Formed of polished stones and pebbles, about two hundred yards in width, flat-topped, with steeply sloping sides, at this distance it has the appearance of a narrow yellow road or causeway between the open sea on one hand and the waters of the Fleet, a narrow lake ten miles long, on the other.
When the mackerel visit the coast, and come near enough to be taken in a draw-net, every villager who owns a share (usually a tenth) in a fishing-boat throws down his spade or whatever implement he happens to have in his hand at the moment, and hurries away to the beach to take his share in the fascinating task.

At four o'clock one morning a youth, who had been down to the sea to watch, came running into the village uttering loud cries which were like excited yells--a sound to rouse the deepest sleeper.

The mackerel had come! For the rest of the day there was a pretty kind of straggling procession of those who went and came between the beach and the village--men in blue cotton shirts, blue jerseys, blue jackets, and women in grey gowns and big white sun-bonnets.

During the latter part of the day the proceedings were peculiarly interesting to me, a looker-on with no share in any one of the boats, owing to the catches being composed chiefly of jelly-fish.
Some sympathy was felt for the toilers who strained their muscles again and again only to be mocked in the end; still, a draught of jelly-fish was more to my taste than one of mackerel.

The great weight of a catch of this kind when the net was full was almost too much for the ten or twelve men engaged in drawing it up; then (to the sound of deep curses from those of the men who were not religious) the net would be opened and the great crystalline hemispheres, hyaline blue and delicate salmon-pink in colour, would slide back into the water.