OT haughty, blue-blooded Spain, not bull-fighting Andalusia, fiesta-keeping Castile, or battling Aragon, but work-a-day Spain, wearing the hickory shirts of America and toiling in plain ways to earn sound American dollars, yet with that inseparable picturesqueness fending color and quaintness to the situation! It was this we found one day in the winter of 1900 as we cruised along the coast imprinted so often with the footsteps of Spanish cavaliers.

There is no finer body of water on the globe than the Gulf of Mexico; none more beautiful, nor any approaching its size that is so rich in life. Embracing temperate, semi-tropical, and torrid regions in its great expanse, it affords to the living things within its vast arms a diversity of climate, salinity, and sea bottom well fitted to foster that superabundant life.

To be sure, the fisher-people, trappers, and plume-hunters on these waters and shores find existence easy-going; for the main problems of life are made simple. Food is here in riotous plenty, and in diversity sufficient to nourish; yet greater variety is readily obtainable by barter and sale. Fuel is little needed, but found in quantities. Shelter is a slight consideration in climate so kind; shacks of saplings and palmetto thatch are easily constructed, and are highly satisfactory. The problem of clothing is not brought quite so close to elemental conditions as are the other three; yet the requirements in that line, also, can be met with but little difficulty.

The simplicity and ease of living in such a locality have brought diverse people to the west coast of Florida to engage in its unsystematized maritime industries. In studying this coast, the status of its industries, and the nationality, character, and habits of living and work of its fisher-folk, I have been much struck by the great number of Spaniards and people of Spanish descent, and by their fitness for the occupations and climate. A large fish ranch on Captiva Island, whose bay opens into beautiful Charlotte harbor, an important arm of the Gulf of Mexico, will serve as a type from which to gather acquaintanceship with the numerous similar ranches on our gulf shore.

It was at the cloudy close of a warm day in February of last year that our little sloop-yacht found its way from the open gulf through Captiva pass into a sheltered and quiet crescent of water that we found to be Captiva bay. Green mangrove islands dotted the sapphire surface of Charlotte harbor to the east, while on our starboard there curved inward a lovely beach, snowwhite on its upper shelf, but, next to the surf-line, rose and purple with millions of delicate shells. Standing on deck, watching the sailors make ready to anchor, we suddenly discovered, as the boat drifted inward, that a flag was flying beyond a thick ridge of palmettoes, and that its colors were red, white, and blue.

We landed, and, following a well-marked trail, came out on the sheltered inner shore of what proved to be the northern spur of Captiva Island. The Stars and Stripes, much battered and weather-beaten but still majestic, floated from an old mast stuck in the sand, and about this center clustered a tiny village of palmetto shacks. A little man was lazily smoking in one door, while from the shack next to him came a great clatter of masculine voices.

"Good afternoon," said the spokesman of our group, approaching the solitary smoker, "I hope that we are not trespassing?"

The man nodded with a smiling “ Buenas dias," which in itself disclaimed any thought of trespass. On some further remarks from us, he shook his head in mild despair over our English, but trotted off towards the vocal tumult under the next thatched roof, observing as he went:

"I call el capitan. Manuel talk to you." He returned quickly, accompanied by a man who, notwithstanding his simple costume of canvas trousers, cotton shirt, and palmetto shade hat pushed back from his curly, sunburned forelock, wore an air of dignity and command. He was scarcely thirty years old; his face was frank and pleasant, and though browned by exposure, inclined to the blond type; he was rather below the American medium height, but had fine, square shoulders, while his chest and throat, fully revealed by the wide-open shirt, were magnificent. Altogether he stood a good type of

physical manhood, from his bare feet to his well-shaped head.

Seeing ladies, he took off his hat and gave courteous welcome, speaking English with as much fluency and correctness as the majority of our laboring people, and with an agreeable mellowness of tone and accent.

When we explained that we were cruising for pleasure, that we had put in from the open, fearing a possible tempest or squall from the sultry clouds, and that we had run into this sheltered haven without thought of trespass, as most of the islands in Charlotte harbor are uninhabited, he assured us we had done wisely. Bad weather was coming, he said, and he was glad that before it came we had found the safest and prettiest place on the coast. We must bring our boat around to the inside cove, for the blackest squall could never reach that.

