FISHING IN INDIAN WATERS. 543 



went past made a beautiful stroke, and caught the brute fair and square 

 on the back behind the dorsal. The blow doubled him up completely for the 

 moment, and had the boatman then stopped, I firmly believe we could have 

 killed him, or, at any rate have secured him to the boat for the time being 

 and towed him away j but the native got very excited, and recommenced 

 hammering hira with the paddle about the head, and in one of his wild strokes 

 came down on the nose of the beast, and the paddle glancing off from the 

 obliquity of the blow, cut my line clean out of the shark's mouth, and I had 

 the mortification of seeing my fish j^radu ally sinking out of sight. However 

 it may have been all for the best. I sometimes doubt now whether we could 

 have killed him alongside, and it would have been a very risky affair to have 

 gaffed and dragged him into the canoe unless and until he was really dead, 

 and even if we had got him we could have done nothing with him ; but at the 

 time I felt rather savage at the loss, and I am afraid that, in company with 

 my Arab Somali boatmen, I freely cursed him " for the son of a thousand 

 dead dogs." 



Such are some of the more exciting adventures to which one is liable 

 when engaged in this class of fishing ; but on the other hand, I have the 

 recollections of many a good day, when fish of medium weight came freely, 

 and when the basket, after four or five hours' fishing, contained, say, five or 

 six fish, ranging from 151bs. to 201bs. apiece. It is, as I said, at its height 

 only during the time that the so-called sardines are about. 



It is not necessary to go hunting the shoals ; take a boat and row or sail 

 quietly about, towing out a long line and stopping occasionally to let your 

 bait roam, and you will, at almost any time of tide, get a run, and my impres- 

 sion is that the prizes were many and the blanks few and far between. 



This only lasts on, however, to about August 5 after that I don't say that 

 you would not get them, but the cream of the season is gone by that time. 

 Later on, in October, you will see the Arab boats foregathering near the rocky 

 patches which lie in the harbour off Ras Marbut, Steamer Point, Ras Tarshein 

 and Ras Marshag, and if you go out to them you will find that all their 

 energies are being devoted to the rock cod. There is a large amount of 

 satisfaction in catching them. They run pretty heavy, and although they do 

 not sport anything like so well as the other fish, still, they generally make 

 one good short, sharp rush, to get back to their own particular haunt I 

 fancy ; and then after you have landed them, they, like their prototypes at 

 home, are most excellent eating. The seer fish is fairly good for the table, 

 but the same can hardly be said of the bonito, albacore, and dolphin, or even 

 of the tunnies. They have a very coarse-grained flesh, and are rank in 

 flavour, and rather oily, a fish cake of bonito is like a compressed cake of 

 saw-dust and fish oil. The cod, however, is really good, the red ones espe- 

 cially. They are baited for with live bait deep down, and here it is that one 

 often uses the smaller rock fish for bait ; very often you will find the same 



