70 SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 



mistaking these gentlemen ; we would be playing 9, 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, 

 swelHng 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 oars can ply, and bang, I am on to one ; by the way betakes 

 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 ("bale tete" 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 imtil the gallant fish gives signs of ex- 

 haustion and goes down and down tintil 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- 



