On being brought into the yards, the herrings are emptied into large square wooden boxes called ‘forelands,’ many of which are under a roof, so that the women who gut the fish may be protected from the heat of the sun or the inclemency of the weather. To those who see them for the first time in a heavy fishing-night, the gutters count one of the sights of the trade; and their persons, as they appear clad in oilskins and besmeared with blood from head to foot, reminds one of an Indian in his war-paint fresh from battle. These women, from a life-long experience, show the greatest dexterity in their work; and the rapidity with which they seize a herring, enter the knife at its gills, remove the gut, and throw the offal into one tub and the fish into another, is one of the features of the business, and, in the eyes of a stranger, appears part of a juggler’s education. In the course of an afternoon and evening, one crew of women—comprising two gutters and one packer—will have a good many rows of barrels at their credit, representing earnings of from ten to twenty shillings. On all occasions when the fishing is heavy, these women are obliged to work at any hour; and as it often happens that the boats are late in arriving, curing operations go on all night, rendering a curing-yard, if not a pretty, an interesting sight. From end to end of the premises are rows of forelands heaped with herrings, whose silvery scales glitter in the light thrown from the blazing naphtha lamps suspended overhead, the rays of which, again, play upon the surface of the water in the harbour in a way that recalls memories of historic cities by sea and lake.