commanded her, in the tone of a queen, not
to humble herself. The marriage was soon
celebrated; and all the people were glad for
three weeks.

Then, certain great families, who had
hoped to raise one of their daughters to
the throne, began to stir up dissatisfaction.
A revolt was imminent. So, the prince
making his preparations secretly, stole away
one night, with his wife and Mathias, and the
wife Mathias, and they hastened in the
direction of Ardesh: leaving the people of
in once more without a sovereign. On
their way they met a cobbler escaping from his
creditors, and informed him of the good
fortune that awaited him if he arrived in time at
Goran. Whether he succeeded to the throne
they never knew; for they hastened with
all speed back to Damascus, and thence to
Egypt, and gladdened the heart of Zacharias:
who lived long to witness the happiness of
his son, who had been a prince, and of his
new daughter who had been a beggar.

PILCHARDS.

THE peninsula which juts out sharply
into the Atlantic at the south-western
extremity of our island has a fringe of little
fishes, like other portions of the coast. They
may be herrings, or mackerel, or what not;
but we mean to attend here only to the little
fishes called pilchards, because they are more
important to Cornishmen than any other
fish; and because very few of our other
counties know anything about them. They
belong especially, to the land of the logan, the
land of cromlechs and tors, the land of
Land's Ends, the land of bold coasts, rocky
stones, rich mines, Celtic remains, bold
fishers. If you mount the tower of Buryan
church, between Penzaune and the Logan
Stone, and look around you, you master three
quarters of a circle of sea view; and this
comprises many a spot where the pilchard
fishery is carried on; but not all. There
are eastern bays, and creeks, and nooks,
beyond the range of lofty Buryan.

The pilchard is a very kind friend to the
Cornishmen. It not only supplies them with
one of their articles of food, but benefits
them in other ways. Cornwall, we must
remember, is a granite country, a copper
country, a tin country, a hard stern country,
in many of its natural features. Its western
half has so many of these bits of sternness,
that there are not arable fields enough to
grow corn, and, not rich grass enough to
fatten cattle. Corn and meat are,
consequently, likely to be scanty and dear in
comparison with those of many other counties;
and thus the Cornishman of low degree is
driven to his own resources. The fisheries
become of great value to him, and the
pilchard perhaps more than any other fish.

Many a Londoner would not know a
pilchard if he met with it in his dish; he
might perchance mistake it for a herring,
which it somewhat resembles in size; but the
pilchard is fatter, the scales are larger and
adhere more closely than in the herring,
which it resembles in taste, but which is
stronger. The pilchard is indeed sometimes
called the gipsy herring, in right of a certain
amount of family resemblance. Its average
length is probably nine inches. As to
the natural home of the pilchard,
inquirers seem to be somewhat puzzled. A
few pilchards make their appearance
occasionally, in the Forth, about October;
a shoal, once now and then, appears on the
Devonshire coast; a lucky day in eighteen
hundred and thirty-four sent so many pilchards
into Poole that they were sold there at
a penny a dozen. A fishery of pilchards is
carried on to a small extent at Bantry Bay; a
few are caught occasionally near Dublin and
Belfast; a few likewise find their way into
the herring-nets off Yarmouth; and Mr.Yarrell
records, as a notable achievement, that he
once caught a pilchard in the Thames. But,
the coast of Cornwall is, beyond any other
locality, that in which the pilchard is most
met with. They are found at all seasons
of the year; but it is only from June to
September that the fishery is carried on to any
considerable extent. The vast shoals appear
in three principal localities between Start
Point and the Lizard, between the Lizard
and the Land's End, and about St. Ives on
the north coast of the county. The shoals
divide and subdivide, and rejoin and divide
again. The reasons for these movements are
not well ascertained: it is possible that,
having eaten up all the young shrimps and
other small crustaceous animals (their principal
food) in one part of the sea, they separate
to seek pastures new.

The Coruishmen having reason to look
anxiously to the maintenance of the
fisheries, every little cove, bay, or creek which
promises a tolerable haul, is well fished
by them. There may not be a regular
fishing community, but several poor families
may have a fishing-boat among them,
by the aid of which a small supply may
be obtained for their own food, and perhaps
a little salted or dried for their future use,
and another portion sold to their neighbours.
If there should be many weeks of continuous
stormy weather, which is not unlikely in
moist Cornwall, the poor people on the coast
may be driven to hard shifts. The pilchard,
however, is not fished merely in this humble
way; it is fished on a large scale, and
returns fair profits to the capitalists who can
provide boats, and nets, and other tackle, in a
sufficiently ample manner. It is not in one
part alone of the Cornish coast that this
branch of productive employment is carried
on. It centres at St. Ives in the north, and
at Mevagissy and Looe and Fowey in the
south-east, and at St. Mawes and Falmouth