Rose and claims her hand just as the first notes of the 
music fall upon the ear. Before Fitz Poodles recovers 
from his astonishment, his wished for partner is gliding 
round and round the rink with his hated rival. He grinds 
his teeth savagely beneath his blonde mustache, and the 
tlood mantles under his fair skin to the roots of his yellow 
hair. But he has no resource, so he breathes a wish that 
Will may come to grief in some of his skillful evolutions, 
for he is jealous also of his rival’s proficiency as a skater. 
The fates are kind to Will, however, as they always are to 
the brave and skillful, and no such calamity occurs. 
Fitz Poodles is intensely disgusted. He unbuckles his 
skates, and having refreshed himself with a glass of 
brandy and water, lights his short clay pipe, and sets 
out for his barracks, leaving the field to his rival, as well he 
may. 
Shortly after, the odious chaperon, blue with cold, 
wraps her furs about her and steps into her sleigh to be 
driven home. Rose promises to leave immediately, but 
declines a seat in the sleigh. As she emerges from the 
dressing room with her skates on her arm she bestows a 
side glance on Will, who, apparently all unconscious, is 
doing the figure eight in the centre of the rink. But he 
is far from being unconscious, and counts the seconds after 
the door closes behind her until he thinks a sufficient time 
has elapsed to prevent the gossips connecting his departure 
with that of the young lady. He darts down the rink at 
lightning speed, not slackening his speed in the least as he 
nears the platform, but clearing it at a bound lands at the 
door of the dressing room. Ina twinkling his skates are 
unstrapped, and he is out at the door. A well known fig- 
ure is just disappearing around a corner. He walks rapid- 
ly on with a nervous, eager tread, the crisp snow crushing 
beneath his feet in the frosty atmosphere. He draws 
nearer and nearer, but the one of whom he is in pursuit 
never turns her head, though she well knows whose are 
the footsteps behind her. Soon he comes up with her, 
and receives a shy greeting. He takes the skates from her 
arm, and so they walk homeward together, saying little 
perhaps, but thinking much. 
But the Cupid of high latitude does not confine himself 
solely to rinks during the season of ice and snow. He 
also spreads his wings and shoots his arrows, on bright, 
sunshiny winter days, on the glossy surface of crystal 
lakes, lying in meadows or embedded among fir-clad hills. 
Such a lake I see before me now. It is some three miles 
in length, by one in breadth. Save at one cleared spot the 
dark fir trees come down the hillsides to the very edge of 
the iee. It isa clear, bright, bracing winter’s day, and the 
ice ishard and smooth as glass, reflecting, as in a mirror, 
the surrounding woods and the skaters gliding over it. 
Rose is well provided with chaperones to-day. She is 
accompanied by her two brothers, an uncle and a cousin, 
the latter a wordly-wise young lady, with a horror of flir- 
tations, to which, owing to her plain features and not over 
agreeable manners, she is never a party: She has.a holy 
horror cf admirers who are not eligible, and Will is as poor 
as a church mouse. He was just behind the party on the 
road to the lake, but made a short cut through the woods 
and was on the ice before them. With such a body-guard 
around his ladylove his chances look poorly enough, but 
he does not despair. ‘‘Brave heart,” you know. The 
old gentleman does not skate, but stands upon the bank 
and draws such comfort as he may from his cigar. He at 
least is out of the way. But the cousin and the two broth- 
ers do skate, and move off together. Will is never far 
away, and does not lose sight of them fora moment. Fi- 
nally the party encounters one of Fitz Poodles’ brother 
officers, whom rumor reports to be looking for a rich wife. 
He has been deucedly unlucky in horseflesh of late, and 
the ‘‘aged” has refused to pony up anything beyond his 
usual allowance. Miss Palaver has money and is not in- 
sensible to the blandishments of the ‘‘tall military gent,” 
as the small boys describe Captain Nocash, and she ac- 
cepts his proffered escort, leaving Rose to her brothers 
apd—her fate. 
