Down North and Up Along 
clad in tarpaulins and their speech was Gaelic. 
As soon as a boat was landed, all gathered 
about it to examine and comment upon its 
contents ; then the tables were set up and the 
work of "dressing down" began. 
The tables were the colour of the fish-huts, 
the flakes, and the sombre bank ; they had criss- 
cross legs nailed to either end, and looked 
soggy on top, where the juices of innumerable 
fish had been spilled upon them. 
The cod were mostly small the morning we 
saw them. We had not thought well of the 
personal appearance of the cod heretofore, but 
many of these were of a brilliant metallic brown 
played over by shades of red and green. 
Besides the cod there were quantities of dog- 
fish, more dogfish than cod indeed ; and every 
boat had at least one, and some of them several 
enormous skates. Their semi-lunar mouths 
were placed underneath the front of the kite- 
shaped body and were horribly paved with blunt 
and rounded teeth that fastened unyieldingly 
upon anything that came within reach. 
In each boat was store of squid for bait. 
There are no queerer creatures than these, 
soft, long, and cylindrical, reddish yellow in 
208 
