beachmen are too wise to risk, even if they
could raise it. It is said the Reindeer can go
through the water at the rate of sixteen
miles an hour.

The Yorkshire cobles, from Whitby and
Scarborough, scarcely belong to this place.
Their arrival is announced by a copious
importation of pickled mushrooms and live
periwinkles, which latter are seen lying about
the quay in cartloads, causing a rise in the
price of pins, and a public fit of indigestion,
which puts an end to the game of "pin-
patches," "pin-paunches," or "winkles,"—the
vulgar name of that amusing and savoury
mollusc, which learned men style Litorina
litorea. As soon as the cobles have done
their work, they speed back again. The
decked boats, of from forty to fifty tons burden,
are the herring-boats. Weather, which
would drive feeble cockle-shells, like the
Hastings boats, into harbour, only makes
these buoyant things drop anchor, and
resolve to face the storm, and ride it out.
In that position they have even been rolled
over by the waves—turned completely topsy-
turvy—and yet have gone on with their
fishing afterwards, as if nothing had happened.
Some of their ballast sticking to the underside
or ceiling of their deck, just served to prove
the somersets that had been executed.

But Great Yarmouth has been possessed of
more important, though perhaps not more
useful craft than herring-boats. Not to
mention the forty-three ships, and upwards, of
one thousand sailors, with which, in 1347,
she furnished the King's Majesty, for the
siege and capture of Calais—in later times
she sent fourteen or fifteen sail of whalers to
Greenland. Two of them, the Norfolk and
the Trelawney, still survive and are serviceable,
although they have nearly reached the
age of three-score years and ten—far beyond
the usual limit of a ship's life. But a vessel
of yet more advanced age had, and may still
have, her home in this port,—the Betsy,
ætat. eighty, or thereabouts. She has lately
been renovated and reconstructed, at a cost
greater than that of a new ship, retaining all
the old-fashioned peculiarities of her build,
which have been severely tested by her
having weathered the destructive gales of
October, 1851.

A word on the shrimpers before bidding
adieu to the Yarmouth fleet. Shrimp eaters
are aware of the great difference, in flavour
and appearance, between the red and the
brown species. Both are caught here, but in
very different localities. The brown, or "flatnose
kind." is taken along shore, and in the
harbour; the red sort only in the roads, or
out at sea. The present mode and locality of
the red shrimp fishery was accidentally
discovered some fifty or sixty years ago. The
lucky hit was made by some boats that were
employed in recovering lost anchors by a
process which is called "sweeping." Two
boats, at a certain distance from each other,
proceed up and down the roads, having a
loose rope suspended between them, at the
middle of which is fastened a large fish-
basket, or "swill," partly laden with stones
to sink it. By these means the place of the
anchor at the bottom is ascertained; and it
is then raised. But in particular states of
the tide, it was found that the swill, when
brought to the surface, was filled with red
shrimps. The men took the hint, kept their
own counsel, got nets made, and, for a time,
had the first gathering of the harvest, soon
to be shared with others. There are now
about eighty sail of shrimp boats, quite a
little fleet by themselves. But they complain
that the dredging of the new-discovered
oyster beds has spoiled their fishery, by
breaking up the shrimp grounds; and they
are now obliged to go southwards into "the
lake," towards Corton, for a satisfactory
catch.

But we must neither forget that we are
visiting lands but lately thrown up by the
sea, nor the troublesome consequences of such
a recent appearance. A bar of sand thrown
across so wide an estuary whence three
rivers have to find an outlet, whether
separately or in union, is not likely to be allowed
to establish itself quietly, without some
difficulties being raised. People who run
down to Gorleston, on the Suffolk side of
the harbour, once or twice in the year, for
the sake of the breezy walk on the pier, the
busy groups of shipping, and the curious
network of reflected waves to be seen at high
water on its southern side; holiday people
seldom think of the care and expense during
hundreds of years which this pleasant, as well
as useful, platform has taken to erect. Ladies
and gentlemen who come here simply to
enjoy themselves, do not dream that it has
been no holiday to Yarmouth to put the
harbour into its actual working trim.

The present haven's mouth, which now
discharges its waters with such force and
decision, having at last been "broughte into
one certeyn course to ronne out into the sea
betwene two great peeres," is the seventh
which, by the persevering industry of
Yarmouth men, "was newe trenched and
cutte out over the Denne into the sea." The
whole history of the harbour manifests the
wearing difficulties arising from a continued
contention with the changing condition, both
of the coast, and of the inland tract of country.
"From the tenth yere of Kynge Edward the
Thirde, for x yeres the course of the haven
began to be thought verye longe and tediouse,
by reason of much Sande, brought into the
same by the rage of the Sea, that caused many
shoulders (shoals) therein, and partlie by
reason moste of the marsh groundes became
firm land. The which marshes and fennes
could not receive the fluddes in such plentifull
maner as they were accustomed." Yarmouth
may therefore be pardoned for showing a
sensitive jealousy on the whole subject of her