HOUSES AND FOOD OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERMEN.

The fishermen's houses are one story high, built of wood growing on the island, and covered with boards and shingles imported from Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick. It was long customary to erect the walls with upright posts stuck in the ground; but an improvement prevails by building the wooden walls on a stone foundation. Sometimes an additional building is joined called a "lean to,"which is either in one room-a kind of parlour -or is divided into sleeping apartments. There is usually not more than one large fire-place, which is in the kitchen, and around which, in winter, all the inmates of the house assemble when the labours of the day are over. In the chimneys they smoke their salmon, or hang up the hams of the pigs reared in the island. On each side of the chimney there are often benches, with coops underneath for poultry, which, from the warmth of the dwellings, lay eggs all winter.

The usual diet of the people is made up of biscuit, potatoes, fish, salt pork, and bohea tea. Spruce beer is a very common and wholesome beverage, particularly for people who live much on fish and salt meat. The process of making it is simple. A few black spruce branches are chopped into small pieces, and put into a pot containing six or eight gallons of water, and boiled for several hours. The liquor is then strained and put into a cask that will contain eighteen gallons. Molasses is added in the proportion of one gallon to eighteen, a part of the grounds of the last brewing, and a few hops, if at hand, are also put in; and the cask, filled up with cold water, is left to ferment; in twenty-four hours it becomes fit for use. Spirits are frequently mixed with spruce beer to make the drink named callibogus. From the cheapness of rum, the labouring people, though by no means generally, acquire habits of drinking, which they have only resolution to resist by swearing, by the cross, or the gospel, that they will not taste rum or spirits of any kind. This act is called kegging, extending to one or more years and often for life.

The inhabitants are generally very healthy; but from living much on flesh, fish, and oily food, fevers or small pox, when imported into the island from other places, are generally fatal, and occasion great mortality. Consumptions do not appear to be so frequent as on the continent of America. The air, though raw and cold, seems to invigorate the constitutions of the people; and their strength in old age, when we consider the life of unremitting labour which they necessarily lead, is surprising: men and women at the age of eighty, are frequently observed attending the fish flakes.

The great and primary business of the people of Newfoundland is, that of pursuing and catching the inhabitants of the ocean. If habit, as it is generally allowed, becomes nature, the Newfoundlanders are naturally, from their pursuits, certainly the most adventurous and fearless men in the world. Courage and industry, which certainly prevail, are to them absolutely necessary.

The seal fishery, as it is generally termed, has only become important within the present century. It is little more than thirty years since the first vessels ventured among those formidable fields of ice that float from the northern regions during the months of March, April, and May, down to the coast of Newfoundland. Those who are acquainted with the terrific grandeur, particularly during stormy weather, of the lofty islands and mountains of ice, covering often from 200 to 300 miles of the ocean, and occasionally arrested by the coasts or shoals, will admit, that it requires more intrepidity to brave the dangers of these elements than to encounter a military fortification.

STATEMENT of the Number, Tonnage, and Crews of Vessels employed in the Seal Fishery of the Port of St. John, Newfoundland, in each Year from 1830 to 1844.

STATEMENT of the Quantities and Value of the Principal Articles of Produce Exported from Newfoundland, in each Year from 1838 to 1843.

Taking the year 1843, the gross value of this portion of the exports amounts to no less than 839,260l., and in 1843 to

The value of merchandize imported during the year 1842 is given officially as follows:

Labrador Fishery.-During the fishing season, from 280 to 300 schooners proceed from Newfoundland to the different fishing stations on the coast of Labrador, where about 20,000 British subjects are employed for the season. About one-third of the schooners make two voyages, loaded with dry fish, back to Newfoundland, during the summer; and several merchant vessels proceed from Labrador with their cargoes direct to Europe, leaving generally full cargoes for the

fishing vessels to carry to Newfoundland. A considerable part of the fish of the second voyage is in a green or pickled state, and dried afterwards at Newfoundland. Eight or nine schooners from Quebec frequent the coast, having on board about eighty seamen and 100 fishermen. Some of the fish caught by them is sent to Europe, and the rest carried to Quebec; besides which they carry annually about 6000l. worth of furs, oil, and salmon to Canada. From Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but chiefly from the former, 100 to 120 vessels resort to Labrador; the burden of these vessels may amount to 6000 or 7000 tons, carrying about 1200 seamen and fishermen. They generally carry the principal part of their cargoes home in a green state.

One-third of the resident inhabitants are English, Irish, or Jersey servants, left in charge of the property in the fishing rooms, and who also employ themselves in the spring and fall, catching seals in nets. The other two-thirds live constantly at Labrador, as furriers and seal-catchers, on their own account, but chiefly in the former capacity, during winter, and all are engaged in the fisheries during summer. Half of these people are Jerseymen and Canadians, most of them have families.

From 16,000 to 18,000 seals are taken at Labrador in the beginning of winter and in spring. They are very large; and the Canadians and other winter residents, are said to feast and fatten on their flesh. About 4000 of these seals are killed by the Esquimaux. The whole number caught produce 350 tuns of oil, value about 80007.

There are six or seven English houses, and four or five Jersey houses, established at Labrador unconnected with Newfoundland, who export their fish and oil direct to Europe.

The quantity exported, in 1831, to the Mediterranean was about 54,000 quintals of codfish, at 10s. per quintal

1,050 tierces of salmon, at 60s. per tierce. To England, about

200 tuns of cod oil.

