Morning journal and courier., 1889-09-04
FISHING WITH CORMORANTs.
How tho Japanese Make Big Catche
 With These Unsainly Sea Birds.

How tho Japanese Make Big Catches
 With These Unsainly Sea Birds.
 From the London Times.l
 Gifu is the place to go to if you care to see, in all it's perfection, one of the oldest extant forms of piscatory craft. To see the fishing at all you must bs there between May and October, which are the limits of the season. To see it to full advantage you should choose time when the river is free from turbidity, and when there is no moon- light-the darker the night the better. Fur ther, if you are wise, you will take care to see it after the manner of the country and in the company of a pleasant party of Japa- nese. That is how saw it month ago, and what saw now proceed to tell:
 It was but short drive from our inn at Gifu to the riverside tea house that served as the real starting point of the expedition. Embarking there after nightfall in roomy pleasure barge, we set off on an upstream voyage, in which our craft was alternately poled and lowed over the shoals and rapids of the wide and shallow Naaaragawa Out side the night was darkness itself and pro- foundly still Inside there was neither si- lenee nor darkness. The cabin, or deck house, of the Korio Maru Is, in truth, pret- ty little Japanese room, with it's accompani- ments of sliding doors, clean, soft mats, dec orated ceiling and beautiful woods-the whole brightly lit up by many colored ga sit a cheery party, talking and joking with all the happy abandon of Japanese out for a holiday, drinking tea, it hardly need be said, and smoking their diminutive pipes the while. Aft of our saloon a tiny kitchen, from which, as time wears on, attendants bring relays of tea and fruits and sweet- | meats and finally sundry bottles of hot ] sake, followed by great jubako, or provi- sion box, of gilded lacquer, with its trays l upon trays of dainty eatables, among which l last are spitchcocked cells, piping hot, and 1 cooked as only a Japanese can cook them After perhaps an hour of struggle up stream the barge is brought to rest at a convenient place in mid channel, there to await the ar l rival of the cormorant fishers we have come 1 to see.
 Presently the first sign is detected-a spo
 of hay red glow, shining over the tree' ! from a reach two or three miles above us Hereupon our chief boatman erects his pri vate signal-a mighty paper lantern of rec and white basket pattern. Steadily the QlOv spreads and deepens, until, ss the last inter veniup point is cleared, we descry it's cause a constellation of shifting, fickerinS lights drifting down the dark river toward us. By degrees these develop into balls of fire, sev
 on in number, casting as many long corusca
 tions of light before them from their refec
 tion in the waters of the stream. Thel
 sounds are heard-sounds of much beating
 shouting and splashing. Next appear tn
 forms of boats and the swarthy figures o
 men thrown up with weird, Renbrandt-lik
 effects against the inky blackness of tn
 night; and in the water round about tn
 boats are numbers of cormorants. behavin
 to all appearance in the maddest fashion
 The fires we now see are great cages of blaz ) ing pine knots suspended over tine bow c , each bost, darting forth flames and sparks
 and forever dropping embers, which fa
 with loud hissiDg into the stream. Neare still they come. The men have seen ou signal and are manouvring 30 as to SUI , round us, which, being done, we find oul selves in the midst of all the uproar and @, l citement of cormorant fishing 8 la Japonais' Now to describe the sport There are, t begin with, four men in each of the seve
 boats, one of whom, at the stern, has T
 duty but that of managing his craft. l t l the bow stands the master, distinguished . l the peculiar hat of his rank, and handlin l no fewer than twelve trained birds with tt surpassing skill and coolness that ha1 D earned for the sportsmen of Gifu their ul a riyalled pre.eminence. Amidships is anotl