332 Recreations of a Sportsman 



With this tackle we had taken four or five 

 yellowtails, ranging in weight up to twenty-five 

 pounds, each fish making a splendid play of from 

 twenty to thirty minutes, towing the launch 

 around for several yards, and coming up to the 

 gaff out of a sea whose beauty of color no pen 

 could describe, no brush could paint. The water 

 was clear and smooth as a disk of polished steel, 

 and the sun, high overhead, sent great bands of 

 pulsating light down into it, which seemed to 

 intensify the color and render it so translucent 

 that the eye could penetrate it seemingly for 

 great distances, and strange and beautiful shapes 

 seemed to be brought out, and their details illu- 

 mined and magnified. Far below, standing out 

 against the blue, were crystalline forms comets, 

 chains, globes, and a thousand radiant bas- 

 reliefs against the watery sky really jelly 

 fishes, while everywhere the ocean was sprinkled, 

 as it were, with gems, sparkling in their irides- 

 cence; some red, like rubies; others blue as sap- 

 phires; others again with the steely glow of a 

 diamond; some pink, like a tourmaline; indeed, 

 every possible color, tint, or glow that ever 

 flushed over a spectrum seemed to find place in 

 this fairyland of the sea. 



The silvery glow of a fighting yellowtail could 

 be seen, seemingly, three hundred feet below as 

 it coursed around the launch ; and the eye was 

 constantly regaled with strange and beautiful 



