Catching Menhaden off Montauk 



r 



back and forth under the weedy piers, or divided 

 against the sharp prows of the smacks. There 

 was light enough to show the spars and ropes of 

 every craft in the harbor, and all lay as motionless 

 as though fixed in rock rather than floating on 

 liquid. 



I " turned in " upon a sofa in the captain's cabin ; 

 and when I emerged, after what seemed an hour's 

 pounding on my door by the chuggety-chugging 

 engine, we were far down Gardiner's Bay again. 



Last night the unruffled water was like bronze; 

 now, under the soft silvery haze of the morning, 

 the dancing surface became frosted silver, opaque 

 and white save where the early sunbeams, striking 

 through the mist, were reflected from the crests of 

 the ripples in glancing ribbons of light. Shelter 

 Island was an indistinguishable mass far astern; 

 Long Beach light had ceased to twinkle; Orient 

 Point was hidden in haze ; Plumb Island, where 

 eagles used to make their metropolis, and many 

 fish-hawks now live, nesting on the ground with 

 the gulls, was only a low bank of blue; Gull Is- 

 lands could not be seen at all; and I only knew 

 that Little Gull was there from the dot in the 

 ^271 fc> 



