FISHING 45 



hundreds of crabs, shells, sea-urchins, and star-fish 

 moving about. Some of the larger pools contain many 

 fine fish. Toward evening, as I climbed the hill to our 

 house, I thought the day had been one of the happiest 

 of my life. We all congregated about the bare wooden 

 table in one of the large rooms for supper. 



A tick of straw and a couple of rough blankets 

 were distributed to each of the passengers at evening. 

 Barelli and I took ours into one of the upper rooms of 

 the building, and, with our boots for pillows, we were 

 soon sound asleep. Next morning we were away with 

 a fish-line each and a generous piece of beef for bait. 

 We went down on a point of rock about a mile from 

 the house, where I had seen some large fish the day 

 before. There was no mistake about their being at 

 home ; for a line had scarcely been thrown in before 

 there was a tugging at the other end, and a silvery, 

 pink and blue fish, of the size of a cod, lay slapping 

 about on the rocks. We had grand sport, and became 

 so tired that we had to give it up. Just as Barelli 

 threw out his line for the last time, an immense fish 

 swallowed the bait and started leisurely away. As 

 soon as he felt the sharp hook, however, he gave a tre- 

 mendous jump out of the water, nearly pulling Barelli 

 in, who let go just in time to save himself. We had a 

 great tug to get the fish up to our house, and half an 

 hour afterwards nearly every man on the island had 

 gone fishing. Our fish, we learned, were the famous 



