An Ocean Sapphire 229 



us at the same time; darting here and there, rising out of 

 the depths with splendid bounds, shooting athwart the blue 

 sky of the ocean. My companion, Mr. T. McDaniel Potter, 

 and I agreed that we had never witnessed anything quite 

 like it for number, dash, beauty and consequent excitement. 



My companion, one of the most skilful anglers I have 

 seen, told me a terrible joke he played upon the ladies of 

 the family the day before. He brought them out to this 

 very place and adjured them to preserve perfect silence, or 

 the fish would not bite ; and for some time they quietly fished 

 and looked at the amazing spectacle; then, hearing shouts 

 and laughter from other boats, discovered that the dashing 

 fishes either did not hear at all, or did not care. How my 

 companion settled this he did not say. 



The tunas appeared to favor the little skipjacks, and came 

 sweeping onto the scene with a rush that was more than 

 impressive; filling the water with light and color, a most 

 extraordinary spectacle, hardly to be believed by the eastern 

 or English sea angler who too often in their own waters are 

 monuments to patience. 



Two anglers, one a young lady, sat watching the rushing, 

 feeding throng; trying to pick out the tuna, jerking the lure 

 away from the albacore and skipjacks ; now holding it over 

 the surface, while the big fish snapped at it, then dropping 

 it, as the gay tuna came dashing along. It was just then 

 that the lady was too slow ; a skipjack seized the lure, and 

 with an astonishing blare from the reel — ze-e->e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e ! 

 — was away, taking about two hundred feet of the cobweb- 

 like line, disappearing like a vision, in the deeps of the 

 channel. For some time she could not stop it, and the line 

 fairly melted from the reel; then the fish slowly came up 

 until it reached the surface far away, and began a gallant 

 fight against the lady and her light rod, which lasted three- 

 quarters of an hour. 



I was confident that I had seen a skipjack seize her bait, 

 but Mexican Joe, who was now the boatman, with his forty 



