SCHNAPPER AND BLACK BREAM 151 



I when making this estimate, have been ninety, 

 seized both my hooks and the. lead in its cavernous 

 mouth and sailed unconcernedly out to sea. To 

 save further trouble, and regardless of retaining 

 such little esteem as might yet be mine, I threw 

 the rest, winder and all, into the sea. Anyone 

 holding on to a shark of that size while balanced 

 on a slippery rock must be far wearier of life than 

 I am even to-day. At that time, I had ten more 

 years of its illusions still unspoilt. 



Those old diaries, which have scarcely been 

 opened since, recall other fishing days in Australia, 

 many of them no more successful than these 

 wicked strivings after grouper, that existed only 

 in the vivid imagination of one who was no un- 

 worthy connection of the great satirist. There 

 was the trumpeter-fishing at Hobart. At that 

 season of the year, that is so say the end of the 

 Australian winter, the waters round Hobart 

 Sound had two kinds of trumpeter, the bastard 

 and the silver. My guide, a greaser on the steamer 

 that had brought me from Sydney to the pretty 

 Sleepy Hollow that nestles under the shadow of 

 Mount Wellington, begged me to believe that he 

 would not put me off with the bastard kind. He 

 was as good as his word, for we did not catch one. 

 Incidentally, I may add that we did not catch 

 one of the legitimate kind either. All we did get 

 was a dogfish of no particular interest, and the 



