198 
CAPE COD. 
o’-war-man’s jacket, and inviting all things to come and 
rest in their bosoms ; and all things, with a few exceptions, 
accepted the invitation. I think, by the way, that if you 
should wrap a large salt fish round a small boy, he would 
have a coat of such a fashion as I have seen many a one 
wear to muster. Salt fish were stacked up on the 
wharves, looking like corded wood, maple and yellow 
birch with the bark left on. I mistook them for this at 
first, and such in one sense they were, — fuel to maintain 
our vital fires,-—an eastern wood which grew on the 
Grand Banks. Some were stacked in the form of huge 
flower-pots, being laid in small circles with the tails out¬ 
wards, each circle successively larger than the preceding 
until the pile was three or four feet high, when the cir¬ 
cles rapidly diminished, so as to form a conical roof. 
On the shores of New Brunswick this is covered with 
birch-bark, and stones are placed upon it, and being thus 
rendered impervious to the rain, it is left to season before 
being packed for exportation. 
It is rumored that in the fall the cows here are some¬ 
times fed on cod’s heads ! The godlike part of the cod, 
which, like the human head, is curiously and wonderfully 
made, forsooth has but little less brain in it, — coming 
to such an end ! to be craunched by cows ! I felt my 
own skull crack from sympathy. What if the heads of 
men were to be cut off to feed the cows of a superior 
order of beings who inhabit the islands in the ether ? 
Away goes your fine brain, the house of thought and in¬ 
stinct, to swell the cud of a ruminant animal !—How¬ 
ever, an inhabitant assured me that they did not make a 
practice of feeding cows on cod’s heads ; the cows merely 
would eat them sometimes ; but I might live there all my 
days and never see it done. A cow wanting salt would 
