134: BASS FISHING. 



judgment in Gen. Pinckney, that he lavished such 

 expense on a situation thus exposed. In strong 

 practical sense he was surpassed by no man. It 

 was, in truth, his characteristic. He built where 

 trees of a century's growth gave promise of stabi- 

 lity ; but in our southern Atlantic borders, he who 

 builds strongest does not build on rock for among 

 the shifting sands of our coast, old channels are 

 closed, and new ones worn, by the prevailing winds 

 and currents, through which the waters are poured, 

 during the storms of the equinox, with a force that 

 nothing can resist. 



"We will suppose that the sportsman has hit the 

 precise spot, and is riding quietly at anchor in 

 six fathoms water, above one of these populous 

 thoroughfares of the scaly nations. His success 

 soon excites the attention of the surrounding sports- 

 men. They approach, modestly at first, and drop 

 alongside at thirty yards' distance then gradually 

 nearer, till ten yards' space does not separate the 

 boats still without success ; while the more fortu- 

 nate fisherman is satiated with sport I Some drop 

 behind, and some, perhaps, with an awkward 

 apology for violating the courtesy of the river, 

 drop directly ahead. It makes no difference one 

 boat has all the play. "What bait have you? 

 Very strange ! ours is just the same ! Never saw 



