ODDS AND ENDS
The "Staked Plains"--High Winds--Lobo Wolves--Branding--Cows--Black
Jack--Lightning and Hail--Classing Cattle--Conventions--"Cutting"
versus Polo--Bull-Fight--Prize-Fights--River and Sea
Fishing--Sharks.
More odds and ends! and more apologies for the disconnected character of
this chapter. It must be remembered that these notes are only jotted
down as they have occurred to me. Of their irrelativeness one to another
I am quite conscious, but the art of bringing them together in more
proper order is beyond my capacity. Possibly it might not be advisable
anyway.
In my pasture of some 100,000 acres there was not a tree, a bush, or a
shrub, or object of any nature bigger than a jack-rabbit; yet no sight
was so gladsome to the eyes, no scenery (save the mark!) so beautiful as
the range when clothed in green, the grass heading out, the lakes filled
with water and the cattle fat, sleek and contented. Yet in after years,
when passing through this same country by the newly-built railway in
winter-time, it came as a wonder to me how one could have possibly
passed so many years of his life in such a dreary, desolate,
uninteresting-looking region. To-day the whole district, even my own old
and familiar ranch, is desecrated (in the cattleman's eyes) by little
nesters' (settlers) cottages, and fences so thick and close together as
to resemble a Boer entanglement. I had done a bit of farming and some
years raised good crops of Milo maize, Kafir corn, sorghum, rye, and
even Indian corn. But severe droughts come on, when, as a nester once
told me, for two years nothing was raised, not even umbrellas!
These plains are, it may be safely said, the windiest place on earth,
especially in early spring, when the measured velocity sometimes shows
eighty miles per hour. When the big circular tumble weeds are bounding
over the plains then is the time to look out for prairie fires; and woe
betide the man caught in a blizzard in these lonely regions.
Once when driving from a certain ranch to another, a distance of fifty
miles, my directions were to "follow the main road." Fifty miles was no
great distance and my team was a good one. I knew there were no houses
between the two points. After driving what long experience told me was
more than fifty miles, and still no ranch, I became a bit anxious; but
there was nothing for it but to keep going. Black clouds in the north
warned me of danger. I pushed the team along till they were wet with
sweat; some snow fell; it grew dark as night; and a regular blizzard set
in and I was in despair. I had a good bed in the buggy, so would myself
probably have got through the night all right, but my horses were bound
to freeze to death if staked out or tied up. As a last resource I threw
the reins down and left it to the team to go wherever they pleased. For
some time they kept on the road, but soon the jolting told me that they
had left it and we began to go down a hill; in a little while great was
my joy to see a light and to find ourselves soon in the hospitable
shelter of a Mexican sheep-herder's hut. The Mexican unhitched the team
and put them in a warm shed. For myself, he soon had hot coffee and
tortillas on the table. I never felt so thankful in my life for such
accommodation and such humble fare. The horses had never been in that
part of the country before, that I knew; it was pitch dark, and yet they
must have known in some mysterious way that in that direction was
shelter and safety, as when I threw the lines down they even then
continued to face the storm.
It may be noted here that buffaloes always face the storm and travel
against it; cattle and horses never.
Before entirely leaving the cattle business a few more notes may be of
interest.
Plagues of grasshoppers and locusts sometimes did awful damage to the
range.
When visiting at a neighbour's one must not dismount till invited to do
so; also in saluting anyone the gloves must be removed before shaking
hands. This is cowboy etiquette and must be duly regarded.
At public or semi-private dances there is always a master of ceremonies,
who is also prompter and calls out all the movements. He will announce a
"quardreele," or maybe a "shorteesche," and keeps the company going with
his "Get your partners!" "Balance all!" "Swing your partners!" "Hands
across!" "How do you do?" and "How are you?" "Swing somewhere," and
"Don't forget the bronco-buster," etc. etc., as someone has described
it. The Mexicans are always most graceful dancers; cowboys, with their
enormously high heels, and probably spurs, are a bit clumsy. At purely
Mexican dances (Bailies) the two sexes do not speak, each retiring at
the end of a dance to its own side of the room.
