CFass- Book COPYRIGtfr DEPOSIT Vo. li> 25 Cts. Copyricht, 1SS5, Hauper a Brothers JvLY 24, 1885 Siihscription Price per Year, 5'i Numtjern, ^15 Enter«ii at the Poit-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter FISH AND MEN IN TIE MAfflE ISLANDS By W. H. bishop AUTHOR OF "old MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES" FTC. f^mr^ "^ M C| a a ' fV :!i'Ji|| !D:| |,iiiii!','ii,V"r 'iiii IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 81 now spoke lip, and their opinion prevailed. They thought there loas doubt about the captain — pretty decided doubt. AVhether so or not, there was doubt about them. They were opposed to it — tliat w^as liow it was. They had no more room aboard than tliey wanted for themselves and would take no passengers. The hilarious ones had no opposition to offer, being apparently, on reflection, of the same mind. Nor had they any comments regretful or otherwise; and so, amid stolid silence, Middleton took to his skiff with his at- tendant, and after an hour's hard pulling was again upon the shore. From this disappointment resulted the cruise hereto- fore referred to. It began at South-west Harbor. The bold rocky coast of the island, with its caverns, its " ovens," its Great Head and Schooner Head, was left behind, and a course first made of thirty miles straight out to sea, to the desolate light of Mount Desert Kock, near which the whole mackerel fleet was credibly said to be lying. It was made in a hired ''jigger," manned by its skipper, the artist of most of the truthful pict- ures accompanying this account of Middleton's jour- neys, and himself. II. They had continual sunshine, and considerable peri- ods of calms, in which the most singular mirages rose up around them. An island below the horizon came and piled itself over one upon it. Low^ islands in the middle distance appeared to have precipitous walls a hundred feet high; light-houses came where none were, and when you looked the next moment, were gone, and 3- 83 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. the land with tliem. Then drifts of curious wliite foe: came in, not creating a chilliness in the atmosphere, but holding the sunshine in luminous suspension, and crys- tallizing on the clothing in little needle-points rather like fine powder, yet enveloping completely, and cutting off surrounding objects. The ancient compass in the jigger's binnacle had a way of sticking where it was, though her course might be altered a dozen points, and once the skipper, jumping excitedly to the tiller, saved her from dangerous reefs near Bass Head Light, to which the screaming of sea-fowl and the noise of surf close by were the first intimation of approach. The Rock was a bare lonely bank of granite, with no habitation upon it but its light, in which four men, a woman, and a child pass their time with such philosophy as they can. A luxuriant slippery sea-vv^eed draped the rounding ledges with the semblance of verdant grass, but on actually going ashore, the only vegetation was a little dog-weed, and fifty poor hills of potatoes, by actual count, distributed wherever a space for five or six plants together could be found among the chaotic mass of stones. They saw the sun set upon the light as on some tow- er of Torcello, and the moon rise, nearly full, behind it. And lying off it at night, with only a solitary baker for a consort, taking his turn on the watch in his nau- tical capacity towards morning, Middleton saw all the stars shine in their splendor, traced the unhampered constellations, divined mysterious things in the long fields of rock- weed drifting idly past, saw the fins of a sinister cruising shark, and heard from time to time the stertorous blowing of a whale in the distance. I IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL J'LEET. 85 III. But the desired fleet, after all, was not at the Eock, and though they sailed twenty miles one way to the Bank of Comfort, and as much the other to the Isle an Haut, it still did not appear. It had doubled on them, it seemed, in the niglit, and following the schools of fish, had worked westward towards Matinicus and Monhe- gan. Upon this Middleton believed he could do no better than go to Monhegan also. By various detours and conveyances, stopping at Castine to moralize on the departed maritime greatness of Oakum Bay, pass- ing down by stage from Koekland twenty miles to Her- ring Gut, and from there fifteen miles by water, in the boat of a fisherman, of B'remen Long Island (to distin- guish it, in the multiplicity of Long Islands, from Friend- ship Long Island, its neighbor), he made his way thither. Monhegan is still accurately described in the words of Captain John Smith, who came to it on his cruise in the year 1614: "A round, high isle, with little Monanis by its side, betwixt which is a harbor where our ships can lie at anchor." He made a garden here, he telle, " on the rocky isle, in May, which grew so well it served for salads in June and July." There is a white light-house on the back of the round, high isle. Half way up the hill towards it, from a fringe of gray fish-houses at the water's edge, climbs the weath- er-beaten little settlement, in which all the habitations of the island and its whole population are concentrated.' The school-house is at the top of the buildings. Then 88 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. comes a space of debris of igneous rock like the scoriae of a volcano, the color of ploughed ground, on Avhich is railed off a bare little graveyard, visible from all directions. ENTRANCE TO SOMES SOUND. The little harbor was speckled with small boats when Middleton came in, and the schooner Marthy, which " smacked " fresh fish regularly to Portland, and a freighter, going in to Herring Gut to be painted, were lying there at anchor. The small boats were tied to the tall stakes, more common as the Bay of Fundy is approached, with crosses on the top, which at low tide give the appearance of some melancholy marine grave- yard too. It is not a common kind of harbor. It is a deep channel between Monhegan and Menana (as Monanis is now called), open at the outer end, and partly closed at the inner by a rugged black ledge called Smutty Nose. On Smutty Nose is reared a tall pole, part of a disused apparatus for communications between the light-house and the keeper of the fog-whistle on Menana, which has the air of a jury-mast rigged as a signal of distress. In DOG MOUNTAIN, SOMES SOUND. