818 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 23, 1905. I 
Tampico Tarpon Fishing. 
Tampico, Mexico, Dec. 10.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
The tarpon season in Mexico was inaugurated yesterday 
by Mr. St. Clair Boyd, of San Francisco, Cal. After two 
hours of exciting contest, using' a seven-foot lancewood 
rod, he succeeded in landing a magnificent tarpon measur- 
ing in length exactly seven feet and one inch, with weight 
of 190 pounds. The record fish of the season of I904-’o5 
was seven feet and two inches, and it is remarkable that 
a tarpon so nearly approaching in size the largest of the 
past year should be caught at the very beginning of this 
year’s sport. Mr. Boyd’s tarpon is being prepared by a 
Tampico taxidermist, and will be shortly shipped to his 
home in San Francisco for exhibition among the Califor- 
nia sportsmen. A few days previous Mr. A. M. Poindex- 
ter, proprietor of the Hidalgo Hotel, while fishing for 
tarpon, hooked and landed with identically the same 
tackle, a jewfish or black bass, weighing 400 pounds. The 
River Panuco, at this point, is as yet a trifle too muddy 
from the fall rains for the best of fishing, but a couple 
of more weeks will find the water clear, and all indica- 
tions point to a very large catch of tarpon before 
spring., P. 
Henry Van Dyke on ^’Adirondack Murray.^' 
In a personal letter written by the Rev. Dr. Henry Van 
Dyke to Harry V. Radford, whose biography of “Adiron- 
dack Murray” has recently appeared, the author of 
“Little Rivers,” “Fisherman’s Luck” and “The Ruling 
Passion,” makes the interesting disclosure that it was 
in the Adirondack region that the distinguished preacher- 
author-sportsman first learned the use of rod and gun. 
Dr. Van Dyke’s letter is as follows : 
“Avalon,” Princeton, N. J. — My Dear Mr. Radford :| 
Let me thank you vep^ cordially for sending me youri 
little book about ‘Adirondack Murray.’ Your writings' 
takes me back in imagination to that beautiful country' 
.of mountains, and rivers, and lakes, where so many of; 
the happiest months of my early life were spent, and! 
where I learned to cast the fly and shoot a rifle. It isi 
pleasant to feel the sincere and cordial enthusiasm with; 
which you write of the fine traits of Mr. Murray’s char-; 
acter, and the big out-of-door side of his life in which ^ 
the best of his nature found expression. I congratulate 
you on the success with which you have performed your i 
task of gratitude and friendship, and hope that your' 
book will find its way into the hands of thousands of. 
those who love the woods and the waters. i 
“With best regards. Faithfully yours, ; 
“Henry Van Dyke.” 
And the Lost Shall be Found. 
BY WILLIAM LAMBERT BARNARD. 
“No hand was there to guide her. 
No eye to see the sight. 
Destruction ran beside her 
As she battled through the night.” 
• — The Wreck of the Royal George. 
One crisp, clear morning in late November I found 
Captain Nate perched on the rail of Oliver’s Wharf, con- 
templatively regarding the single line of catboats spread- 
ing out along the beach on each side of the bath houses. 
Stripped of all gear and rigging they were, and innocent 
of canvas covers and such swaddling clothes with which 
their yachting sisters are tucked in for the winter. Their 
gaunt masts, erect but seemingly woe-begone, gave the last 
dreary touch to what is always a desolate scene. 
“You can talk ’til you’re blue,” asserted Captain Nate, 
quite as though we had been having a long argument, 
“but I can’t help feelin’ that a boat’s a good deal like a 
woman. They need a good man to run ’em. Then, again, 
there’s some what can go it alone in a way to ’sprise you. 
Just look at ’em! There’s the Marie, an’ the Prudie, an’ 
the Rachael — good, steady-goin’ old packets, never done 
nothin’ outer the w'ay nor come to any harm. But turn 
’em adrift an’ Lord bless you ! they’d go all to pieces. On 
the other hand, look at that round-bellied slab there that 
’Lonzo built for Cap’n George years ago — called her the 
Uneedher, after some new brand of can milk, cr some 
such truck. One day she has a lee helm, next day she 
wants to stick her nose right up in the eye of the wind 
an’ keep it there. If you don’t want to reef she needs it, 
an’ if you did she’d stand up like a church an’ hardly get 
out of her own way. She certainly is the cussedest, 
cantankerous old wagon I ever did see. By rights she’d 
orter been on the rocks long ago. But no, sir ! durned if 
she don’t g6 an’ do what I’d never believed the best boat, 
an’ with Cy in her at that, could do. 
“You remember the storm we had two years ago — two 
years ago to-day now I think of it. The time Pollock 
Rip and the South Shoals went adrift. We had a late 
season that year' an’ no one hauled out as early ’s this. 
I’d been down to the west’ard scollopin’ an’ I seed it was 
makin’ up for bad weather — almighty bad. So I pulled 
up stakes an’ druv’ the Caroline for home. Didn’t much 
more’n make it, either. 
