THE MA CKEREL AND ITS ALLIES . 
183 
immense quantities, as the statistics show, and whatever their state, always 
find ready sale. 
The mackerel fishery is peculiarly American, and its history is full of 
romance. No finer vessels float than the American mackerel schooners— 
yachts of great speed and unsurpassed for seaworthiness. The modern 
instruments of capture are marvels of inventive skill, and require the 
highest degree of energy and intelligence on the part of the fishermen. 
The crews of the mackerel schooners are still for the most part Americans 
of the old colonial stock, although the cod and halibut fisheries are to a 
great extent given up to foreigners. It is particularly appropriate that 
the mackerel fishermen of New England should have found a bard in one 
who is above all others the poet of old New England. Whittier’s “ Song 
of the Fishermen ” celebrates the days in the early part of the century 
when our fleet went yearly to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the coast of 
Labrador : 
Where in mist the rock is hiding, 
And the sharp reef lurks below, 
And the white squall smites in summer, 
And the autumn tempests blow ; 
Where through gray and rolling vapor, 
From evening into morn, 
A thousand boats (were) hailing, 
Horn answering unto horn. 
There we’ll drop our lines, and gather 
Old Ocean’s treasures in, 
Where’er the mottled mackerel 
Turns up a steel-dark fin, 
The sea’s our field of harvest, 
Its scaly tribes our grain ; 
We’ll reap the teeming waters 
As at home they reap the plain I 
Hurrah !—Hurrah !—the west-wind 
Comes freshening down the bay. 
The rising sails are filling,— 
Give way, my lads, give way ! 
Leave the coward landsman clinging 
To the dull earth, like a weed,— 
The stars of Heaven shall guide us, 
The breath of Heaven shall speed ! 
