This dive, of course, only carries him to the false bottom of the net, and come up presently he must! Every eye now looks _fishy_, and every man's hand is armed for the first blow. One tall athletic fellow takes aim, and misses; another is more successful, and hits. Stunned by the blow, the poor fish flounders on this side and on that, and the water is discoloured by his blood! One, two, three pointed poles at once, are again in his flank; and now he rushes about like a rounded lion, brandishing his tail, and dashing up whirlpools of water. More Blows! more blood! He rushes desperately at the net, and running his long snout into the meshes, is hopelessly entangled. It is all over with him! Countless wounds follow, till he turns over on his side, and is handed up lifeless into the boat. "There," says one, "goes fifteen scudi's worth, and no harm done to _the net_." "Little enough, too; but he is worth two thunny, anyhow," says another. "Ay! and gives more _sport_," exclaims a third. Such piscatory eclogue fell upon our ear, when our guide announced to us that we had now seen every thing. The excitement over, we sat down in our boat to make a note of what we have written, while the boatmen clave the phosphorescent water homewards, and landed us neatly at sunset, with their oars dripping luminous drops at every stroke, in the beautiful harbour of Palermo. Some days after we were still more fortunate; we had observed the scouts with a white hood over their boat, _looking keenly down_ (_vide_ our quotation from Theocritus) into the deep blue sea, and watching with all-eyed attention for the apparition of some giant shadow which should pass athwart the abyss, and give the signal for a new chase, while their comrades were hauling in an immense miscellaneous _take_ of fish, the acquisition of the morning. We shot the outpost, (placed to prevent larger vessels from entering the fishing preserves and injuring the nets,) and remarked our boatmen uncovering to a small _Madonna_ railed in alongside. We were just in time on this occasion to see the water enclosed in the _camera della morte_, already all alive with fish; for a shoal of _palamide_, and of immense _pesce di moro_, filled the reticulated chamber. They darted here and there as the net was raising, and splashed so furiously about, that the whole water became one lather; meanwhile, the men who had been singing gaily, now prepared their landing-nets, shouting in a way which certainly _did_ seem to increase the terror of their prisoners, who redoubled their efforts to escape.