AN OCEAN MONARCH.
By G. BROWNE GOODE.
The gray old city of Siena, hidden away, almost forgotten amidst the hills of Tuscany, contains one object peculiarly interesting to Americans. Within its walls Christopher Columbus was educated, and hither returning in his days of prosperity, he deposited, doubtless with impressive ceremonies, a memento of his first voyage over the sea. His votive offering hangs within and over the main portal of the old collegiate church, for many years closed, and now rarely visited by tourists. Grouped together in a picturesque and very dusty trophy may be seen the helmet, armor and weapons of the great navigator, and with them the weapon of a warrior who was killed resisting the approach of the strange ships—the sword of an immense sword-fish. A sword-fish was no novelty to seafaring men accustomed to the waters of the Mediterranean, still the beak of this defender of the coast was preserved by the crew of Columbus, and for nearly four centuries has formed a prominent feature in the best preserved monument of the discoverer of America.
A similar though less impressive memorial hangs in the great hall of the Bremen Rathaus, side by side with the clumsy ship-models, the paintings of stranded whales, and the trophies of armor which illustrate the history of the old Hanse-town (Free City). It is a painting, of the size of life, of a sword-fish, taken by Bremen fishermen in the river Weser, with a legend inscribed beneath in letters of the most angular type:
“Anno . 1696 . den . 18 . juli . ist . dieser .
Fisch . ein . schwertfisch . genannt . von . dieser .
Stadt . fischern . in . der . weser . gefangen,” etc.
This swift, mysterious animal seems at a period remote in antiquity to have literally thrust itself into the notice of mankind by means of its attacks upon the boats in the Mediterranean. Pliny knew it and wrote: “The sword-fish, called in Greek Xiphias, that is to say in Latin, Gladius, a sword, hath a beake or bill sharp-pointed, wherewith he will drive through the sides and planks of a ship, and bouge them so that they shall sink withall,” and the naturalists of the sixteenth century knew almost as much of its habits as those of the present day. Few fishes are so difficult to observe, and a student may, like the writer of this article, spend summer after summer in the attempt to study them with few results, other than the sight of a few dozen back-fins cutting through the water, a chance to measure and dissect a few specimens, and perhaps the experience of having the side of his boat pierced by one of their ugly swords. Yet, while little is known of their habits, few fishes are so generally known by their external characters.