{"id":166,"date":"2020-03-28T20:24:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T20:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/?page_id=166"},"modified":"2021-07-12T19:31:46","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T19:31:46","slug":"606-household-words-conducted-by","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/household-words-2\/606-household-words-conducted-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Pg. 606"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Household<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

606 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by<\/p>\n\n\n\n

several days; after which Abu\nMunchar, hearing of his fate and repenting of what he had done, went and\nprocured his release, and took him to his palace near the Zeynab gate.\nHere;\u2014strange to say, but the ways of Allah are inscrutable\u2014quiet, and good\nfeeding, and clean clothing, restored him to his wits. The wag appointed him as\none of his servants, and he remained a long time in tranquillity without\nalluding to what had taken place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At length, however, one day, Ali\nthe barber, being merry, said to his master :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cO merry man, where is that\nplace where the wise and happy congregate, and where it is possible to call up\nby the mere will all that is beautiful and magnificent in the world, and to\nenjoy without trouble the fruits of power and wealth ? \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThou hast already been there,\u201d\nreplied Abu Munchar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember not. What manner of\nplace is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Morist\u00e2n!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE LIFE OF A SALMON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No creature can well have a quieter birthplace than the trout which is spawned in the Bann. The Bann is not, on the whole, a quiet river, for it has a prodigious deal of work to do, and it does its work in a prodigious bustle at times; though occasionally it relaxes some- what, and seems to remember the great truth, that nothing is worth the loss of composure. The work that the Bann has to do is to carry away into the sea all the water that other rivers pour into the largest lake of our three kingdoms\u2014Lough Neagh. This lake measures eighty miles round; and several rivers pour their waters into it, while there is only this one river Bann to carry them away. So it must move quickly to get its work done; and it does push on, and drive between its banks, and fume and splash at a grand rate, where rocks are obstinate in refusing to get out of its way. In other spots, whence the rocks got rolled away ages ago, and where thick woods overhang the stream, its current becomes not less rapid but more still. Clear, deep, and dark, it there flows on swiftly and silently. There it is that the salmon, if they are wise, look about them for some little cove \u2014some recess in the banks\u2014which is seldom violently flooded, but which receives a gentle ripple as the stream sweeps by. In such a little cove, with a floor of pure sand, the eggs of the salmon may lie unharmed by any dis\u00adturbance till they are hatched. Some of the fish deposit their spawn where the waters lash the sand, or where animals like to drink, and there the eggs come to nothing and are lost. This is now so well understood, that in some places (in one place in France particu\u00adlarly) fishermen are making fortunes by look\u00ading in good time to the eggs and milt, and seeing that they are deposited in favourable places. Hundreds of thousands, aye, countless millions of fish may be provided for human food by this simple precaution, for want of which some of our Scotch and English rivers are supplying less and less salmon every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a quiet pool, with its\nclean sandy bottom, does the fish pass its earliest days. From its first\nwriggle as a minute insect (as we should call it if we could see it at that\nstage of its life) to its first use of its fins and tail, that little pool is\nits world; Its world is quite big enough for it, and altogether beyond its\ncomprehension. Even there it is not wholly beyond the reach of the tides\u2014not\nshut out from the influences of the moon, and the laws which keep a universe\nfull of firma\u00adments in their due place and order: but the little fish is very\nlike us in being frightened, and fancying that everything is out of order when\nany commotion happens that it did not foresee; If it suppose that the universe\nwas made for the sake of infant trout, it may well be alarmed when a strong\nripple spreads over its pool, and the water makes a bubble or two against the\nbank ;\u2014just as men used to take for granted that the world was coming to an end\nwhen there was an eclipse; or when an unusual aurora borealis turned the calm,\ncool night sky into a blood-red dome. Mankind has grown wiser with experience,\nand is learning that all goes on in the noblest and most: regular and stedfast\nway under laws which never change ; so that the wise man fears nothing : and\neven the infant trout grows bolder and happier as it learns more of its own\nworld of waters. It wields its fins, it practises with its tail; it finds it\ncan rise to the surface, and drop down to the sand, and get into the shade at\nnoon under the roots of some water-loving tree, or make new glancing lights in\nthe shallows by playing off its scales in the sunshine. By degrees, it goes out\nfurther into the current, and delights in being swept along by it, even though\nit is whirled away from its own native cove. It may not be for ever. In a year\nor two it may come up the stream again\u2014as so many do every season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meantime, down it goes; not all at once, but as may suit its growing strength and size, and the provision of food it finds. Towards the end of winter the waters grow cold. The melting snows make them chilly. The salt water will be warmer; and the young creature is strong enough now to bear a salt-water life. So down it goes; faster and faster. It does not know why, but it is carried on faster and faster, under banks where the hazels are hanging out their catkins, and the willow\u00adpalm its velvet tufts. Here and there a well- sheltered primrose puts forth a pale bud, in some hollow of the bank, and the wild ducks are making a splutter among the ripening reeds. But now the river rushes so fast that the sun-gleams are like lightning, and there is a tumbling roar like thunder, and a splash like a deluge. On shoots the little creature, setting its rudder\u2014that is, its tail\u2014steady, like the older fish that go before, and in a trice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

606 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by several days; after which Abu Munchar, hearing of his fate and repenting of what he had done, went and procured his release, and took him to his palace near the Zeynab gate. Here;\u2014strange to say, but the ways of Allah are inscrutable\u2014quiet, and good feeding, and clean clothing, restored him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":664,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-166","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions\/732"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}