The Argosy — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

199 Bron CATCHING ON THE DOGGER. 4&6 ae cheer, O? How are ye, sir? I’ve jest a got ’ome from the dreery Dowger,” was the unconventional saluta- tion addressed to an inexperienced landsman, who loved the streets of the Metropolis better than the wind-swept sea (just as Charles ) Lamb, in his day, preferred the lamplit thoroughfares of London to the most charming country scenery), and who, until then, had never -eyen heard of the “‘ Dowger,” dreary or otherwise. - The Dogger, as it is called by ordinary folks: ‘ Dawger” or .“Dowger,” as it is variously pronounced by the deep-sea trawlers: is a great submarine sandbank in the German Ocean. It is about three hundred miles from the mouth of the Thames, seventy miles from the coast of Jutland, lying within the latitudes of 55 and 56, and extending about a hundred and seventy miles in length from ) North to South, by sixty-five miles in breadth from East to West. It is not the only fishing-ground frequented by the deep-sea fisherman. There are others in the same mid-sea ; such as the ‘Silver pits,” and the “ Botney gut ;” but the main sphere of operations is undoubtedly the great sandbank known as the Dogger. The waters which wash the Dogger are, in their very best moods, by no means of the most placable order. | Even in the heart of summer: when, perchance, the sun has been ‘shining for sixteen or seventeen hours in the unclouded sky, and the vsurface of the ocean has been outspread like a glittering sheet of transparent blue: suddenly the great rush of waters which sweep round the north-eastern tail of the Dogger may be set in motion. Ere the darkness of the brief summer night has come down, the ‘strong nor’-easter in its fury may have smitten the waves and sent ,;them careering, as the seamen say, “ mountains high,” causing the great fleet of fishing vessels to scatter in all directions, dancing and bobbing on the face of the ocean like a vast multitude of floats on the rolling waters. | » «ind if such things happen in the warm and smiling summer, what ‘shall be said of the boisterous autumn and the rugged winter; when the rigging of the little vessels which ply on the Dogger is oft-times one ‘Mass of ice, and the tackle cannot be made use of until the frost, by which it has been congealed, is dissipated by plenteous libations of ‘boiling water ? Then, indeed, the surface of the Dogger is too frequently a scene of storm, toil and disaster, such as may, indeed, be equalled on other ‘Seas, but cannot well be exceeded in respect of the fury of the elements which are at play, and the heroism of the human beings ‘who are exposed to the buffeting of the pitiless storm. IED A eT e_ a? : “st I 4 COMIC OOO cS (CO)