84 Recreations of a Sportsman 



Thirty or more flag-bedecked launches bearing 

 women, children, and men were moving slowly 

 in and out, trolling, many having fishes on at 

 the same time; and the shouts of laughter at 

 the landing of the game, or the breaking of rods 

 and lines, came down the wind, a feature of one 

 of the most remarkable angling scenes to be 

 found anywhere. For several hours this kept 

 up, then the fleet moved slowly down the shore 

 toward home and Avalon. 



Not one hundred yards from the little bay is 

 a long pebble-covered beach which forms the 

 vanguard for a well-wooded canon that winds 

 its way up into the island mountains and is lost 

 in the jumble of peaks. The water here is clear, 

 the dark-green graceful kelp leaves floating in 

 the vagrant currents or coiled upon the bottom 

 protecting myriads of strange fishes. Just as 

 we passed the beach, the gulls rising here and 

 there before us, Colonel Morehouse's boatman, 

 Charles Hammond, sighted a big fin cutting the 

 water inshore. 



Rising, I saw what I supposed was a mottled 

 or spotted shark, looking not unlike pictures of 

 the great Rhinodon from Ceylon waters. 



I had been trolling a flying-fish and suggested 

 that I might try it on the shark, to get rid of 

 it. So Hammond turned and circled about the 

 supposed shark, which was now swimming slowly 

 down the shore, while I endeavored to place my 



