Part 4 (1/2)

At this place, close to the mouth of the hole, the guide suggests that we shall sit down and have a little talk!--and very impressive talk it is, when he begins the conversation by bawling into my ear (and down the Devil's Throat at the same time) to make himself heard above the fierce roaring beneath us. Now, his tale is of tremendous jets of water which he has seen, during the storms of winter, shot out of the hole before which we sit, into the creek of the sea below--now, he tells me of a s.h.i.+pwreck off Asparagus Island, of half-drowned sailors floating ash.o.r.e on pieces of timber, and dashed out to sea again just as they touched the strand, by a jet from the Devil's Throat--now, he points away in the opposite direction, under one of the steeple-shaped rocks, and speaks of a chase after smugglers that began from this place; a desperate chase, in which some of the smugglers' cargo, but not one of the smugglers themselves, was seized--now, he talks of another great hole in the landward rocks, where the sea may be seen boiling within: a hole into which a man who was fis.h.i.+ng for fragments of a wreck fell and was drowned; his body being sucked away through some invisible channel, never to be seen again by mortal eyes.

Anon, the guide's talk changes from tragedy to comedy. He begins to recount odd adventures of his own with strangers. He tells me of a huge fat woman who was got up to the top of Asparagus Island, by the easiest path, and by the exertions of several guides; who, left to herself, gasped, reeled, and fell down immediately; and was just rolling off, with all the momentum of sixteen stone, over the precipice below her, when she was adroitly caught, and anch.o.r.ed fast to the ground, by the ankle of one leg and the calf of the other. Then he speaks of an elderly gentleman, who, while descending the rocks with him, suddenly stopped short at the most dangerous point, giddy and panic-stricken, pouring forth death-bed confessions of all his sins, and wildly refusing to move another inch in any direction. Even this man the guide got down in safety at last, by making stepping places of his hands, on which the elderly gentleman lowered himself as on a ladder, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. incoherently all the way, and trembling in great agony long after he had been safely landed on the sands.

This last story ended, it is settled that we shall descend again to the beach. Stimulated by the ease with which my worthy leader goes down beneath me, I get over-confident in my dexterity, and begin to slip here, and slide there, and come to awkward pauses at precipitous places, in what would be rather an alarming manner, but for the potent presence of the guide, who is always beneath me, ready to be fallen upon. Sometimes, when I am holding on with all the necessary tenacity of grip, as regards my hands, but, ”scrambling my toes about” in a very disorderly and unworkmanlike fas.h.i.+on, he pops his head up from below for me to sit on; and puts my feet into crevices for me, with many apologies for taking the liberty! Sometimes, I fancy myself treading on what feels like soft turf; I look down, and find that I am standing like an acrobat on his shoulders, and hear him civilly entreating me to take hold of his jacket next, and let myself down over his body to the ledge where he is waiting for me. He never makes a false step, never stumbles, scrambles, hesitates, or fails to have a hand always at my service. The nautical metaphor of ”holding on by your eyelids” becomes a fact in his case. He really views his employer, as porters are expected to view a package labelled ”_gla.s.s with care_.” I am firmly persuaded that he could take a drunken man up and down Asparagus Island, without the slightest risk either to himself or his charge; and I hold him in no small admiration, when, after landing on the sand with something between a tumble and a jump, I find him raising me to my perpendicular almost before I have touched the ground, and politely hoping that I feel quite satisfied, hitherto, with his conduct as a guide.

We now go across the beach to explore some caves--dry at low water--on the opposite side. Some of these are wide, lofty, and well-lighted from without. We walk in and out and around them, as if in great, irregular, Gothic halls. Some are narrow and dark. Now, we crawl into them on hands and knees; now, we wriggle onward a few feet, serpent-like, flat on our bellies; now, we are suddenly able to stand upright in pitch darkness, hearing faint moaning sounds of pent-up winds, when we are silent, and long reverberations of our own voices, when we speak. Then, as we turn and crawl out again, we soon see before us one bright speck of light that may be fancied miles and miles away--a star s.h.i.+ning in the earth--a diamond sparkling in the bosom of the rock. This guides us out again pleasantly; and, on gaining the open air, we find that while we have been groping in the darkness, a change has been taking place in the regions of light, which has altered and is still altering the aspect of the whole scene.

