FISHING IN THE HUDSON'S GORGE 375 



sink to a quiet death in the cold northern waters, 

 than to bask here for a time in fancied security in 

 this pseudo-tropic warmth. With every patch of 

 weed — less in extent than an opened hand — a tiny 

 cosmos of creatures kept faith, the faith of uncon- 

 scious heritage. It was tragic to see a tiny fish or 

 a crab chnging to a thin strand, with no hope be- 

 yond another week, the sargassum even now begin- 

 ning to blacken and water-log. We caught sea- 

 horses with astonishing powers of color change, 

 turning quite black at night and pale yellow-orange 

 in the daytune. 



The small people of the surface were seldom by 

 themselves; if they were not in schools, then they 

 haunted the bits of weed, or chummed with jelly- 

 fish. Great pulsating Cyanea jellies throbbed 

 slowly along, umbrellaing with graceful heaves of 

 their massive amber bodies. Behind them trailed 

 for yards the medusa tangle of poisonous, sting- 

 ing tentacles, and in and out of this living maze 

 of nettles, small fish swam. They were young and 

 inexperienced and they gave me the same sensa- 

 tion as I once had when I saw combat patrols crawl 

 through a snarl of barbed-wire into No Man's 

 Land, where at any moment a Very light might 

 shed its death ray upon them. I watched many of 

 these small butterfish swimming carelessly along, 

 protected from all outside dangers, while every now 

 and then a small entangled corpse showed where 

 the great jelly had taken toll of its pensioners. 



Although the weed was so shredded and patchy, 

 yet almost all its usual habjtues were to be found. 



