By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories

Baiting our heavy lines with mullet—two hooks with brass-wire snoods to each line—we throw out about thirty yards, then, leaving two or three fathoms loose upon the shore, we each thrust a stick firmly into the sand, and take a turn of the line round it. As the largest flathead invariably dart upon the bait, and then make a bolt with it, this plan is a good one to follow, unless, of course, they are biting freely; in that case the smaller lines for bream and whiting, &c., are hauled in, for there is more real sport in landing an 8-lb. flathead than there is in catching smaller fish, for he is very game, and fights fiercely for his life.

Having disposed our big lines, we bait the smaller ones with "pippies," and not two minutes at the outside elapse after the sinkers have touched bottom when we know we are to have a good time, for each of us has hooked a fish, and three whiting are kicking on the sand before five minutes have expired. Then for another hour we throw out and haul in again as quickly as possible, landing whiting from 6 oz. to nearly 2 lbs. in weight. One of the "Twins" has three hooks on his line, and occasionally lands three fish together, and now and again we get small bream and an occasional "tailer" of 2 lbs. or 3 lbs. As the sun mounts higher the breeze dies away, the heat becomes very great, and we have frequent recourse to our water jar—in one case mixing it with whisky. Then the whiting cease to bite as suddenly as they have begun, and move off into deeper water. Just as we are debating as to whether we shall take the boat out into mid-stream, Twin Dick gives a yell as his stick is suddenly whipped out of the sand, and the loose line lying beside it rushes away into the water. But Dick is an old hand, and lets his fish have his first bolt, and then turns him. "By Jingo! sir, he's a big fellow," he cries, as he hauls in, the line now as taut as a telegraph wire, and then the other twin comes to his aid, and in a few minutes the outline of the fish is seen, coming in straight ahead as quick as they can pull him. When he is within ten feet of the beach the boys run up the bank and land him safely, as he turns his body into a circle in his attempts to shake out the hook. Being called upon to estimate his weight, I give it as 11 lbs., much to the twins' sorrow—they think it 15 lbs.

Half an hour passes, and we catch but half a dozen silvery bream and some small baby whiting, for now the sun is beating down upon our heads, and our naked feet begin to burn and sting, so we adjourn to the old house and rest awhile, leaving our big lines securely tied. But, though the breeze for which we wait comes along by two o'clock, the fish do not, and so, after disinterring our takes from the wet sand wherein we had buried them as caught to prevent them being spoilt by the sun, we get aboard again and pull across to the opposite bank of the river. Here, in much deeper water, about fifteen feet right under the clayey bank, we can see hundreds of fine bream, and now and then some small jew-fish. Taking off our sinkers, we have as good and more exciting sport among the bream than we had with the whiting, catching between four and five dozen by six o'clock. Then, after boiling the billy and eating some fearfully tough corned meat, we get into the boat again, hoist our sail, and land at the little township just after dark.

