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The ground of it is very rocky: and vpon it there is great store of firre trees, and in some places red; and about the shore it hath great abundance of cod fish. We were on land in it in foure seuerall places: 1 At Caplin bay and Farrillon: 2 At Cape Rase: 3 At the harborow of Lano, which lieth foure leagues to the West of Cape Laurence: 4 At S. Marie port.
He was a man of the world, having sailed deep-sea voyages in his youth. He was a grand fiddler, a grand singer, and had made more "Come-all-ye's" than you could count on your fingers and toes. He had a wooden leg; and his daughter was the finest girl in Chance Along. His best known Come-all-ye, which is sung to this day from Caplin Arm to Bay Bulls, starts like this:
They brought us salmon peels, birds, and caplin, and we gave them pins, needles, bracelets, nails, knives, bells, looking-glasses, and other small trifles; and for a knife, a nail, or a bracelet, which they call ponigmah, they would sell their boat, coats, or anything they had, although they were far from the shore.
At any rate, off he hied through the wind and snow to Tom Tot's cottage: where, as fortune had it, Tom Tot was mending a caplin seine. "Tom Tot," said he, quite shamelessly, "I'm fair achin' t' know what's in this letter." The harbour was cognizant of Skipper Tommy's state and standing temptation: much concerned, as well, as to the outcome.
I gaue him a new sute of frize after the English fashion, because I saw he could not indure the colde, of which he was very ioyful, he trimmed vp his darts, and all his fishing tooles, and would make okam, and set his hand to a ropes end vpon occasion. He liued with the dry Caplin that I tooke when I was searching in the pinnis, and did eate dry Newfoundland fish.
It made more certain his catch of cod, and therefore lessened the possibility of winters of privation. It is interesting to know how the fishermen of The Labrador catch cod. It may be worth while also to explain that when the Labradorman or Newfoundlander speaks of "fish" he means cod in his vocabulary. A trout is a trout, a salmon is a salmon and a caplin is a caplin, but a cod is a fish.
Herring and caplin had long since drifted away into unknown depths, where the tides flowed endlessly over them and brought never a one ashore. Hares and ptarmigans turned white to hide on the snow, so that wolf and fox would pass close by without seeing them.
Three boats found their rodings fouled by these reckless mid-sea hunters, and were towed half a mile ere their horses shook the line free. Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes later there was no sound except the splash of the sinkers overside, the flapping of the cod, and the whack of the muckles as the men stunned them. It was wonderful fishing.
It is like a great room without a ceiling. On one side is a door or opening. The trap is submerged a hundred yards or so from shore, at a point where the caplin, with the cod at their heels, are likely to run in. A net attached to the trap at the center of the door is stretched to the nearest shore. Like a flock of geese that follows the old gander cod follow their leaders.
Their bitter birthright was the harvest of the coastwise seas; and he now realized their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked ships.
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