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SEA FISHING IN THE BOCAS ISLANDS 
Here by these crystal pools you may 
Preserve a conscience clear as they; 
And when by sullen thoughts you find 
Your harassed not busied mind 
In sable melancholy clad, 
Distempered, serious, turning sad; 
Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait; 
All anxious cares and thoughts will straight 
Fly with such speed, they’ll seem to be 
Possesst with the hydrophobie; 
The water’s calmness in your breast, 
And smoothness on your brow shall rest. 
Thomas Weaver. 
it deals chiefly with fishing in the vicinity of the 
Bocas, as that is the only portion of Trinidad whereat 
suitable accommodation in the shape of residences, boats and 
boatmen, can be easily obtained. The Bocas Islands are 
four in number, and all of them possess houses, generally 
situated on the shores of small bays or inlets of their own. 
These houses are suitably furnished, and can be hired by the 
week, fortnight, or month, at a monthly rental ranging from 
$25 to $50 (roughly speaking £5 to £10.) Pair-oared boats 
can be hired from $10 to $12 per month (£2 to £2.10), while 
a small fishing boat with a pair of sculls will cost from $5 
to $7 (£1 to £1.10). Boatmen well versed in all the tricks of 
tides and currents, which are very strong on occasions at the 
Bocas, can be obtained at 40 cents (1s. 8d.) per diem with 
food, or 48 cents (2s.) without rations, but visitors will find 
it more to the interest of sport to feed them, as otherwise 
they may, when required for the boat, say they have to cook 
their food. Visitors who lease one of these houses have to 
A S this article is written especially for sporting visitors, 
