y are called, and how many of them there were, and how
many fish they caught at a time; and his uncle, who settled comfortably
down and lighted his pipe, told him a great deal about them.

And Ben was surprised to hear that there are many thousands of men and
boys who go out to catch the millions and millions of all sorts of fish
that are sent to the markets in the large towns of England by railway
nearly every day. He had been to Billingsgate Market in Thames Street,
and to the new fish-market in Smithfield, and had seen the great piles
of cod-fish, and skates, and soles, and plaice, and the boxes and
baskets of white fresh herrings, and the beautiful shining mackerel, but
he did not know how great was the number of herrings, and pilchards, and
cod-fish that were also salted and put in barrels to be sent from
England to foreign countries. He knew what bloaters were, of course, and
had heard that they were herrings just a little salted and smoked over
burning wood, but how was he to know that at Yarmouth there was a great
fleet of herring-boats, and that in the cold November weather they went
far out to sea in the mist and rain, and were night after night hauling
in the great nets full of glistening silver fish?

His uncle was the owner of two smacks, but he did not go
herring-fishing. He was what is called a trawler, and he and his men and
boys used a different sort of net. The herring-nets are called
drift-nets, and catch the fish that swim in shoals, which means a large
number together, near the surface of the sea; but the trawl-nets are
shaped like a long purse or bag open at the mouth. These nets go to the
bottom of the sea, and in them are caught cod, whiting, soles, and other
fish that lie at the bottom, and swim deep down in the water.

When Ben's uncle was a smack-boy the trawlers, after they had caught as
many fish as they could carry in a deep well in their boat, used to
sail away as fast as they could to Billingsgate Market, or to some place
where people would buy their fish and send it by railway to London; but
now the old fisherman said they had much bigger vessels, and would stay
out sometimes for four or five weeks tossing about in the North Sea, or,
as it is sometimes called, the German Ocean, and dragging the great
trawl-nets night and day.

"Not much time to play, Ben, my boy," said the bluff old fellow.
"Sometimes not too much to eat either, except fish and biscuit, and not
much room to sleep in w