Indian River, not more than eight miles. No progress,
however, seems to have been made in the enterprise.

We found three cat-rigged boats at Titusville, which we had no
difficulty in procuring. The ladies would not allow us to leave them at
the settlement, though Cornwood intimated that we might have a rough
time of it. Mr. Garbrook, Cornwood, and myself served as skippers, and
we were all thoroughly acquainted with the business. The boats were
about the size of the Lakebird, in which I had voyaged in the roughest
weather of Lake St. Clair; and as we had only four persons in each
boat, we were not crowded. I had Colonel Shepard, Mr. and Miss Tiffany
in the boat with me.

Our first business was to obtain a supply of bait, which was easily
procured with our landing-nets, and consisted of small mullet and other
little fish, which had to be kept alive. The ladies were in excellent
spirits, and even Mrs. Shepard, who had been an invalid for years,
entered fully into the spirit of the occasion. When I first met this
lady in Portland, she was hardly able to move without assistance; but
latterly she seemed to need no aid from any one. She had taken part in
all our frolics and excursions, and her appetite was equal to that of
any person in the party. But no one could be sick in such a delicious
climate as this was, for we spent all our time in the open air.

Our fishing was to be done mainly by trolling, and as soon as we had
our bait, Colonel Shepard had a mullet on one of his approved squids.
We had a six-knot breeze, and I had to attend to the tiller. The bait
was hardly in the water before the Colonel began to tug at his line. I
saw a large fish break in the water, a hundred feet from the boat, and
"cut up" in the most extraordinary manner. The New Yorker labored
diligently for some time, and I luffed up the boat in order to lessen
his labors; but before he got the fish near enough to enable us to see
what he was, the patent gear snapped, and away went the fish.

I had provided Mr. Tiffany with a line from Lake Superior, and he had a
fish on before the Colonel had finished his labors with the first one.
This line was strong enough to hold anything in the water, and the
English gentleman, with my assistance, pulled in a redfish, or spotted
bass, which weighed fourteen pounds. I rigged a line for Miss Margie,
and she soon brought into the boat without help, which she would not
allow any one to give, a sea-trout, similar to