The Arkansas Advocate

Mackerel, of which we have some in the Chesapeake, though by far the most of them come from the waters contiguous to New England, are a fish from a very great distance—the Black Sea. This appears from the following extract from Commodore Porter's Letters from Constantinople.

MACKEREL IN THE BOSPHORUS.—"This is the season [Feb. 12,] for catching mackerel here. They come down from the Black Sea in immense shoals; and thousands, by tens of thousands, of boats come at the same moment into the Bosphorus, employed in taking them in seines and gill nets. The quantity taken and sold every day would appear incredible. They are from five to six inches in length, and nothing can be more delicate than they are. By the time they get to Gibraltar they are half grown, and full grown when they arrive on the coast of America, three or four months hence.

"The Black Sea appears to be the great nursery of the mackerel, as well as the palemedes, as they are called here, or the tunny fish as they are called when full grown, and caught on the coasts of Sicily, Italy, and Spain. Myriads of these are taken during the few weeks of their running. They are generally from a foot to 18 inches long, and an excellent kind of fish for boiling.— Indeed there is no place so abundant in fish as the Bosphorus, and there is no place where so many are taken. From the windows and doors of most of the houses situated on this beautiful canal, they take fish with lines; and in the fine, calm, and beautiful summer mornings, the bay of Buyukdere may be seen swarming with kaicks filled with ladies and gentlemen of the legation, and with those of the Frank families, and Armenians, and Greeks, engaged in the diversion of fishing. It, in fact, makes the principal one of the few amusements of the country.

"The large fishing boats which are employed for taking the mackerel and palemedes are generally fifty feet in length, narrow and sharp at both ends, and are of the best construction for velocity. They are rowed by eighteen active young Greeks, who make them fly through the water; and there can be no scene more animating than to see half a dozen of those boats approach the quay on their return from their fishing excursions, laden with the fish which they have taken at a single haul of their seines. They pull with a strength, quickness, and regularity which is truly surprising, and the stroke of their oars in the water produces a most singular noise, which may be heard for more than a mile."