302 By Stream and Sea. 



given up the ghost. Then he removed the fins, then cut out 

 a few choice cutlets ; at this stage a hungry-eyed Chinaman 

 purchased quite a large slab, and bore it away in triumph. 

 I had always imagined that this queer specimen of the shark 

 genus was too tough and nasty for table purposes, but one 

 has to unlearn many things in travelling. The real bonne- 

 bouche seemed to be a very juvenile member of the white 

 shark family. There were scores of them for sale, and those 

 who could not afford to buy surveyed them with watering 

 mouths; 



Fourteen strange fish I could make nothing of. They 

 were of all shapes, and frequently, even after death, of every 

 colour of the rainbow. One fish was carp-shaped, and of a 

 gamboge colour, weighing perhaps fourteen or fifteen pounds. 

 Some were striped like zebras ; one was tinted with the 

 shades of the maiden-blush rose. I saw a fish that was 

 almost square in shape ; some that were all eyes, some all 

 teeth. Spots carmine, spots orange, and spots blue and 

 green jewelled the broad sides of others. Here lay a heap 

 of silvery fry next of kin to our own whitebait ; there a fish that 

 a boy could scarcely carry. But somehow they were all, to 

 my mind, suspicious in appearance, having nothing in 

 common, so far as moral character goes, with the sheepish 

 roach, gentlemanly grayling, cavalier trout, kingly salmon, or 

 sportive dace of temperate climes. And after I had feasted 

 my eyes upon the collection I went back to my gharry, very 

 sad because of my own ignorance of the science which could 

 have given these singular fish local habitations and names. 



One afternoon a hideous Chinawoman, who used to angle 

 every day with heavily-leaded line and stout brass wire hook, 

 caught a great fish close to the shipping. It was an oval 

 fish, something like a John Dory, but coated with fine gold, 

 and it was a singular coincidence that I should there and 



