ought up against the unexpected barrier, the 
meshes of wdiich were large enough to let the small frv 
pass, but at the same time suflicicntly small to arrest for 
the time the larger ones, if not to stop them altogether. 
Any one who has ever seen a well-filled seine hauled upon 
a beach can well imagine the foaming state into which 
the closely-packed fish soon lashed the water; and, when 
