Fishing is the most important industry in Coruña, and excellent ice factories recently planted in the neighbourhood have given the trade a wonderful impetus. Formerly, for want of ice to keep the fish cool, a great deal was spoiled, and it was almost impossible to make use of the fish caught, or to send it to any great distance, in a country where the sun is so powerful. But now ice factories supply the fishing-smacks with ice, and they can go out and fish four days consecutively, the ice they take with them keeping the fish cool and fresh. Ice is also used in great quantities for packing the fish destined for Madrid, where the demand is still greater than the supply. Every evening a special fish train leaves Coruña at 6 p.m. for Madrid. There is tremendous bustle and excitement among the fisher-folk before the train starts. We stood on the wharf one afternoon and watched the smacks come in, their decks piled high with silvery sardines. Women and children helped to carry the sardines up the gangway in baskets balanced on their heads, and, depositing them in the warehouse, proceeded to wash them in the running water and place them with lightning speed in the wooden boxes ready to receive them. The sardines were thrown into the boxes in handfuls, spread out, and sprinkled with salt, till the boxes were almost full, and then a carefully assorted row was laid on top. Each basket that was filled with sardines from the newly arrived boat was so heavy that it took four persons to lift it on to a woman’s head! Since the latest appliances for the production of ice have reached Coruña, that commodity has become cheap and plentiful, and consequently the price that the inhabitants have to pay for fish for their own tables has risen tremendously. Before there was ice available for packing fish and preserving it, sardines were so cheap that they were almost given away, and the poor made them their principal food. They are now a delicacy which the very poor cannot afford to buy.