e next day to Turnbull's Swamp,
which lies a few miles west of Loud's, and contains deer, turkeys and
ducks, with bears and panthers for those who desire that kind of
game. The party consisted of Captain Morris and Roberts of our yacht;
Colonel Vincent and two of the Englishmen from the Victoria, with
Weldon the pilot, and a tall Ohio hunter named Halliday, who lived in
the woods near Loud's. He took three fox-hounds, and Morris brought
his deer-hounds ashore. They took with them a mule and cart, with a
tent and blankets, intending to stay in the swamp over night. Captain
Herbert and I preferred to go a-fishing, and we hired a man to get
bait and take us to the ground in his boat. Doctor White went off by
himself to shoot birds for his collection.

About eight A.M. we anglers sailed out of the creek, and stood across
the bay with a light southerly breeze. Our boatman was one of the
Minorcan race, of whom there are many on this coast, descendants of
the men of Turnbull's colony of 1767. He was a cousin of our pilot, by
name Pecetti--a stout, well-built man forty years old, with keen black
eyes and curling dark hair and beard, and a great fisherman with line
and net. He lived near the inlet, and had the kind of boat commonly
used in these shallow waters--flat-bottomed, broad in the beam, with
centre-board and one mast set well forward. He had dug a peck or two
of the large round clams, and two or three throws of his cast-net as
we came through the creek procured a dozen mullet.

We ran into a channel between the eastern shore of the bay and an
island, and came to in a deep channel near the shore, which was marshy
and covered with a dense growth of mangrove bushes.

"Now," said Pecetti as he made fast the painter to a projecting limb,
"if the sand-flies don't eat us up, we ought to get some fish here."

"What kind of fish do you find here?" asked Herbert.

"Mostly sheepshead, some groupers and snappers, trout, bass, and
whiting. For sheepshead you want clam bait--for the others, mullet is
best. Rig up your rods and I will bait for you."

I had a bamboo bass-rod, with a large reel: the captain had a light
salmon-rod, with click reel. Pecetti selected for us some stout
Virginia hooks tied on double gut, with four-ounce sinkers, the tide
being quite strong here and half flood.

I found the bottom alongside the boat with about twelve feet of line,
and left my hooks upon it as directed. Soon I felt a slight touch, but
p