Such was one of many similar day's sport on the Hastings, which, with the Bellinger, the Nambucca, the Macleay, and the Clarence, affords good fishing practically all the year round. Then, besides these tidal rivers, there are at frequent intervals along the coast tidal lagoons and "blind" creeks where fish congregate in really incredible quantities. Such places as Lake Illawarra and Lake Macquarie are fishing resorts well known to the tourist; but along the northern coast, where the population is scantier, and access by rail or steamer more difficult, there is an absolutely new field open to the sportsman—in fact, these places are seldom visited for either fishing or shooting by people from Sydney. During November and December the bars of these rivers are literally black with incredible numbers of coarse sea-salmon—a fish much like the English sea-bass—which, making their way over the bars, swim up the rivers and remain there for about a week. Although these fish, which weigh from 6 lbs. to 10 lbs., do not take a bait and are rather too coarse to eat, their roes are very good, especially when smoked. They are captured with the greatest of ease, either by spearing or by the hand; for sometimes they are in such dense masses that they are unable to manoeuvre in small bays; and the urchins of coastal towns hail their yearly advent with delight. They usually make their first appearance about the second week in November, and are always followed by a great number of very large sharks and saw-fish, which commit dreadful havoc in their serried and helpless ranks. Following the sea-salmon, the rivers are next visited in January by shoals of very large sea-mullet—blue-black backs, silvery bellies and sides, and yellow fins and tails. These, too, will not take a bait, but are caught in nets, and, if a steamer happens to be on the eve of leaving for Sydney, many hundreds of baskets are sent away; but they barely pay the cost of freight and commission, I believe. There are several varieties of sea-mullet, one or two of which will take the hook freely, and I have often caught them off the rocky coast of New South Wales with a rod when the sea has been smooth. The arrival of the big sea-mullet denotes that the season for jew-fish is at its height; and if the stranger to Australian waters wants exciting sport let him try jew-fishing at night. In deep water off the coast these great fish are occasionally caught during daylight, but a dull, cloudy night is best, when they may be caught from the beach or river bank in shallow water. Very stout lines and heavy hooks are used, for a 90-lb. or l00-lb. jew-fish is very common. Baiting with a whole mullet or whiting, or one of the tentacles of an octopus, the most amateurish fisherman cannot fail to hook two or three jew-fish in a night. (Even in Sydney harbour I have seen some very large ones caught by people fishing from ferry wharves.) They are very powerful, and also very game, and when they rise to the surface make a terrific splashing. At one place on the Hastings River, called Blackman's Point, a party of four of us took thirteen fish, the heaviest of which was 42 lbs. and the lightest 9 lbs. Next morning, however, the Blackman's Point ferryman, who always set a line from his punt when he turned in, showed us one of over 70 lbs. When they grow to such a size as this they are not eaten locally, as the flesh is very often full of thin, thread-like worms. The young fish, however, are very palatable.

The saw-fish, to which I have before alluded as harrying the swarms of sea-salmon, also make havoc with the jew-fish, and very often are caught on jew-fish lines. They are terrible customers to get foul of (I do not confound them with the sword-fish) when fishing from a small boat. Their huge bone bill, set on both sides with its terrible sharp spikes, their great length, and enormous strength, render it impossible to even get them alongside, and there is no help for it but either to cut the line or pull up anchor and land the creature on the shore. Even then the task of despatching one of these fish is no child's play on a dark night, for they lash their long tails about with such fury that a broken leg might be the result of coming too close. In the rivers of Northern Queensland the saw-fish attain an enormous size, and the Chinese fishermen about Cooktown and Townsville often have their nets destroyed by a saw-fish enfolding himself in them. Alligators, by the way, do the same thing there, and are sometimes captured, perfectly helpless, in the folds of the nets, in which they have rolled themselves over and over again, tearing it beyond repair with their feet, but eventually yielding to their fate.

The schnapper, the best of all Australian fish, is too well known to English visitors to describe in detail. Most town-bred Australians generally regard it as a purely ocean-loving fish, or at least only frequenting very deep waters in deep harbours, such as Sydney, Jervis Bay, and Twofold Bay. This is quite a mistake, for in many of the rivers, twenty or more miles up from the sea, the writer and many other people have not only caught these beautiful fish, but seen fishermen haul in their nets filled with them. But they seldom remain long, preferring the blue depths of ocean to the muddy bottoms of tidal rivers, for they are rock-haunting and surf-loving.

Of late years the northern bar harbours and rivers of New South Wales have been visited by a fish that in my boyhood's days was unknown even to the oldest fisherman—the bonito. Although in shape and size they exactly resemble the ocean bonito of tropic seas, these new arrivals are lighter in colour, with bands of marbled grey along the sides and belly. They bite freely at a running bait— i.e., when a line is towed astern, and are very good when eaten quite fresh, but, like all of the mackerel tribe, rapidly deteriorate in a few hours after being caught. The majority of the coast settlers will not eat them, being under the idea that, as they are all but scaleless, they are "poisonous." This silly impression also prevails with regard to many other scaleless fish on the Australian coast, some of which, such as the trevally, are among the best and most delicate in flavour. The black and white rock cod is also regarded with aversion by the untutored settlers of the small coast settlements, yet these fish are sold in Sydney, like the schnapper, at prohibitive prices.

