breadth of more than
four, and a length of twenty. Here we have every variety of the "fairer
half of creation" displayed before us, ranged round an odoriferous heap
of salted fish. Here we see crones of sixty and girls of sixteen; the
ugly and the lean, the comely and the plump; the sour-tempered and the
sweet--all squabbling, singing, jesting, lamenting, and shrieking at the
very top of their very shrill voices for "more fish," and "more salt;"
both of which are brought from the stores, in small buckets, by a long
train of children running backwards and forwards with unceasing activity
and in bewildering confusion. But, universal as the uproar is, the work
never flags; the hands move as fast as the tongues; there may be no
silence and no discipline, but there is also no idleness and no delay.
Never was three-pence an hour more joyously or more fairly earned than
it is here!

The labour is thus performed. After the stone floor has been swept
clean, a thin layer of salt is spread on it, and covered with pilchards
laid partly edgewise, and close together. Then another layer of salt,
smoothed fine with the palm of the hand, is laid over the pilchards; and
then more pilchards are placed upon that; and so on until the heap rises
to four feet or more. Nothing can exceed the ease, quickness, and
regularity with which this is done. Each woman works on her own small
area, without reference to her neighbour; a bucketful of salt and a
bucketful of fish being shot out in two little piles under her hands,
for her own especial use. All proceed in their labour, however, with
such equal diligence and equal skill, that no irregularities appear in
the various layers when they are finished--they run as straight and
smooth from one end to the other, as if they were constructed by
machinery. The heap, when completed, looks like a long, solid,
neatly-made mass of dirty salt; nothing being now seen of the pilchards
but the extreme tips of their noses or tails, just peeping out in rows,
up the sides of the pile.

Having now inspected the progress of the pilchard fishery, from the
catching to the curing, we have seen all that we can personally observe
of its different processes, at one opportunity. What more remains to be
done, will not be completed until after an interval of several weeks. We
must be content to hear about this from information given to us by
others. Yonder, sitting against the outside wall of the salting-house,
is an intelli