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Terms, Five Dollars a Year, } 
Ten Cents a Copy. § 

From Appleton’s Journal. 
v2) 
THE DRUM FISH. 
a eS, 
eI the Chesapeake and her tribute streams, 
Where broadening out to the bay they come, 
And the great fresh waters meet the brine, 
There dwells a fish that is called the Druam— 
A fish of wonderful beanty—and force, bi 
That bites like a steel trap and pulls like a horse. 
He is heavy of girth at the dorsal fin, 
But tapering downward keen and thin; 
Long as a salmon, if not so stout, 
And springy and swiftzas a mountain trout; 
For, often at night, in a sportive mood, 
He comes to the brim of the moonlit flood, 
And tosses a glitering curve aloft, 
Like the silver bow of the gods—then soft 
He plashes deliciously back in the spray, 
And tremulous circles go spreading away. 
Down by the marge of the York’s broad stream, 
An old darky lived, of the ancient regime. 
His laugh was lond, though his lot was low; 
He loved his old master, and hated his hoe. 
Small and meagre was this Old Ned, 
For many long winters had frosted his head 
And bated his force and vigor; 
But, though his wool all white had become, 
And his face wrinkled up like afwash-woman’s thumb, 
And his back was bent, he was thought by some 
A remarkably hale old nigger. 
But he suffered, he said, from a steady attack 
Of misery in ‘‘de head and pain in de back,” 
Till his old master gave him ‘‘his time to hisself,”’ 
And the toil-worn old bondsman was laid on the shelf. 
Yappy old Edward! his labor was done, 
With nothing to do but sit in the sun, 
And free to follow his darling wish 
Of playing the fiddle and catching his fish. 
He had earned his play-time with labor long, 
And so like the other Old Ned in song, 
He “laid down the shovel and the hoe,” 
And caught up the fiddle and the bow. 
* Now, I cannot say ~ 
That his style of play 
Would suit the salons of the present day; 
For the tours de Jorce of the great Paganini 
Have never found fayor in ‘‘ Old Virginny.” 
He never played a tune that ‘ went slow,”’ j 
For he perfectly scorned an adagio; 
But, with eyes half closed and a time-beating toe, 
.His elbow squared, and his resinous bow 5 
Not going up high nor going down low, 
But sawing quite steadily just in the middle, 
He played by the rule 
Of the strictest school 
Of the old-fashioned, plantation nigger fiddle, 
It happened Old Ned went fishing one day, 
And out on the blue, 
In his dug-out canoe, 
He carried his fiddle along to play. 
_, Long he fished with his nicest art: 
There came not a nibble to gladden his heart; 
So he tied his line to his ankle tight, 
To be ready to haul if a fish should bite, 
And seized his fiddle. So sweet did he play 
That the waves leaped up in a laugh of spray, 
And dimpled and sparkled as if to move 
To invisible water nymphs dancing aboye, 
But slower and slower he drew the bow, 
And soft grew the music, soft and low; 
The lids fell wearily over the eyes; 
The bow-string stopped, and the melodies; 
The last strain melted along the deep, 
And, Ned, the old fisherman, sunk to sleep. 
Just then, a huge drum, sent thither by fate, 
Caught a passing gleam of the tempting bait, 
And darted upon it with greedy maw, 
And ran the hook in his wpper jaw. 
One terrible jerk of wrath and dread 
From the wounded fish, as away he sped 
With a strength by rage made double, 
And into the water went Old Ned— 
No time for any “last words” to be said, 
For the waves settled placidly over his head, 
And his last remark was a bubble. 

_NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1873.) 

{ Volume I, Number 2. 

Let us veil the struggle beneath the brine 
Of the darting fish and tanglingline. 
The battle, of course, was a short one, since 
Old Ned not gifted with gills or fins, 
And down in the deep, was as much out of place 
As a mermaid would be in a trotting-race; 
And motionless soon at the bottom he lay, 
As mute as the fiddle that floated away. 
They were washed ashore by the heaving tide,’ 
And the fishermen found them side by side, 
In a common death, and together bound 
Tn the line that circled them round and round— 
So looped and tangled together 
That their fate’ was involved in the dark mystery 
Of which was the catcher and which the catchee; 
. For the fish was hooked hard and fast by the gill, 
And the darky was lassoed around the heel, 
And each had died by the other. 
And the fishermen thought it could never be known, 
After all their thinking and figuring 
Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone, 
Or the fish had gone a-niggering! 
INNES RANDOLPH. 
ANTICOSTTI. 
THE JOURNAL OF A NAVAL OFFICER. 
[Continued from our Last Issue. ] 