It is now two o'clock. The tide is rising fast; the sea dashes, in higher and higher waves, on the narrowing beach. Rain and mist are both gone. Overhead, the clouds are falling asunder in every direction, a.s.suming strange momentary shapes, quaint airy resemblances of the forms of the great rocks among which we stand. Height after height along the distant cliffs dawns on us gently; great golden rays shoot down over them; far out on the ocean, the waters flash into a streak of fire; the sails of s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing there, glitter bright; yet a moment more, and the glorious sunlight bursts out over the whole view. The sea changes soon from dull grey to bright blue, embroidered thickly with golden specks, as it rolls and rushes and dances in the wind. The sand at our feet grows brighter and purer to the eye; the sea-birds flying and swooping above us, look like flashes of white light against the blue firmament; and, most beautiful of all, the wet serpentine rocks now s.h.i.+ne forth in full splendour beneath the sun; every one of their exquisite varieties of colour becomes plainly visible--silver grey and bright yellow, dark red, deep brown, and malachite green appear, here combined in thin intertwined streaks, there outspread in separate irregular patches--glorious ornaments of the sea-sh.o.r.e, fas.h.i.+oned by no human art!--Nature's own home-made jewellery, which the wear of centuries has failed to tarnish, and the rage of tempests has been powerless to destroy!

But the hour wanes while we stand and admire; the surf dashes nearer and nearer to our feet; soon, the sea will cover the sand, and rush swiftly into the caves where we have slowly crawled. Already the Devil's Bellows is at work--the jets of spray spout forth from it with a roar. The sea thunders louder and louder in the Devil's Throat--we must gain the cliffs while we have yet time. The guide takes his leave; my companion unwillingly closes his sketch-book; and we slowly ascend on our inland way together--looking back often and often, with no feigned regret, on all that we are leaving behind us at KYNANCE COVE.

VII.

THE PILCHARD FISHERY.

If it so happened that a stranger in Cornwall went out to take his first walk along the cliffs towards the south of the county, in the month of August, that stranger could not advance far in any direction without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular and alarming phenomenon.

He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in his hand; waving it to the right and the left, brandis.h.i.+ng it over his head, sweeping it past his feet--in short, apparently acting the part of a maniac of the most dangerous character. It would add considerably to the startling effect of this sight on the stranger, if he were told, while beholding it, that the insane individual before him was paid for flouris.h.i.+ng the bush at the rate of a guinea a week. And if he, thereupon, advanced a little to obtain a nearer view of the madman, and then observed on the sea below (as he certainly might) a well-manned boat, turning carefully to right and left exactly as the bush turned right and left, his mystification would probably be complete, and the right time would arrive to come to his rescue with a few charitable explanatory words. He would then learn that the man with the bush was an important agent in the Pilchard Fishery of Cornwall; that he had just discovered a shoal of pilchards swimming towards the land; and that the men in the boat were guided by his gesticulations alone, in securing the fish on which they and all their countrymen on the coast depend for a livelihood.

To begin, however, with the pilchards themselves, as forming one of the staple commercial commodities of Cornwall. They may be, perhaps, best described as bearing a very close resemblance to the herring, but as being rather smaller in size and having larger scales. Where they come from before they visit the Cornish coast--where those that escape the fishermen go to when they quit it, is unknown; or, at best, only vaguely conjectured. All that is certain about them is, that they are met with, swimming past the Scilly Isles, as early as July (when they are caught with a drift-net). They then advance inland in August, during which month the princ.i.p.al, or ”in-sh.o.r.e,” fis.h.i.+ng begins; visit different parts of the coast until October or November; and after that disappear until the next year. They may be sometimes caught off the south-west part of Devons.h.i.+re, and are occasionally to be met with near the southernmost coast of Ireland; but beyond these two points they are never seen on any other portion of the sh.o.r.es of Great Britain, either before they approach Cornwall, or after they have left it.

The first sight from the cliffs of a shoal of pilchards advancing towards the land, is not a little interesting. They produce on the sea the appearance of the shadow of a dark cloud. This shadow comes on and on, until you can see the fish leaping and playing on the surface by thousands at a time, all huddled close together, and all approaching so near to the sh.o.r.e, that they can be always caught in some fifty or sixty feet of water. Indeed, on certain occasions, when the shoals are of considerable magnitude, the fish behind have been known to force the fish before, literally up to the beach, so that they could be taken in buckets, or even in the hand with the greatest ease. It is said that they are thus impelled to approach the land by precisely the same necessity which impels the fishermen to catch them as they appear--the necessity of getting food.

With the discovery of the first shoal, the active duties of the ”look-out” on the cliffs begin. Each fis.h.i.+ng-village places one or more of these men on the watch all round the coast. They are called ”huers,”

a word said to be derived from the old French verb, _huer_, to call out, to give an alarm. On the vigilance and skill of the ”huer” much depends.

He is, therefore, not only paid his guinea a week while he is on the watch, but receives, besides, a perquisite in the shape of a per-centage on the produce of all the fish taken under his auspices. He is placed at his post, where he can command an uninterrupted view of the sea, some days before the pilchards are expected to appear; and, at the same time, boats, nets, and men are all ready for action at a moment's notice.

