the lucifer match is, there are few who really know anything of the manner in which it is produced. Like the pin, the lucifer match forms one of the curiosities of modern manufacturing industry. Although its manufacture only dates from 1833, yet whole forests have already been cut down to supply the immense and still increasing demand for the wood of which the matches are made, to say nothing of the many tons of chemical matter likewise required; and when we come to consider that at present the trade is, comparatively speaking, in its infancy, the probable extent of its future requirements becomes sufficiently startling.

the alarming intelligence was brought in, by wit- | trast between the tiny splint and the ungainly form nesses whose testimony would have placed the fact of its predecessor, the common brimstone match, is beyond a doubt had not cross-examination elicited eminently suggestive of the difference existing bethat they had neither been near the spot them-tween the past and the present. Yet, common as selves, nor seen any one who had been. Gurlie sent at once to Vallon, a village an hour's walk down the valley, for his son Louis to accompany him on an expedition to ascertain the true state of the case. While he was waiting the arrival of Louis, fresh witnesses came in, who reduced the disaster to the annihilation of some of the "dépendances." By and by Louis arrived, having exercised his powers of observation by the way, and narrowly inspected the debris and broken timber cast up by the flood at the entrance of Les Tines. Louis's observations still further modified the gloomy anticipations of his father. "Il n'y a pas tant de mal," he laconically observed. "I have seen no timber such as would have come from the Eagle's Nest; some of the palisading is gone, that is all." And Louis's predictions were fully borne out by the facts.

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As is frequently the case with great industries, the lucifer match manufacture has risen from extremely small beginnings to its present magnitude, every new invention for simplifying the processes The government help so anxiously clamored for or economizing labor tending to give an immense came in the shape of a subsidy of fifteen hundred impetus to production; the increased cheapness of francs, which, by all accounts, was to be distributed the article invariably leading to a proportionate inpro rata, giving to each of the sufferers an absolutely crease in the demand. The first lucifer matches useless dividend of about threepence-halfpenny in were very defective. The splints were too large, the pound. Of course, some of those whose land and did not ignite easily; while, from want of exwas injured were perfectly able to take care of perience, the chemical ingredients were badly mixed, themselves, and were not proper objects for any a much larger proportion of phosphorus being emkind of assistance; whilst to others, who were ut-ployed than was necessary. They were also liable terly ruined, the pittance that came to them in the to be affected by the least humidity of the atmosgeneral scramble was so small as to be utterly value-phere, - a defect still characteristic of the generalless. But the sacred principle of equality was pre-ity of foreign-made articles. served. So many pounds of loss, so many sous of During the earlier years of the manufacture, the subvention. What could be fairer or more admira- factory system was unknown, and the matches were ble? An anecdote which came under the writer's made on a limited scale, in small and unhealthy notice is too characteristic of the people to be omit- workshops, where few or no sanitary precautions ted. Some few families, specially recommended by were taken to protect the health of the workers, the curé and the maire as being reduced by the who generally followed their occupation in buildings inundation to the greatest straits, were saved from utterly destitute of the proper amount of ventila utter destitution during the coming winter by the tion. It was during this period that the painful and bounty of a passing traveller. One of them, an old loathsome disease known as "necrosis" of the jaw wretch of the name of Michaud, was not forthcom- was found most prevalent amongst the workers, ing for some minutes when sought by the stranger. especially those engaged in the "dipping" process, He had spent the time in hastily collecting together that is, the dipping of the lucifer-ends into the all the neighbors he could find at so short a notice, liquid phosphorus. Mr. William Köhler, of Birand on receiving the somewhat liberal benefaction be-mingham, stated, in his evidence to Mr. White, that stowed upon him, scarcely thanked the donor; but introducing to him all the bystanders, asked if he would not do the same by each of them. The heads of two other families similarly rescued from the prospect of starvation, immediately gave out to all their neighbors that they had received just one third of the sum which had really been given to them. They were afraid the traveller's charity might be taken into account against them when the dividend of threepence-halfpenny in the pound came to be distributed!

there was a great dislike in Germany generally amongst the workpeople to working in a match manufactory, and that in many parts it is usual to employ prisoners for the work. In this country there is no difficulty in procuring the requisite amount of child or adult labor, no matter how poorly paid or dangerous may be the various processes.

