There it attains enormous proportions, and is, not without reason, known to all the frequenters of those waters as the “devil-fish.” When a youngster I was homeward bound from Sant’ Ana with a cargo of mahogany, and when off Cape Campèche was one calm afternoon leaning over the taffrail, looking down into the blue profound, on the watch for fish. A gloomy shade came over the bright water, and up rose a fearsome monster some eighteen feet across, and in general outline more like a skate or ray than anything else, all except the head. There, what appeared to be two curling horns about three feet apart rose one on each side of the most horrible pair of eyes imaginable. A shark’s eyes as he turns sideways under your vessel’s counter and looks up to see if any one is coming are ghastly, green, and cruel; but this thing’s eyes were all these and much more. I felt that the Book of Revelation was incomplete without him, and his gaze haunts me yet. Although quite sick and giddy at the sight of such a bogey, I could not move until the awful thing, suddenly waving what seemed like mighty wings, soared up out of the water soundlessly to a height of about six feet, falling again with a thunderous splash that might have been heard for miles. I must have fainted with fright, for the next thing I was conscious of was awakening under the rough doctoring of my shipmates. Since then I have never seen one leap upward in the daytime. At night, when there is no wind, the sonorous splash is constantly to be heard, although why they make that bat-like leap out of their proper element is not easy to understand. It does not seem possible to believe such awe-inspiring horrors capable of playful gambolling.
At another time, while mate of a barque loading in the Tonala River, one of the Mexican mahogany ports, I was fishing one evening from the vessel’s deck with a very stout line and hook for large fish.
A prowling devil-fish picked up my bait, and feeling the hook, as I suppose, sprang out of water with it. I am almost ashamed to say that I made no attempt to secure the thing, which was a comparatively small specimen, but allowed it to amuse itself, until, to my great relief, the hook broke, and I recovered the use of my line, my evening’s sport quite spoiled.
These ugly monsters have as yet no commercial value, although from their vast extent of flat surface they might be found worthy of attention for their skins, which should make very excellent shagreen. A closer acquaintance with them would also most probably divest them of much of the terror in which they are held at present.
Another widely known and feared devil-fish has its headquarters in the Northern Pacific, mostly along the American coast, especially affecting the Gulf of California. This huge creature is a mammal, one of the great whale family, really a rorqual of medium size and moderate yield of oil. Like the rest of this much-detested and shunned (by whalers) branch of the Cetacea, it carries but a tiny fringe of valueless whalebone, and therefore, as compared with the sperm and “right” whales, its value is small. Yet at certain seasons of the year the American whaleships often think it worth their while to spend a month or so bay-whaling in some quiet inlet unknown to, and uncared for by, the bustling merchantman.
In these secluded spots the California devil-fish, mussel-digger, grey-back, and several other aliases not fit for publication, but all showing how the object of them is esteemed by his neighbours, may sometimes be taken at a disadvantage, the cows languid just before or after parturition, and the bulls who escort them too intent upon their loves to be as wily as is their wont.
But only the élite of the Yankee whalemen, dexterous and daring as are all the tribe, can hope to get “to windward,” of the diabolically cunning giants whom they abuse with such fluent and frequent flow of picturesque profanity. It is a peculiar characteristic of this animal that it seems ever on the alert, scarcely exposing for one moment its broad back above the sea-surface when rising to spout, and generally travelling, unlike all its congeners, not upon, but a few feet below, the water. For this reason, and in this fishery alone, the whalers arm themselves with iron-shafted harpoons, in order to strike with greater force and certainty of direction a whale some distance beneath the surface. A standing order, too, among them is never by any chance to injure a calf while the mother lives, since such an act exposes all and sundry near the spot to imminent and violent death.
Neglect of this most necessary precaution, or more probably accident, once brought about a calamity that befell a fleet of thirteen American whaleships which had been engaged in the “bowhead” fishery among the ice-floes of the Arctic Pacific. In order to waste no time, they came south when winter set in, and by common consent rendezvoused in Margharita Bay, Lower California, for a month or two’s “devil-fishing.”
The whales were exceedingly abundant that season, and all the ships were soon busy with as much blubber as they could manage. The ease with which the whales were being obtained, however, led to considerable carelessness and forgetfulness of the fact that the whale never changes its habits. One bright morning, about three weeks after the opening of the season, the whole flotilla of fifty-two boats, four from each ship, had been lowered and were making their way as rapidly as possible to the outlying parts of the great bay, keeping a bright look-out for “fish.” Spreading out fan-wise, they were getting more and more scattered, when about the centre of the fleet some one suddenly “struck” and got fast to a fish. But hardly had the intimation been given when something very like panic seized upon the crowd. In a moment or two the reason was apparent. From some cause, never definitely known, a harpooner had in striking at a large cow whale transfixed her calf at her side with his harpoon, killing it immediately. The mother, having quietly satisfied herself that her offspring was really dead, turned upon her aggressors like a veritable demon of destruction, and, while carefully avoiding exposure of her body to attack, simply spread devastation among the flotilla. Whenever she rose to the surface, it was but for a second, to emit an expiration like the hiss of a lifting safety-valve, and almost always to destroy a boat or complete the destruction of one already hopelessly damaged.
Every blow was dealt with an accuracy and appearance of premeditation that filled the superstitious Portuguese, who formed a good half of the crews, with dismay—the more so that many of them could only guess at the original cause of what was really going on. The speed of the monster was so great, that her almost simultaneous appearance at points widely separated made her seem ubiquitous; and as she gave no chance whatever for a blow, it certainly looked as if all the boats would be destroyed seriatim. Not content with dealing one tremendous blow at a boat and reducing it at once to a bundle of loose boards, she renewed her attentions again and again to the wreckage, as if determined that the destruction should be complete.