hall —__¢@—__—_ 
AYLIGHT found us becalmed, and drifting west with 
the current. Thé@ only consolation we could get ou 
of the captain being rather depressing than otherwise, he 
having been once three weeks in making the same passage. 
In the forenoon a shoal of porpoises working up the gulf in 
long succession, and a shoal of whales sporting on the tran- 
quil surface of the sea, reminded one of the oft-mentioned 
sea-serpent. Our rifles were called into requisition, but 
apparently our shots fell harmless, till Flanigan, rather put 
out at our skill, begged the loan of a gun. Kneeling down 
he waited till a “hammer head” (easily distinguished by 
the length of time they remain under water and their heavy 
spout on coming to the surface) appeared, when, taking long 
and deliberate aim, he pulled trigger. Unfortunately, he 
had forgotten one most important element to success—the 
rifie was at half-cock, and before he could rectify his mis 
take the whale had gone down. We laughed heartily at his 
discomfort, and his vanity was not a little hurt. “Och! 
what a pity,” said he, “shure, thin, I had him intirely cov- 
ered.” Soon after he got a shot, and as the ball struck the 
water, certainly in close proximity to a whale, he jumped 
up ina frantic state of excitement. ‘‘Begorra, I hit him in 
the tail; faith, thin, I gave hima pill he won’t stomach 
aisily,” and other expressions passed his lips, and his one 
idea was that we should lower ‘the canoe and at once give 
chase. Whether Flanigan’s shot did perhaps graze the, 
caudal extremity of one of these leviathans must forever 
remain undecided ; but, be that as it may, it was the last 
we saw of them, and to this day F. firmly believes that he 
“bagged” a whale. 
About twelve o’clock a breeze sprung up, and grew steadier 
and stronger, and as it struck the schooner, and the sails, 
which so long had flapped idly from side to side, first barely 
drew, and then gradually filling, caused the vessel to heel 
over, we experienced a feeling of relief it is difficult to de- 
scribe. Before dusk we were bowling along at arate of five 
or six knots, which, after our long inactivity, seemed mar- 
vellous, and we turned in for the night in the full expecta- 
tion of finding ourselves next morning in sight of the West 
Point Lighthouse. The truth of the old saying, ““L’homme 
propose, mais: Diew dispose” was again apparent, for in going 
on deck soon after daybreak I found that we were envel- 
oped in a dense fog, while a thick drizzling rain had taken 
the place of the wind. It was ten o’clock before the mist 
began to lift, and a light air springing up an hour later, the 
tower of the lighthouse, which showed like a thin white 
line cutting the fog in twain, gladdened our eyes. a 
Under the now rapidly freshening breeze we soon closed 
with the land. The lighthouse stands on a low wooded 


point. Close by is the cottage of the keeper, while what 
seemed to be a number of small fishing huts dotted the 
beach. The wind was blowing dead ashore, and a heavy 
surf, which made it no easy matter for boats to effect a 
landing, was rolling in, so the captain proposed running in 
for English Bay, a few miles to the northward. About 
half past three we found ourselves at anchor in a snug little 
bay, well sheltered by a projecting headland from the north, 
and, though apparently exposed to the full force of the 
south and southwest winds, so protected by a line of reefs 
which run three-quarters of a mile in a westerly direction 
that vessels may lie there in perfect safety in almost any 
kind of weather. The bay presented quite a busy scene ; 
two schooners. lay at anchor, while between us and the 
shore were some fifty large boats, some empty, while from 
others just returned from the day’s fishing outside the fish- 
ermen were pitching the cod with large two-pronged forks 
into small flat-bottomed scows ready to go ashore. After 
paying $25 for our passage we said ‘‘good-bye” to the 
packet, and as we neared the land our olfactory senses were 
assailed by a “‘horrible and fish-like odor,” the cause of 
which we soon ascertained. Cod in every stage of the cur- 
ing process lined the beach, some spread on Jong ‘‘flakes” of 
spruce and pine for drying, others already dried packed in 
stacks containing forty or fifty quintals apiece, whilst men 
and even women, with arms bared and with huge knives, 
were decapitating and cleaning those fish just landed from 
the boats. The smell from all these was by no means pleas- 
ant, but by far the choicest perfume ascended from large 
barrels of liver that lay decomposing in the sun. Were 
some of the advocates of cod liver oil to see the loathsome 
and stinking mass from which it is obtained we much fear 
the sight would forever cure them for any predilection 
for it. 
While here it may not be uninteresting to briefly allude 
to the fishing carried on during the summer and autumn 
months. From areturn made, embodied in the ‘‘Annual 
Report of the Marine and Fisheries Department” to the 
Dominion Parliament, it appears that during 1869 the yield 
and value of the fish taken is shown as follows :—830 ewt. 
cod, 880 ewt. ling, 450 barrels herring, 34 barrels halibut ; 
value, $8,160. The oil made during the same period was 
worth $580. The most profitable fishing establishment is, 
however, at Fox Bay (the scene of the wreck of the ill- 
fated ‘‘Granicus’”), on the northeast side of the island. 
Quoting from.the same return we find that the yield was 
1,375 cwt. cod, 1,875 ewt. ling, 1,000 barrels herring, and 65 
barrels halibut ; of oil we have 530 gallons cod, 530 gallons 
porpoise, and 250 gallons seal. This represents $15,108. 
My visit was three years later, when the number of hands 
was very much greater. The men are principally inhabi- 
tants of Douglastown—fine stalwart fellows, who, by their 
ruddy cheeks, bear testimony to the healthy nature of their 
occupation. 
As cod generally ‘‘strike” early along this coast they 
usually come over in May, returning to the main land 
towards the end of August, though two families, induced 
by the comfort they had experienced, and the profitable re- 
turns of the soil, spent the last winter in the bay, and do 
not seem to regret it. From its proximity to an open sea 
the winters are not so severe as those felt higher up the gulf, 
and we were repeatedly told by trappers and others, who 
from a long residence could speak with authority, that they 
found the cold greater at Quebec, and so far as actual tem- 
perature was concerned they infinitely preferred wintering 
in the island. : 
Dense woods of spruce and pine stretch down to mect 
the waters of the bay on every side, save where in the cen- 
tre the jungle has been partially cleared away and given 
place to the log “cabins” of the fishermen. The soil from 
here to: Ellis Bay, a distance of twelve miles, is light, in 
many places a stratum of gravelly limestone being found 
only a few inches beneath the surface. Several of the more 
enterprising families have, however, cleared small tracts of 
forest in the rear of their homes, and the neatly-fenced plots 
in which the potatoes were now nearly fit for digging 
augured well for the success of the little colony. 
