While fishing, each man has a space three feet and a half wide allotted to him on deck, so as not to interfere with his neighbor. The lines are from thirty to forty fathoms long—for the cod generally swims at that depth. The chief baits used are the squid, a species of cuttle-fish, and the capelin, a small salmon abounding on the North American coasts. The herring and the launce, and a shell-fish called clam, which is found in the belly of the cod, are likewise used. In spring particularly the cod rushes so eagerly upon the bait, that in the course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred, one after another. This is no easy task, considering the size of the fish, which on an average weighs fourteen pounds, but has been taken four feet three inches long, and forty-six pounds in weight. When a large fish, too heavy for the line, has been caught, the fisherman calls on his neighbor, who strikes a hook attached to a long pole into the fish, and then safely hauls it on board.
Mindful of the proverb which recommends us all to strike while the iron is hot, the fishermen continue to catch cod for hours, until so many are heaped on the deck that to make room it becomes necessary to “dress them down.” This is done on long planks made to rest with both ends on two casks, and thus forming a narrow table. First, each man cuts out the tongues of the fish he has caught, as his wages are reckoned by their number, and then the whole crew divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters, salters, and packers. The throater begins the operation of “dressing” by drawing his knife across the throat of the cod to the bone and ripping open the bowels. He then passes it to the header, who with a strong wrench pulls off the head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing the fish at the same time to the splitter, who with one cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues and packed in barrels as a delicacy, the backbone follows the entrails overboard, while the fish at the same moment is passed with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing quickness of the operations of heading and splitting, that a good workman will often decapitate and take out the entrails and backbone of six fish in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed to know something of each of these operations, and no rivals at cricket ever entered with more ardor into their work than do some athletic champions for the palm of “dressing down” after a “day’s catch.”
Generally the fog is so dense that one ship does not see the other, although both may be so near that the crews distinctly hear each other’s voices. Frequently one is hardly able to see to the distance of a few feet, and the large drops of the condensed mist fall like rain from the yards. During calm weather the aspect of the sea is so dismal that it requires all the buoyant spirits of a seaman to resist its depressing influence. For days the calm remains unbroken, and no sound is heard but that of a fish darting out of the water, or the screech of a sea-bird flitting over the sea. But sometimes a storm breaks this awful silence of nature. At such times the fishing-ships, hidden in mists, run the greatest danger of striking against each other, although signal-lanterns and alarm-trumpets are used to give warning. A tremendous wave bursting on the deck often strikes them with such force as to sink them or dash them to pieces against the rocky coast. Thus many a widow and orphan has a mournful tale to relate of the dangers of the cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland.
In some parts of the coast where the water is sufficiently shallow the codfish are now caught in sieves or nets. This operation requires more capital to commence with than the mere boat and hooks and lines of the common fishermen, and, like all improvements, met at first with much opposition, on the plea that it must interfere with the interests of the poorer class. It is obvious, however, that the use of the net is advantageous to the trade at large, for shoals, or, as they are termed, “schools,” of fish may sometimes be seen sweeping along shore, which but for the net would escape altogether. Besides, there seems such an incalculable abundance of the fish that there will always be enough to hook, enough to jig, enough to net, and more than enough to go away.
“One calm July evening,” says Mr. Jukes,[22] “I was in a boat just outside St. John’s harbor, when the sea was pretty still, and the fish were ‘breaching,’ as it is termed. For several miles around us the calm sea was alive with fish. They were sporting on the surface of the water, flirting their tails occasionally into the air, and as far as could be seen the water was rippled and broken by their movements. Looking down into its clear depths, codfish under codfish of all sizes appeared swimming about as if in sport. Some boats were fishing, but not a bite could they get, the fish being already gorged with food. Had the ground been shallow enough to use nets, the harbor might have been filled with fish.”
Besides the cod-fishery, seal-catching is also carried on with considerable success on the eastern coast, which intercepts many immense fields and islands of ice as they move southward in the spring from the Arctic Sea. The interior parts of these drifting shoals, with the lakes or openings interspersed, remain unbroken, and on them myriads of seals maybe found. In the month of March or April, as soon as the ice-fields descend with the currents from Davis’s Straits, many small ships, not only from the harbors of the east coast of Newfoundland, but even from the distant Scotch ports, particularly Aberdeen, put out to sea, and boldly plunge into all the openings of the ice-fields to make war upon the seals. Armed with firelocks and heavy bludgeons, the crews surprise the animals on the ice. In this way thousands are killed yearly from the north, but their numbers have latterly decreased, and the seal-catchers pay the penalty of their heedless and indiscriminate slaughter.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
GREENLAND.
A mysterious Region.—Ancient Scandinavian Colonists.—Their Decline and Fall.—Hans Egede.—His Trials and Success.—Foundation of Godthaab.—Herrenhuth Missionaries.—Lindenow.—The Scoresbys.—Clavering.—The Danish Settlements in Greenland.—The Greenland Esquimaux.—Seal-catching.—The White Dolphin.—The Narwhal.—Shark-fishery.—Fiskernasset.—Birds.—Reindeer-hunting.—Indigenous Plants.—Drift-wood.—Mineral Kingdom.—Mode of Life of the Greenland Esquimaux.—The Danes in Greenland.—Beautiful Scenery.—Ice Caves.
In many respects Greenland is one of the most remarkable countries of the Arctic zone. The whole of the northern coast of continental America from Cape Lisburne to Belle Isle Straits is known; the borders of Siberia fronting the icy ocean have been thoroughly explored by water and by land; the distance of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla from the pole has long since been determined; but how far Greenland may reach to the north we know not—though nearly a thousand years have passed since the Icelander Günnbjorn (970 A.D.) first saw its high mountain coast, and in spite of all the attempts made since that time to circumnavigate it. The interior of the island—or continent as it may perhaps more justly be called, for it has a surface of at least 750,000 square miles, and is probably larger than Australia—is also unknown; for of this vast extent of territory only the narrow shores of the coast-line seemed to be inhabitable, or even accessible to man. On penetrating into the deeper fjords, all the valleys are found blocked with glaciers, which, on climbing the heights, are seen to pass into a monotonous plateau of ice, or névé, which seems to cover and conceal the whole interior. Thus, from its physical configuration, Greenland may well be called a mysterious region; and, strange to say, the history of the decline and fall of its first colonists is as little known as its geography.