Rose turns towards the head of the lake and skates 
quickly on, with her brothers on either side, and but a few 
rods away. Soon the ring of skate-irons is heard behind 
them, and ere many minutes elapse Will is beside the girl 
he loves. They skate steadily on without exchanginy a 
word, leaving all the other skaters behind them. Finally 
one of the brothers halts and motions to the other. He hes. 
itates a moment, then wheels to the right about. Consid- 
erate brothers! 
The lovers are now left to the enjoyment of their own 
society. Will extends his hand and Rose rests in it the tips 
of her gloved fingers. They shoot on until the head of the 
lake is reached. No one is near, and weare fain to believe 
that Will seized the opportunity for ‘‘breaking the ice.” 
At all events the faces of both were unusually rosy as they 
rejoined the other skaters near the landing: and Will car- 
ing nothing for the cold looks of the party he had invaded, 
accompanied Rose to her own door. 
They are not married yet, but they will be some day I 
am sure, for they are as true as steel to each other, and 
cold as ice to the rest of the world. 
CHARLES A. PILsBuRY. 
~ —Nothing is more sad thax a landscape without birds. 
The well known forest of Fontainebleau, so varied in its 
aspect, so majestic in its wooded glades, is always melan- 
choly; not the song of a single bird breaks the silence, 
Destitute of water, for the sandy soil drinks up all the rain, 
having no spring nor stream, it is deadly for the bird,which 
‘flies away as fromaland under acurse. Under the first 
impression you admire it, but by degrees the feeling of 
sadness oppresses you, and at last renders you insensible to 
its beauties. 

° 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
403 
For Forest and Stream. 
COAXING A DRUMFISH, 
——>_—_——. 
A CRUISE OFF THE AFRICAN COAST. 
—__-—_—_— 
CRUISE on the west coast of Africa in the olden 
time, when the ‘“‘ebony trade” was brisk, was almost 
without incident to relieve its dull monotony, and, looked 
back to in after days, the three long years seem almost a 
blank. Cruising, we but stood up and down, backward 
and forward, under easy sail or low steam, and while from 
aloft the lookout scanned the horizon, and wearied his eyes 
in watching the strip of white that to the eastward marked 
the sandy beach of a desert coast, to us on deck invisible, 
we killed our time as best we might with pipes and books, 
with chess and chat, taught our docile parrots new tricks 
and phrases, or lazily dozed away the hours—the weary 
hours of mid-day calm. 
Exercise seemed impossible. The great red sun drove 
his ardent rays through and through our well worn awn- 
ings, the white decks steamed, the paint work blistered, 
and the black lines of pitch lost their tape-like symmetry 
and oozed meltingly into little tacky puddles, the brass rails 
glowed with the fervent heat, and even the great shark, 
lying perchance deep under our counter, seemed to pant and 
gasp, and turned loathingly from the chunk of pork, which 
inseeming innocence dangled listlessly by his very nose. 
Rolling gently to an fro on the ever breathing sea, sails 
flapping, ropes rattling, yards creaking, ladders squeaking, 
we exist and wait for air. 
northwest, again another, then a gentle breeze; the tired 
mercury sinks in its tube and life again comes to us, for 
the sea breeze has made. 
is a river breaks the contour of that strip of sand to the east- 
ward—the noble Congo—and somewhere up in its myste- 
rious fastnesses are trim vessels, laden with human flesh 
and blood for freight, watching the chance to slip out. 
This late strong sea breeze is what they need, and taking 
the chances of the distant cruiser’s failing to discover her 
in time, out one slips. 
wind, keeping from going to the northward—the speck to 
leeward, which her captain’s trained eye sees at once is an 
enemy, keeps him from running off—and so, with all can- 
vass spread, he hugs the wind and trusts to his heels. 
Presently a little puff from the 
Now we look for a prize. There 
Pressing along with the northwest 
Sail ho! from aloft, and we crowd on all sail in pursuit. 
No sleepiness now. We must bring her within gun shot 
ere she crusses our bow, or we lose her. 
each other on converging lines, but night, too, is approach- 
ing fast, and in that latitude there is little twilight. It was 
in her captain’s calculations, and for this moonless night, 
so near at hand, he has patiently awaited. 
