We always followed the same routine. Breakfast about 6 a.m., sometimes earlier, then we sailed down the river towing our tarpon-boats (for each person has his own guide and boat), till we found some place where the fish was feeding, when we anchored the sailing-boat and went off each on our own account. I wish I could convey the charm of those early morning sails, the crisp, exhilarating feeling in the air, before the heat of the day began, the brilliant sunshine, the pale blue vault above, reflected in the shining depths beneath, where we and our snow-white boat seemed to be floating in some delicious ether in a crystalline bowl. Or again it might be a cloudy grey morning, when the heavens above and the wide expanse of river below, were all one lovely pearly opalescent haze of pinks and greys and soft indefinite blues, suffused with a warm light, telling of the golden glory of the sun which would presently melt the clouds away; and all the teeming population of the river seemed to be rejoicing with us in having awakened to another long, happy, busy day. The solemn pelicans decorating every post and sand-bank, too intent on their breakfasts to notice us, excitable flocks of little black duck which would rise scolding and chattering like a crowd of school-children to settle, still volubly objecting to us, a few hundred yards or so further on, gaunt fishing-eagles and turkey buzzards, leviathan-like porpoises gambolling round our boat, and everywhere the flash of the silver mullet as they leapt and played; both the bird and animal life being an incessant source of amusement and interest to watch.