BY TIDELESS SEAS 65 



In that twisted shell dwells a sporting instinct, 

 which abhors the easy slaughter with bombs 

 preferred by many of his compatriots. He is 

 not favoured by nature, poor little chap. He is 

 gobbo, and he is lame, and they say that he is also 

 half-witted. That he is even what the aristocrat 

 in the Mikado called a " very imperfect ablu- 

 tioner " is apparent even in this wan light. Yet 

 as true a sportsman at heart as ever I fished with, 

 and, for an Italian, a miracle. He never reviled 

 his Maker when luck went against him, but 

 shrugged his shoulders and tried again. He has 

 just hauled a kicking par ago on his fine line of 

 black horsehair, and has affixed a wriggling shrimp 

 to his hook for another cast into the blackness. 

 See, now, he gathers all there is of him together 

 for a supreme effort, and, though there is no weight 

 to carry it, beyond that of the hook and shrimp, 

 the line flies out over the water to its full length. 

 He is under the sod, my gobbo, these five years and 

 more, as good now as the straightest giant of them 

 that lie up there on the hill, where the sad olive 

 trees wave at the edge of the Mediterranean. 



It was on the edge of the Baltic, in the last 

 days of March, 1890, that I had my first taste of 

 the havoc that fine tackle could make among fish 

 absolutely lacking in the higher education. All 

 my sport, save a little make-believe in Boulogne 



6-(2272) 



