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Undisturbed by further troubles and full of confidence in the new aeroplane, they arrived at their aerodrome almost to the calculated minute, made their reports, and got on with the war.

the machine was reported O.K. the itching trigger finger and by the kind-hearted sergeant, wobbly rifle of the evening who was thoroughly enjoying before. his busman's holiday, and the air of importance consequent thereon. Ferguson had tested the compass, and found it to be on its best behaviour. The Major was busy trying to cope with, or, better still, avoid the shower of telegrams from authority, who had evidently spotted their whereabouts, so bidding a hasty good-bye to their kind hosts, they started up the big engine and left for the south'ard, the last glance downward revealing their old enemy, the fat quartermaster-sergeant, running after his cap, which had been blown off his head by the propeller blast in a rush of dust and filth. "Good job, too," thought Ferguson, who still remembered

The conclusion of the whole matter is that till well after the Armistice, Jack had a share in the heated correspondence between the Fire Brigade, the War Office, the Air Ministry and himself as to who should pay for the petrol. The war was over, and the need for the hush-hush machine with it, but the paper war on petrol still flourished, and perhaps exists today. Who knows?

EMROD.

BY J. E.

EMROD lives on the southern coast of Dominica overlooking the Martinique Channel, and it is from this Channel that he derives the chief part of his living, for Emrod is a fisherman. Emrod stands five feet eight inches on his bare feet, and is dark brown in colour, wide in the shoulder, deep-chested, and very long in the arms; he is narrow in the hip, and his legs and the lower portion of his body are less well developed than the rest of him. He has

a somewhat sad look in his face, but knows how to smile, is modest in manner, and of a retiring nature. I have never known him idle; if the sea is too rough he mends his baskets or works in his vegetable garden. He has a small house in the village, a wife who is a bit of a virago, I am told, and several offspring. He is a decent hard-working man, typical of the better class of fisherman on the southern and windward coast of this island.

His stock-in-trade consists of a few fish-pots, which he makes himself out of split bamboo, and which are sunk in likely places in the sea near the shore in from ten to twenty fathoms. One end of a rope made from stout woody vines knotted together is fastened to the

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which floats on the surface and marks the position.

These fish-pots are oblong in shape, and range in size from small affairs to large contraptions eight feet long by four feet wide and two feet deep; trumpet-shaped inlets which take up three-quarters of the large sides slope curving inwards, and decrease in size to comparatively small mouths which face the small ends of the basket.

Large fish fish are caught in these baskets. I have seen Emrod bring ashore an eightfoot shark which had followed its pilot into one of them, and why in such cases the great fish do not smash their way out of their frail prison is always a puzzle to me. It is possible they cannot use their great strength in the narrow cage with advantage; anyway, the fact remains that large fish do not seem to make any attempt to escape when caught in these cunningly devised traps. Whenever large dangerous fish are in the basket when it is hauled up to the surface, the small end towards the fish's tail is removed, and the fish foulhooked; it is then set adrift, and played" till it is exhausted, when it is drawn alongside the canoe and killed in the water.

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Strong sea-lines, some large

hooks, and a few lengths of stout wire, preferably copper, to prevent the line being bitten through by the many sharptoothed fish which it is Emrod's business in life to catch, complete his equipment.

The canoe is about sixteen feet long, and has a beam of some three feet. The lower portion is hollowed out of a log of the gommier-tree, which has been first shaped with axe and adze. This part of the work is done in the forest at a considerable distance from the sea. The "dug-out" is then hauled through the bush, often overseemingly impossible places, to the coast, its journey being hastened or impeded (I cannot say which) by much singing of old familiar chanties, such as "Sally Brown" or "Blow the man down," and a more than liberal supply of the local "Mountain Dew." Arrived at the coast, the bow and stern of the shell," as it is called, are blocked up off the ground, and it is filled with stones and left in the sun and rain. This process causes the sides of the shell to spread outwards, and the whole bottom to become slightly curved fore and aft. When it has become sufficiently widened, bow and stern-pieces are fitted and nailed on top of the shell, and a hand-sawn board from the forest is bent round from stem to stern clinker fashion over the dugout on each side. This forms the upper portion of the canoe, and a few ribs, roughly shaped from the bent branches of a

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white cedar-tree, are fitted in to strengthen the structure. Wooden blocks drilled to receive wooden pins are nailed at convenient places, and serve as rowlocks. A small spritsail, the mast of which is stepped as far forward as possible and not stayed (for it has often to come down in a hurry), two pairs of oars, a rudder five feet long, a couple of loosely fitting thwarts, and the canoe is ready to go to sea.

These canoes are without any keel, and are, of course, very crank, but skilfully handled as they are by their owners, they prove excellent craft in a seaway and good surf boats. They have, too, a distinct advantage over any "built " boat in being able to resist the terrific banging they receive when landing from a sea which is generally rough on to a beach which is composed of nothing but loose rounded boulders varying in size from a football to a tengallon cask. Emrod's canoe is painted green and white, and further decorated in red with rough pictures of men catching huge fish, and many crosses of various design, for Emrod is a devout Roman Catholic, and, of course, his boat has been duly blessed by the venerable French parish priest.

