244 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



half way up the face of the cliff or on the lowest 

 boulders within reach of the driven spray. The 

 sight of lizards flashing over rocks wet with sea- 

 water is an uncommon one, but what perhaps 

 struck the observer even more was the indiffer- 

 ence of these little reptiles to extremes of tempera- 

 ture. They were to all appearance as much at 

 their ease in the glare of the summer sun and in 

 the shelter of exceedingly cold burrows in the 

 cliff. 



One other kind of fishing we did close inshore, 

 though from a boat, and that was a peculiar mode 

 of very slow whiffing for large wrasse, known in 

 those islands as " gavoupa" a name that once 

 again recalled those futile climbs on the coast 

 of New South Wales. The tackle used for this 

 fishing was an immense cane spreader, the two 

 hooks on which were baited with small pieces of 

 tunny or mackerel. In England such a spreader 

 would be used only from a boat at anchor, but out 

 there the approved method is to trail it quite 

 slowly in moderately deep water, by which means 

 we added to our varied bag a few wrasse, clad, 

 like most of their kind, in a coat of many colours. 



On the second morning, Cossart and I decided 

 at daybreak to go forth after the tunny. The 

 wind seemed to have moderated, and, since bad 

 weather of any description is but comparative, 

 it certainly had done so to the extent that it was 



