ne hundred drifters were pursuing the retreating armies of
herring.

The German hordes have taught us to think of life in large numbers,
but were the herring to elect a Kaiser, he would dominate in reality
an absolutely indestructible host. For hundreds of years fishermen of
all countries have without cessation been pursuing these friends of
mankind. For centuries these inexhaustible hordes have followed their
long pathways of the sea, swimming by some strange instinct always
more or less over the same courses--ever with their tireless enemies,
both in and out of the water, hot foot on their tracks. Sharks,
dog-fish, wolf-fish, cod, and every fish large enough to swallow them,
gulls, divers, auks, and almost every bird of the air, to say nothing
of the nets set now from steam-propelled ships, might well threaten
their speedy extermination. This is especially true when we remember
that even their eggs are preyed upon in almost incalculable bulk as
soon as they are deposited. But phoenix-like they continue to reappear
in such vast quantities that they are still the cheapest food on the
market. Such huge numbers are caught at one time that they have now
and again to be used for fertilizer, or dumped overboard into the sea.
The great bay of Stornaway Harbour was so deeply covered in oil from
the fish while we lay there, that the sailing boats raced to and fro
before fine breezes and yet the wind could not even ripple the
surface of the sea, as if at last millennial conditions had
materialized. Many times we saw nets which had caught such quantities
of fish at once that they had sunk to the bottom. They were only
rescued with great difficulty, and then the fish were so swollen by
being drowned in the net that it took hours of hard work and delay to
shake their now distended bodies out again.

The opportunities for both holding simple religious services and
rendering medical help from our dispensary were numerous, and we
thought sufficiently needed to call for some sort of permanent effort;
so later the Society established a small mission room in the harbour.

Alcohol has always been a menace to Scotch life, though their
fishermen were singularly free from rioting and drunkenness. Indeed,
their home-born piety was continually a protest to the indulgence of
the mixed crowd which at that time followed King Henry. Scores of
times have I seen a humble crew of poor fishermen, who themselves
owned their small craft, observing th