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,