TUNNY-FISHING IN SICILY. 109 



It is early morning ; the morning of a bright, glow- 

 ing August day, whose lustre falls freshly on the blue 

 waters of the Bay of Palermo, and the cactus-crowned 

 heights of Monte Pellegrino. We enter our baccarole, 

 and push forward to the tonnaro, where the madrague 

 lies, about a mile from shore. All is calm, smooth, and 

 brilliant to seaward ; and not a ripple vexes the oleagin- 

 ous surface before us, mapped out, like the ground-plan 

 of a new town, with floating corks, which clearly indicate 

 the structure and divisions of the immense decoy. We 

 pull from end to end of the long enclosure to the first sub- 

 marine barrier, and gliding over it, row swiftly, between 

 lines of buoys and floating corks, to the spot whither some 

 boats in advance of our own have been driving a shoal 

 of scared and confused tunnies. " Ecco la camera dell a 

 morte !" exclaim our boatmen, " siamo giunti !" shipping 

 their oars, and staring down into the depths, as if they 

 were bent on seeing what scenes were being enacted in 

 them. But the dark blue waters are impenetrable ; our 

 men resume their oars ; and in a few seconds we bring 

 up alongside one of the two barges which guard the 

 " chamber of death." The other serves as the point 

 d'appui for the nets. 



These boats are filled, as we see, with a crowd of fisher- 

 men, half naked, with athletic, sinewy limbs, of the 

 colour of bronze, and dark eyes flashing under Phrygian 

 caps of brown or scarlet ; some of them hauling in the 

 sieve-like flooring of the " death chamber," others stand- 

 ing ready, with iron-pointed weapons, to deal destruction 

 among the tunnies as soon as they rise to the surface. 



But presently a shout is heard : "La pipa, la pipa !" 

 A sword-fish, or pijm, has entered the decoy with the 