Most cowboys have the peculiar faculty of "humming," produced by shaping
the mouth and tongue in a certain way. The "hum" can be made to exactly
represent the bagpipes; no one else did I ever hear do it but
cowpunchers. I have tried for hours but never quite succeeded in the
art.
Besides coyotes, which are everywhere common, the plains were infested
by lobo wolves, a very large and powerful species; they denned in the
breaks of the plains and it was then easiest to destroy them. They did
such enormous damage amongst cattle that a reward of as high as thirty
dollars per scalp was frequently offered for them, something less for
the pups. The finding of a nest with a litter of perhaps six to eight
young ones meant considerable money to the scalp-hunter. The wolves were
plentiful and hunted in packs; and I have seen the interesting sight of
a small bunch of mixed cattle rounded up and surrounded by a dozen of
them, sitting coolly on their haunches till some unwary yearling left
the protecting horns of its elders. Every time, when riding the range,
that we spotted a lobo ropes were down at once and a more or less long
chase ensued, the result depending much whether Mr Wolf had dined lately
or not. But they were more addicted to horse and donkey flesh if
obtainable. For purposes of poisoning them I used to buy donkeys at a
dollar apiece and cut them up for bait. With hounds they gave good sport
in a suitable country. But it is expensive work, as many dogs get
killed, and no dog of any breed, unless maybe the greyhound, can or
will singly and twice tackle a lobo wolf.
In the springtime, when the calves are dropping pretty thick, it is
exceedingly interesting to note the protective habits of the mother
cows. For instance, when riding you will frequently come on a two or
three days' old baby snugly hidden in a bunch of long grass while the
mother has gone to water. When calves get a little older you may find at
mid-day, out on the prairie, some mile or two from water, a bunch of
maybe forty calves. Their mammies have gone to drink; but not all of
them! No, never all of them at the same time. One cow is always left to
guard the helpless calves, and carries out her trust faithfully until
relieved. This was and is still a complete mystery to me. Does this
individual cow select and appoint herself to the office; or is she
balloted for, or how otherwise is the selection made?
This might be another picture subject--the gallant cow on the defensive,
even threatening and aggressive, and the many small helpless calves
gathering hastily around her for protection. Her! The self-appointed
mother of the brood.
When branding calves, suppose you have 400 cows and calves in the
corral. First all calves are separated into a smaller pen. Then the
branding begins. But what an uproar of bellows and "baas" takes place!
My calves were all so very like one another in colour and markings that
one was hardly distinguishable from another. The mothers can only
recognize their hopeful offspring by their scent and by their "baa,"
although amongst 400 it must be rather a nice art to do so--400
different and distinct scents and 400 differently-pitched baas.
Among these notes I should not forget to mention a brush plant that
grows on the southern plains. It is well named the "wait-a-bit" thorn.
Its hooks or claws are sharper than a cat's, very strong and recurve on
the stems: so that a man afoot cannot possibly advance through it, and
even on a horse it will tear the trousers off you in a very few minutes.
Is the name not appropriate?
Nothing so far has been said on the subject of "hold-ups." Railway train
hold-ups were a frequent occurrence, and were only undertaken by the
most desperate of men. One celebrated gang, headed by the famous outlaw,
Black Jack, operated mostly on a railway to the north of us and another
railway to the south, the distance between being about 400 miles. Their
line of travel between these two points was through Fort Sumner; and in
our immediate neighbourhood they sometimes rested for a week or two,
hiding out as it were, resting horses and laying plans. No doubt they
cost us some calves for beef, though they were not the worst offenders.
What annoyed me most was that Black Jack himself, when evading pursuit,
raided my horse pasture one night, caught up the very best horse I ever
owned, rode him fifty miles, and cut his throat.
In New Mexico, where at first it seemed everybody's hand was against me,
I was gratified to find that I had got a reputation as a fist-fighter,
and as I never practised boxing in my life, never had the gloves on,
never had a very serious fist fight with anyone, the idea of having such
a reputation was too funny; but why should one voluntarily repudiate it?
