POLLACK AND PILCHARDS 103 



that the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon, nor is 

 its stench to be got out of the planks without 

 much scrubbing and the healing of time. The 

 disturbance made by the shark and the increasing 

 strength of the tide conspire to put an end to our 

 fishing, though it is one thing to be willing to move 

 and another to be able. First of all, the anchor 

 refuses to budge from the rocky purchase which 

 George so successfully found for it before we 

 started to fish. For about twenty minutes he 

 pits his strength and skill against his country, 

 tugging at the rope till the veins stand out on his 

 streaming forehead ; throwing out slack coils and 

 suddenly putting on a strain ; hoping to cheat 

 where he could not straightforwardly prevail, but 

 all to no purpose. We row and even sail around 

 the unrelenting rock, and when at length the^pro- 

 mise of compensation induces him to give up the 

 struggle, he will not abandon his anchor without 

 having first made fast a bundle of corks to the rope 

 in case we should come out again at low tide and 

 be better able to recover it. That, however, was 

 not to be for another year. For we now realise 

 that the wind, never very strong, has completely 

 died away and that the bosom of the sea is as glass, 

 a beautiful mirror for the wheeling gulls and plung- 

 ing gannets, but very little appreciated by those 

 who have to row a ponderous lugger over ten miles 

 of its surface. So still is the air that we can even 