In conclusion, let me advise any one who is contemplating a visit to Australia, and means to devote any of his time to either river or sea fishing, to take his rods with him; all the rest of his tackle he can buy as cheap in the colonies as he can in England. Rods are but little used in salt-water fishing in Australia, and are rather expensive. Those who do use a rod are usually satisfied with a bamboo—a very good rod it makes, too, although inconvenient to carry when travelling—but the generality of people use hand lines. And the visitor must not be persuaded that he can always get good fishing without going some distance from Sydney or Melbourne. That there is some excellent sport to be obtained in Port Jackson in summer is true, but it is lacking in a very essential thing—the quietude that is dear to the heart of every true fisherman.

Denison Gets Another Ship

Owing to reduced circumstances, and a growing hatred of the hardships of the sea, young Tom Denison (ex-supercargo of the South Sea Island trading schooner Palestine ) had sailed from Sydney to undertake the management of an alleged duck-farm in North Queensland. The ducks, and the vast area of desolation in which they suffered a brief existence, were the property of a Cooktown bank, the manager of which was Denison's brother. He was a kind-hearted man, who wanted to help Tom along in the world, and, therefore, was grieved when at the end of three weeks the latter came into Cooktown humping his swag, smoking a clay pipe, and looking exceedingly tired, dirty, and disreputable generally. However, all might have gone well even then had not Mrs. Aubrey Denison, the brother's wife, unduly interfered and lectured Tom on his "idle and dissolute life," as she called it, and made withering remarks about the low tastes of sailors other than captains of mail steamers or officers in the Navy. Tom, who intended to borrow £10 from his brother to pay his passage back to Sydney to look for a ship, bore it all in silence, and then said that he should like to give up the sea and become a missionary in the South Seas, where he was "well acquainted with the natives."

Mrs. Aubrey (who was a very refined young lady) smiled contemptuously, and turned down the corners of her pretty little mouth in a manner that made the unsuccessful duck-farmer boil with suppressed fury, as she remarked that she had heard of some of the shocking stories he had been telling the accountant and cashier of the characters of the people in the South Seas, and she quite understood why he wished to return there and re-associate with his vulgar and wicked companions. Now, she added, had he stuck bravely to work with the ducks, the Bank (she uttered the word "Bank" in the tone of reverence as one would say "The Almighty") would have watched his career with interest, and in time his brother would have used his influence with the General Manager to obtain a position for him, Tom Denison, in the Bank itself! But, judging from her knowledge of his (Tom's) habits and disposition, she would be doing wrong to hold out the slightest hope for him now, and–

"Look here, Maud, you're only twenty-two—two years older than me, and you talk like an old grandmother;" and then his wrath overpowered his judgment—"and you'll look like one before you're twenty-five. Don't you lecture me . I'm not your husband, thank Heaven above ! And damn the bank and its carmine ducks." (He did not say "carmine," but I study the proprieties, and this is not a sanguinary story.)

From the weatherboard portals of the bank Tom strode out in undisguised anger, and obtained employment on a collier, discharging coals. Then, by an extraordinary piece of good luck, he got a billet as proof-reader on the North Queensland Trumpet Call , from which, after an exciting three weeks, he was dismissed for "general incompetency and wilful neglect of his duties." So with sorrow in his heart he had turned to the ever-resourceful sea again for a living. He worked his passage down to Sydney in an old, heart-broken, wheezing steamer named the You Yangs , and stepped jauntily ashore with sixteen shillings in his pocket, some little personal luggage rolled up in his blanket, and an unlimited confidence in his own luck.

Two vessels were due from the South Sea Islands in about a month, and as the skippers were both well known to and were on friendly terms with him, he felt pretty certain of getting a berth as second mate or supercargo on one of them. Then he went to look for a quiet lodging.

This was soon found, and then realising the fact that sixteen shillings would not permit him viewing the sights of Sydney and calling upon the Governor, as is the usual procedure with intellectual and dead-broke Englishmen who come to Australia with letters of introduction from people who are anxious to get rid of them, he tried to get temporary employment by applying personally at the leading warehouses and merchants' offices. The first day he failed; also the second. On the third day the secretary of a milk company desired him to call again in three days. He did, and was then told by the manager that he "might have something" for him in a month or two. This annoyed Tom, as he had put on his sole clean collar that morning to produce a good impression. He asked the official if six months would not suit him better, as he wanted to go away on a lengthy fishing trip with the Attorney-General. The manager looked at him in a dignified manner, and then bade him an abrupt good-day.

