urs, so that one never knows what colour
is coming up next. Persons who are fond, when playing cards, of betting
upon the colour of the trump to be turned up--black or red--would find
the pastime of "backing their colour" infinitely varied, if they tried
to guess the colour of the fish which would next appear.

My first fish pond, ten feet by five feet, was a failure, as it was
leaky; but not to be beaten I commenced another and much larger one,
sixteen feet by ten feet. I selected a site close above high water-mark,
and commenced digging, and in fact worked a whole day at it, intending
to line it with a mixture of sand and lime, of which I had several tubs
for making mortar for repairing the brickwork of my homestead; but that
very evening I discovered a natural fish pond, or rather a pool, that
could be turned into one by a little outlay of labour.

A cleft between two large rocks, separating them by about six feet,
allowed the sea at high tide to flow into a pool at the foot of an
amphitheatre of rocks, which gave a basin of water, at high tide, about
twenty feet across. Here was a grand, natural fish pool, and I soon
turned it into a comfortable home for my finny captures.

First at low tide I cleared the bottom of this pool, and made it deeper.
Then, having previously made a huge batch of mortar, I set to work and
built a wall of rock across the cleft, until I had raised it six feet
high, taking great care to make it perfectly water-tight. This I
strengthened by laboriously placing blocks of stone on each side, so as
to prevent the sea from toppling my mortar-built wall over. As a pond it
was a perfect success, except in one particular, and that was that the
water in time would evaporate, or become stale; so I put my wits
together and constructed a curious kind of mill pump, which worked with
four wooden buckets upon an endless rope. It was jerky, but effective;
that is it was effective at high water, when the tide came up to my
sea-wall. At this time the mill, being placed right for the wind, would
commence to work, and the buckets to ascend and descend, and each shoot
its gallon of water into the pond, till sometimes it was full to the
brim, and even running over. Thus I could change the water at will. I
was simply delighted, and fished from morning till night to stock my
pool, and in a fortnight had specimens of all kinds, colours, and sizes.
Eels, soles, whiting, dorey, pollock, long-nose, crabs, lobsters were