Rapidly we near 
Onward comes the slayer, seemingly rushing to certain 
destruction; but the breeze grows fainter, our heavy can- 
vass flaps to the mast, while the swift-heeled clipper, with 
her light cotton topsails swelling against the buntlines, 
plump and full like a Breton ‘‘swell front” house, darts out 
from our very grasp, and driving off with the trade wind 
disappears in the darkness, a fading pyramid of spectral 
white, and until she reaches the shores of Cuba with her 
starving, sick, tortured, and festering mass of humanity, 
she is safe; and then, with an honored fiag at her peak, she 
claims the immunity which that flag, rightfully carried, 
should always give. 
Such was our general fortune. At long intervals better 
luck awaited us, and a captured cargo involved upon us a 
trip to Monrovia, where we were welcome visitors to the 
lazy darkies, who, in white jackets and indolence, are 
civilizing Africa by teaching the natives how not to do it. 
Distributed among them as field hands, and taught to raise 
manioc and prepare cassava enough for their own needs 
and their master’s, our poor Africans are not perceptibly 
better off than in slavery. 
But Iam wandering from my intentions, and will en- 
deavor to make amends by changing the topic to one more 
in consonance with the columns of Forest aND STRpAM. 
I propose to tell you of the capture of a ‘‘drum fish,” and 
to show you how we worked it so that the fate of the other 
‘“‘drum.fisherman,” poetically recorded in one of your late 
numbers, did not befall me. 
We were lying in the harbor of Benguela, a little white- 
washed, dirty Portuguese city in the sand, to the south- 
ward of St. Paul de Loando. It was a hot and suliry 
night, following a hotter day, during which we had drifted 
into port. Stretched about the decks, in light and airy cos- 
tumes, aud in uneasy postures, we rolled and shifted to the 
full extent of our Loando mats in vain search of a softer 
plank or cooler spot. Save for the occasional sound of a 
well beaten “‘tom tom,” or the higher screech of some na- 
tive songster, perhaps serenading some dusky inamorata, 
or more likely working off the effects of New England 
rum, all was silent both on shore and sea, when suddenly, 
from the depths beneath us, an unearthly groan startled us 
from repose. Beginning low, it gradually rose in volume 
and cadence till the whole ship seemed to vibrate; then it 
died away, and we speculated. Again it boomed upon our 
ears, and with a ventriloquial effect, for the sailor on the 
forecastle and officer on the poop were each equally sure 
that the sound was just beneath him, And so through the 
long night we were entertained with this subaqueous con- 
cert, than which a forty horse power steam frog could not 
have done better. The breakfast hour brought its usual 
assemblage of wisdom, and many were the oracular opin: 
ions and Bunsbian explanations of the night’s phenomena. 
gers before I realized that I was in for it. 


Bumboat Tom was brought into our councils, and eluci- 
dated the mystery. ‘Oh, sar, dat was larshe feesh, sar; 
he very Jarshe, very bono for eat him, sar; malo for catch 
him; we call him drum fish, sar.” 
Tom said that they were plentiful, that they fed only at 
night, and that the proper bait for them was sardines. I 
mate up my mind that on another night I should make 
closer acquaintance with this musical genius, and to that 
end cultivated the armorer and captain of the fore top. 
The former forged me a fine, large hook, well tempered, 
and big enough fora halibut, and the latter, with a little 
wrench he had, laid me up a long strong line from a dozen 
of the best that I could procure—wire laid in for a fathom 
from the hook, guarded against sharp teeth. At supper 
time Tom brought me a pail of live “‘sardines.” Te called 
them so, but they were a foot long, and more like chubs. 
Night came, and I could hardly wait for the sound that 
was to signalize the approaching fray. Presently it began, 
and slipping over the port gangway I took possession of the 
dinghy which lay moored at the booms, and in company 
with Johnny Shea, a tight little foretop boy, who was al- 
ways my right hand in my shooting and fishing trips, I 
prepared for action. Seeing everything clear, I lowered 
away over the boat’s quarter, and way down below the 
dancing sparks that the ripples produced in the phospho- 
rescent sea my line became a beam of light, flashing as car- 
ried to and fro by the struggles of my lively bait. I had not 
long to wait. 