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 89 south-east gales a formidable surf drives in through the passage, and it is then by no means so agreeable a phice of anchorage. In a wild night of rain, wind, and pitcli- darkness of 1858, tlie whole contents of the strait, four- teen fishing vessels, besides the flotilla of boats, were piled upon Smutty Nose in a mass. There was a shark's forked tail nailed to the principal spile of the wharf, as hawks are nailed, by way of warn- ing, to farmers' barn-doors. The fish -houses liad a warm yellow lichen, such as grew also on some of the high cliffs of the outer shore, on the weather side. Over the doors of some of them, by way of decoration, were name-boai'ds picked up from castaway boats, as the " Eescue," or '-' Excalibur." The principal activity clus- tered around two little sand beaches, the only ones on the island, which would be set down, by a voyager com- ing to it as a new land, as quite of the ideal and provi- dential sort. The greater part of the male population, stalwart, rawboned men in flannel shirts, well-tanned canvas jack- ets, and big boots, came down to n^eet him. When they had gratified their curiosity about tlie new-comer, they went back, and threw themselves down at the top of the first rise of the slope, among the houses, in the non- chalant attitudes which were their normal condition when the fish were not schooling. A philosophic, beard- ed man from the main-land, come to pass the summer here, was calking his boat, drawn up on the stocks near by, and joined in their gossip.' Occasionally one of them took up a battered telescope, which always lay there in the grass or against the neighboring wood-pile, and swept the horizon for indications of fish. 90 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. IV. Monhegan was the most remote and primitive of all the Maine islands. It had no direct connection with the main-land, and no post-office. Such mail as came to it was brought over by some casual fishing-boat from Herring Gut, where it had accumulated. The bearer, sitting on a rock or the gunwale of a boat on one of the little beaches, distributed their letters to the group flock- ing around him, from the old newspaper in which he had tied them up for safe-keeping. There were plenty of sheep, but little agriculture, no roads, nor use for any except to haul a little wood from the other end of the island in winter. In this service cows as well as the few oxen were put under the yoke. There were hollyhocks, camomile, and dahlias in some of the small door-yards, but these could not redeem the shabbiness of a growth of white-weed, knee-deep along all the straggling paths of the hamlet, to which no one had public spirit enough to take a scythe. Though but a mile long, the centre and eastern end of the island had still the most virgin and savage air. Gorges con- taining the whitened bones of ancient cedar-trees, with wet morasses barred the way. The low, thick, resinous groves, too, w^ere impenetrable, except for some dark burrows like lairs where the sheep had gone through. Long gray moss, like the drift of some deluge, hung from the branches of the spruces ; but the carpet was of an over-luxuriant, vivid kind, more suggestive — though starred with scarlet bunch-berries — of death and decay than even the gi'aveyard on the slope. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 93 Had Middleton met there in his ramblings the crew of Captain Smith, or Dixy Bull the pirate — the same who once sacked Pemaquid fort with sixteen renega- does, and who was opposed to liard drinking, but said, " When others have prayers, we'll have a song or a story" — he thought he should liardly have been sur- prised. One day, thinking this, and how their doublets and trunk-hose and slouch hats must have had the archa- ism pretty well taken out of them by the severe knock- ing about in their voyages, and at any rate could not be more incongruous with the landscape now than in the year 1G15, out of the bushes came three highly renega- do-looking fellows, with their cabin-boy, marching sin- gle file, and carrying long staves. They were unknown — for this was at a. time when he had personal cogni- zance of everybody on the island — and they were so grim and weather-beaten as to their countenances, and so faded in their attire, marching on in unbroken si- lence, and disappearing again into the bushes, that had the leader cried, " Off with his head !'' and sworn with a dozen antiquated oaths that he was Dixy Bull in per- son, he could hardly have had a keener suspicion of it. Now such a suggestion of the marvellous as this should really be left at this point to stand as one of those inexplicable things that from time to time baffle all the researches of modern science, but it may be bet- ter on some accounts to say that a further inquiry into the movements of the mysterious renegadoes revealed that they were part of a schooners crew, who had come ashore over High Head for a stroll. Such landings, in an idle time on the sea, were not uncommon. It was in this way that a crew landed. 94 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. ' one remarkable occasion, at Menana to play a game of ball. The skipper, in chasing the ball as they played, came full upon a glorious pot of money in a crevice of the rocks. Unwilling to divide with the rest, he con- cealed his discovery till all had gone off to the schoon- er. Taking then a trusty man, he returned to secure it. But, alas! he could find no trace of it now, search as he would. He sat down at last on the hiorh rocks of Menana, and cried like a child with rage and despair at losing this unique opening to golden fortune. Nor has the pot of money ever been found to this day. If it should be found, Middleton wished it might be by the plucky fellow in charge of the steam fog-whistle on Menana. The fingers of this man's hand were once so mangled in his machinery that they had to be am- putated. He I'an his whistle for an hour after the accident — till the light-keeper could ^cross over to his relief — sailed then, a half-day's journey in a light wind, to Herring Gut, took a team from there to Tennant's Harbor, got himself comfortably shaved while waiting for the surgeon, and then had the am-putation per- formed. Monhegan had a glorious open out -look, somewhat too rare in the other Maine islands, where impertinent satellites, of which the map gives little idea, are con- tinually cropping up to destroy the desirable effect of space. From an elevated point Middleton could follow the sea all around, and shoreward a distant blue island or two lay on the high-lifted horizon like clouds over the tops of the pines. But he liked most to lie on the brim of the outer cliffs, the High Heads and White Heads, that rose one hundred and fifty feet straight TlIK OVKNS, SALISBURY COVK. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 97 from the angry breakers, and look off npon tlic wide ocean expanse, scattered witli sails as if with a flight of butterfly moths. Timid groups of sheep looked on witli curiosity at him from the vantage ground of neighbor- ing hillocks. He was often the companion here of the lookout, watching for the schooling of flsh in the inter- est of the nonchalant group on the grassy bank below. V. The fleet was here at last. lie came to know it well, both far and near, and the leading traits of the much- badgered mackerel, the object of its pursuit. The isl- anders flshed with the fleet, pulling out in their seine- boats from their island, as if it were only a steadier kind of schooner like the rest. It was a schooner that never rolled, on which they had all they made, without a division with shippers and underwriters, and on which they found at night their families and firesides. Middleton was impressed by the singular procession moving up the Atlantic coast every year, and speculated about it from High Head. It was a peculiarly advan- tageous point for observing — as if a pageant passing under his eye. ^'It could be made a fine decorative frieze of," he said, ''full of moral lessons besides. It could be a kind of natural-history Odyssey or Nibelun- gen, or a hemicycle of important submarine deeds, for another Delaroche. Who will celebrate the Mackerel on his way through life, his hopes and his fears, his virtues and vices, his friends and his enemies, his tri- umphs and disasters ?" The mackerel began their migration, he learned, or at 98 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. least the first were taken by the fleet which went south after them, in deep water, about sixty miles below the capes of Delaware, early in March. They arrived on the Maine coast about the first of June, followed closely by the vessels, which were presently strung all along from Cape Ann to Cape Sable. Late in September they began to work to the southward, not schooling on their return, and by the middle of November hardly one would be found to the northward of Boston Bay. This, at least, was the habit of our American mackerel, which were looked upon as a distinct nation, with no afiiliation with that which comes in over the Grand Banks, spawns on the Magdalen Islands, and remains in Canadian waters all winter. They seemed to come up along the coast, and strike inshore all about the same time, and the first notice of their arrival was often their appearance in the weirs on the bays and inlets. An advance guard preceded the main body often by a week or ten days. A mj^sterious live seed, of which Middleton could only hear that it was red, excessively hot, like pepper, and floated in the water, was thought to be the mackerel's principal inducement to come into the bays. Passionately fond of it, when it was ripe the mackerel was there, though it was a most reckless dissipa- tion, for it was said that it was so hot that it would burn its way out of a fish in a few hours, and it burned the hands of the fisherman in dressing such as had eaten it. A multitude of smaller marine creatures were fond of the red seed also. The tiny pilot-fish, perhaps a kind of fugleman for the mackerel, but more likely his prey, like the rest, came first ; then shoals of herring, shrimp, squid, menhaden. The round, limpid jelly-fish called CLIFFS AT SCllOO.NEK HEAD, NEAR OTTER CREEK. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 101 the sun-squall, occurring sometimes almost numerously enough to stop the way of a boat, sought it. Woe to all these ! They can snatcli but a furtive joy ; the fierce mackerel follows them up, devouring them as they fly. The only visible bits of solidity in the organism of the limpid sun-squall are the few red seeds, which it seems not even to have the pleasure of digesting. The mack- erel ruthlessly tears hin:i in pieces for them, and the sea is strewn with the remains of unhappy sun-squalls. "Did the matter stop here, how little deserving the mackerel of sympathy!" mused Middleton. "And in- deed, after all this, he is not one to call forth too much sympathy in any event; but th.e !N^emesis that pursues liim is terrible. The procession consists of the mackerel, his prey, and his enemies. Now here he is, as one might say, a wild young prodigal, in his laced coat of green and silver, pursuing every mad whim and selfish pleasure, and blinded by his folly to the yawning pitfalls and omens of danger all about him. Or he may be looked upon as a Belshazzar sort of person, drunk with insolent pride, at the very moment that the Mede and Persian are battering at the gate. Mene, mene, tekel^ vpharsiji ! Thou art weighed in the balance, O Mackerel, and found palatable to many tastes. The sinister shark is on thy track; the porpoise lunges from the right; dog-fish, blue-fish, black-fish, from the left; the mack- erel-gull swoops down from overhead. The solemn whale cruises in thy wake, ready to dive below a school of you, blow it into the air, and, though prevented by an unfortunate arrangement of the jaws from taking in the splendid gulps that might be imagined, do it very liberal justice. And lastly comes the great schooner of 103 FISH AND MEN IN TUE MAINE ISLANDS. inexorable man, the merchant, to whom all the other enemies are as nothing, and snares thee in lots of live hundred barrels a day." A quaint apparent exception, and the only one, to the universal rule of rapine in the great procession was a little bird somewhat larger than a sandpiper — the sea- goose, so called. It sits over a mackerel school, and ac- companies it in its course, whether out of an amicable sentiment of companionship, or as a rival for the myste- rious peppery seed, is not quite certain. It could well be believed that these voracious pursu- ers sometimes conflicted among themselves. The dog- fish and sharks, ravening to get at their prey when in the nets, bit or tore through, and released them by the barrel. The sharks came up around the boats of fisher- men, and by frightening away the game, prevented all their operations. It was necessary to strike them with a shark-knife in a peculiar waj^, otherwise they would not make off and cease their annoyance. One day a fisherman, having no weapon handy — a heavy gun ex- ploding a shell in the carcass is the one most in use for this service — thrust an oar down the throat of a whale, which came up beside his boat, and broke it off, upon which it retreated, and left him in peace. To devour and be devoured was by no means a mat- ter confined to the mackerel and his relations. Cod, haddock, and hake gorged themselves on lierring and every smaller fish. The blue- fish chased the porgies with such peculiar animosity that it quite depended upon their choice of position whether porgies should even make an appearance on the coast at all or not. Tlw3y drove them in one day near Herring Gut in such W' ;.^.t^^^v^' GREAT HEAD. