I Need Not Mention, That The Sardines And Anchovies Are
Caught In Nets; Salted, Barrelled, And Exported Into All The
Different Kingdoms And States Of Europe.
The sardines, however,
are largest and fattest in the month of September.
A company of
adventurers have farmed the tunny-fishery of the king, for six
years; a monopoly, for which they pay about three thousand pounds
sterling. They are at a very considerable expence for nets,
boats, and attendance. Their nets are disposed in a very curious
manner across the small bay of St. Hospice, in this
neighbourhood, where the fish chiefly resort. They are never
removed, except in the winter, and when they want repair: but
there are avenues for the fish to enter, and pass, from one
inclosure to another. There is a man in a boat, who constantly
keeps watch. When he perceives they are fairly entered, he has a
method for shutting all the passes, and confining the fish to one
apartment of the net, which is lifted up into the boat, until the
prisoners are taken and secured. The tunny-fish generally runs
from fifty to one hundred weight; but some of them are much
larger. They are immediately gutted, boiled, and cut in slices.
The guts and head afford oil: the slices are partly dried, to be
eaten occasionally with oil and vinegar, or barrelled up in oil,
to be exported. It is counted a delicacy in Italy and Piedmont,
and tastes not unlike sturgeon. The famous pickle of the
ancients, called garum, was made of the gills and blood of the
tunny, or thynnus.
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