specimen,
and had a good many hooked, but they always broke away. I did not know
then, as I know now, that barracuda grow to twelve feet in the
Caribbean. That fact is mentioned in records and natural histories.

Out in the deeper lagoons I hooked huge fish that swam off
ponderously, dragging the skiff until my line parted. Once I was
fortunate enough to see one, which fact dispelled any possibility of its
being a shark. Manuel called it "_Cherna!_" It looked like a giant
sea-bass and would have weighed at least eight hundred pounds. The color
was lighter than any sea-bass I ever studied. My Indian boatmen claimed
this fish was a man-eater and that he and his crew had once fought one
all day and then it broke away. The fish I saw was huge enough to
swallow a man, that was certain. I think this species must have been the
great June-fish of the Gulf. I hooked one once at the mouth of the
Panuco River in Mexico and it nearly swamped the boat.

[Illustration: YOUNG BOOBIES]

[Illustration: SUGGESTIVE OF A WILD, WIND-SWEPT ISLAND OF THE SEA]

Soon my tackle was all used up, and, for want of better, I had to use
tiny hooks and thread lines--because I was going to fish, by hook or
crook! This method, however, which I learned first of all, is not to be
despised. Whenever I get my hand on a thin, light, stiff reed pole and a
long, light line of thread with a little hook, then I revert to boyhood
days and sunfish and chubs and shiners and bullheads. Could any
fisherman desire more joy? Those days are the best.

The child is father of the man
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

In the shallow water near the dock there always floated a dense school
of little fish like sardines. They drifted, floated, hovered beside the
dock, and when one of the big fish would rush near they would make a
breaking roar on the surface. Of me they evinced no fear whatever. But
no bait, natural or artificial, that I could discover, tempted them to
bite. This roused my cantankerous spirit to catch some of those little
fish or else fall inestimably in my own regard. I noted that whenever I
cast over the school it disintegrated. A circle widened from the center,
and where had been a black mass of fish was only sand. But as my hook
settled to the bottom the dark circle narrowed and closed until the
school was densely packed as before. Whereupon I tied several of the
tiny hooks together with a bit of