Down North and Up Along 
to another man, who tore off its head and 
tossed that into a barrel, tore out its insides, 
tossed the liver into one barrel, the "sound," 
if a big one, into another, the rest of the in- 
wards into a third, and sent the rifled remains 
along to another man who slit it down the 
sides, cut out the backbone, and tossed what 
was left of it into a tub of sea-water, where a 
boy swashed it up and down and laid it aside 
ready to be salted. 
But as long as it takes to tell of one fish, a 
dozen or more had gone through the process ; 
they slipped along from hand to hand in an 
almost unbroken chain. 
The stomachs of the largest cod were opened, 
to see what booty there might be therein, for as 
Father Charlevoix, in his Letters to the Duch- 
ess of Lesdiguieres, published in 1763, says: 
" There is perhaps no Creature, in Proportion to its 
Bigness, that has so wide a Mouth, or that is more 
voracious." 
He tells us that the cod of his day ate iron 
and glass and pieces of broken pots, and then, 
feeling obliged to account for the consequences 
of such a rash diet, he adds : — 
210 