“Cap’n George had hired out the Uneedher to one of 
those hair-leggers down Harwich way for the scollopin’ 
season. George allowed thet ’s long ’s the folks down 
there was so sot agin our scollopin’ on their grounds he 
might ’s well do the next best thing an’ make her get 
some of the money, seein’ ’s he couldn’t. Didn’t I ever 
tell you ’bout the rinktums they raised down there over 
our scollopin’ on their grounds? Got so hot they lied a 
special town meetin’ to stop it. All their fishin’ men 
went to the meetin’ to hev a say, an’ while they was 
resolutin’ an’ regulatin’ we cleaned up purty nigh the last 
scollop that was left. Howsumever, that was three years 
ago. 
“The man that hired the Uneedher of Cap’n George 
was named Bassett, I think— yes ’twas Lem Bassett. He 
had her moored off the beach, purty well out, ’count o’ the 
flats that run out from the beach, an’ he bein’ too lazy 
to take her round into the river every night. An’ so when 
the wind’s off shorejit gets quite a sweep before it strikes 
Lem’s moorin’. 
“Well, sir, when the bad weather struck in from the 
noth’east it struck hard. There warn’t nO' preliminaries 
with that breeze. It jest arrived. An’ it blew. My eye! 
but it blew. Seemed if it jest picked my house up an’ 
shook it. It blew the surface right off the harbor, so 
what with thet an’ the flyin’ sand you could scarcely tell 
V here the beach ended an’ the water began. Everything 
w.'us v.h.i^e. 
“1 he Uneedher caught it heavy but she stood up to' it 
purty well. Course she reared an’ plunged something 
awful an’ skated around like all possessed. There ain’t 
anything cruises round her moorin’ worse than a catboat, 
’ceptin’ one , of these gasolene launches — an’ they ain’t 
really boats. But Lem’s moorin’ was a big stone, ’most 
as big as a millwheel, an’ a new ivarp of three-inch manila 
with plenty of scope. Seems ’s if she orter held on, an’ 
I say she would if that durned Lem Bassett hadn’t been 
so slack. Lle’d made that warp fast with a bit. of inch’n 
a half rope — an’ old rope at that. Said afterward that his 
warp had an eye-splice instead of a hook, an’ as she didn’t 
have no bitts he didn’t have nO' other way to make her 
fast. Now, what’d folks say if I left the Caroline any 
such way? He might have bought new rope, but you 
know how ’tis — ‘when they buy rope in Harwich it’s time 
to pray.’ Lem Bassett had been a purty good boatman, 
but he’d been skipperin’ a Boston man’s little yacht for 
three summers ’n I ’spose that associatin’ with you ama- 
clioors had kinder spoiled him.” 
Captain Nate paused for a quiet laugh at my expense. 
“Wal, it parted, an’ she just sheered off and sailed away 
to loo’ard,” he continued. “The spring tides was run- 
liin' that week an’ she must have just fetched the first of 
the west'ly current. That would give her a purty good 
cant to the west, an' 1 reckon she went inside the Bishops 
an’ then struck across purty straight for the East Chop. 
How she ever made out to get by everything is too much 
for me. I'll bet there ain’t a man on the Cape that would 
’a gone out there thet night to save his soul. No, sir, 
not for $50, either ! 
“Everybody here figures it out different. Some say she 
must have fetched down by the Squash Meadow, an’ 
others think she was more to the noth’ard, but she must 
’a been pretty far down the Sound before the tide tumed 
to the east’ard. 
“ Bout that time, blest if the breeze didn’t back to 
the nothewest, without losin’ 4 stroke, a clean eight points, 
an’ keep right on blowin’ a 'gale. Jest think of the cross 
sea it must have kicked up out there !” 
And he slowly w'aved his hand from east tO' west to 
include all the shoals from the Handkerchief to Succon- 
nesset. 
’ “My eye! but it must have been fierce,” he continued. 
“Thinkin’ ’bout it’s bad enough, an’ I don’t never want 
to see if it’s ’s bad ’s I think. 
“Wal, off she goes agin. An’ she must have kept edgin’ 
out more or less — don’t seem as if the tide could have 
give her all the eastin’ she made. Lord knows how she 
ever got by the Cross Rip an’ the Horseshoe without 
swampin’. I tell you, Charlie, there couldn’t have been 
no waves on tho.se shoals that night, nothin’ but a jumble 
of holes with straight sides runnin’ in every d’rection. 
But she got through it somehow an’ out across the Point 
Rip^ — an’ that’s, the wickedest place of all. The light 
keeper there at Great Point made her out in the mornin’, 
joggin’ along to the south’ard on the outside. Said he 
never saiw a funnier sight. There she was, sail furled, 
riggin’ taut an’ ship-shape, ridin’ high an’ takin’ it easy : 
with nary a soul on board, as far as he could see. 