It was useful. The men had also somehow heard that I could hold a
six-shooter pretty straight. Such a reputation was even more useful. I
was not surprised therefore that a plan should be hatched to test my
powers in that line. It came at the round-up dinner-hour on the
Company's range (New Mexico). A small piece of board was nailed to a
fence post and the boys began shooting at it. In a casual way someone
asked me to try my hand. Knowing how much depended on it I got out my
faithful old 45° six-shooter that I had carried for fifteen years, and
taking quick aim, as much to my own surprise as to others', actually hit
the centre of the mark! It was an extraordinarily good shot (could not
do it again perhaps in twenty trials) but it saved my reputation. Of
course no pressure could have persuaded me to fire again. That reminds
me of another such occasion.
Once when camped alone on the Reservation in Arizona, a party of
officers from Camp Apache turned up. They had a bite to eat with me and
the subject of shooting came up. Someone stuck an empty can in a tree at
a considerable distance from us and they began shooting at it with
carbines. When my turn came I pulled out the old 45° pistol and by lucky
chance knocked the bottom out at the first shot. My visitors were amazed
that a six-shooter had such power and could be used with such accuracy
at that distance. In this case it was also a lucky shot; but constant
practice at rabbits, prairie dogs and targets had made me fairly
proficient. In New Mexico I had a cowboy working for me who was a
perfect marvel, a "born" marksman such as now and then appears in the
West. With a carbine he could keep a tin can rolling along the ground by
hitting, never the can, but just immediately behind and under it with
the greatest accuracy. If one tossed nickel pieces (size of a shilling)
in succession in front of him he would hit almost without fail every one
of them with his carbine--a bullet not shot! He left me to give
exhibition shooting at the Chicago Exposition.
On my ranch, at Running Water Draw, was unearthed during damming
operations, a vast quantity of bones of prehistoric age; which calls for
the remark that not only the horse but also the camel was at one time
indigenous to North America.
Nothing has been said yet about hail or lightning storms. Some of the
latter were indescribably grand, when at night the whole firmament would
be absolutely ablaze with flashes, sheets and waves so continuous as to
be without interval. Once when lying on my bed on the open prairie such
a storm came on. It opened with loud thunder and some brilliant flashes,
then the rain came down and deluged us, the water running two inches
deep over the grass; and when the rain ceased the wonderful electric
storm as described continued for an hour longer. The danger was over;
but the sight was awe-inspiring in the extreme. Night-herding too during
such a storm was a strange experience. No difficulty to see the cattle;
the whole herd stood with tails to the wind; the men lined out in front,
each well covered by his oilskin slicker, and his horse's tail likewise
turned to the storm; the whole outfit in review order so to speak, the
sole object of the riders being to prevent the cattle from "drifting."
This book contains no fiction or exaggeration; yet it will be hardly
believed when I state that hail actually riddled the corrugated iron
roof of my ranch house--new iron, not old or rusty stuff. The roof was
afterwards absolutely useless as a protection against rain.
Mirages in the hot dry weather were a daily occurrence. We did not see
imaginary castles and cities turned upside down and all that sort of
thing, but apparent lakes of water were often seen, so deceptive as to
puzzle even the oldest plainsman. Cattle appeared as big as houses and
mounted men as tall as church steeples.
In all the vicious little cow-towns scattered about the country, whose
attractions were gambling and "tarantula juice," there was always to be
found a Jew trader running the chief and probably only store in the
place. I have known such a man arrive in the country with a pack on his
back who in comparatively few years would own half the county.
What a remarkable people the Jews are! We find them all over the world
(barring Scotland) successful in almost everything they undertake, a
prolific race, and good citizens, yet carrying with them in very many
cases the characteristics of selfishness, greed and ostentation.
Something should be said about "classing" cattle. "Classing" means
separating or counting the steers or she cattle of a herd into their
ages as yearlings, "twos," "threes," etc. It used to be done in old
days by simply stringing the herd out on the open plain and calling out
and counting each animal as it passed a certain point. But later it
became the custom to corral the herd and run them through a chute, where
each individual could be carefully inspected and its age agreed on by
both parties. Even that might not prove quite satisfactory, as will be
shown in the following instance. I had sold to a certain gentleman (a
Scotchman again), manager for two large cattle companies, a string of
some 1000 steers, one, two and three years old. I drove them to his
ranch, some 300 miles, and we began classing them on the prairie,
cutting each class separately. It is difficult in many cases to judge a
range steer's age. Generally it is or should be a case of give-and-take.