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET 105 quantities that they lay aiikle-decp on the sands, and bad to be buried to prevent an epidemic. "Faugh!" said Middleton, "I have no patience with this. Not one spark of kindly feeling, of ordinary hu- man, that is to say, fish -like, consideration. It never seems to occur to a fish that he is not to murder his neighbor on the merest whim of the moment. He does it in a flap of his tail." And he went down to the port to experiment with a method of harpooning sword-fish, from a seat fixed up in the bowsprit of a schooner, which he had been promised an opportunity of trying. VL The population of the islands generally was of genu- ine Yankee stock, only beginning to be mixed a little where the quarries brought in a new element. At one place was a '' Portugee " of the AVestern Islands. He had sailed out of Gloucester, as do plenty of his country- men, as a gallant cook, married his captain's daughter, settled down on the shore, and was pronounced " a real good feller." There were a number of cases of insanity, and consumption was a definite scourge. Crimes were few and far between, being confined principally to a little thieving of fish from one another's flakes, unless the record were enlivened by some such bold exploit from without as that of a marauding negro who rifled the principal store at Monhegan one night, and carried off the entire contents in his cat-boat. He was pursued by a fast sloop, ran on a bar at the Isle an Ilaut, and there was for a time the best of reasons for expecting his capture. By desperate exertions, however, he got 106 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. over the bar in time, leaving it as an impediment in the way of the heavier -draught sloop, made off down to Long Island, and then farther east, till he was inside the Canadian line, and secure from pursuit. Though the occupation of the islands is of long stand- ing, they have nothing more than an indefinite old cel- lar, or teaspoon, or Indian pipe, here and there, that could be construed into historic remains. On little Me- nana, it is true, there is a semblance of rock-cut letters which have been attributed to Northmen of the date of Thorfinn, the son of Thorold, and the Skeleton in Ar- mor. But there is also a doubt, and it seemed to Mid- dleton a shrewd one, whetlier they are not simply some of those markings which Nature, to whom a thou- sand years or so are of no consequence in tlie gratifica- tion of a little whim, is continually making of her own accord. The most entirely satisfactory bit of history to re- call was the gallant fight of the Enterprise and Boxer, which took place in full view of Monhegan. An old settler was accustomed to tell it — how the arrogant British Boxer came out of St. John looking for the En- terprise ; but the latter did not need much looking for, being hers, truly, to command, all the time ; how neither of them fired a gun till they were within half pistol-shot of each other; how both gallant captains were killed, and laid in their graves at Portland at one funeral ; how the Boxer had made the mistake of nailing her colors to the mast, and was much inconvenienced later in mak- ing it known that on reflection she had changed her mind ; and how there were in her mainmast, not count- ing above the cat-harpins, three eighteen -pound shot, IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 109 eighteen large grape, and sixteen musket-balls, besides smaller missilery in profusion. Middleton heard, on the shore and in the fleet, the outlines of many other stories of interest ; but it seemed to him that the good old art of "spinning a yarn," mak- ing the most of all its details, with gestures, pauses, mysterious frowns, and appropriate inflections, had gone out. They were told to him in a sententious few words, for the most part without ornamentation. On shore he heard principally treasure narratives; on the vessels, accounts of the fogs and tempests on George's, where hundreds of lives have often been swept away at a time. The practical jokes on "greenhorns" on their first visit to the Banks were told. Neptune, in garments of rockweed, comes aboard to shave them with an old barrel hoop. x\nd there were feats of daring in old troubles with the Canadians, like that of the skipper who ran away under the guns of two of their cutters, lying flat on his stomach to steer his craft, and the other, who took a crew of picked men to Cape Breton, and cut out his forfeited schooner, and brought her back in tri- umph to Gloucester. There was particularly the ghost story of the Ilas- call. She broke loose from her moorino^s in a crale on George's, and tore into and sank the Andrew Johnson, with all on board. For years after, the spectres of the drowned men were reputed to come aboard the Ilas- call at midnight and go through a dumb-show of fishing in regular form over the side, so that no crew could be got in Gloucester to sail her, and she would not have brought sixpence in the market. 110 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. VII. If a Monheganer was ill, it was a matter of thirty miles' sailing at least to bring a physician to attend him. If he died, he was borne up to the graveyard on the hill, on the shoulders of his associates, and at the next arrival of a minister from the- main a discourse was pro- nounced over him. To such occasions, too, were post- poned marriages of consideration ; but in minor cases the couple put off somewhat by stealth to the main, and kept the affair rather quiet till the knot was tied. Per- sons who had savings invested them by preference in vessel property. If they amassed any considerable sum, they were apt to move to the main, and embark in a business, in some way connected with fish, as the keep- ing of a market. The women were often out on the hill-side mending the great nets damaged in service. In winter they sometimes had knitting bees, at which they replaced the nets of a comrade, carried away and destroyed per- haps by fouling a ship's anchor. In winter, too, the residents coasted down the light-house hill ; flooded a small valley lying just by the houses, and skated and ran an ice-boat upon it. The slight government of the island (plantation in form, and not yet a town) was languidly administered, and offices were avoided, not sought. It was necessary to elect a treasurer (in place of one who had positively refused to serve), and to provide funds for the payment of the glossy - haired teacher, in the neatest of calico I IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 113 dresses with a frill at the throat, from a liigh school on the main, whose term was drawing near its close. The meeting was set time after time, but nobody came, not even the ofUcer who called it, all having regularly hur- ried oil to the water in pursuit of fish instead. LIGIIT-IIOUSE. MOXHEGAX. Mackerel, and mackerel only, was the object of their ambition. It seemed almost an object in itself, apart from what it would bring. In confirmation of this view there was an account of a case, in the good old times, which Monhegan not less than the world in gen- eral has enjoyed, when a group was assembled to divide profits on recent ventures amounting to upward of four- teen hundred dollars. Suddenly the signal for mack- erel was given. Careless of the business in hand, they caught up a few bills each at random, and put off hur- riedly to sea, and the children picked up afterwards more 4 114 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. than six hundred dollars scattered around the fish-house where this had taken place. MONHKGAN POST-OITICE. There were three seine - boats, owned in shares by their crews, as tlie custom was. No one on the island could be oblivious of their movements. Its whole life centred round them. Thej set off for tlieir first trip before daylight, and the voices and knockings at the door in the dai'kness, that summoned the men, awakened the settlement. At noon and eveninor the careful house- IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 117 m^mm. >->-' ..