The princ.i.p.al boat used is at least fifteen tons in burden, and carries a large net called the ”seine,” which measures a hundred and ninety fathoms in length, and costs a hundred and seventy pounds--sometimes more. It is simply one long strip, from eleven to thirteen fathoms in breadth, composed of very small meshes, and furnished, all along its length, with lead at one side and corks at the other. The men who cast this net are called the ”shooters,” and receive eleven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence a week, and a perquisite of one basket of fish each out of every haul.

As soon as the ”huer” discerns the first appearance of a shoal, he waves his bush. The signal is conveyed to the beach immediately by men and boys watching near him. The ”seine” boat (accompanied by another small boat, to a.s.sist in casting the net) is rowed out where he can see it.

Then there is a pause, a hush of great expectation on all sides.

Meanwhile, the devoted pilchards press on--a compact ma.s.s of thousands on thousands of fish, swimming to meet their doom. All eyes are fixed on the ”huer;” he stands watchful and still, until the shoal is thoroughly embayed, in water which he knows to be within the depth of the ”seine”

net. Then, as the fish begin to pause in their progress, and gradually crowd closer and closer together, he gives the signal; the boats come up, and the ”seine” net is cast, or, in the technical phrase ”shot,”

overboard.

The grand object is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one end of the net perpendicularly to the ground; the corks buoy up the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the fish, the two extremities are made fast, and the shoal is then imprisoned within an oblong barrier of network surrounding it on all sides. The great art is to let as few of the pilchards escape as possible, while this process is being completed. Whenever the ”huer”

observes from above that they are startled, and are separating at any particular point, to that point he waves his bush, thither the boats are steered, and there the net is ”shot” at once. In whatever direction the fish attempt to get out to sea again, they are thus immediately met and thwarted with extraordinary readiness and skill. This labour completed, the silence of intense expectation that has. .h.i.therto prevailed among the spectators on the cliff, is broken. There is a great shout of joy on all sides--the shoal is secured!

The ”seine'” is now regarded as a great reservoir of fish. It may remain in the water a week or more. To secure it against being moved from its position in case a gale should come on, it is warped by two or three ropes to points of land in the cliff, and is, at the same time, contracted in circuit, by its opposite ends being brought together, and fastened tight over a length of several feet. While these operations are in course of performance, another boat, another set of men, and another net (different in form from the ”seine”) are approaching the scene of action.

This new net is called the ”tuck;” it is smaller than the ”seine,”

inside which it is now to be let down for the purpose of bringing the fish closely collected to the surface. The men who manage this net are termed ”regular seiners.” They receive ten s.h.i.+llings a week, and the same perquisite as the ”shooters.” Their boat is first of all rowed inside the seine-net, and laid close to the seine-boat, which remains stationary outside, and to the bows of which one rope at one end of the ”tuck-net” is fastened. The ”tuck” boat then slowly makes the inner circuit of the ”seine,” the smaller net being dropped overboard as she goes, and attached at intervals to the larger. To prevent the fish from getting between the two nets during this operation, they are frightened into the middle of the enclosure by beating the water, at proper places, with oars, and heavy stones fastened to ropes. When the ”tuck” net has at length travelled round the whole circle of the ”seine,” and is securely fastened to the ”seine” boat, at the end as it was at the beginning, everything is ready for the great event of the day, the hauling of the fish to the surface.

Now, the scene on sh.o.r.e and sea rises to a prodigious pitch of excitement. The merchants, to whom the boats and nets belong, and by whom the men are employed, join the ”huer” on the cliff; all their friends follow them; boys shout, dogs bark madly; every little boat in the place puts off, crammed with idle spectators; old men and women hobble down to the beach to wait for the news. The noise, the bustle, and the agitation, increase every moment. Soon the shrill cheering of the boys is joined by the deep voices of the ”seiners.” There they stand, six or eight stalwart sunburnt fellows, ranged in a row in the ”seine” boat, hauling with all their might at the ”tuck” net, and roaring the regular nautical ”Yo-heave-ho!” in chorus! Higher and higher rises the net, louder and louder shout the boys and the idlers. The merchant forgets his dignity, and joins them; the ”huer,” so calm and collected hitherto, loses his self-possession and waves his cap triumphantly; even you and I, reader, uninitiated spectators though we are, catch the infection, and cheer away with the rest, as if our bread depended on the event of the next few minutes. ”Hooray! hooray! Yo-hoy, hoy, hoy! Pull away, boys! Up she comes! Here they are! Here they are!”

The water boils and eddies; the ”tuck” net rises to the surface, and one teeming, convulsed ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ning, glancing, silvery scales; one compact crowd of tens of thousands of fish, each one of which is madly endeavouring to escape, appears in an instant!