THE OLDEST NOBLE OF THEM ALL. 743 



THE OLDEST NOBLE OF THEM ALL. 



By GAEL VOGT. 



WE sailed out from the little port of Alleghero, on the northwest 

 coast of Sardinia, on a clear morning, with a bright sun, light 

 breeze, and a moderate flow of tide, to the nearest coral banks. Our 

 fishing-apparatus consisted of a large wooden cross-drag weighted 

 with lead, to which ropes and nets were attached, which was to be 

 painfully hauled over the bottom of the sea at a depth of from one 

 hundred to two hundred metres, to gather what it could catch of the 

 life abiding in those regions. The success of the operation depends 

 largely on the skill and discrimination of the padrone. Two sailors 

 and a youth manage the very primitive capstan by which the rope, 

 that the padrone holds in his hand, is unrolled. He knows, by feel- 

 ing the movements of the rope, its tension, sliding, and jerking, 

 whether the drag is passing over sand, mud, hard ground, or solid, 

 jagged rock. At times the youth stands alone at the capstan, and the 

 sailors take the rudder in hand and turn the vessel as the padrone di- 

 rects. Sometimes they have to work with all their might, as when the 

 apparatus gets fastened or is drawn under overhanging rocks. There 

 are a thousand accidents to be guarded against, and they frequently 

 end in the loss of the drag. 



Thus the sea-bottom is swept for a few hours as with a broom. 

 The cords of the drag sling themselves around everything that pro- 

 jects and is movable ; large pieces of rock are ensnared and torn loose 

 with all that is upon them. Whatever creeps upon the ground is 

 made fast. 



The padrone orders a halt, and the sailors apply themselves to the 

 capstan to draw in the rope. It is a task calling for the exertion of 

 their full strength to dislodge the apparatus and pull it up with the 

 heavy load which it has collected. Sometimes the leverage of the 

 sea-waves is invoked. The capstan is locked, the rope is stretched to 

 its utmost, and the bark is set by a few motions of the rudder upon 

 the crest of a rising wave. The reaction, when the machine is dis- 

 lodged, is often so strong as to threaten to overturn the bark. A 

 cloud of slime announces the approach of the apparatus to the surface. 

 The drag is pulled out and laid upon the ship's edge, and the nets 

 which are swimming around are drawn in and thrown into the inner 

 space. Capstan and helm are deserted, and the sail is drawn in. The 

 men squat in a ring around the net, and pick out with their fingers 

 the objects that are entangled in it, and sometimes the knife has to be 

 used to solve some unusual complication. I had filled my pail with 

 clear sea-water before the apparatus was drawn up. I had given or- 

 ders, which were very difficult to get executed, to have nothing cast 



