Fishing Fleet

The fishing fleet was an ironical reference to the shipping of unmarried young women from the UK to India during the middle and latter years of the Raj, for the purposes of becoming married to colonial administrators, officers and plantation spervisors.,,

Famous quotes containing the words fishing and/or fleet:

    “A rat crept softly through the vegetation
    Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
    While I was fishing in the dull canal
    On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
    Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
    And on the king my father’s death before him.”
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    “On the middle of that quiet floor
    sits a fleet of small black ships,
    square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
    their spars like burned matchsticks.”
    —Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)