On crossing the banks of Newfoundland the ship was hove to, for the purpose of sounding; and the quarter-master having tied a baited hook to the deep-sea lead, a noble cod was drawn to the surface, from the depth of ninety fathoms. Upon this hint, the captain, very considerately, agreed to lie by for an hour or two; and some fifty lines being put over, the decks were soon covered, fore and aft, with such a display of fish as Bilingsgate has rarely witnessed. People who know nothing of a sea life fancy that fish is not a rarity with us; but there is nothing of which we taste so little; so that the greatest treat by far, when we come into port, is a dish of fresh soles or mackerel; and even the commonest fish that swims is looked upon as a treasure. It is only in soundings that any are to be met with; for, in the open and bottomless ocean, we meet with nothing but whales, porpoises, dolphins, sharks, bonitas, and flying fish. I shall, perhaps, have occasion to describe the mode of catching, dressing, and eating, all of these: for we demolish them all, excepting only the shark, between which and the sailors there rages an interminable war—something not unlike that which exists, from age to age, between the Indians and the Esquimaux—in which the sharks may be compared to the Indians, who eat their prisoners, and we to the Esquimaux, who only kill their captives, but prefer eating something else. I never could conceive, or even form a probable conjecture, how it is that some persons manage to catch fish, and others none. It is easy to understand, that in angling, a certain degree of skill, or choice of situation, may determine the probable amount of success. But when a line is let down to the depth of eighty or a hundred fathoms, or even to twenty or thirty feet, quite out of sight, what has skill to do there? And yet, in a ship, on the banks of Newfoundland, or in a boat on the Thrumcap shoals in Halifax harbour, I have seen one man hauling in cods or haddocks as fast as he could bait his hooks; while others, similarly circumstanced in all apparent respects, might fret and fidget for half a day without getting more than a nibble.