364 Notes on Sport and Travel iv 



summer. Off Cape Finisterre at noon. At this 

 same cape is, I am told, wondrous trout and salmon 

 fishing, and all manner of sport to be had for nothing, 

 and living for less. There is a beautiful blue sea 

 flecked with white foam, a sparkling breeze on the 

 port quarter, and a bright sun ; a perfect sailing day. 

 I have only seen two or three gulls, but quantities of 

 shore birds ; two shore larks were captured and put 

 into cages, where I much fear me they will die. The 

 quantities of shore birds lost at sea must be immense, 

 judging from those we have seen. We saw a fish- 

 hawk — black back, white breast, and a wonderfully 

 long tail ; he seemed beating about for fish, though 

 how he was to eat them when he caught them rather 

 puzzled me. I suppose he holds them in his claws 

 and eats them as he goes. If he goes on shore with 

 each fish he must have plenty of work, for we are out 

 of sight of land. 



Saturday. — This was a day to develop all the 

 delights of the stern-walk, the most delicious lounge 

 that ever was invented by mortal man. It is supposed 

 by a legal fiction to be separated from the ship proper, 

 and may be smoked in to any extent at any time 

 by that greatest of human beings, the captain's guest. 

 Oh, the delight of sitting " round the corner " with a 

 cigar, refreshing one's very soul with the blue seas, 

 into which at one moment one's feet seem ready to 

 dip, whilst the next one is carried thirty or forty feet 

 above it, on the back of the giant ship — glorious ! a 

 rocking chair fit for Odin Alfader ! 



