CHAPTER XIX. 



OCEAN ANGLING 





Likeness of Heaven ! 



Agent of Power ! 

 Man is thy victim, 



Shipwreck's thy dower 

 Spices and jewels 



From valley and sea, 

 Armies and banners 



Are buried in thee ! 



THE art we love being admirably adapted to recruit the 

 broken-down or enervated constitution; and the pure breath 

 of heaven, as it comes from off the dark blue sea and the 

 white capped wave, being a more potent medicine than 

 that prescribed by the physician, or compounded by the 

 apothecary, no excuse need here be offered for a few 

 remarks on a subject of interest to those who may cast 

 their first line from the side of a ship. Those who have 

 never been to sea are apt to think that such a large pond 

 was only made for the leviathan whale, the ponderous shark, 

 or the Nahant Sea Serpent, but a little reflection would 

 convince the most sceptical that they labor under a delu- 

 sion. 



The depths of the trackless ocean, wherein the mon- 

 sters bask in broad noon-day, as well as the reefs and shal- 

 lows nearer land, are teeming with shoals of the living 

 brood of smaller size, which are designed not only to feed 

 and fatten the larger majesties of their own species, hut to 

 minister to the appetite, comfort, amusement, and support 

 of the man in whose powerthey are placed. The poorsailor, 

 who is obliged to make a voyage of many months, is ever 

 on the alert for a change of diet, and the sight of a school 



