There is no harbour on the curved sweep of this bank of shingle for
many miles in either direction. The line of the beach in the north
curves so imperceptibly that to the eye it looks straight; towards
the southern end it sweeps round like the blade of a sickle, and is as
sharp in the run. The five-fathom mark is close inshore, so the first
line of breakers is direct upon the shingle. The usual weather, of
course, is westerly; nearly always south of west. And in that direction
I suppose the next land would be the Bahamas, but I have only local
maps, and can lay no exact course to what landfall is in the eye of
the wind. Anyhow, there is so much ocean between us and the next land
that the waves come in, with any seaward breeze, in regular and massed
attacks. They growl as they charge. In summer weather like this it is
a cheerful noise, for they are only playing roughly. Then they break
and make the shingle fly, with a roar; and a myriad little stones, as a
wave draws back, follow it with thin cries.
Both the sea and the coast look bare and barren. Terns in couples
patrol up and down, and so close to me that I can see their black
caps. Occasionally one will dive--two seconds under water--and it
comes up with something which glitters for an instant. On the ridge
of the shingle bank a little vegetation is recumbent, forming close
mats and cushions, with sere stalks that quiver in the wind, as though
apprehensive of their footing. The sea looks even more infertile than
the desert of stones. You feel that you and your book, and the terns
which now and then find something which glitters, are all the intruding
life there is. But some distance away there are a few boats drawn up
high and dry--they make good shelters to leeward of sun and wind,
and they have a strong but pleasing smell--and at odd times, usually
towards evening, a crew of six men will come along to get one out. She
is launched down the slope on wooden rollers, in short runs. Half the
crew go in her, and one of them throws a seine net steadily overside.
The other fellows have the shore end of the seine. The boat goes round
a considerable bight, and then lands the other end of the net. If you
imagine that hauling in that net and its floats, when any tide is
running, is nothing but fun, the men will not object if you put on your
weight. That way there is much to be learned.
The gradient of the shingle is steep, and when climbing it with a line
in tow the feet slip back into the polished stones at every step. What
has this to do, you ask, with a reader of books? Well, what do you
suppose a bookman learns at a study table about life? Make him sail a
boat now and then, or haul on a net, or herd cows, or dig clay, or weed
a field instead of new novels; make him work, if not for a living,
then just for a change. What does he imagine keeps London’s chimneys
smoking? Once I heard a rude fellow interrupt a famous political
economist, who was deploring the sad ways of coal miners. “If you,” he
said, “could keep warm in winter only by hewing your own coal out of
the rock, you know very well you’d sooner buy a pair of dumb-bells.”
The feet crunch and slip, steadily, while the floats of the net seem to
bob no nearer the shore. The weight comes with a rush just about when
you feel it is better to read books than to handle seine nets. There is
a heaving and a slapping on the stones. To most of us, of course, fish
is fish. There is only fish. Yet one haul of the net is almost sure
to bring in forms that are fishes, certainly, but which demand to be
named. They are so challenging that they stick in the memory, and must
be exorcised with names, as we resolve, by putting names to them, all
the mysteries that trouble us.
I love fish markets. I enjoy even Billingsgate, though one does get
pushed about there, early mornings, and its rain of slobber is bad
for neat raiment. One of the most beautiful and terrifying scenes
on this earth is a fish market of the tropics. When next you are in
Tanjong Priok, do not forget, as you did last time, to go to its fish
market. But this English shingle beach, barren as its stones look,
is a good substitute for the Tanjong, when the seine net is fruitful.
For occasionally it is fruitful, though a deal of wet and heavy labour
may be wasted on six mackerel and some squids. The fishermen have no
use for the squids, nor have I, but they may be enjoyed. You need
only look at them, for they are like odd Chinese shapes in polished
and transparent quartz, but magically illuminated from within by the
principle of life. Life flushes each hyaline figure. And though, to
one way of thinking, six mackerel are not so good as six thousand, yet
from another they are just as good. A wonderful family, that of the
mackerel! You no sooner begin to remember tunny, albacore, and bonito,
than you are translated to a distant sea. There is something else, too.
We never see mackerel--or, for that matter, any other fish, in London.
We see only provender there. On the stones of this beach, when the red
globe of the sun sits almost a-top of the western headland, and the air
grows bleak, a mackerel fresh from the sea might be a big fire-opal
lost to the ocean’s enchantment. Yes, you may feel a shudder of fear
when overlooking the heaving pocket of the seine net.
And how little one knows of such a gathering from the gardens of the
pulse! A red gurnard, with its staring eyes of violet, and the livid
violet margin to its pectorals, never suggests anything for the pot.
Those steady eyes look at you with disconcerting interest. There are
red mullet and grey, gar-fish like green snakes, horse mackerel,
herring, plaice and dabs, and fry that might be leaping shavings of
bright metal. The other afternoon a salmon came in with the rest, a
very king, a resplendent silver torpedo of a fellow, who scattered the
shingle before he was overcome. And now, because I have been warned
that I may look for even stranger messengers from the world we do not
know, I am waiting for the opah, the _chimæra mirabilis_, the angel
fish, Darkie Charlie, and the oar-fish or sea-serpent.