-^^~- '^^'1'-. ' : .>^ '■/^"^^M^ i ; j^^-auw;^--' .^^B^^^-^ -"^^FKr M»l i,- ^^^^Vw r^^- GLIMPSE OF A FORTUNE. wife had the old spy-glass often at her eye, and knew how to regulate the laying of the cloth, and the lifting of the cover of the boiling pot, to the dot of an i, by their rounding the point at the harbor mouth. But it was tlieir departures by day, after considerable spells of inaction, that were the most animated, and Middletou was glad to be able to share the contagion. The look-out had been sitting a long time on the clitf, as like a blasted stump in appearance as a man. Sad- 118 FISH AND MEN ON THE MAINE ISLANDS. denly he jumped to liis feet, slionted, and came rnninng down. The heavy-booted, flannel-shirted, lounging men knew what it meant, and were down at the beaches and in their long, swift boats instantly. Each strove for the lead. How the boats leaped through the water under the strokes of the bending hickory ! Amos has it. No, it is William Henry. No, it is "Cap" Trefeathering. And Middleton is with him. Seven men throw their weight npon the oars, some standing, some sitting. The Cap, aloft on the poop, surveys tlie watery field, and directs the course, with a long steering oar, down to the slight rippled patches which to the experienced eye denote the schooling fish. The great seine, one hundred and fifty fathoms long and twenty -four wide, an apparently chaotic lieap of corks and twine, well sprinkled with salt for preserva- tion, is piled aft, and two veteran hands stand by to pay it out. A boy rows in the dory astern. The schools are exceedingly sliy. The art is to antici- pate, if possible, their direction, and meet them with the net. Even then they will dive directly under ir, and disappear. The first school is missed, the second, the third, the fourth. The fifth is of great promise, but a single gull comes and poises over it to pounce upon a victim. "I wish I had a gun for that fellow," says the Cap, but liaving none, he swings his hat and screams shrilly. Meanwhile the fish have gone down, and the heavy net must be dragged grumblingly in again with- out result. The flocks and herds look down at them from the clift's at first as they toss in the breakers, but, with their many disappointments, they are presently eight to ten M' ^AlU'oo^■l^(i swuiUi-iiEiu. IN TIIK WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 121 miles off shore. All the boats of the fleet are out around them, full of men, as if meditating some war- like descent on the coast. The clone! of fast yacht-like schooners is tackin<^ and standing off and on in evciy MIDNIGHT WATCH ON THE " HASCALL. variety of pose. Dark figures in their tops and shrouds look out for schools ; others fling over bait of ground porgies from boxes along the sides, to " toll " the fish for easier capture. Atnong the rest are two of the 122 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. singular " porgy steamers " turned to mackereling. The veterans predict that their career will be brief, saying they will roll too much, and their fires be put out. The seas are heav3\ Amid the tossing boats, particu- larly those in the middle distance as they now rise on a gloomy wave, with all their figures notched momen- tarily against the sky, and now sink again from sight as if ingulfed, Middleton finds a hundred noble and gallant aspects. What an ineffable contrast is this free, breezy, stalwart life, to cramped and tame city shops and offices! BOATS AND STAKES. Yonder, again, is a promising school ; there are fifty barrels in it if there is a fish. Give way all ! The Fi- delity s boat sees it too, and so does the Watch7nan'^8^ the Excalihur^s, the Wild Rose's, and that of the Light of the Age, and all race for it. But the Cap and Middle- ton are there first, and have \\\Q;pas. IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 125 Over with the net! The dory holds one end of it while the seine-boat rows around the school. Swash! swash ! go the corks, drawing a long, agreeable curve on the water. The two ends are brought together, and tlie net pursed up. " I'agged, by the great horn spoon !" cries an excited share-holder; and they go to dipping the fish out witli a scoop-net, and loading the dory as full as it will hold. There were bankers and grand -bankers among the seiners or in the harbor from time to time, for this was well out in the route of all of them. Middleton trans- ferred his flag from one to another as pleased him, like a Perry at the battle of Lake Erie. The vessels outward- ly, as a rule, were trim and ship-shape ; within, cleanli- ness or squalor depended upon the individual taste of the captain. Apart from an occasional ^' pink -stern," there was little picturesqueness in the hulls, and— since the American fisherman despises the picturesque econ- omy of tanned sails, leaving that to benighted Canadi- ans and French of the Bay of St. Lawrence— almost as little in the upper works. The routine of affairs on all was much the same. There was breakfast at four in the morning, and three more meals in the course of the day, regulated by the exigencies of the work ; besides that, a substantial lunch- table stood all day in the forecastle. The cook ap- peared, indeed, from the financial point of view, to be the best man, since he had a liberal salary in addition to a share of the catch, while the rest depended on the catch alone. h\ fishing, all hands often took to the boat, leaving only the cook aboard. When they had made a successful cast, they signalled the schooner with 126 FISH AND MEN IN THE MAINE ISLANDS. an oar. She ran down to tliem, and the seine was made fast to her side. The fish dipped out were on deck, where the}^ were rapidly dressed and thrown into bar- rels of brine, one school being disposed of before an- other w^as sought, owing to their quick deterioration. At night the island went early to its slum- bers, and only the light- liouse on the hill kept watch. It dazzled the eyes as one looked up, j^^^ ^ > 5.