Suddenly a mass of light appeared from under the ship, 
turned into fire as it surrounded and encompassed my hook, 
and then came a pull, not a tug or jerk, but as though my 
hook had caught firmly in the coral reefs, the bottom 
slowly settling away from me. Quickly I hove out a bight 
of the line, that he might gorge the bait, then trembling 
with anxiety I struck. 
“Have you got him, sir?” screamed Johnny. 
Got him! I might as well have got alocomotive. John- 
ny’s cry brought a row of heads above the hammock rail, 
and the officer of the deck sorgot dignity and gave me an 
encouraging word; but I hardly heeded them. Twenty 
fathoms of that line flew through my cut and bleeding fin- 
Then, the first 
mad rush over, he pointed seaward, and struck out more 
slowly but irresistibly, and fathom after fathom he took 
my line; half gone—two thirds—and no let up. I hovea 
turn around the shank of the brass row lock, and while I 
eased away as slowly as possible Johnny bent the end of 
his line to mine, and I had another hundred feet. I didn’t 
play that fish—it was all business, and he had the manag- 
ing of it. Would he never stop? At last! I risked check- 
ing him, and, heaving a second turn around the row lock, 
held on. As I did so the pull nearly at right angles started 
the boat, and slowly her stern slewed into the direction of 
the strain. This suggested a plan, and quickly as possible 
I jumped forward. Johnny cast off the painter, and assist- 
ing with an oar pointed the boat, and then, with the boy at 
the helm, and I with a turn around the stem head, easing 
off as required, we started on a grand old ride, and surely 
old Neptune, with his dolphin team, was no better off, 
His steeds were tame; ours was not. But weight tells, and 
our heavy boat soon tired him; the line slackened, and then 
a swishing curve showed that he had taken a new depar- 
ture, and for a time, freed from our weight, with increased 
speed he dashed across our bows. But astroke of the oar, 
as the line tautened, brought him in line ahead again, and 
he had another straight forward puli before him. He did 
not seem to fancy this, but turned and came slowly toward 
the boat, as though willing to risk the future to avoid the 
present pain. J rounded in my line, and still he came till 
alongside, but too deep for us to strike him, and at the up- 
ward pull he again shot off, and so for a good half hour 
more we worked. Once we had him alongside, and Johnny 
struck him with the gaff, but, as might have been expected, 
this only startled him, and with spasmodic vigor he made 
one more grand struggle for life. But it was not to be. 
The great hook was buried deep in his vitals, and his 
strength was going fast. Finally the end came, and he lay 
exhausted and quiet by our side, while we each slid our 
gaffs beneath him; then a quick upward stroke together 
and the trouble began again. Only for a moment, though, 
for with gaffs and line, and, when we could reach, our 
hands and arms and legs, we somehow twisted him into 
the boat, which, by our united weights, was careened near- 
ly to the water’s edge. And then, used up, we sat and 
gazed at our conquest, for the silvery sheen of his side, 
and the phosphorescent drops which clung to his scales, 
marked even in the darkness his grand proportions, and we 
were two proud and happy boys. Our united weights 
would perhaps reach two hundred pounds, and there, gasp- 
ing and groaning on the thwarts, lay a magnificent fish 
greater than we two together. Six fect five inches from 
tip to tip, and broad in fair proportion, a shapely gamey 
fish of at least three hundred pounds, gave fair promise, 
which he well fulfilled, of glorious chowders, broils, and 
fries; and two hundred men can testify to the delicious 
quality of his flesh. 
As we rowed back to the ship—for, whether towed or 
drifted I cannot say—we found ourselves a good half mile 
away, I cetainly felt more pride in my achievement than 
any event had ever before caused me. Once since, 
though, when I brought a noble three pound brook trout 
to my basket, I have felt the same sensation, and for this 
last pleasure I am indebted to PIsEco. 