Of late years, however, the factory system has been largely introduced into the trade, and bids fair to rapidly supersede the smaller establishments in which few workers only are employed. Amongst

A VISIT TO A LUCIFER-MATCH MANU-the larger of the London firms are those of Messrs.

FACTORY.

THE insignificant-looking lucifer match has become one of the indispensable adjuncts of modern civilization. Unknown to the public thirty years ago, it has risen with unprecedented rapidity into popular favor, effectually superseding the flint, steel, and tinder-box so familiar to our forefathers, and which, like the watchman's box, the sedan-chair, and the oil-lamp, have become things of the past, never to be revived in these days of express trains, ocean steamers, and electric telegraphs. The con

Bell and Black, Bryant and May, Hynam, Letchford, and Company, and Bell and Company. The various establishments belonging to these firms are conducted on a most extensive scale, and in a thoroughly scientific manner. Very different are the majority of small manufactories, which are generally so conducted as to be both a danger and a nuisance to the surrounding neighborhood. Mr. White's report is full of descriptive details of visits paid to such places, of which poverty, dirt, and squalor may be said to form the general characteristics. One of these small establishments was situated in a street

respecting which we are told that clothes, or rags, were hanging to dry in all directions, while handtrucks filled with remains of most offensive fish, &c., made locomotion a difficult matter. The matches were made in the living-rooms of the house by the family. 'A long tear between the body and skirt of the frock worn by the little bare-legged girl," says Mr. White, "showed plainly that this was her only covering of any kind; and her mother was equally ill-clothed."

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paraffine, kept in a melted state by means of steam. After both ends of the bundles have been saturated with paraffine, or, if needs be, with brimstone, the splints are taken to the saw-mill, where they are cut into two lengths. When brimstone has been used, the bundles are rolled about by boys, previously to being cut, for the purpose of preventing the splints from clinging to each other. The splints are next carried to one of the framing-rooms. There are two of these, each seventy feet long by thirty-five feet wide, proportionate height, and well ventilated. In these rooms the utmost activity prevails, upwards of three hundred children being employed in placing the prepared matches in frames, previous to the combustible mixture being attached to the ends. In each room there are twenty-four tables, each having a stand for twelve persons.

The moral and social condition of this class of workers is lamentable. They seem to be the lowest of the low, their existence being too often little more than a constant battle with cold and starvation. The introduction of the factory system and mechanical appliances into the manufacture has led to marked results, the health, morals, and remuneration of the workers being in every way improved thereby. The table is similar to a large school desk, but Such is the case at the Lucifer Match Manufactory more upright. An iron frame is placed in a standof Messrs. R. Letchford and Company, Bethnal ing position, and from a quantity of matches lying Green. Passing through the closely populated neigh-on the flat part of it the framer takes and places a borhood of the Cambridge Heath Road, in the di- run at the bottom upon a small piece of board with rection of Old Ford, we find ourselves in Three Colt notches in it to receive fifty, at equal distances apart, Lane, once a pleasant country thoroughfare, with then piles one board upon another, each run having real green hedges and shady trees, but now lined the fifty notches placed in the grooves, and in a few with rows of habitations; the formation of Victoria minutes the task is completed. The whole is then Park having given an unprecedented impetus to screwed tightly together, forming a compact mass. building operations in this remote portion of the Each child takes her full frame, and according to metropolis. In the lane alluded to is the establish- her number each person being known in the ment Messrs. R. Letchford & Co.'s - which it is building by one- a mark is made upon a slate by our purpose to describe. The factory stands in the a person at the end of the room, when at the end of midst of a clear, open space, forming part of the the day the number of frames each has filled is same premises, and consisting in part of grass and counted, and paid for her portion at the end of the garden, the whole covering an extent of more than week. It is curious to the visitor to hear the conone and a half acre. This is in compliance with stant reports of lucifers being trodden upon, but the the provisions of the Metropolitan Building Act, floor being either of stone or iron, all danger of fire which insists that buildings in which dangerous is done away with. manufactures are carried on shall be situate at least fifty feet from any other building, and not less than forty feet from a roadway. This rule, intended to lessen the mischief arising from explosion or fire, has proved indirectly a means of promoting the health of the workers, by affording them a larger supply of pure air than they would otherwise have

