The Tunisian Government claims a third of all the polypi fished upon its coast. The native fishermen, in general, sell their octopods to the merchants in anticipation, the latter making them pecuniary advances, four or five months before the season, at a stipulated price for the fish, which is seldom, however, below 20s. the cwt. Should the fishermen fail to supply the quantity contracted for, the merchant is entitled to demand that they should procure for him the requisite weight of fish elsewhere; but this power is rarely enforced, a new agreement being more frequently entered into for the coming season, on proportionately favourable terms for the purchaser. Another practice is also followed for the purchase of octopods. The merchant makes an advance to the fishermen a month before the season, and receives back the value of his money at the first public sale, at the current price, with an addition in his favour of 5 per cent. on the amount disbursed.
The octopus has hitherto been prepared for exportation by simply salting and drying, but it is now preserved either in oil or brine, after subjecting it to a preliminary scouring and boiling process.
The price for octopods varies considerably, according to the size, supply, and demand; but at Sfax a pair of fresh fish may cost, as circumstances rule, from 6d. to 1s. 3d. However, the preparatory maceration, by beating on a stone slab or rock, required before drying, entails a small additional expense, and brings the extremes of low and high prices to 25s. or 50s. per cwt. To the cost price must be added an export duty of 5s. 1d., and the purchaser ought to be careful to receive his merchandise from the seller during dry weather, as a damp day will add from 4 to 5 per cent. to the weight of every cwt.
Malta receives the largest part of the Tunisian octopods, but they are only sent to that island for ultimate transmission to Greece and other parts of the Levant. Portugal is one of the few countries that competes with Tunis in supplying the Greek markets with polypi. In Greece, the octopods are either sold after being pickled, at from £12 16s. to £15 9s. the cantar of 176lb., or in their original dried state at from £12 to £14, but it must be understood that these prices are subject to considerable fluctuations arising from the favourable or unfavourable state of the season’s fishery.
[24] Travels in Lycia; by Lieut. (now Admiral) A. B. Spratt, R.N., F.G.S., and Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S.
[25] The special correspondent at Gibraltar of the Daily Telegraph (Mr. George Augustus Sala) wrote as follows on this subject:—For the information of Mr. Henry Lee, I may observe that nothing whatever is known at Gib. about the terrible octopus who is said to have sucked the boatswain of a man-of-war into the lowermost depths of Davy Jones’s locker; but there are legends commonly recited in the smoking-room of the King’s Arms as to an octopus that held on to a sharp rock with one set of suckers, and capsized a felucca from Algeciras with the other. The Spaniards eat this horrible creature very willingly. When they catch him, they first pound him violently between two stones, as some cooks are in the habit of thwacking beefsteaks of which the tenderness is doubtful, and then they hang him up in the sun until his abominable body and limbs are dried. Ultimately they fry him in oil, and declare that he is very nice. I have an idea that I must have eaten fried octopus for supper at Bobadilla, and that it was the delicacy which gave me such a thorough disgust of the place. The octopus, nevertheless, under the name of pulpo, is popular enough throughout Southern Spain, and is equally common, and equally devoured, on the coast of Algeria and Morocco.—Daily Telegraph, March 15, 1875.
[26] A gentleman engaged in the cod-fishery, and residing at Fogo, Newfoundland, has told me that he was startled one evening by an unusual sound at the back of his house, which is at the head of the harbour, and the next morning found three barrels of squids dead on the shore. The same gentleman received information, on the 29th of June, 1873, of a gigantic squid having been picked up in Trinity Bay, and seen by Mr. Haddon, school inspector. It measured sixteen feet in length. The squid used so abundantly as bait in the Newfoundland cod-fishery is Ommastrephes sagittatus.
[27] In Jonathan Couch’s manuscript diary, which I have had the gratification of perusing, the following entry appears, dated 1819:—“John Hotton (a fisherman of Polperro), informs me that some time since he was at sea for the purpose of catching cuttles, when the night was so dark, that, though cuttles were in plenty and followed the bait to the surface, he could not see to hook them. He then desired his son to take a lanthorn, and hold it close to the water so that he might see; when, to his surprise, a great many cuttles gathered round the light, and without bait or hook he caught eighteen by hooking them with the rod (gaff). Since then he has more than once put the same plan in practice with success.”
[28] “Intellectual Observer,” vol. ii., p. 164.
[29] One of the recipes for “areca-nut tooth-powder” is:—“Ground areca-nuts, three parts; cuttle-bone, one part; flavour with cloves or cassia.”