Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-01-30
Women Go Shrimpins.
RARE FUN IN FLORIDA WATERS
DURING THE WARM WINTER
MONTHS.
Women Wear the Costumes OF Nor
mandy Fisher Folk, Catch the
Pink Crustacea, Cook Them
on the Beach and
Dance Around
the Fire.
ona, corresnondepce of the Ledger.

Editorial Correspondence of the Ledger.
PoNC DE LEON HOTEL, ST. Angus
TINE, FLA, Jan. "a hrimplng at d
winter resorts in Florida is somewhat
similar to grabbing at summer resorts
on Long Island, which tried to de-
scribe in my letter in the LEDGER last
summer.
The most promising sport this whit
err is a direct importation o the
French watering places, ana every
body who visits Florida now goes
shrimping, pronouncing it the great
invention of the age.
Shrimping parties were first got up
by some one who had spent her sum-
mer in Dieppe and learned how to do
it. but the sort of bathing suit in which
one frollicked with North Atlantic
waters last August won't serve at all
for shrimping in Florida. Down at
the white beach, most patronized by
the midwinter trippers, the shrimping
is done at a reef that lies about a mile
off the hotels shore, where bath
houses stand, and to which, when the
tide is low, a catboat will only carry
one-half the way.
BEING CARRIED TO THE REEF.
The fun begins just where the water
grows so shoal that the boat must
stop. Then the boatmen, who are
growing used to the ways of ladies'
from the north, must roll up their
trousers to their knees, spring out in
to the water and carry the women
clear across a quarter of a mile stretch
to the reef, all of which is proclaimed
to be a most unusual and exciting
sensation, alone worth joining a
shrimping excursion.
All one must do is to stand on the
boats heaving, let the brawny, brown
fisherman catch you around the knees,
and then his burden, half carelessly
tossed over one shoulder, holds on
by clasping his throat with her hands.
Of course one car go round to the reef
by rowboat and in shorter space, and
besides it's the way smart French
women do at Trouville, which is an all
important fact in the eyes of her
American sister, often quite as en-
nuiyed as the Parisenne and glad of a
new sensation.
WHAT TO WEAR.
If you go over to the reef merely to
look on at the sport and enjoy a share
of the ishy feast you wear any sort of
an afternoon toilet, simple or elabor-
ate, but if you go to shrimp you wear
across in the boat a long dark blue
cloak that falls from neck to heels
shaped like a Connemara, with a
round, full scarlet hood. A red silk
fshermau's cap or a red silk handker-
chief is used to cover the head and
brown anvas bathing slippers the
feet.
Down at the shrimping ground, on
entering the water, both cloak and
slippers are cast aside and oneappears
in bare feet and ankles, with full
trousers to the knee and a belted
blouse waist, with short, pulled
sleeves. All this should be in dark
blue or brown or green flannel, the
belt of scarlet canvas, and a huge
square sailor collar of the same ma
terial and color falling over the
shoulders.
NETTING THE sHRIMPS.
Then, armed with a long-handled
net, one wades slowly out into the
water, thrusting the nets rim in to
stir up the sand and then waving it
quickly about to catch the surprised
and scattering shrimp.
When the net gets heavy with fish
it is emptied into a canvas pocket
swung V the left shoulder, but it
takes a full half hour to fill that pock-
ct, if II has luck, and n wades in
neck deep to find the lively little
creatures, that can easily escape a
fisherwoman who is not swift enough
with her net and doesn't know how to
employ her ten little toes in roofing
about in the sand.
COOKING TuE CATCH.
When the tide begins to ebb shrimp
ing for the day is over, aud all along
the beach driftwood fires wink cheer
full welcome to the fisherwomen re-
turning with their spoiIs.
Over each fire an iron kettle is swung
and when the water, with n big
lump of salt in it, is brought to the
boiling point in go the shrimp, to cook
a fine rich pink. Expert shrimpers
merely washing their canvas shoulder
bags, drop them into the pots, a few
minutes boiling does the business, and
wrapped in their long cloaks every
body squats informally about on the
sand and sits about peeling and eating
the catch.
The sight becomes impressive when
one slender debutaute alone eats II
dozen shrimps at a singl e sitting an
yet wears a yearning expression of
righteous appetite unappeased in the
depths of her large brown eyes that
almost drives her masculine friends
out once more in search of sea food.
Some very nice women have indeed
lost all record of the number of
shrImps they can consume in one at
ternoon, but plead in extenuation the
imperial deliciousness of plain boiled
shrimps when fresh from the sea and
the voracious appetite this species of
sport can excite.
THE sHRIMPBR's DANCE
When every shell has been cracked
and the fires begin to fall into Goals,
nets, bags and kettles are gathered
into the bath houses, a magnificent
huge confiagaration of driftwood IS
lighted on the sand and everybody
joins hands and begins to circle round
it, singing whatever sense or nonsense
may pop into their heads.
Faster and faster whiri the young
people until the last shrimping suit is
declared to be perfectly dry and then
by moonrise the merrymake go
home. Some drive, row, wheel, walk
or sail back to their hotel, their pock-
cts filled with shrimps, that in this