Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
With singular dexterity and almost without shifting her posture she slipped one of the seamen's bags from somewhere beneath her shoulders, drew it upon her lap, and produced a miscellaneous feast a cheek of pork, a loaf, a saffron cake; a covered jar which, being opened, diffused the fragrance of marinated pilchards; a bagful of periwinkles, a bunch of enormous radishes, a dish of cream wrapped about in cabbage-leaves, a basket of raspberries similarly wrapped; finally, two bottles of stout.
Those were the days of the town's fiercest activities, though its business as a port trading with the Continent endured till long afterwards; and the pilchard-fishery was once more important than it is now. Pilchards now for the most part keep further west. There is still much fishing done, and some small coastwise shipping gives occasional bustle to the rugged little banjo-shaped pier.
"Well, I've no notion of being boxed up here," observed Coble, "they can't be so many as we are, even if they were stowed away in the boat, like pilchards in a cask. Can't we get at the arms, corporal, and make a rush for it?" "Mein Gott! de arms are all in the cabin, all but three pair pistols and the bayonets." "Well, but we've handspikes," observed Spurey.
This is, however, the most easy way of catching pilchards, which can be pursued at nearly all times of the year, for the fish swim about in small schools away from the shore, from May until winter is well advanced, when the water becoming cool, they return westwards to a warmer climate in the depths of the Atlantic.
As I had neither linen nor apparel, either for myself or servants, and as the 400 crowns which we got by the sale of pilchards on board the barque in which we came from Belle Isle were almost all spent, I borrowed 400 crowns of the Baron de Vateville, who commanded for the King of Spain in Guipuzcoa, and faithfully repaid him.
The whole external trade of these islands is carried on by three or four ships which come there annually from Peru and Chili, by which they receive wine, brandy, tobacco, sugar, herb of Paraguay, salt, and European goods, for which they give in exchange red cedar boards, timber of different kinds, ponchos of various qualities, hams, pilchards, dried shell-fish, white-cedar boxes, embroidered girdles, and a small quantity of ambergris which is found on their shores.
I said, "do you intend to tell me you believe that a salute will frighten herrings, from this fiord, or any other fiord, so that they never return?" "Why?" I asked. "Ay; your Honour," said the credulous tar, "that's just what I'm bearing up to why, your Honour, bekase we frightened away the pilchards! May I never lift another handspike if that ain't gospel, that's all your Honour!"
Several smaller boats had put off, the men in them carrying small nets and baskets. They now commenced what is called "tucking." The small nets were thrown out, each forming a circle, and the fish caught in them were hauled on board in the ordinary way. The other boats ladled out the pilchards with baskets.
It is certain that many so-called sardines are pilchards and some are sprats. Differences in size may be accounted for by the fact that Cornish nets have often a rather large mesh, and the smaller fish are not taken. Many such nets are made at Mevagissey.
But ye might be fitted to grasp that if th' Almighty hadn' ordained other fish an' birds as well as us men to prey upon 'em, in five years' time no boat'd be able to sail th' Atlantic; in ten years ye could walk over from Polpier to Newfoundland stankin' 'pon rotten pilchards all the way.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking