216 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



and sometimes a caralli, a hard fighter, and once I hooked, but 

 pulled out from a Jew-fish, about the size of a pork barrel. 



It was not until towards evening that we found a better ground 

 for tarpon. We saw their back fins above the water before we 

 reached them. A careful approach, a gentle lateral swing of the 

 rod, and the bait fell some fifty feet from the boat, and between 

 two fish whose fins we could see above the water. How I held 

 my breath until I saw the line pay out, and knew the fish had the 

 bait in its mouth. It made a short run, and then stopped. I 

 paused and counted eight, and then threw up the tip of my rod 

 and bore my weight upon it. Away, as if a lance had struck it, 

 darted the fish, and before the canoe got fully under headway the 

 fish arose from the water looking as my boatman said, " jis like a 

 marble headstone." It then turned at right angles and rushed 

 away, nearly crossing the line of the other fisherman who also was 

 hooked to a fish. Many times it jumped, fiercely shaking itself, 

 and even when tired out it tried to leap and was unable. At last 

 it rolled heavily to the side of the canoe and Jeptha laying down 

 his paddle drove a spear-head through its spine just back of its 

 head. It died instantly and with much care we lifted it aboard, 

 a more precious ingot than was ever dug out of a silver mine. 



This was a fish of five feet in length and weighing about ninety 

 pounds. 



Poke had captured his, of a little lesser weight, and both of us 

 tired out with the excitement stretched ourselves in the canoes and 

 the boatmen rowed us back to the sloop singing — 



" In de old swamp, behind de hill, 

 De night-bird sing lies song, 

 He singin' — singin' — whip-poor-will, 

 An' he sing it all night long. 



Den hoe de cotton, hoe de cotton. 



Hoe de cotton, boys, 

 Ole maussa listenin' on de hill, 

 An' he lub to hear dis noise. " 



" Ef you 'd like to see a mermaid, would yer ? " said the captain 

 in the morning, as he sat drinking his black coffee out of a tin cup 

 as black as the coffee. 