A week passed. Funds were getting low. Eight shillings had been paid in advance for his room, and he had spent five in meals. But he was not despondent; the Susannah Booth , dear, comfortable old wave-puncher, beloved of hard-up supercargoes, was due in a week, and, provided he could inspire his landlady with confidence until then, all would be well.

But the day came when he had to spend his last shilling, and after a fruitless endeavour to get a job on the wharves to drive one of the many steam winches at work discharging cargo from the various ships, he returned home in disgust.

That night, as he sat cogitating in his bedroom over his lucklessness, his eye fell on a vegetable monstrosity from Queensland, presented to him by one of the hands on board the You Yangs . It was a huge, dried bean-pod, about four feet long, and contained about a dozen large black beans, each about the size of a watch. He had seen these beans, after the kernels were scooped out, mounted with silver, and used as match-boxes by bushmen and other Australian gentry. It at once occurred to him that he might sell it. Surely the thing ought to be worth at least five shillings.

In two minutes he was out in the street, but to his disgust found most of the shops closed, except the very small retail establishments.

Entering a little grocery store, he approached the proprietor, a man with a pale, gargoyle-like face, and unpleasant-looking, raggedy teeth, and showing him the bean, asked him to buy it.

The merchant looked at it with some interest and asked Tom what it was called.

Tom said it was a Locomotor Ataxy . (He didn't know what a locomotor ataxy was; but it sounded well, and was all the Latin he knew, having heard from his mother that a dissolute brother of hers had been afflicted with that complaint, superinduced by spirituous liquors.)

The grocer-man turned the vegetable over and over again in his hand, and then asked the would-be vendor if he had any more. Tom said he hadn't. The locomotor ataxy , he remarked, was a very rare bean, and very valuable. But he would sell it cheap—for five shillings.

"Don't want it," said the man rudely, pushing it away contemptuously. "It's only a faked-up thing anyway, made of paper-mashy."

Tom tried to convince him that the thing was perfectly genuine, and actually grew on a vine in North Queensland; but the Notre Dame gargoyle-featured person only heard him with a snort of contempt. It was obvious he wouldn't buy it. So, sneeringly observing to the grocer that no doubt five shillings was a large sum for a man in such a small way of business as he was, Tom went out again into the cold world.

He tried several other places, but no one would even look at the thing. After vainly tramping about for over two hours, he turned away towards his lodging, feeling very dispirited, and thinking about breakfast.

Turning up a side street called Queen's Place, so as to make a short cut home, he espied in a dimly-lighted little shop an old man and a boy working at the cobbler trade. They had honest, intelligent faces, and looked as if they wanted to buy a locomotor ataxy very badly. He tapped at the door and then entered.

"Would you like to buy this?" he said to the old man. He did not like to repeat his foolish Latin nonsense, for the old fellow had such a worn, kindly face, and his honest, searching eyes met his in such a way that he felt ashamed to ask him to buy what could only be worthless rubbish to him.

The cobbler looked at the monstrosity wonderingly. "'Tis a rare big bean," he said, in the trembling quaver of old age, and with a mumbling laugh like that of a pleased child. "I'll give you two shillin's for it. I suppose you want money badly, or else you wouldn't be wanderin' about at ten o'clock at night tryin' to sell it. I hope you come by it honest, young man?"

Tom satisfied him on this score, and then the ancient gave him the two shillings. Bidding him good-night, Tom returned home and went to bed.

(Quite two years after, when Denison returned to Sydney from the South Seas with more money "than was good for his moral welfare," as his sister-in-law remarked, he sought out the old cobbler gentleman and bought back his locomotor ataxy bean for as many sovereigns as he had been given shillings for it.)

Next morning he was down at the wharves before six o'clock, smoking his pipe contentedly, after breakfasting sumptuously at a coffee-stall for sixpence. There was a little American barque lying alongside the Circular Quay, and some of the hands were bending on her head-sails. Tom sat down on the wharf stringer dangling his feet and watching them intently. Presently the mate appeared on the poop, smoking a cigar. He looked at Tom critically for a moment or so, and then said—

"Looking for a ship, young feller?"

The moment Tom heard him speak, he jumped to his feet, for he knew the voice, last heard when the possessor of it was mate of the island trading schooner Sadie Caller , a year before in Samoa.