obtained.

The premises are divided into two clumps of buildings, in the central one of which the manufacture is principally carried on, the other being devoted principally to the preparing of the wood for the match-boxes, and the manufacture of ink and blacking. The wood used in making the matches consists of the best Canadian pine, a kind of timber which generally possesses an extremely fine grain. The wood is not cut on the premises, but is procured direct from the saw-mills, where, by means of steam machinery, it is cut first into lengths, then into blocks, and subsequently into splints, with beautiful precision. These splints, which are twice the length of the ordinary lucifer match, are made into bundles, each containing from two thousand to two thousand five hundred splints.

--

The

The room in which the composition is mixed and prepared is called the kitchen, and a very important place it is. Great care is required, and the process is performed by two steady and skilful men. ingredients are given to one of the men, who first mixes it in a pan dry, similar to a cook making paste, and when worked with the hands sufficiently, is laid upon a stone or iron slab. Water is then added to it, and a stiff paste made. It is then placed in pans, and a certain quantity of glue added, to make it adhesive to the matches. Steam is used for all the heating processes.

The next process is the dipping, or covering the ends of the splints with the explosive material. A panful of the mixture is taken from the kitchen, and put into a receptacle of hot water, which is kept at a certain heat during the time required. The dipper takes the frames, which are brought by the girls from the framing-room, and (after the mixture is placed upon the iron slab, and regulated by a gauge to about the thickness of one eighth of an inch) dips them into the thin paste, the whole of which is charged with the explosive ingredients.

After the matches have been dipped, they are The first process to which the splints are subjected taken by boys to the drying-rooms. These are three is the scorching. This is effected by placing the in number, one to each dipper, and they are built bundles upon a heated plate, by which means both with every care for the prevention of accident. ends are speedily heated, or charred, to a degree The floor is thickly spread with sawdust, which which greatly facilitates the process of dipping, causes the loose matches to sink under the feet, the heated wood more readily absorbing the melted and thereby escape friction. The rooms are of brimstone or paraffine than would be the case had arched brick, having double iron doors, and should the wood been of the ordinary temperature. From a fire occur, these doors could be closed, and the the tropical-like warmth of the scorching-room the ventilators or air-traps at top let down by the dipsplints are passed (still in bundles) through a win-per, and the rooms hermetically sealed; the fire is dow into a room in which are several pans filled with then smothered. For every frame taken into the

dipping-room, one of a two days' drying is taken out to the packers; and from there being 50 splints in a row, boxes containing 100 or 200 are easily filled, very little calculation being required. Nevertheless, it is surprising to see how dexterously the filling is done, as is also the framing; many of the children not being more than nine or ten years of age, and their little fingers acting like clockwork.

The box-making is the last round in the ladder, and forms a very good concluding part of the process of making a simple box of lucifers. The wood of the boxes is made of the best spruce-fir, pieces of a sufficient length having being placed upon a movable plane, which travels backwards and forwards upon a railroad. When the plane is cutting the wood, it is pulled by means of steam power along the under surface of the block, it being securely held in its place at either end by screws and blocks. The slices are cut with amazing rapidity, and it requires two of these powerful machines to keep supplied the boys who prepare them for the boxes.

that the sportiveness of intimate friendship may have reduced what was originally "Carpenter" to Chips, and supplied the other two gentlemen with titles adapted to their personal merits or peculiarities.