(«nRT .Sil. STOWING SEINES FROM LAST CATCH. and rendered the darkness more profound. On even- ings of a lieavy atmosphere slow rays went round and round from it, separating the mist like vast knives. But the fleet at night, with its nnnierous lanterns (red to port and green to starboard), and watchmen on deck, was like a little floating city. There was no commodore and no regular organization, yet accidents from colli- IN THE WAKE OF THE MACKEREL FLEET. 129 sion were of rare occurrence. All laid their heads one way, by tacit agreement. At midnight they reversed this and beat back over the same course. The schools worked nearer the top at night, and their presence was betrayed by a phosphorescent "firing" in the Avater, so that it seemed almost like insensate folly that this, instead of the day, should not be the favor- ite fishing time. But attention to the subject showed that the nets iired the water too, and gave a warning much more than counterbalancing the advantage. The lesson of understanding of all the conditions of a case before you begin seemed rather enforced by this dis- covery, and also the evident intention of nature to in- terpose a certain degree of hardship between the prize and the securing of it. With his head full of varied wisdom and experience of this sort, Middleton was finally "smacked" back to Portland as a part of the burden of the schooner "J/c7/'My," and finished at the point where it had be- gun, his jaunt among the fish and men of the Maine islands. THE END. OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PEOVINCES. A Journey in Mexico, Southern California, and Ari- zona, by way of Cuba. l]y William IIenky Bishop, Author of "Detinold," ''The House of a Mercliant Prince," &c. With numerous Illustrations chiefly from Sketches by the Author. 12mo, Cloth, $2 00. Tlic primitive habits and surroundings of the people with whom ho came in contact are ably depicted, and here and there we eome across graphic bits of description of scenery, of costumes, and of customs. What is being done to develop the country, to open it up to civilization, to pro- mote its industries, to extract its minerals, is all ably related. Moreover, he has taken pains to gather together and compile various statistics on these subjects which cannot fail to be of interest to those speculators who cast longing and worldly eyes in the direction of Mexico. The book is full of capital illustrations, and, taken altogether, can be highly praised. —.V. F. Herald. It is the great merit of Mr. Bishop's book that he gives us a clear and distinct notion of the present condition of Mexico, and of the promise of its future. We rise from the reading with our traditional ideas of the land greatly changed, or altogether shattered, and with largely increased respect for its people and many of its civil institutions. We see the people politically, industrially, and socially, and find that they improve on acquaintance. — X. Y. World. A singularly vivid and graphic picture of our neighbor republic, not only in its physical features, but also in the maimers and customs of its inhal)itants, their occupations and industries. — Boston Globe^ What with his admirable and characteristic sketches, his irrepressible American persistency in going to all places and seeing all things, in the face of alleged impossibilities, his close observation, Mr. Bishop has gone beyond any writer we know of in getting at "the actual heart of things." — The Nat ion, ^.Y. It is out of the beaten path of tourists, and for that reason full of fresh interest. But the author would make a readable book wherever he should journey, for he has eyes for all that is worth seeing, and a pen that is as graphic as the pencil. The work is elaborately illustrated, and the reader may feel as if he made the journey himself. — N. Y. Journal of Commerce. PuBLiSHKD BY HARPER & BROTHERS, Xi.w York. 4^ Uarpku & Bbotiif.us loill send the above work h}i mail, postage prejiaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. " Unprecedented in the history of the icorld." London Times. STANLEY'S CONGO, And the Founding of its Free State : a Story of Work and Exploration. By H. M. Stanley, Author of " Through the Dark Continent," " Coomassie and Magdala," (to. Ded- icated by special permission to H. M. the King of the Bel- gians. \Yith over One Hundred Illustrations and Maps. 2 vols., pp. 1130. 8vo, Ornamental Cloth, $10 00. A record of extraordinary achievements. . . . The facts speak for them- selves ; and tliat Mr. Stanley should have succeeded in establishing with- out bloodshed a series of stations alonj^ the Conj2,o, extending to a dis- tance of fifteen hundred miles from its mouth, is a feat of courage, endurance, and management combined the lil^e of which has rarely been heard of.— 5^. James's Gazette, London. The story of the exploration will at once command the attention of the civilized world. ... It is written with great spirit and simplicity, bringing every scene and circumstance graphically before the reader. — N. Y. Herald. An important contribution to the world's history, all the more valu- able as being written by the man who has himself made that portion of history. — Graphic, London. The great book of the season. . . . The story of stories, the romantic narrative of the discovery and founding of the Congo State. — Joseph Hatton, in the Boston Herald. Thoughtful and ably Avritten volumes, which combine with the fas- cination of stories of travel among strange people humanitarian lessons fraught with good for the scattered tribes of Mvico.. — London Daily Chronicle. Mr. Stanley's work on the Congo may justly be regarded as the book of the season. No other volumes which have appeared within the past year comprise the history of so many, so important, or such varied achievements. — London Stayidard. Proves to the full as vivid, as graphic, as interesting as anything we have had from the pen of the most daring and intrepid explorer. The render will turn over its pages with delight.— Pa/^ Mall Gazette, London. The book is at once a romance and a masterly history of tlie most romantic undertaking our generation has iKnown.— London Daily Tele- graph. Sufficient in itself to have founded a great reputation.— io??f7o« Daily News. Mr. Stanley may fairly boast of having given to the world two of the most remarkable books of travel and adxeninve. —Athenceum, London. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Harper & Buotijerb ^vill send the above icork hij mail, postage 2yrepnid^ to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. DIET FOR THE SICK. By Mary F. Hendersox, Author of "Practical Cook- ing, and Dinner Giving." Illustrated, pp. x., 234. 