£27,000

3,150

5,200

Total direct export from Labrador

Produce sent direct to Newfoundland from Labrador: 32,120 quintals of codfish, at 10s. per quintal, best quality

312,000

at 8s.

1,800 tuns of cod oil, at 20s. per tun.

13,750

840

52,000

Ditto, carried to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, should be in value at least

Estimated value of the produce of Labrador, exclusive of what the Moravians} £302,050

send to London*

The Labrador fishery has, since 1814, increased more than sixfold, principally in consequence of our fishermen being driven from the grounds now occupied by the French.

The Moravians, whose principal settlement on the coast of Labrador is at Nain, have a ship annually from London, which leaves the Thames in May or June, and arrives at Nain in July, from whence it returns in September, laden with a valuable cargo of furs, oils, &c., for London. My inquiries respecting these people have not been successful. They fixed themselves in three different harbours of Labrador, about the middle of the last century. Their intercourse with, and settlements at, Greenland, led them to this region. Their habits are simple; and the quiet and unobserved life they lead is of a nature which leaves to few in America, or elsewhere, the knowledge of their existence. Their trade is wholly with the Esquimaux, in the way of bartering coarse cloths, powder, shot, guns, and edge tools, for furs, oils, &c.

NOVA SCOTIA, CAPE BRETON, AND ST. LAWRENCE FISHERIES,

These fisheries might be carried on to any extent which a demand for supplying the markets of the world would justify. The coasts of Nova Scotia which we have already described, abound with excellent harbours, admirably adapted for carrying on the fisheries. The inhabitants about St. George's Bay, the strait of Canso, Chedabucto Bay, and the opposite shores are mostly engaged in fishing; the country near the Atlantic being generally rocky and sterile, render the fisheries the more available occupations. Many of the inhabitants of Chester, Mahon Bay, Liverpool, and Shelburne, are also engaged in the fisheries. Cod, mackarel, herring, shad, allwives, salmon, halibut, sturgeon, sole, and other kinds of fish frequent the coast, and exclusive of gypsum, coal, and timber, the exports of Nova Scotia consist nearly altogether of the produce of the fisheries.

The cod and herring fisheries of Prince Edward's Island, which might be greatly increased, have, in consequence of the superior agricultural advantages of that colony, been chiefly confined to fishing for domestic use; and the same remark applies, with some exceptions, to the opposite shores of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick within the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Within the Bay de Chaleur there have long been fishing establishments, * These statements are made at the most depressed prices, and not at the average prices, which would increase the gross value to 342,400%. The Americans of the United States had, in the year 1829, about 500 vessels and 1500 men employed on the coast, and their catch amounted to 1,100,000 quintals of fish, and about 3000 tuns of oil; value altogether about 610,000%.

and the cod fisheries at Gaspé, Perée, Paspabiac, Shippigan, Caraquette, and other places; the salmon fishery in the river Rustigouche was formerly carried on at a profit and to a considerable extent.

BAY DE CHALEUR FISHERIES.--Two miles below Carlisle is the settlement of Paspabiac, inhabited chiefly by Acadian French, who employ themselves principally in fishing. There are, also, several people from Jersey, attached to the highly respectable fishing establishment of Messrs. Robins and Co. The harbour, or lagoon of Paspabiac admits only very small schooners and boats; but ships and large schooners ride safely at anchor in the road. The fish stores, flakes, &c., are ranged along a very fine beach, where the people connected with the fisheries are incessantly employed during the summer and autumn; in winter they retire back near the woods. Messrs. Robins' establishment was formed, I believe, about sixty years ago, by the elder partner and parent of the firm; and its admirable plan of systematic management, the essential characteristics of which are ceaseless industry, frugality, and prudent caution, and particularly in having no one engaged about the business that is not usefully or productively employed, has long secured to it the most solid prosperity. During summer, their ships, ten, or often more, in number, are moored in the road, with their top-masts and yards lowered, and the whole, I believe, given in charge to one master and his crew, while the other masters with their crews, are despatched in shallops to various parts of the bay, either to fish, or collect the cured fish from the fishermen who receive their sup-plies from Messrs. Robins and Co. In autumn, the ships depart with full cargoes of the best fish for ports in Portugal, Spain, and within the Mediterranean. They have, also, a ship-building establishment, where they have built a ship annually, principally of larch. They are remarkably durable ships.

GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE WHALE FISHERY.-The whales caught within the Gulf of St. Lawrence are those called "humpbacks," which yield, on an average, about three tuns of oil; some have been taken seventy feet long, which produced eight tuns. The mode of taking them is somewhat different from that followed by the Greenland fishers; and the Gaspé fishermen first acquired an acquaintance with it from the people of Nantucket. An active man, accustomed to boats and schooners, may become fully acquainted with every thing connected with this fishery in one season. The vessels best adapted for the purpose are schooners, of from seventy to eighty tons burden, manned with a crew of eight men, including the master. Each schooner requires two boats, about twenty feet long, built narrow and sharp, and with pink sterns; and 220 fathoms of line are necessary in each boat, with spare harpoons and lances. The men row towards the whale, and, when they are very near, use paddles, which make less noise than oars. Whales

*One of those vessels which I saw moored in 1824, among the small fleet of Messrs. Robins in the bay De Chaleur, I went on board of afterwards, in 1839, in the port of Messina, where the vessel, then more than thirty years old, and perfectly sound, was discharging, in excellent condition, a cargo of dry codfisli to feed the Sicilians.