“There’s quite a back eddy makes in along that shore, 
m.akes right in to the beach, an’ he suspicioned what 
might possibly happen. So he telephoned up the beach 
to the life savin’ station an’ then started up the beach 
after that old Uneedher. The wind was still blowin’ a 
gale, an’ of course it was off shore there. Well, sir, he 
followed that old hooker as far as the station an’ then 
the whole caboodle of ’em follered her, takin’ some roll- 
ers an’ tackle an’ a horse along with ’em. She’d edge in, 
an’ edge in, an’ tease ’em along, keepin’ that up ’til they 
w'as nearly up to the Haulover Bar, an’ then, durn me, 
if she didn’t stick her tail between her legs an’ scoot for 
shore, landin’ on the beach right at their very feet. All 
they had to do was hitch on, put a roller under her, an’ 
give the horse a slap an’ there she was, high an’ dry an’ 
safe 's n’ old maid under the misseltoe.” 
“She hadn’t parted nothin’ or started nothin’, an’ there 
warn’t more’n a barrel of water in her, either. Could 
any man livin’ have took her through the Sound that j 
night without sinkin’ her? Wal, I guess not! An’ that’s 
why I say a boat’s like a woman. You never can tell 
what she will do ’til she’s done it. An’ then, most likely 
you won’t believe it.” 
Boston Letter. 
Long Distance Races. — Two of the Massachusetts 
Bay clubs are planning long distance races for the com- 
ing season, the Corinthian Y. C. and the Eastern Y. C., 
both of Marblehead. Both clubs have been interested in 
long distance racing, the Corinthian in an annual event, 
which is sailed from Marblehead to the Isles of Shoals 
and return, and the Eastern Y. C. in somewhat longer 
races, one from New York to Boston and the other, last 
season, from Marblehead to Halifax. 
It is quite possible that the Corinthian Y. C. will again 
hold its race to the Isles of Shoals and return, as this 
event has created much interest, and in the two years 
that the races have been sailed, good attendances have 
been secured. While nothing definite has been an- 
nounced, ;t is now considered likely that the Corinthian 
Y. C. will provide for larger classes than have yet sailed 
in its long distance races, and that the larger yachts will 
be given a course probably from Marblehead to the Isles 
of Shoals, thence to some point off Cape Cod and return, 
a distance of about 130 miles. 
The Eastern Y. C. is not likely tO' repeat its long dis- 
tance race from Marblehead to Halifax next year, as its 
.Regatta Committee does not believe in too much same- 
ness in such big events, and also because it is felt that 
such a race would be putting the Halifax yachtsmen to 
too much constant expense in entertaining visiting yachts- 
men. One course that is now under consideration by the 
Regatta Committee is from Bar Harbor to Cape Cod and 
thence to Marblehead, a distance of something over 200 
miles. In the event of this course being given, the race 
would be sailed at the end of the annual cruise, which, 
in this case, would be in July. 
In the light of former long distance races, it seems 
that such courses as suggested in the foregoing would 
be far better than courses of equal length, where only 
the starting and finishing points give an idea of the posi- 
tions of the yachts. In such cases there is a lively inter- 
est at the start, and then as the yachts are not seen or 
heard from, the event is nearly forgotten until the first 
yacht finishes; and that ends it. Where the yachts ap- 
proach different points near enough to have their relative 
positions made out, it is likely that more interest would 
be shown among those who are left on shore, and at the 
same time there would be plenty of opportunity of show- 
ing skill in navigation. 
There should be a good fleet of entries for both of 
these proposed races. The three big racing schooners, 
Corona, Elmina and Emerald are now enrolled in the 
Eastern Y. C.. and their owners are generally quite will- 
ing to race. There are two new 55ft. schooners, one that 
is now building at Lawley’s for Vice-Commodore H. A. 
Morss, of the Corinthian Y. C., and the new Shiyessa, 
owned by Rear-Commodore Alfred Douglas, of the Bos- 
ton Y; C., ixcently completed at the same yard. Shiyessa 
was successfully launched last Tuesday, and was chris- 
tened by Commodore Douglas’ , son Charles, in the pres- 
ence of a large gathering of yachtsmen friends of the 
owner.' In addition to these' there are many yachts of 
more than 40ft waterline whose owners might be willing 
to' contest. 
Schooner for Biological Work. — Mr. B. B. Crown- 
inshield is at work on the plans of an auxiliary schooner 
to .be used in connection with the work of the United 
States Biological Station at Woods Hole in gathering 
specimens of marine life along the New England coast. 
The schooner will be a centerboard, of good body and 
not too hard bilges for working in a seaway. She will 
be 51ft. over all, 38ft. waterline, 14ft. breadth and 5ft. 
draft. Her engine will be of low power, sufficient to 
take her to port in calm weather; but it will be used 
principally for_ working he dredging apparatus with 
which the specimens are gathered. 
Jubilee Y. C. Officers. — At a meeting of the Jubilee 
Y. C., of Beverly, last Wednesday evening, the following 
officers were elected for the coming year; Cora., Daniel 
W. Hardy; Vice-Com., Daniel W. Taylor; Rear-Corii , 
William Pickett; Regatta Committee, John H. Claflin, T, 
O. Gilliatt and J. A. McLarren. 
New Launch Orders. — Messrs. Swasey, Raymond & 
Page have received the following orders for iaunches : 
60ft, cruising launch for Rochester, N. Y.. 70ft. trunk 