From my relative's memoranda of the overnight's conversation, it would seem to have taken, at times, a warning and apprehensive tone; at other times, to have been jocular, if not reckless. The wet blanket of the party was Dumpsey, whose expressions of condolence could hardly have been more solemn had my uncle been condemned to suffer at daybreak, with all the agreeable formalities at that time incident to high treason!

Chips appears to have followed the lead of Captain Dumpsey, and (if we may assign to him certain appalling incidents of the North Seas, to which my uncle has appended, as authority, " Ch.") with considerable effect. Mr. Bounce seems to have propounded more cheerful views, with especial allusion to the exciting sport his friend was likely to enjoy in those remote isles; while The Tourist has, to all appearance, limited himself to the duty of imparting The boys take the slips or slices, and, in quick to my uncle such local information as he was able to succession, place them upon a block which is gauged afford. In fact, so far as can be guessed, the conwith thin pieces of metal. They then bring downversation must have proceeded something in this upon the slice of wood, with some degree of strength, a block indented with a corresponding gauge, which marks the grain of the piece of wood, so as to double it up into the shape of the box, and cut it off at the same time. One boy can cut or prepare twenty gross an hour.

fashion:

"Tell you what, old fellow," Dumpsey may have said, "going up to this place is n't exactly a hop across Cheapside. If there's any little matter of— of property, in which I can be serviceable as administrator, legatee, and so forth after your in the event of your remaining permanently within the Arctic circle-now, say so."

"Prut! - Pshaw!" probably said my uncle.

"The kraken fishery has been bad this year, they tell me," said Chips, quietly. "Otherwise your friend might have secured a specimen or two of the bottle-nosed whale, and moored them as breakwaters

Other articles, such as vestas, vesuvians, ink, blacking, &c., are made in this establishment; but the processes employed in the manufacture of these do not at present call for particular remark. Some notion may be formed of the enormous quantity of vestas and matches made by Messrs. Letchford and Co., by the assertion that the wax taper used for the vestas measures some 600 miles per week, or suf-in the Irish Channel." ficient, in the course of the year, to go round the circumference of the globe, and leave more than ample length to stretch from England to America and back again. About 24,000,000 vestas are made per week, besides some 60,000,000 paraffine matches.

WHAT WAS IT?

a

MANY years ago not much less, I am concerned to say, than fourscore- it fell, in the line of professional duty, to the lot of my uncle, great unele, you understand, then a young officer of engineers, to visit, of all spots in the earth, the Shetland Isles. His journey, as stated in his note-book, from which this remarkable incident is taken, was connected with the intended restoration of Fort Charlotte, work of Cromwell's day, intended for the protection of the port and town of Lerwick, but which came to considerable sorrow in the succeeding century, when a Dutch frigate, storm-stayed, devoted an autumn evening to knocking it about the ears of the half-dozen old gentlemen in infirm health who constituted the garrison.

--

On the evening that preceded his departure from Chatham, my uncle appears to have given a little supper of adieu, at which were present Captains Clavering and Dumpsey, Messieurs Chips, Bounce, and The Tourist.

Whether the last three gentlemen belonged to the service or not cannot be ascertained. The armylists of that period have been searched in vain for their names, and we are driven to the conjecture

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"He did nearly as well," returned the unabashed Bounce. "Bill was bobbing one day for coalfish in rather deepish water, thousand fathoms or so,when there came a tug that all but pulled his boat under. Bill took several turns round a cleat, and, holding on, made signals to his sloop for assistance. Meanwhile, his boat, towed by the thing he had hooked, set off on a little excursion to the Faro Islands; but a fresh breeze springing up, the sloop contrived to overhaul him, and secure the prize. What do you think it was? You'd never guess. A fine young sea-serpent, on his way to the fiords."