But my gentleman was not satisfied and expressed his dissatisfaction in
not very polite language. So to satisfy him I agreed to put them through
the chute and "tooth" them, the teeth being an infallible test (or at
least the accepted test) of an animal's age. To my surprise this man,
the confident, trusted manager of long years' experience, could not tell
a yearling from a "two" or a "two" from a "three," but sat on the fence
and cussed, and allowed his foreman to do the classing for him.
The Texas Cattlemen's Annual Convention was a most important event in
our lives. It was held sometimes in El Paso, sometimes in San Antonio,
but oftenest in Fort Worth, and was attended by ranchmen from all over
the State, as well as by many from New Mexico, and by buyers from
Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas and elsewhere. Being held early in
spring the sales then made generally set the prices for the year. Much
dickering was gone through and many deals made, some of enormous extent.
Individual sales of 2000, 5000 or even 10,000 steers were effected, and
individual purchases of numbers up to 20,000 head; even whole herds of
30,000 to 50,000 cattle were sometimes disposed of. It was a meeting
where old friends and comrades, cattle kings and cowboys, their wives,
children and sweethearts, met and had a glorious old time. It brought an
immense amount of money into the place, and hence the strenuous efforts
made by different towns (the saloons) "to get the Convention."
Among the celebrities to be met there might be Buffalo Jones, a typical
plainsman of the type of Buffalo Bill (Cody). Jones some years ago went
far north to secure some young musk oxen. None had ever before been
captured. He and his men endured great hardships and privations, but
finally, by roping, secured about a dozen yearlings. The Indians swore
that he should not take them out of their territory. On returning he
had got as far as the very edge of the Indian country and was a very
proud and well-pleased man. But that last fatal morning he woke up to
find all the animals with their throats cut. Only last year Jones, with
two New Mexican cowboys and a skilled photographer, formed the daring
and apparently mad plan of going to Africa and roping and so capturing
any wild animal they might come across, barring, of course, the
elephant. His object was to secure for show purposes cinematograph
pictures. He took some New Mexican cow-ponies out with him, and he and
his men succeeded in all they undertook to do, capturing not only the
less dangerous animals, such as antelope, buck and giraffe, but also a
lioness and a rhinoceros, surely a very notable feat.
Amarillo in the Panhandle was then purely a cattleman's town. It was a
great shipping point--at one time the greatest in the world--and was
becoming a railroad centre. I was there a good deal, and for amusement
during the slack season went to work to fix up a polo ground. No one in
the town had ever even seen the game played, so the work and expense all
fell on myself. I was lucky to find a capital piece of ground close to
the town, absolutely level and well grassed. After measuring and laying
off, with a plough I ran furrows for boundary lines, stuck in the
goalposts, filled up the dog-holes, etc., and there we were. At first
only three or four men came forward, out of mere curiosity perhaps.
After expounding the game and the rules, etc., as well as possible we
started in to play. The game soon "caught on," and in a little while a
number more joined, nearly all cattlemen and cowpunchers. They became
keen and enthusiastic, too keen sometimes, for in their excitement they
disregarded the rules. The horses, being cow-ponies, were of course as
keen and as green as the players, and the game became a most dangerous
one to take part in. Still we kept on, no one was very badly hurt, and
we had lots of glorious gallops--fast games in fact.
The word "polo" is derived from Tibetan pulu, meaning a knot of willow
wood. In Cachar, and also at Amarillo, we used bamboo-root balls. The
game originated in Persia, passed to Tibet, and thence to the
Munipoories, and from the Munipoories the English learnt it. The first
polo club ever organized was the Cachar Kangjai Club, founded in 1863.
