368

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

worms, (which are liable to he nibbled off by the roach)and I found, that the whiteness of the bait causes it to beseen in the night by the fish in search of food. Often atmidnight, before going to bed I would visit my eel lines,take off the eels, and rebait the hooks for the morning visit.One night Gill and I after supper, got into our Londra tolook at the lines ; we had with us a lanthorn and a bucketto contain the eels—as I was busy taking the eels off theline, something was said that made Gill laugh mostheartily—his foot slipped and over went the Londra , thenight was “dark as pitch”—howto get on shore wherethere is no shore, was most embarrassing. The onlylanding place near was that which conducted to ourPagliara, and that was two hundred yards off, and verydifficult to find in such total darkness. In most places themass of water-plants ten or more yards broad along thebanks were quite impassable to a swimmer, there beingstill under them twenty feet of water; besides, toenter the weeds would bring upon us ten thousand timesten thousand leeches of enormous size—all these thoughtsstruck me in the instant; as to Gill he upset the Londra bya laugh, and I actually heard him laughing for a momentwith his head under the “ boat ” that had turned exactlyover him. However, we kept as much as possible in theclear central water, and by good luck and local habitude,hit in the dark upon the proper landing place. Butalthough, we had not traversed any large bed of weeds,we were nevertheless covered with leeches. A completechaplet hung round our necks and on our hands, there wereat least twenty. We lost our lanthorn and a dozen of fineeels that were in the bucket.

Speaking of leeches, all the apothecaries in the worldmight be supplied in one day from Patria, every bodythere wears long boots called here mud boots, in Italian