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“I should, I confess, much like to learn, from rational sources," said Captain Clavering, "whether these accounts of mysterious monsters, seen, at long intervals, in the North Seas, have any foundation of truth."

My uncle was disposed to believe they had. It was far from improbable that those wild and unfrequented sea-plains had become the final resort of those mighty specimens of animal life, which it seemed intended by their Creator should gradually disappear altogether. Indifference, the fear of ridicule and disbelief, the want of education, preventing a clear and detailed account, such, no doubt, had been among the causes tending to keep this matter in uncertainty. It was not long since that a portion of a sea-serpent, cast upon the Shetland shores, had been sent to London, and submitted to the inspection of a distinguished naturalist, who (the speaker believed) pronounced it a basking shark.

--

My relative's voyage must have been made under

auspicious circumstances, since, notwithstanding a | Not a sail of any kind was visible on the calm blue brief detention at Aberdeen, a heavy tossing in the sea, but so many coasting and fishing craft lay at miscalled "roost" of Sumburgh, and a dense fog as anchor in the roadstead as to have all the appearthey approached Lerwick, the good ship dropped ance of a wind-bound fleet. Excepting when a anchor in the last-named port on the tenth day. small boat moved occasionally between ship and There were no inns, there are none now in Shet-shore, complete inactivity appeared to prevail; and land, and my uncle took lodgings in the house of this was the more remarkable since the herring seaMrs. Monilees, than whom, he observes, no woman son was near its close, and my uncle was aware that ever less deserved her name. Living must have on the opposite (the eastern) shore every hour of been cheap in those days, for Mrs. Monilees board-propitious weather was being turned to the best ed, lodged, and washed her guest, for eighteenpence a day, and declared she made a handsome profit of him; the only "lee" of which my uncle ever suspected her.

Fort Charlotte was not a work of any remarkable extent, and my uncle's survey and report of all the Dutch had left of her were very soon completed. His orders being to await an answering communication, which could scarcely be expected to arrive in less than a fortnight, abundant leisure was afforded for making excursions in the neighborhood, and he resolved that the first should be directed to the lovely bay and ruined castle of Scalloway.

account.

Here, however, though there were many sailors and fishermen about the beach and quay, lounging, sleeping, or chatting in groups, there was clearly neither preparation nor thought of it. What made this state of things still more unaccountable was that the bay, even to my uncle's inexperienced eye, was absolutely alive with "shoals" of herring and mackerel, clouds of sea-fowl pursuing them and feasting at their will.

The goodwives, if, having their work in their hands, they did not partake of their husbands' idleness, certainly abetted it, since it seemed as if four fifths of them had assembled on the shore and the little quay.

It was then the custom - if it is not still to walk out upon the moorland, catch the first pony you fancied, take him whither you would, and turn Curious to elucidate the mystery, my uncle drew him loose when you'd done with him. Arming near to a man who had just come ashore from a himself, therefore, with a bridle and pad, my un-herring smack, and seemed to be its master, and cle stepped upon the moor, and speedily captured with some difficulty, for the sea-going Shetlanders a likely-looking shelty that had an air of pace. are neither polished nor communicative, drew him The pony seemed perfectly aware what was want- into conversation. ed of him; and, having hastily rubbed noses with a friend, as if requesting him to mention at home that he had been pressed by an obtrusive traveller, but hoped to have done with him, and be back to at once trotted off without guidance towards Scalloway.

supper,

The day was fine overhead, but certain misty wreaths the skirts, as my uncle conjectured, of an adjacent sea-fog-kept sweeping up the valley, crystallizing pilgrim and steed with a saltish fluid, and melting away into the blue.

It was on the lifting of one of these gauzy screens, that my uncle found that he had turned an angle in the road, and was within sight of the village of Scalloway, with its dismantled keep, memorial of the oppression of evil Pate Stewart, Earl of Orkney, hanged a century before, but still (as The Tourist would tell us, were he here) the Black Beast of Orkney and Shetland.