It may be remarked here that, hard as the riding is in polo, in my
opinion it does not demand nearly such good riding as does the "cutting"
of young steers. In polo your own eye is on the ball, and when another
player or yourself hits it you know where to look for it, and rule your
horse accordingly. In "cutting," on the other hand, your horse, if a
good one, does nearly all the work; just show it the animal you want to
take out and he will keep his eye on it and get it out of the herd
without much guidance. But there is this great difference: you never can
tell what a steer is going to do! You may be racing or "jumping" him out
of the herd when he will suddenly flash round before you have time to
think and break back again. Herein your horse is quicker than yourself,
knowing apparently instinctively the intention of the rollicky
youngster, so that both steer and your mount have wheeled before you are
prepared for it. You must therefore try to be always prepared, sit very
tight, and profit by past experiences. It is very hard work and, as said
before, needs better horsemanship than polo. To watch, or better still
to ride, a first-class cutting horse is a treat indeed.
During these last few years of ranch life my leisure gave me time to
make odd excursions here and there. Good shooting was to be had near
Amarillo--any amount of bobwhite quail, quantities of prairie-chickens,
plovers, etc. And, by-the-bye, at Fort Sumner I had all to myself the
finest kind of sport. There was a broad avenue of large cotton-wood
trees some miles in length. In the evening the doves, excellent eating,
and, perhaps for that reason, tremendously fast fliers, would flash by
in twos or threes up or down this avenue, going at railroad speed. But
my pleasure was marred by having no companion to share the sport.
Then I made many trips to the Rocky Mountains to fish for rainbow trout
in such noble streams as the Rio Grande del Norte, the Gunnison, the
Platte and others. In the early days these rivers were almost virgin
streams, hotching with trout of all sizes up to twelve and even fifteen
pounds. The monsters could seldom be tempted except with spoon or live
bait, but trout up to six or seven pounds were common prizes. Out of a
small, a ridiculously small, tributary of the Gunnison River I one day
took more fish than I could carry home, each two to three pounds in
weight. But that was murdering--mere massacre and not sport.
During a cattle convention held at El Paso I first attended a bull-fight
in Juarez and I have since seen others in the city of Mexico and
elsewhere. The killing of the poor blindfolded horses is a loathsome,
disgusting sight, and so affected me that I almost prayed that the
gallant, handsome matadors would be killed. Indeed, at Mexico City, I
afterwards saw Bombita, a celebrated Spanish matador, tossed and gored
to death. The true ring-bull of fighting breed is a splendid animal;
when enraged he does not seem to suffer much from the insertion of
banderillas, etc., and his death stab is generally instantaneously
fatal. Certainly the enthusiasm of the ring, the presence of Mexican
belles and their cavalleros, the picturesqueness and novelty of the
whole show are worth experiencing.
It should be remembered that the red cloth waved in front of him is the
main cause of Toro's irritation. Why it should so irritate him we don't
know. When a picador and his horse are down they are absolutely at the
mercy of the bull; and the onlooker naturally thinks that he will
proceed to gore man and horse till they are absolutely destroyed. But
the cloth being at once flaunted near him he immediately attacks it
instead and is thus decoyed to another part of the ring. Thus, too, the
apparent danger to the swordsman who delivers the _coup de grâce_ is not
really very great if he show the necessary agility and watchfulness.
When a bull charges he charges not his real enemy, but that exasperating
red cloth; and the man has only to step a little to the side, but _still
hold the cloth in front_ of the bull, to escape all danger. Without this
protecting cloth no matador would dare to enter the ring. The
banderilleros, too, thus escape danger because they do their work while
the bull's whole attention is on the red cloth operated by another man
in front. The man I saw gored, tossed and killed must have made some
little miscalculation, or been careless, and stood not quite out of the
bull's way, so that the terrible sharp horns caught him, as one may say,
_by mistake_.
The Mexicans, too, like my coolies in India, were great cock-fighters.
It is a national sport and also a cruel one.
Matadors are paid princely sums. The most efficient, the great stars,
come from Spain. Many of them are extremely handsome men and their
costume a handsome and picturesque one. As a mark of their profession
they wear a small pigtail, not artificial but of their own growing hair.
I travelled with one once but did not know it till he removed his hat.
Denver and San Francisco were great centres of prize-fighting. In both
places I saw many of the great ring men of the day, in fact never missed
an opportunity of attending such meetings. It was mostly, however,
"goes" between the "coming" men, such as Jim Corbett and other
aspirants. A real champion fight between heavyweights I was never lucky
enough to witness.