Considering that they cost, complete with oars and sail, only about four pounds, these graceful little craft would be hard to beat for the work they have to do.

Emrod pays us a visit every Saturday in order to go through

his account and receive payment for the fish he has supplied us with during the week. When this important business has been satisfactorily concluded, I have been able to get him to talk, from time to time, of his many experiences and adventures. The difficulty is that Emrod cannot see that any interest can be aroused in the relation of accidents and incidents, some certainly more unpleasant than others, which every fisherman has to expect and deal with occasionally.

At first sight the odds would appear to be well on the side of the giants of the sea in the Homeric contests which frequently occur; but fortunately this is not the case, for the monsters do not realise the ease with which they could utterly destroy both fisherman and canoe instead of wasting their great strength by aimlessly towing them about, thus rendering themselves dead-beat and at the mercy of Emrod's skilfully wielded cutlass, which, with a sheath-knife worn on his belt, are his only weapons. The cutlass is a rather broad and fairly heavy blade, some eighteen inches long, with a wooden handle.

Emrod always takes an assistant with him when he goes out to look after his fish-pots, or to fish over what he calls a bank which lies about midway between Martinique and Dominica. When fishing over this bank he puts out about sixty fathoms of line.

tinique also frequent this bank, and it is well known that besides their lawful occasions the fishermen from both islands indulge at times in a brisk business of barter and purchase of dutiable articles. Rum, brandy, tobacco, &c., are brought back and easily smuggled in, and as the whole local population, with hardly an exception, has an eager finger in this succulent pie, it may be readily understood that our one and only village constable has not got the smallest chance of checking this popular pastime.

Talking about sharks, Emrod says that close in-shore they are not to be feared in the least, and this I believe to be correct, for though "shark-bait," both black and white, bathe and swim about at various places round the coast, I have never heard of any one in this island being attacked. An old man who used to dive for coral for me at the northern end of the island told me that sharks would often come near him whilst at his work, but that they never troubled him. On the other hand, Emrod says that the tiger shark of the channel is quite a different customer, and must be accorded due respect, though he has seldom heard of one attacking a canoe unless it had been previously hooked or harpooned. An old Frenchman, Paul, from Martinique, states that at L'isle de Salut, Cayenne, all the sharks are man-eaters, and their taste for human flesh is due,

The fishing-boats from Mar- he says, to the practice of

throwing the bodies of prisoners who have died in the penal settlement into the sea; that when a prisoner dies, and the body has to be disposed of, the prison bell is tolled, and the sharks gather from all directions when the bell starts ringing (a regular dinner-bell in fact). Paul tells of a day at Cayenne. While he was fishing off some rocks an Indian was sitting near-by washing his feet; he was not observing him, but suddenly heard the man cry out, and on looking round the Indian had disappeared, only a bloodstained patch of water remaining for short time to tell of the poor fellow's horrid end! A gruesome tale, too, is told by Paul of the fate of a boatload of refugees escaping from the eruption of Mount Pélée which destroyed St Pierre in Martinique. His family had all perished, and himself a refugee, he was in one of the overcrowded boats making for Dominica. Nothing untoward happened till they were somewhat past mid-channel, when one of the boats, which was near the one Paul was in, was attacked by a number of large sharks, which seized and devoured some of the unfortunates sitting perched on the gunwales. A terrible scene then ensued. Those on or near the sides, pressing themselves away from the horror so close alongside, one or two of them slipped or were pushed, and falling on the gunwale were dragged screaming to their death. Blind mad panic super

vened. Knives were drawn, and the poor devils fought each other desperately for the comparative safety of the centre of the boat, while the grim monsters of the sea fought each other in turn for the bodies thrust overboard. The details of what happened inside and outside of that ill-fated boat, laden with men, women and children, before it was finally swamped, are too horrible to relate, and I can but hope that Paul possesses a too vivid imagination. But be that as it may, I have heard from other sources that sharks did actually attack and account for some of those unfortunate refugees, and there is a horrid suspicion that Paul's yarn is true. But to return to Emrod.

Emrod has frequently to arrive at a quick decision and act on the spot. On one occasion far out in the channel his assistant threw his line clumsily, and one of the hooks got caught in his trousers. Before he could get it free a large fish swallowed another of the baited hooks, which were, of course, in the water. The tug of the fish not only drove the great hook home into the man's thigh, but dragged him out of the boat into the sea and under the water, and, as ill-luck would have it, minus his sheath-knife, which he had been using to cut up bait, and had laid beside him on a thwart. There was a choppy sea and a stiff breeze was blowing, and I wonder how many men would have paused to think of this im

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