When the mackerel visit the coast, and come near enough to be
taken in a draw-net, every villager who owns a share (usually
a tenth) in a fishing-boat throws down his spade or whatever
implement he happens to have in his hand at the moment, and
hurries away to the beach to take his share in the fascinating
task. At four o'clock one morning a youth, who had been down
to the sea to watch, came running into the village uttering
loud cries which were like excited yells--a sound to rouse the
deepest sleeper. The mackerel had come! For the rest of the
day there was a pretty kind of straggling procession of those
who went and came between the beach and the village--men in
blue cotton shirts, blue jerseys, blue jackets, and women in
grey gowns and big white sun-bonnets. During the latter part
of the day the proceedings were peculiarly interesting to me,
a looker-on with no share in any one of the boats, owing to
the catches being composed chiefly of jelly-fish. Some
sympathy was felt for the toilers who strained their muscles
again and again only to be mocked in the end; still, a draught
of jelly-fish was more to my taste than one of mackerel. The
great weight of a catch of this kind when the net was full was
almost too much for the ten or twelve men engaged in drawing
it up; then (to the sound of deep curses from those of the men
who were not religious) the net would be opened and the great
crystalline hemispheres, hyaline blue and delicate salmon-pink
in colour, would slide back into the water.
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