ue products of
Neptune's vegetable garden, a sea-cucumber, a sea-carrot, or a
sea-cabbage. Or it may be nothing at all. When you have made your grab,
and deposited the result, if it be edible, in the barrel which stands
in the middle of the boat, you try another grab, and that's the whole
story.

It is astonishing how much amusement apparently sane men can get out of
such a simple game as this. The interest lies, first, in the united
effort to fill the barrel, and second, in the rivalry among the
fishermen as to which of them shall take in the largest cod or the
greatest number of haddock, these being regarded as prize packages. The
sculpin and the sea vegetables may be compared to comic valentines,
which expose the recipient to ridicule. The dog-fish are like tax
notices and assessments; the man who gets one of them gets less than
nothing, for they count against the catcher. It is quite as much a game
of chance as politics or poker. You do not know on which side of the
boat the good fish are hidden. You cannot tell the difference between
the nibble of a cod and the bite of a dog-fish. You have no idea what
is coming to you, until you have hauled in almost all of your line and
caught sight of your allotment wriggling and whirling in the blue
water. Sometimes you get twins.

The barrel is nearly full. Let us stop fishing and drifting. Hoist the
jib, and trim in the main-sheet. The boat ceases to rock lazily on the
tide. The life of the wind enters into her, and she begins to step over
the waves and to cut through them, sending bright showers of spray from
her bow, and leaving a swirling, bubbling, foaming wake astern. Were
there ever waters so blue, or woods so green, or rocky shores so boldly
and variously cut, or mountains so clear in outline and so jewel-like
in shifting colors, as these of Mount Desert? Was there ever an air
which held a stronger, sweeter cordial, fragrant with blended odours of
the forest and the sea, soothing, exhilarating, and life-renewing?

Here is the place to see it all, and to drain the full cup of delight;
not a standpoint, but a sailing-line just beyond Baker's Island: a
voyager's field of vision, shifting, changing, unfolding, as new bays
and islands come into view, and new peaks arise, and new valleys open
in the line of emerald and amethyst and carnelian and tourmaline hills.
You can count all the summits: Newport, and Green, and Pemetic, and
Sargent, and Brown, and Dog, and Western.