him for a patient who had left his sick bed
in a fit of delirium; for you observe him,
every now and then, raising his legs and
examining them one after the other. While
he is moving about on his slimy pleasure
ground, the leeches attach themselves to his
legs and feet; he feels their presence by their
bite, and he picks them off his legs one by
one. The leeches are sometimes found by
him, also, revelling in the verdant mud, or
swimming about, or clustering about the
roots of the bulrushes and sea- weeds, or
sheltered beneath stones covered with green and
gluey moss; and he keeps a sharp look-out
for them in all these localities. The fisher
has sometimes a kind of spear or harpoon,
with which he craftily deposits savory
morsels of decayed animal matter in places
frequented by the leeches; and when they
have been taken in and done for, by being
decoyed to this bait, they very soon find
themselves in a little vessel half-full of water,
which the fisher carries with him, whence
they are transferred to a bag carried over his
shoulder, which bag frequently becomes
enriched with a gross of leeches in three or
four hours.

All this belongs to the spring system of
leech fishing; but, in the summer, matters
are much worse. In summer, the leeches
choose to disport themselves in deep water,
and thither the fisher must follow them. No
comfortable waterproofs, or oil-skins, or
diving-dresses; the man strips, and in he
goes, to give the precious leeches an
opportunity to fasten upon his body or legs, or
allow him to snatch them in any way that
offers; or he sometimes sits on a frail kind
of raft, and looks out for the leeches which
may happen to be floating near the surface,
or which get entangled in the structure of his
raft

Poor fellows! It is a desperate trade.
They are constantly, more or less, in the
water; breathing fog, and mist, and mephitic
odours from the marsh: whence they are
often attacked with ague, catarrhs, and
rheumatism. Some indulge in strong liquors
to keep off the noxious influence. And yet,
like many dirty trades in London, leech
fishing is sedulously followed because it is
lucrative. Dealers or traders come round
occasionally, and buy up the produce of the
fishery; taking their departure with many
thousand leeches in their possession. The
dealer buys the leeches just as they present
themselves, big and little, green and black:
and places them in a moistened sack, which
he fastens behind his saddle; but he
afterwards sorts them into various qualities for
the market.

The second oddity is simply leech fattening.
Leeches, like Smithfield cattle at Christmas,
are fattened for the market, to give them
strong and lusty propensities in respect to
their subsequent sanguinary career. An
Englishman who visited Smyrna three or four
years ago was surprised to find a large
leech-fattening establishment, about a mile out of
the town. The leeches are collected from
marshes in the interior of Asia Minor, in the
same manner as at Brienne, namely, every
man his own ground bait: the fisher stripping,
plunging into the water, kicking and
splashing to attract the attention of the
leeches, and finally emerging studded with
these black jewels on his naked flesh. He
takes them to the fattening establishment, and
sells them by weight, at so much per ok (a
Turkish weight of something less than three
pounds). They are sorted into sizes. England
being one of the countries which insists
upon having fine large fat leeches. They
have a good hearty initiatory meal by being
plunged into a tub of ox-blood; and then they
are doctored, like gastronomists elsewhere.
They are next weighed, and are transferred
to ponds, each pond appropriated to a
particular size or weight. There is a rapid brook
running past the establishment, and a deep
reservoir in which to store water from this
brook; these are for feeding nearly twenty
ponds, each measuring about sixty feet by
twenty-five. We may guess, therefore, that
the establishment is altogether too large to be
treated disrespectfully. The ponds require
very careful management; for while each
must be a miniature marsh, muddy and slimy,
the bed must not be so soft as to permit the
leeches to wriggle away altogether. Tall
top-spreading canes are planted, to protect
the water from the summer heat; and a
peculiar water-grass is planted also. The
ponds are crossed by plank bridges, to facilitate
the supervision; for occasional drainings
and cleanings and beating of the bed. The
leeches fatten in periods varying from fifteen
to thirty days, according to the seasons.
When plumped up to the proper degree of
sanguivorous beauty, they are fished up;
and this is done in a much more rational
way than by the original fishers. Flat
boards with cloth nailed to the under side
are splashed violently down upon the water;
the leeches swim up to see what is the
matter; they cling to the cloth; the boards
are taken up; and the leeches are gently
brushed off into a zinc colander or sieve.
On being weighed, they are often found
to be thrice as heavy as when put into the
ponds.

The third oddity introduces us to
leech-travelling. Assuredly the Smyrna leeches,
whose Asiatic career has just been noticed,
are among the most extraordinary travellers
we have heard of. They have to be transported
many hundreds or thousands of miles,
to the countries where their blood-sucking
services are required. Without moisture a
leech would die; and he would as certainly
die if kept in water which had become
stagnant and impure. The Smyrniotes have
very ingeniously resolved, therefore, to
prepare a special kind of batter-pudding for the