12ino, Cloth, $1 50. It will be found a useful and handy book in every household, and of service not only to the invalid -whose health is to be restored, but to those also who would cat wisely and avoid the evils that follow upon errors in the choice and preparation of food. Its recipes are copious and excellent, and the work generally is one to whose guid- ance all may trust with safety and advantage. — Boaton Gazette. While ]Mrs. Henderson has taken knowledge from the best sourceg, she has written for the comprehension of the common people, and in a method to win favor of the scholarly class as well. In other words, it is a scientific book, without its hard terms and useless chemical analyses, told in a most methodical and practical way, and is a thor- oughly good book, either for the library of the physician or for the home. — Ch kafjo In ter- Ocea n. A capital manual on the comparative values of foods, their appli- cation to special conditions of health and disease, and the best meth- ods of preparation. . . . Its tone is earnest and practical, its sugges- tions are the result of a wise experience, and its use cannot fail to be attended with decided benefit by those who need such a simple and sympathetic guide. — Jewish Messenger, N. Y. j\Irs. Henderson gives not onl}^ a large number of excellent recipes for invalids' food, but a great deal of sound advice on related topics. Every one who has the care of a sick person should possess a copy of this really invaluable little book. — The Examiner, N. Y. There was need of a complete, well-studied, scientific, and simply practical work on the subject of food preparation for invalids, and to furnish that is the task Mrs. Henderson hfis here set herself. The results of her labors arc in every way sat isf actor}'. Her explana- tions of principles are lucid, her directions for practice are explicit and easily followed, and her fertility of suggestion is unusually great. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, Ni:w York. CF~ IIabpkk «fc BiioTiiEES will send the above work by mail, poslafje prepaid, to any pari of the United Slates or Canada, on receipt of the price. UPON A CAST. A Novel. By Chaklotte Dunning, pp. 330. 16ino, Cloth, $1 00. It embodies throughout the expressions of genuine American frank- ness, is well conceived, well managed, and brought to a delightful and captivating close. — Albany Press. The author writes this story of American social life in an interest- ing manner. . . . The style of the writing is excellent, and the dia- logue clever. — N. T. Times. This story is strong in plot, and its characters are drawn with a firm and skilful hand. They seem like real people, and their acts and words, their fortunes and misadventures, are made to engage the reader's interest and sympathy. — Worcester Daily Spy. The character painting is very well done. . . . The sourest cynic that ever sneered at woman cannot but find the little story vastly entertaining. — Commercial Bulletin, Boston. The life of a semi-metropolitan village, with its own aristocracy, gossips, and various other qualities of people, is admirably por- trayed. . . . The book fascinates the reader from the first page to the last. — Boston Traveller. The plot has been constructed with no little skill, and the charac- ters — all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance— are por- trayed with great distinctness. The book is written in an entertain- ing and vivacious style, and is destined to provide entertainment for a large number of readers. — Christian at Work, N. Y. One of the best — if not the very best— of the society novels of the season. — Detroit Free Press. Of peculiar interest as regards plot, and with much grace and freshness of style. — BrooJdyji Times. The plot has been constructed witli no little skill, and the characters — all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance — arc portrayed with great distinctness. — Episcopal Recorder, Philadelphia. A clever and entertaining novel. It is wholly social, and the theatre is a small one ; but the characters are varied and are drawn with a firm hand ; the play of human passion and longing is well- defined and brilliant ; and the movement is effective and satisfac- tory. . . . The love story is as good as the social study, making alto- gether an uncommonly entertaining book for vacation reading. — Wilmington (Del.) Morning News. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Harper & Bbotukes will send the above work by mail, iwstage prepaid^ to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. BOOTS AND SADDLES; Or, Life in Dakota wilh General Custer, liy Mrs. Eliz- abeth B. Custer. Willi Portrait of General Custer. pp.312. 12mo, Cloth, ^l 50. A hook of adventure is interesting reading, especially wlien it is all true, as is the case with "Boots and Saddles." * * * She does not obtrude the fact that sunshine and solace ^Ycnt with her to tent and fort, but it in- heres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence " these simple annals of our daily life," as she calls them, are never dull nor uninterest- ing. — Evanf/dht^ X. Y. Mrs. Custer's book is in reality a bright and sunny sketch of the life of her late husband, who fell at the battle of " Little Big Horn." * * * After the war, when General Custer was sent to the Indian frontier, his wife was of the party, and she is able to give the minute story of her husband's varied career, since she was almost always near the scene of his adventures. — Brookhin Union. We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory life of General Custer could liave been written. Indeed, we may as well speak the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no bio- graphical work anywhere which we count better than this. * * * Sujc'y the record of such experiences as these Avill be read with that keen interest which attaches only to strenuous human doings; as surely we are right in saying that such a story of truth and heroism as that here told will take a deeper hold upon the popular mind and heart than any work of fiction can. For the rest, the narrative is as vivacious and as lightly and trippingly given as that of any novel. It is enriched in every chapter wilh illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and here and there a little life story of pathetic interest is told as an episode. — X. Y. Commercial AJvertisci-. It is a plain, straightforward story of the author's life on the plains of Dakota. Every member of a "Western garrison will want to read this book ; every person in the East who is interested in Western life will want to read it, too; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite for adventure will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of read- ers that few authors can expect. — PJdladdphia Pnss. These annals of daily life in the army are simple, yet interesting, and underneath all is discerned the love of a true woman ready for any sacri- fice. She touches on themes little canvassed by the civilian, and makes a volume equally redolent of a loving devotion to an honored husband, and attractive as a picture of necessary duty by the soldier. — Commonwealth, Boston. Published by HARPER - HOFF. 12ino, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper, 15 cents. Light, clever, well-written sketches.