"Is that you, Bannister?" he cried.

"Reckon 'taint no one else, young feller. Why, Tom Denison, is it you? Step right aboard."

Tom was on the poop in an instant, the mate coming to him with outstretched hand.

"What's the matter, Tom? Broke?"

"Stony!"

"Sit down here and tell me all about it. I heard you had left the Palestine . Say, sling that dirty old pipe overboard, and take one of these cigars. The skipper will be on deck presently, and the sight of it would rile him terrible. He hez his new wife aboard, and she considers pipes ez low-down."

Tom laughed as he thought of Mrs. Aubrey, and flung his clay over the side. "What ship is this, Bannister?"

"The J.W. Seaver , of 'Frisco. We're from the Gilbert Islands with a cargo of copra."

"Who is your supercargo?"

"Haven't got one. Can't get one here, either. Say, Tom, you're the man. The captain will jump at getting you! Since he married he considers his life too valuable to be trusted among natives, and funks at going ashore and doing supercargo's work. Now you come below, and I'll rake out enough money to get you a high-class suit of store clothes and shiny boots. Then you come back to dinner. I'll talk to him between then and now. He knows a lot about you. I'll tell him that since you left the Palestine you've been touring your native country to 'expand your mind.' She's Boston, as ugly as a brown stone jug, and highly intellectual. He's all right, and as good a sailor-man as ever trod a deck, but she's boss, runs the ship, and looks after the crew's morals. Thet's why we're short-handed. But she'll take to you like lightning—when she hears that you've been 'expanding your mind.' Buy a second-hand copy of Longfellow's, poems, and tell her that it has been your constant companion in all your wanderings among vicious cannibals, and she'll just decorate your cabin like a prima-donna's boudoir, darn your socks, and make you read some of her own poetry."

That afternoon, Mr. Thomas Denison, clean-shirted and looking eminently respectable and prosperous, and feeling once more a man after the degrading duck episode in North Queensland, was strolling about George Street with Bannister, and at peace with the world and himself. For the skipper's wife had been impressed with his intellectuality and modest demeanour, and was already at work decorating his cabin—as Bannister had prophesied.

Jack Shark's Pilot

Early one morning as we in the Palestine , South Sea trading schooner, were sailing slowly between Fotuna and Alofa—two islands lying to the northward of Fiji—one of the native hands came aft and reported two large sharks alongside. The mate at once dived below for his shark hook, while I tried to find a suitable bit of beef in the harness cask. Just as the mate appeared carrying the heavy hook and chain, our skipper, who was lying on the skylight smoking his pipe, although half asleep, inquired if there were "any pilot fish with the brutes."

"Yes, sir," said a sailor who was standing in the waist, looking over the side, "there's quite a lot of 'em. I've never seen so many at one time before. There's nigh on a dozen."

The captain was on his feet in an instant. "Don't lower that hook of yours just yet, Porter," he said to the mate. "I'm going to get those pilot fish first. Tom, bring me up my small fishing line."

"They won't take a hook, will they?" I inquired.

"Just you wait and see, sonny. Ever taste pilot fish?"

" No. Are they good to eat?"

"Best fish in the ocean, barring flying-fish," replied the skipper, as, after examining his line, he cut off both hook and leaden sinker and bent on a small-sized pa —a native-made bonito hook cut out from a solid piece of pearl-shell.

Then jumping up into the whaleboat which hung in davits on the starboard quarter he waited for the sharks to appear, and the mate and I leant over the side and watched. We had not long to wait, for in a few minutes one came swimming quickly up from astern, and was almost immediately joined by the other, which had been hanging about amidships. They were both, however, pretty deep down, and at first I could not discern any pilot fish. The captain, however, made a cast and the hook dropped in the water, about fifty feet in the rear of the sharks; he let it sink for less than half a minute, and then began hauling in the line as quickly as possible, and at the same moment I saw some of the pilot fish quite distinctly—some swimming alongside and some just ahead of their detestable companions, which were now right under the counter. Then something gleamed brightly, and the shining hook appeared, for a second or two only, for two of the "pilots" darted after it with lightning-like rapidity, and presently one came to the surface with a splash, beautifully hooked, and was swung up into the boat.