At a point on the gulf of Smyrna, a productive fishery is at present carried on in a very ingenious manner. The shore being low and level, a continuous sweep of reed-fences is stretched along, so as to enclose a considerable space of water, and furnished at intervals with gates, which are raised occasionally for letting in the shoals. The avenues are then closed, and the fish taken with facility. On the coast of China a similar fishery is found, lines of mats being substituted for reeds.[1461] ----- Footnote 1461: Chandler, i. 85. Cf. 151. Osbeck, Voyage to China, i. 199. ----- There was a small, but apparently productive, fishery in the canton of Marathon.[1462] The right of fishing in the salt stream of the Rheitæ was secured by law to the priests of Eleusis,[1463] whose city was famous for the scombros as well as for soles or turbots.[1464] ----- Footnote 1462: Paus. i. 32. 7. Meurs. Rel. Att. c. viii. p. 32. Chandler. ii. 184. Footnote 1463: Paus. i. 38. 1. ii. 24. 6. Chandler, ii. 210. Footnote 1464: Athen. vii. 24. ----- CHAPTER VIII. COMMERCE OF DORIC STATES. On the commerce of Greece, which would supply materials for an interesting work, it is not my design to enter into very numerous details, though a brief view of the subject belongs to this undertaking. The blessings of commerce are well understood in our times, and the grand scale upon which it is now conducted may perhaps induce some to look back with something like contempt on its feeble beginnings in the Mediterranean.[1465] There, however, lay the centre of that circle which has gone on increasing until it at length embraces the whole world, and almost renders the most distant races necessary to each other. It must be interesting, therefore, to look “O’er the dark backward and abysm of time,” at the first movements of men towards forging the links of this chain which binds together the whole human race in one society, disturbed sometimes by evil passions, but cohering nevertheless, and apparently becoming more interfused daily. ----- Footnote 1465: The reader will find in the work of Monsieur F. Thiersch, De l’Etat actuel de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 72, sqq., an interesting and instructive chapter on the trade carried on by the descendants of that people whose manners and customs I have undertaken to describe. He there enters at length into the advantageous position of the country, and the upright and honourable character of its inhabitants, of whose singular probity he produces many proofs. Other writers have taken a different view of the modern Greek character. But I am disposed to place more reliance on the statement of M. Thiersch than on that of those prejudiced travellers who desire to obtain a reputation for exactness by an ill-natured interpretation of a free people whose hospitality they have enjoyed, and in too many cases abused. -----