BY TIDELESS SEAS 79 



months, and by using fine float tackle and baiting 

 with either a paste made of white cheese from 

 Sardinia, or a kind of ragworm which could be 

 purchased under the colonnades, I caught a few 

 very good mullet, the first indeed to be entered 

 in my angling records. I used to go into the yard 

 with the gang of early workmen, for they had a 

 way of shutting the great gates and leaving no 

 one to open them again. This may have been an 

 intentional check on late arrivals ; at any rate, 

 it took me regularly along the Passegiata soon 

 after sunrise. Perfect solitude was the boon of 

 that mullet-fishing. The sport might now and 

 then have been brisker, but who could be discon- 

 tented amid such peace, the sun sailing day after 

 day into a cloudless sky, the saucy swifts scream- 

 ing as they flew to and fro across the blue ? The 

 peaceful aloofness of those docks brought me some 

 of the pleasure that Mr. Sheringham, in his charm- 

 ing book, finds in bridges. He is right, and the 

 angler's bridge-fever is at least more innocent 

 than that which infects some of his friends. 

 Whether the bridge spans the river Severn or the 

 Hythe Canal, whether the water hurries beneath 

 his feet or lacks both goal and source, the angler's 

 heart will surely respond to the message of those 

 mirrored trees and grassy banks. There was 

 nought to break the quiet of those mornings with 

 mullet, unless perchance a passing labourer gave 



