86 
LETTERS FROM 
The Maltese are great anglers, and on 
Sundays and holydays we see numbers of 
men and boys, and sometimes women, on 
the rocks with their immensely long cane- 
rods, but I have not yet had the pleasure of 
seeing a fish caught by any of them. They 
make excellent horse-hair lines, and I have 
bought one thirty or forty yards in length for 
sixpence. When we were outside of the 
harbour in the packet, we heard a noise on 
the water like the ringing of a small bell, 
and on examination we found it proceed 
from a cork buoy placed there to mark the 
situation of some lines. On this buoy two 
little pieces of metal were suspended from a 
short upright stick, and as the motion of the 
waves kept them continually striking against 
each other, when the owner of the lines had 
occasion to examine them in the night, he 
was directed to the spot by the sound. Per- 