"Make yourself at home," he concluded, with an easy wave of his hand. "You'd better stay a week or two, storm or no storm. Finest fishin' an' huntin' in the world right here. Got plenty of water?" "Low, and we were getting uneasy," my husband admitted.

"All our barrels are full," the captain

said. "Your men can fill brought the boat 'round. go back an' finish saltin' see it?"

up when they've Now I've got to down. Want to

Without delaying him by further questions, we followed to the shack where the men were at work. A silence fell upon them at first, and a certain sullenness appeared on half a dozen swarthy countenances. We could not miss their whispered "Americanos" mingled with some terms of contempt. But it was easy to forgive it; the conflict between our blood and theirs had ended but a few months back in their national defeat and humiliation. One cannot expect even Spanish fishermen in an alien land to forget at once. But the majority of the twenty men at work glanced at us with indifference or light curiosity, and soon resumed their chatter, laughter, singing, and whistling.

The shack was twenty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, with clean sand for a floor. Nearly half of it was filled with sacks of salt piled on a sort of staging, while at the upper end were stacked thousands of salted fish, chiefly mullet, we could see, ready for shipment. Down the other half of the room ran

a series of troughs or stalls. These were in threes, every middle one with a sort of latticed bottom for the split fish to be thrown into, and on both sides of this a trough of salt, at each end of which stood a man rubbing and packing the mullet with nature's preservative. The men displayed much care in the task, but worked with a rapidity that astonished us. Several men were hurrying up and down the aisles carrying the salted fish to two others who were doing the stacking at the upper end.

The captain resumed his place at a salttrough, and worked as well as any private there, meantime talking easily with us in English, or directing, encouraging, and admonishing his men in Spanish. The slatted stalls were soon emptied, and the fishermen scattered. Manuel disappeared, and we went aboard the Kite which our sailors had meantime run around into the little cove.

We were finishing supper on deck when Manuel came to pay his devoirs in proper formal fashion. No rain had come, and only a strong breeze reached us in the tiny landlocked harbor; but we could hear the gulf sullenly booming outside, while from the

west the sunset banners trailed upward, lurid and threatening. We were watching these and listening to the sailors' interpretation of the omens, when a dingey shot out from the fishers' landing a hundred yards away. Another moment and the captain drew alongside, saluted us debonairly, and of course was invited aboard with much cordiality. How smartly and becomingly he had arrayed himself! The jaunty cap perched on his sunyellowed curls, the red jumper thrown open at the throat, the blue silk sash, and velveteen trousers, even the pointed shoes and gaily-striped hose, seemed to sit as easily upon him as if he wore them all the time.

He paid us a long call, and proved a most entertaining guest, answering our questions with a readiness that encouraged us to ask more, and displaying great variety and accuracy of information regarding matters pertaining in any way to his calling.

"This is different from any of the fish camps we have visited hitherto," my husband observed.

"It's a fish ranch, not a camp," the captain answered. "It's permanent, you know, an' we manage our own business, take

"And you were you born in Spain?" "My father an' mother left Spain an' landed in Key West the year before I was born. I'm a good American," he said, with a smile of comradeship.

"Shall I put you down in my note-book as Captain Manuel?"

"Manuel Almas," he replied, showing his white teeth agreeably; "an' I'll be glad to be in your notebook."

"Are all of your men Spaniards?'

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Mostly Key Westers or Cubans," he nodded; but three are only over this year from Cadiz. Then there's José who's lived about here seventy years, like his father before him. An' the two six-footers are from North Car'lina."

We smiled, remembering the pair of blueeyed, good-natured, slow-moving giants among the swart, squat, lively men around the fish troughs. Then, recalling the lynxeyed, leather-skinned old Spaniard, I asked: "And who is José?"

house reservation; but I hope they'll never spoil the ranch to put up a light. I've fished from the reefs to St. Mark's, an' there's not such another spot anywhere for fish to abound all the time an' without ceasin'. José keeps up the shacks. His father before him got a

THE LONE FISHERMAN.

permit from the government for a ranch here after Spain give up the land, an' José's had it renewed in his time."

