{"id":169,"date":"2020-03-28T20:35:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T20:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/?page_id=169"},"modified":"2021-07-12T19:31:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T19:31:52","slug":"charles-dickens-the-life-of-a-salmon-607","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/household-words-2\/charles-dickens-the-life-of-a-salmon-607\/","title":{"rendered":"Pg. 607"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Household<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charles Dickens.] THE LIFE OF A SALMON. 607<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it is over the Falls of the Bann,\nand beginning, to feel what the salt water is like. Still the old fish promise\nthat it shall see its native cove again. It must be done by leaping this\nbarrier of rocks; but thousands of salmon do that every year. What fish has\ndone, fish may do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, a\nshroud of mystery encloses the life of the salmon. During the first year its\nage is known by the state of its scales; and its generation is then called\ngrilse, or grailse, or grawls. After that, its mode of living is so com\u00adpletely\nlost sight of that there is not a natu\u00adralist, nor a fisherman, along the whole\nnorth coast of Ireland who can tell when or how the trout passes into the\nsalmon, (if indeed it be the trout which certainly becomes the salmon,) or how\nold, the salmon may live to be; or at what age its savoury flakes make the best\neating; or, in short, anything whatever beyond this:\u2014that the same fish return\nevery season to the same river; the salmon of the Bann being short and thick,\nand those of the Bush river long and slim in comparison; and so on. So we must:\ntreat salmon as we do ladies\u2014neglect all considerations of age\u2014make no\ninquiries on that obscure pointy and sympathise in their activities and\npleasures without asking whether they had a beginning, or will ever come to an\nend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the fashion to talk of\nevery body\u2019s \u201csphere.\u201d What a sphere is that of the salmon of the Bann! What a\ncoast has it to range, whether, when carried out to sea with the- rush of\nwaters, it turns to the right hand or to the left! That it does range along the\ncoast is certain, as the watcher on many a promontory can avouch. Let the\nobserver stand on the precipice of Fairhead\u2014the salient point of the Antrim\ncoast. At first, he will be curious about the little lake which dis\u00adcharges its\nwaters by a fissure in the rock, making a waterfall down that steep\u2014more than\nsix hundred feet above the busy surge. Already, on the face of this rock, are\nthere traces of that strange architecture of Nature which comes out to more\nperfection further to the west. If the observer looks out to sea, his eye will\nbe fixed by the outlines of the Scotch islands, as they lie calmly anchored in\nthe deep blue sea, or the Mull of Cantire closing in the eastern horizon. He\nsees more: than their outlines. In clear weather he sees the bright eminences\nand dark ravines on the: mountain sides. Now let him look below\u2014 sheer down\ninto the transparent waters. Are there not silvery flickerings, bright\nglancings, which show that the salmon are there at play? There they are; and\nnear a great danger. A rock stands out, an islet separated by sixty feet of\nroaring tide from the shore, directly in the path that the salmon take off the\ncoast. Not knowing that enemies may come there and waylay them, the fish do\nnot. make a good sweep out to sea, but just swim unsuspiciously round\nCarrick-a-rede. For a good part of the year, they may do this safely; during\nthe months when salmon are not allowed to be taken; but, when the doom day\ncomes, the bold fishermen do a great feat. They sling two ropes from the shore\nto the islet, at a height of ninety feet above the tossing waves; and, by\nlaying short planks across, they make a bridge,\u2014a suspension bridge with a\nvengeance\u2014with no guard but a single rope: for a hand-rail. The stranger\nusually declines being swung in mid air on such a bridge as this: but the\nfisherman\u2014who lives, during; the salmon season, in a cottage on the islet\u2014runs\nbackwards and; forwards as tranquilly as if he were passing London Bridge; and\nso do his comrades. If the salmon did but know their own case, they would\nglance up from amidst the waters, and, warned by that great inverted arch in\ntheir sky, would strike off,\u2014well out to the north, and not approach the coast\nagain for miles. But all that the salmon know of their own case is that they\nwant to go up the rivers, to deposit their spawn and milt; so they hug the\nshore, in search of the rivers\u2019 mouths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon they come to that strange\nplace, where, as we are informed, the great giant, Fin McCoul, had a mind to\nmake a path for himself and his wife to pass over to Scotland, without getting\ntheir feet wet. Were any salmon present to. see that causeway begun? and did\nthey fear that it would bar them out from the Bush and the Bann? There are the\nwonderful paving-stones at this day\u2014cut so neatly to fit into one another, like\nthe cells in a bee-hive, and built in so firmly that the winter surge, in all\nthese thousands of years, has never washed them asunder. Were there any salmon\nto see the accident by which those stones were spilled, which are now seen\nlying, all in a heap, toppled all manner of ways. Giantesses who act as masons\u2019\nlabourers to their husbands, should see, before they go out to work, that: they\nhave strong strings to their aprons. Fin McCoul\u2019s wife forgot this. She brought\nhim plenty of stones in her apron, and he paved them in; jammed them firm: into\nthe bottom of the sea with a stamp of his heel. But, one day, her apron-string\nbroke, and her load of stones fell out\u2014where they now lie. Whether her husband\nwas put out of humour by so small an accident as this, as does happen to\nhusbands sometimes, or whether his attention was called- off by some pressure\nof business elsewhere, we can\u00adnot say; but the causeway certainly never was\nfinished. A beginning was made at the opposite end\u2014at Staffa–that Scotch islet\nwhere the giant had a cave where he liked to be cool at. noonday (and a green,\ncool cave it is); but? the path never stretched very far out, at either end;\nand the salmon get round, quite easily, at this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some salmon seem to have no eye\nfor cork floats. They swim in among them, without a thought of a trap. But they\nfind themselves in one; and, after floundering among ropes and cords, perhaps\nfrom Monday to Saturday,
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Dickens.] THE LIFE OF A SALMON. 607 it is over the Falls of the Bann, and beginning, to feel what the salt water is like. Still the old fish promise that it shall see its native cove again. It must be done by leaping this barrier of rocks; but thousands of salmon do that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":664,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-169","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169","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=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":733,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/169\/revisions\/733"}],"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=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}