"Would it be possible?" he presently asked, "to visit Fughloe; and on what terms could a smack the skipper's, for instance be chartered for the purpose?"

Fughloe!" repeated the man, with a grin on his bronzed features; "why, fifty pounds." "Fifty what?" shouted my uncle. "For a four hours' sail?"

"You won't get one of us for less," said the man, sullenly, and probably in a different dialect from that into which my uncle has rendered it. " And I would n't tempt you to try it."

"You have done so well with the cod and the herrings this season, that money 's no object, I suppose?"

The man's face grew dark.

"We have done bad," he said, "and we 're doing worser."

"With miles of fish yonder waiting to jump into your nets?"

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Waiting to do what? Why, sir, they knows it just as well as we, perhaps better," was the oracular

66

Know what?"

On a fine clear summer's day the coast scenery of this part is singularly beautiful. From the heights overlooking the picturesque harbor may be traced the blue outline of many of the hundred isles form-reply. ing the Shetland Archipelago, while countless holms * and islets, green with velvety sward, stud the rippling waters. Far to the westward nearly twenty miles, I think heaves up out of the ocean depths the mighty Fughloe, now Foula, Island, Agricola's "Ultima Thule," whose threatening bounds the most daring mariner approaches with reluctance.

66

"Eh! don't you know?" said the man, turning to my uncle; so you're a stranger. Will you come a little way along o' me?" he added, in a tone meant to be civil. My uncle assented.

Passing the remaining cottages, from one of which the skipper procured his telescope, they ascended As my uncle expected, a mist was hanging to sea- the nearest height, until they had opened a large ward, and shut out all the nearer holms and head-portion of the bay towards the west. Then the lands. He therefore devoted the first half-hour to man stopped, and extended his shaggy blue arm in a visit to the castle, being accompanied in his pro- a direction a little to the south of the now invisible gress by four young ladies, carrying baskets of wool- Fughloe. len-work, the produce of island industry, of which, he was sternly informed, it was the custom of every traveller of distinction to purchase about a ton. The mist had by this time cleared considerably.

*The "holm," at low tide, is connected with the main.

The fog's shutting in again," he said; “but you look there, steady. That's what keeps us!"

My uncle did look steadily along the blue arm and the brown finger, till they ended in fog and sea; but in the latter, through the former, he fancied he could distinguish a low, dark object belong

March 17, 1806.]

ing to neither. the precise nature of which was wholly indiscernible.

Now you've got him, sir,” said the man. "Take the glass."

My uncle did so; and directed a long and penetrating gaze at the mysterious object.

Twice he put down the glass, and twice, as if unsatisfied with his observation, raised it again to his eye. "I see the last; "but

the islet — clearer now," he said, at but "

"I know what's a-puzzling you, sir," said the skipper. "You noticed, when we was standing below, that it was two hours' flood; and yet that little islet, as you call it, lifts higher and higher."

"True. It was little more than a-wash when I first made it out," said my uncle; "let me see if—”| he put the glass to his eye. "Why, as I live, it has heaved up thirty feet at least within this minute! Can any rock

99

"There's three hundred fathom good between that rock and the bottom, sir," said the man, quietly. "It's a creature!"

"Good heavens, man! do you mean to tell me that object is a living thing?" "exclaimed my uncle, aghast.

For answer, the man pointed towards it.

ter, apparently many hundred yards in circuit, rose to the height of their sloop's mast, and, breaking off into huge billows, the thunder of which was heard for miles around, created a sea which, distant as was the vessel from the source of commotion, tossed her like an egg-shell.

Traditions of volcanic action are not unknown to the Shetland seamen. Imagining that a phenomenon of this kind was occurring, they at once bore up, and, having the wind free, rapidly increased their distance from the danger, while, in every direction, boats, partaking of their alarm, were seen scudding into port. The appalled seamen glanced back to seaward. The momentary storm had ceased, and the spray and mist raised by the breaking water subsiding, gave to view an enormous object rising, in a somewhat irregular form, many feet above the surface, and-unless the terror of the crew led them to exaggerate not less than half a mile in extent.

