gently agitated fingers of a human hand are pressed against the monster's side
just below the fins, and fish and man rise to the surface, the latter tickling gently,
the former placid and delighted by the novel sensation. The swimmer then
hitches one hand on to the boat in order to support himself, and continues the
gentle motion of the fingers of his other hand, which still rests under the fin of
his prey. The great fish seems too intoxicated with pleasure to move. It presses
softly against the swimmer, and the men in the boat head slowly for the shore.
When the shallow water is reached every weapon on board is plunged into the
body of the Fool, and he is cut up at leisure.
Cray-fish also are caught by tickling all along the coast. The instrument used in
this case is not the human hand, but a small rod, called a jai, to the end of which
a rattan noose is fixed. The work is chiefly entrusted to little children, who
paddle into the shallow water at points where the cray-fish are feeding, and
gently tickle the itching prominent eyeballs of their victims. The irritation in
these organs must be constant and excessive, for the cray-fish rub them gently
against any object that presents itself, and when they feel the soothing friction of
the rattan noose they lie motionless, paralysed with pleasure. The noose is
gradually slipped over the protruding eyes, when it is drawn taut, and thus the
great prawns are landed. Even when the strain has been taken too soon, and a
cray-fish has escaped with one eyeball wrenched from its socket, it not
uncommonly occurs that the intolerable irritation in its other eye drives it back
once more to the rattan noose, there to have the itching allayed by the gentle
friction.
Jelly-fish, too, abound on the East Coast. They come aboard in the nets, staring
with black beady eyes from out the shapeless masses of their bodies, looking in
the pale moonlight like the faces of lost souls, showing on the surface of the
bottomless pit, casting despairing arms around their heads in impotent agony.
The water which has sluiced over their slimy bodies is charged with irritating
properties, such as drive a man to tear the very flesh from his bones in a fruitless
attempt to allay the horrible itching. When the water dries, the irritation ceases,
but at sea, and at night, when the dew falls like rain, and one is drenched to the
skin by water from the nets, it is not easy for anything to become dry. Therefore
one must suffer patiently till the boat puts back again at dawn.
These are some of the creatures which share with the Fisher Folk the seas of the
East Coast, and hundreds of devices are used to capture them. Nets of all shapes
and sizes, seine nets with their bobbing floats, bag nets of a hundred kinds, drop
nets, and casting nets. Some are set all night, and are liberally sprinkled with