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And is it José that flies the Stars and Stripes?'

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He shook his head in laughing protest. He don't love 'em; learned diff'rent from his father, you know. It's my flag." "Then you must be very patriotic." He cast an arch glance around our circle. "Yes, as long as the government don't enforce the fish law an' make me stop my business through the very months when there's most in it. But the

flag-I set that up when the war was on. The men mostly kicked; but I soon had 'em convinced that it was the safest thing for folks of their color an' lingo, with cruisers comin' an' goin' in these waters."

"Do your men often work on Sunday, Captain Almas, as they did today?" a young lady of our party asked.

"Why, is it Sunday?" he inquired, with face drawn into extreme gravity, but eyes that gleamed roguishly. "We plum forgot that. But I'll remember next time, sure."

When he rose to take leave, he invited us very pressingly to go ashore with him, even

urging that we camp there, as the ladies must be tired of the boat.

"My shack is at your disposal," he said. "Of course it's rough; but it's cool and large an' has curtains to divide it. I'd be glad for you to use it a week or two. Plenty of room in the next one for me."

With much appreciation of his very genuine hospitality, we yet declined to dispossess him. But we promised to spend at least the next day in enjoying the beauty and the sport of Captiva.

As his skiff moved from the Kite, the golden moon of the subtropics broke from

A FISHERMAN.

the clouds and splendidly lighted the picturesque shore and waters. Immediately the tinkle of a mandolin sounded from a bowery spot near the landing, another answered farther back, a broken guitar twanged from a doorway, and a banjo began to thrum. The first verse of a Spanish song, with love and wine and the heaving sea in it, was trolled out from the bower under the wild fig tree, and figures began to move in that direction. In a few minutes all the instruments and many voices had concentrated there; but I cannot say that perfect harmony was evolved from the blending. Yet we enjoyed it wondrously, and beyond a doubt they did. Now and then we could catch the strains and even the words of "Mabel Clare and Sweet Violets" rising above the Spanish songs; we divined that the two

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tall Carolinians, unacquainted with the language or music of their mates, had yet fallen under the spell of the moonlight, the soft air, and romantic scenery, and were making good their right to join in the concert according to their movings.

Variable winds and weather combined with our own inclination to keep us in the neighborhood of Captiva ranch for many days, and we gathered full information regarding its business workings and the pecuniary results accruing from such an industry.

The ranch is in active operation from August to April, and from twenty-five to forty men are employed all the time. Their daily routine is simple. At four o'clock each morning- unless raining-the cook, who, by the way, is an important and much honored personage in the little commonwealth, blows the conch, and summons to hot black coffee. The boats and nets are quickly made ready, and the men are out after the day's harvest in the neighboring inlets and coves. So marvelously abundant are the mullet in this bay that one haul of the great net often brings in eight thousand fish. We saw such a haul one quiet, sunny morning. The long fish-boat is fairly filled with these, the heavy seine is piled up, the men clamber in on the benches, taking their tonic drink of aguardiente before they start back, then home to seven, eight, or even nine o'clock breakfast. This over, all hands except the cook must hasten to the shed nearest the water's edge, and split and clean the fish, throwing them into the water-pen to wash. If the weather is reasonably cool or cloudy they may soak here some hours before being carried up to the salting-down shack. It was so on the day we arrived. But ordinarily they salt down in the morning and have the rest of the day free. For it must be admitted that vis inertia is strong in the Latin blood; and with Spanish fishermen the best success is attained by having the day's tasks close on one another's heels and the dolce far niente undisturbed.

There is no more fishing until next morning. In mullet-fishing there would be but poor results, even if the men were willing. So for the remainder of the day everybody but the cook is free to follow his own desires. They sleep much, loaf much, play cards, and smoke endlessly, wash and mend their clothes if the notion strikes them, sometimes visit camps or ranches on adjacent islands, and often sail some distance to get fruit, wild, or from neglected groves and orchards. moonlight nights, if they do not visit other

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