"A rock thrown up," was their first idea. One look through the glass dispelled it. The object, whatever it might be, lived, moved, was rolling round or, at all events, swinging with a heavy lateral movement, like a vessel deeply laden, the outline changing every moment; while, at intervals, a mountainous wave, as if created by some gigantic "wallow," would topple over the smoother sea.

-

His fingers trembling with excitement, my uncle could not for a moment adjust the glass. When he did so, a further change had taken place, and the Dusk was closing in when the sealing-boat reachdispersing mist afforded him for the first time a dis-ed the quay. They had been closer to the montinet and uninterrupted view. strous visitor than any, except one small craft, young Peter Magnus's, which had had to stand out to sea, but was now seen approaching. When she arrived, nearly the whole population was assembled, and assailed her crew with eager question. Peter looked grave and disturbed, ("T is a young fellow, I'm afeerd, without much heart," said the skipper,) and seemed by no means sorry to set foot on shore.

At a distance from the nearest point of shore which my uncle's professional eye estimated at a league and a half, there floated, or rather wallowed, in the sea a shapeless brownish mass, of whose dimensions it was impossible to form any conception whatever; for while at times it seemed to contract to the length of perhaps a hundred feet, with a breadth of half that measure, there were moments when, if the disturbance and displacement of the water might indicate movements of the same animal, its appalling proportions must have been measured by rods, poles, and furlongs!

Through the skipper's glass, which was an excellent one, my uncle observed that its height out of the water had diminished by nearly half; also, that clouds of sea-fowl were whirling and hovering about the weltering mass, though without, so far as he could distinguish, daring to settle upon it.

Fascinated by an object which seemed sent to rebuke his incredulity, in placing before his eyes this realization of what had been hitherto treated as fantastic dreams, my uncle continued to gaze, rooted to the spot, until the mist, in one of its perpetual changes, shut out the object altogether, when the skipper, touching his hat, made a movement to descend.

"It's neither rock, nor wreck, nor whale, nor serpent, nor anything we know of here," was all that could be got from Peter, but one of his hands, who had taken a steadier look at the creature, declared that it made intelligent movements; also, that, in rolling, it displayed its flanks, which were reddish brown, and covered with bunches as big as botheys, and things like stunted trees! Pressed as to its size, he thought it might be three quarters to a mile round, but there was more below!

And so

"Not many of us fishermen turned in that night," the skipper went on to say. "We were up and down to the beach continually; for, the night being still, we could hear the beast, and from its surging, and a thundering noise that might be his blowing, we thought he might be shifting his berth. he was; for at daybreak he worked to the east'ard, and has lain moored ever since where you saw. But we still hear him, and the swell he makes comes right up to our boats in the harbor. Why don't we venture out a mile or so? This is why. Because, if he's a quarter so big as they say-and, sir, I'm afeerd to tell you what that is-supposin' he made up his mind to go down, he'd suck down a seventyfour, if she were within a mile of him. We're losing our bread, but we must bide his pleasure, or rather, God's, that sent him," concluded the honest skipper, "come what will on it."

On their way back to the village, the seaman told my uncle that, about a week before, the bay of Scalloway, and indeed all the neighboring estuaries, had become suddenly filled with immense shoals of every description of fish, the take of herrings alone being such as to bid fair to more than compensate for the losses of the season. Three days before, while the bustle was at its height, the wind light from sou'-sou'-west, and smooth sea, a sealing-boat from Papa Stour, approaching Scalloway, had rounded Skelda Ness, and was running across the bay, "There was one chance for us," he presently addwhen one of the crew gave notice of an extraordi- ed. "The Sapphire, surveying ship, is expected nary appearance, about a mile distant, on the weath- every day, and some think the captain would n't er bow. The next moment, a mighty globe of wa-mind touching him up with his carronades; but