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Updated: October 11, 2025
The larger fishing-boats were away, but two or three smaller ones were got ready to go out to her assistance, though with the sea then rolling in there would be considerable danger in doing so. At length the brig drew near enough to allow the people on board to be easily distinguished. The master stood conning the vessel the crew were at their stations.
Although we have only about three thousand inhabitants, three hundred of our men belonging to the Naval Reserve left in one day, while many who were away in their fishing-boats were expected to join their vessels as soon as they could return home.
THE day was as hot as the preceding one. I walked slowly towards the west, and presently found myself upon a pier, or breakwater, at the mouth of the harbour. A large steamer lay at a little distance within the pier. There were fishing-boats on both sides, the greater number on the outer side, which lies towards the hill of Holy Head.
Perhaps it is a castle which you encounter upon the cliff's edge; standing there by the roadside, where it has halted to contemplate its sorrows before an evening sky, still rosy, through which a golden moon is climbing; while the fishing-boats, homeward bound, creasing the watered silk of the Channel, hoist its pennant at their mastheads and carry its colours.
We arrived safely at the pier, for there was not a soul stirring; all our fear was that we should find some one keeping watch on board of the vessels, which we must pass after we had possession of one of the fishing-boats, as they laid inside of them.
This one exceeded all my expectations; and besides, it was the coast of Asia, the mysterious continent which has been my dream from childhood bare, lofty, rocky, basaltic; islands of naked rock separated by narrow channels, majestic, perpendicular cliffs, a desolate uninhabited region, lashed by a heavy sea, with visions of swirling mists, shrieking sea-birds, and Chinese high-sterned fishing-boats with treble-reefed, three-cornered brown sails, appearing on the tops of surges, at once to vanish.
From the western point a spur extended into the cove, forming a little haven amply large enough for a modest fleet of fishing-boats. Near by on the sea-wall stood two structures, one low, oblong, flat-roofed, with a rusty iron stovepipe projecting from its farther end; the other a small, paintless shed with a large door. Percy gave them only a casual glance.
Then, as the planking rapidly dried in the hot rays of the sun, the baggage which the adventurers had brought with them across the isthmus was unpacked and, as the hour of eight boomed out from the Cathedral, Saint George's Cross was run up on the ensign staff of the galleon! A few fishing-boats were by this time returning to the harbour, and one of these George hailed and ordered alongside.
Several sloops and brigs were lying there in a cluster, and a whole fleet of brown-sailed fishing-boats were tacking slowly in. Yet all was quiet on the curving quay and on the half-moon fort over which floated the white flag with the golden fleur-de-lis. The port lay on their quarter now and they were drawing away more quickly as the breeze freshened.
When we passed Point Pedro we noticed many signs of activity among the shrimp-catchers, and, well into San Pablo Bay, we observed a widely scattered fleet of Upper Bay fishing-boats hastily pulling in their nets and getting up sail. This was suspicious enough to warrant investigation, and the first and only boat we succeeded in boarding proved to have an illegal net.
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