FISHES AND PISHING. 205 



parent, orange-coloured light, which gives the finish- 

 ing touch to the magnificent picture. 



Nearly the same uniformity prevails in the light- 

 ning M^hich almost every night at this season is wont 

 to play in the western sky. A dark gloomy-looking 

 cloud towers up from the horizon, which every two 

 or three seconds becomes a flood of soft light like the 

 concentrated glory which we sometimes see in paint- 

 ings representing heaven. Sometimes the light gleams 

 fitfully from behind the cloud, revealing its outline in 

 stern detail, and gilding the edge ; at others a faint 

 glimmer peeps as it were round one corner, and 

 tremulously quivers. Then a full blaze appears 

 again, and a dazzling zigzag cleft in the midst of it, 

 darting upwards. This zigzag track is in almost every 

 broad flash, as if the sky, like a solid wall of light, 

 had split and closed again, revealing the most intense 

 lustre behind it. All the time, perhaps some hours, 

 not a sound of thunder is audible. 



FISHES AND FISHING. 



I accompanied an old negro one morning, when he 

 paddled out in his canoe to examine his fish-pots. 

 The canoe was, as usual, a single log of the Silk- 

 cotton tree, shaped and hollowed by the hands of the 

 fisherman himself, partl}^ by the aid of the axe, partly 

 by fire. It was long and narrow, and brought to a 

 rounded point at each end. The owner squatted 

 down in the stern, and, with a single paddle held in 

 both hands, gave two or three short strokes on one 