— A". V. Timest. A lively and agreeable volume, full of humor and incident.— fios^on Transcript. GOD AXD THE FUTURE LIFE. The Reasonableness of Christianity. By Charles Xordhoff. IGmo, Cloth, $1 00. Mr. Nordhoff's object is not so much to present a religious system as to give practical and suflicient reasons for every-day beliefs^ He writes strongly, clearly, aud in the vein that the people understand. — Bosf-on Herald. PuDLisHED BY IIARPEU & BROTIIEPtS, New York. t^^~ Uaupki: & Brotukus toill send the above icorka by mail, posfarje prepaid^ to any jmrt of the United !St ttes or Canada, on receipt of the j)n<*. BOOKS ON NEW ENGLAND. LODGE'S ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. A Short History of the En<;lish Colonies in America. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 8vo, Half Leather, $3 00. A sterling historical work.* * *His style is clear and graphic, and he paints pictures of the old times, attractive or repulsive, according to the truth as he tiuds it. — X. V. Journal of Commerce. BACON'S GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. By the Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cioth, $2 50. After a careful perusal of Dr. Bacon's work, we can congratulate the author on having completed a contribution of permanent value to all students of American history, and especially to such as are foud of explorifiii its earlier period.— r/te Sation, N. Y. PIKE'S NEW PURITAN. New England Two Hundred Years Ago. Some Account of the Life of Robert Pike, the Puritan who Defended the Quakers, Resisted Clerical Domination, and Op- posed the Witchcraft Prosecution. By James S. Pike. 12mo, Cloth, ,$1 00. A most vivid and interesting portrait of the traits of his subject, and an in- structive view of New England as it was two hundred years ago. Robert Pike stands forth clearly as a Puritan of a superior sort, conservative, iudependent, and courageous. — Boston A dvertiser. DRAKE'S NOOKS AND CORNERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST. Bv Samuel Adams Drake. With numerous Illus- trations. Square 8vo, Cloth, p 50 ; Half Calf, $5 75. "Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast" is an admirable guide both to the lover of the picturesque and the searcher for historic lore, as well as to 6tay-at-home travellers.— xV. Y. Tribune. GIBSON'S PASTORAL DAYS ; or. Memories of a New England Year. By W. Hamilton Gibson. Superbly Illustrated. 4to, Illuminated Cloth, Gilt Edges, |7 50. {In a Box.) Need we say that this author-artist is a poet though he writes in prose, or that his text and pictures are essentially a poem of the New England year?— iV. Y. Evening Post. GIBSON'S HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS ; or, Saunterings in New England. By W. Hamilton Gibson. Illustrated by the Author. 4to, illuminated Cloth, Gilt Edges, $7 50. (In a Box.) If Mr. Gil)son had not made a reputation for himself as an artist he would cer- tainly have made a reputation for himself as a writer, his gifts in both directions being larger than those of any artist-writer in this country. —A'^. Y. Mail and Express. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Any oj the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part qf the United States or Canada on receipt of the price. // surjyasses all its predecessors. — N. Y. Tribune. A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, and Explanatory, p:mbracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- ous Familiar Terms, and a Copious Selection of Old English Words. By the Rev. James STOUMONTir. The Pronunciation Carefully Kevised by the Rev. P. II. Piieli-, M.A. pp. 1248. 4to, Cloth, $6 00; Half Roan, $7 00; Sheep, $7 50. Also in IIari'eu's Franklin Square Library, in Twent}-- three Parts. 4to, Paper, 25 cents each Part. Muslin covers for binding supplied by the publishers on receipt of 50 cents. Ap rofrards thoroughness of etvmological research and breadth or modern inclusion, StormonUi's new dictionary surpasses all its predecessors. * * * in fact. Stornionth's Dictionary possesses merits so many and conspicuous that it can hardly fail to estab- lish itself as a standard and a favorite— A'. 1'. rn7>Mne. , ,. T • This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives lucid and succinct dellnitions of the technical terms in science and art, in law and medicine. We have the explanation of words and phrases that puzzle most people, showing wonderfully comprehensive and out of the -way research. We need only add that the Dictionary appears in all its departments to have been brought down to meet the latest demands of the day. and that it is admirably printed— TYmes, London. A most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. It can have for the present no possible rival— Boatoji Post. It has the bones and sinews of the grand dictionary of the future. * * * An invalu- able library hook.— Ecclesiastical Gazette, London. A work which is certainly without a rival, all things considered, among the dic- tionaries of our language. The peculiarity of the work is that it is equally well adapt- ed to the uses of the man of business, who demands compactness and ea.se of reference, and to those of the most exigent scholar.— A'. Y. Cnmmercial Advertiser. As compared with our standard dictionaries, it is better in type, richer in its vocab- ulary, and happier in arrangement. Its system of grouping is admirable. * * * He who possesses this dictionary will enjoy and use it, and its bulk is not so great as to make use of it a terror.— C/n-istian Advocate, N. Y. A well planned and carefully e.xccuted work, which has decided merits of its own, and for which there is a place not filled by any of its rivals.— A'. Y. Sun. A work of sterling value. It has received from all quarters the highest commenda- tion.— Lr/Wcmn Observer, Philadelphia. _ A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English langaago.-Chnstian Intel- ligencer, N. Y. .... 1 The issue of Stormonth's great English dictionary is meeting with a hearty wel- come evervwhere. — Boston Transcript. A critical and accurate dictionary, the embodiment of good scholarship and the result of modern researches. Compression and clearness are its external evidences, and it offers a favorable comparison with the best dictionaries iu use, while it holds an unrivalled place iu bringing forth the result of modern philological criticism.— Boston Jom-nal. ,, , ■ Full, complete, and accurate, including all the latest words, and giving all their derivatives and correlatives. The definitions are short, but plain, the method of mak- ing i>ronunciation very simple, and the arrangement such as to give the best results in the smallest sps^ce. -~J*hiladelj)hia Inquirer. 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