SCHNAPPER AND BLACK BREAM 149 



visit to Madeira. I had pricked my fingers more 

 than once in handHng these creatures, but paid 

 no further attention to the matter. Many days 

 later, when homeward bound on the " Caris- 

 brooke Castle/' I felt a painful throbbing in the 

 middle finger of the right hand, and from the top 

 joint the ship's doctor extracted about three- 

 quarters of an inch of sea-urchins' spine. It had 

 apparently required over a week for the inflam- 

 mation to make itself felt. 



When Thackeray and I had gathered enough 

 bait (we generally had about rather more than half 

 of it left over at the end of the day's fishing), the 

 next performance was to climb up again to some 

 ledge commanding sufficient depth of water. It 

 was indeed on aH but the calmest days comforta- 

 ble to get away from the extreme proximity of 

 the Pacific, since the rollers of that ocean are 

 curiously uneven, and every now and then a 

 supreme effort looked dangerously near washing 

 us off. Back we would toil, Thackeray going 

 ahead, until the desired, but not desirable, spot 

 was reached, often enough a miserable ledge that 

 would just have accommodated an incubating 

 guillemot. Then the hooks were baited, one with 

 crab, the other with cungevoi, and swung out into 

 the surf, a proceeding not unattended with the 

 risk of overbalancing. Then we waited. The 

 waiting was a great feature of those outings. 



