Harper's Round Table, October 29, 1895

by Various

One of the sailors closed and secured the port before any more of the birds escaped. Then the rest of the watch came aft, running helter-skelter at the hurried hail of the mate, and drove the rest of the flock into their pen. Had there been the slightest chance of capturing the runaways the Captain would have backed the main-topsail, hove the ship to, and lowered the quarter-boat.

Meanwhile the wind had died out. The sails flapped lazily against the mast, and the ship rolled sluggishly on the heaving bosom of old ocean. The clouds rolled away, and the pitiless burning sun shone down on the deck and dried up all the moisture on wood and rope in a few minutes. It was one of those sudden meteorological changes so common in equatorial latitudes. An awning was rigged up over the man at the wheel. The skipper put on a huge topee, or Indian pith helmet, to shelter his head from the sweltering rays which made the pitch boil and bubble up in the seams of the main-deck, and promised plenty of work for the carpenter's calking-irons.

The ducks, obeying a sort of homing instinct, I suppose, swam up to the now almost motionless ship, and continued their sport nearly within a stone's throw. Suddenly a bright idea struck the skipper.

"See the lee quarter-boat clear for lowering!" he shouted to the second mate. Then he put his head down the cabin skylight and ordered the steward to bring up his breech-loader and a lot of cartridges. The boat was lowered and manned. A side ladder was rigged; the Captain with his gun descended and took up a position in the bow, from which he directed operations. The cockswain seized the tiller-ropes. "Shove off let fall give way!" he cried, all in one breath, without any regard to punctuation, so excited was he, and in such a hurry to get within gunshot of the ducks. If he could not catch them alive, he meant to have them dead.

The boat was headed for the flock. When within easy range the skipper let them have it right and left. His aim was so good that he brought down three. It took some time to pick them up, which gave the scared flock an opportunity to get out of gunshot. None others, as it happened, were fated to fall victims to the deadly breech-loader of our sportsman-skipper. The dorsal fins of six sharks were observed sticking up above the surface of the water, and converging from different directions on the doomed ducks. Sharks are abundant in equatorial waters, and they follow ships for miles. Some of them are very large. All are voracious and ugly customers to tackle.

The way those sharks gobbled up those ducks was a sight to behold. They were disposed of in three minutes. The Captain was terribly angry. He tried to revenge himself by peppering the sharks with shot, but it is doubtful if the leaden pellets made the slightest impression on their tough hides, even if he succeeded in hitting them.

The boat pulled back to the ship, and was hoisted to the davits. The calm continued. Four of the sharks came up alongside, eager for more ducks. Such appetizing fare was seldom theirs. Stray garbage from passing ships, flotsam from the forecastle, composed the diet upon which they usually depended in addition to their steady prey of fish. The Captain brooded over the loss of his ducks for some time. Then he made up his mind to have a little shark-fishing, and thus combine revenge and recreation.

He sent below for a brand-new shark-hook with a sharp and cruel barb. To the ring of the hook was attached a stout chain a fathom long. A shark's teeth are so sharp and strong that they can bite through the stoutest rope with singular ease. To the end of the chain the skipper bent on a two-and-a-half-inch manilla line, and having impaled a four-pound piece of pork on the hook, hove it overboard, with the remark that he intended to have a slice of fresh shark for supper.

The sharks were playing about the rudder on the lookout for any stray trifles that might come along their way from a sailor down to a beef bone. They are not at all fastidious or dainty. It was my first experience of shark-fishing, and I was a keen and interested observer. The water was so clear that I could watch every motion of the four monsters as they swam slowly about, each one attended by his own particular body-guard of pilot-fish—pretty little creatures shaped something like perch, with blue vertical stripes. Ichthyologists declare that these fish attend the shark for the purpose of preying upon the parasites that infest him. This may be a true explanation, but I cannot understand how it is that a hungry deep-sea shark, that will snap up anything living or dead, permits these plump little fish to play unscathed about his enormous jaws. There are other curious things about these pilot-fish that naturalists cannot explain. They only attach themselves to the pelagic species found in deep water; there are always five or seven of them to each shark, never an even number; they stick to the shark while he is floundering about in the water with a hook through his jaws, but as soon as he is hoisted above the surface of the sea they immediately disappear. Nobody knows what becomes of them.

I have had several good opportunities of studying the habits of sharks, and have always been curious about them. As a matter of fact, very little is known concerning the ocean variety, which is quite distinct from that of the shore.