7O SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 
mistaking these gentlemen; we would be playing a fish who 
was coming in nicely, when there would be a sudden jar of 
the arm, as if the island had been hooked, then as sudden a 
slackness, and goodbye, my kingfish, goodbye. Hark, a 
sudden burst of sound in the comparatively smooth water, 
leeside of Matura Point, similar to that produced at a crowded 
opera house at the first appearance of a popular singer, 
swelling gradually to the deep tones of distant thunder; a 
school of those game fish of the Caribbean, the Cavalli or 
Carangue, have risen a shoal of “sardines rouges,’’ and these 
tiny fish are flashing out of the water in scintillations of 
silver, trying to escape their active and powerful foes who 
are ruthlessly tearing them up just below the sea’s surface. 
From Scylla into Charybdis, for immediately above them the 
air is darkened with gulls, boobies, pelicans, kittiwakes and 
man-o’-war birds, who cram their maws to satiety with the 
jumping fugitives. Away right through the school as fast as 
the oarscan ply,and bang, I am on to one; by the way he takes 
it and the pace the slack line whizzes out, a veritable “ Jim 
Jeffries” of a carangue. He runs out somewhere about 20 
fathoms at his first rush, the dry line burning my fingers like 
a hot iron as it runs through them, it being absolutely neces- 
sary in hand-lining to keep a gentle pressure all the time, so 
as not to lose touch of your fish. _He now stops for a mo- 
ment, butting with his head (“baie téte’’ the Creoles call it), 
when I feel the tension relieved a bit; I haul in the line, but 
only two or three fathoms, as soon as he makes a fresh burst 
and is off again taking out yet more slack. And so the game 
goes on for 20 minutes or more, alternately hauling in and 
then playing out until the gallant fish gives signs of ex- 
haustion and goes down and down until I think he will never 
reach bottom. When he gets there he still goes on pluckily 
butting with his head; it feels to the angler’s fingers exactly 
as if he were doing a combined tug and dance. He is weary 
and played out, so I begin to haul up, and when there is a 
sudden sharp pull and the increased strain takes out the line 
again—my fingers actually feel a strong tear, and the line 
falls limp. “Rechin,” says my one-armed friend with much 
disgust. “Shark,’’ respond I, with even more disappoint- 