Base-ball games always appealed to me, and to witness a first-class
match only a very great distance would prevent my attendance. To
appreciate the game one must thoroughly understand its thousand fine
points. It absorbs the onlooker's interest as no other game can do.
Every player must be constantly on the alert and must act on his own
judgment. The winning or losing of the match may at any moment lie with
him. The game only lasts some two hours; but for the onlookers every
moment of these two hours is pregnant with interest and probably intense
excitement. Here is no sleeping and dozing on the stands for hours at a
time as witnessed at popular cricket matches. Time is too valuable in
America for that, and men's brains are too restless. At a ball-game the
sight of a man slumbering on the benches is inconceivable.
Sea-fishing also attracted me very much. On the California coast, around
Catalina and other islands, great sport is to be had among the
yellow-tails, running up to 50 lbs. weight. They are a truly game fish
and put up a capital fight. Jew-fish up to 400 lbs. are frequently
caught with rod and line, but are distinctly not a game fish. Albacores
can be taken in boat-loads; they are game enough but really too common.
The tuna is _par excellence_ the game fish of the coast. At one time you
might reasonably expect to get a fish (nothing under 100 lbs. counted),
but lately, and while I was there, a capture was so rare as to make the
game not worth the candle. A steam or motor launch is needed and that
costs money. I hired such a boat once or twice; but the experience of
some friends who had fished every day for two months and not got one
single blessed tuna damped my ambition. Tunas there run up to 300 lbs.,
big enough, and yet tiny compared with the monsters of the
Mediterranean, the Morocco coast and the Japanese seas; there they run
up to 2000 lbs. The tuna is called the "leaping" tuna because he plays
and hunts his prey on the surface of the water; but he never "leaps" as
does the tarpon. Once hooked he goes off to sea and will tow your boat
maybe fifteen miles; that is to say, he partly tows the boat, but the
heavy motor launch must also use its power to keep up or the line will
at once be snapped. The tuna belongs to the mackerel family, is built
like a white-head torpedo, and for gameness, speed and endurance is hard
to beat. Only the pala of the South Pacific Seas, also a mackerel, may,
according to Louis Becke, be his rival. Becke indeed claims it to be the
gamest of all fish. But its manoeuvres are different from a tuna's and
similar to those of the tarpon. What is finer sport, I think, and
perhaps not quite so killing to the angler, is tarpon-fishing. Most of
our ambitious tarpon fishers go to Florida, where each fish captured
will probably cost you some fifty dollars. My tarpon ground was at
Aransas Pass, on the Gulf Coast of Texas. There in September the fish
seem to congregate preparatory to their migration south. I have seen
them there in bunches of fifty to seventy, swimming about in shallow,
clear water, their great dorsal fins sticking out, for all the world
like a lot of sharks. My first experience on approaching in a small row
boat such an accumulation of fish muscle, grit and power will never be
forgotten. It was one of _the_ events of my chequered life. The boatman
assured me I should get a "strike" of a certainty as soon as the bait
was towed within sight of them. My state of excitement was so great that
really all nerve force was gone. My muscles, instead of being tense and
strong, seemed to be relaxed and feeble; my whole body was in a tremble.
To see these monster fish of 150 to 200 lbs. swimming near by, and to
know that next moment a tremendous rush and fight would begin, was to
the novice almost a painful sensation. Not quite understanding the
mechanism of the powerful reel and breaks, and being warned that thumbs
or fingers had sometimes been almost torn off the hand, I grasped the
rod very gingerly. But I need not say what my first fish or any
particular fish did or what happened. I will only say that I got all I
wanted--enough to wear me out physically till quite ready to be gaffed
myself. It is tremendously hard work. To rest myself and vary the sport
I would leave the tarpon and tackle the red-fish, an equally game and
fighting fish, but much smaller, scaling about 15 to 20 lbs. There was a
shoal of them visible, or at least a bunch of about 100, swimming right
on the edge of the big breaking surf. Like the tarpon they thus keep
close company on account of the sharks (supposition). It was dangerous
and difficult to get the boat near enough to them; but when you did
succeed there was invariably a rush for your bait and a game fight to
follow. They are splendid chaps. Then I would return to the tarpon and
have another battle royal; and so it went on. But sometimes you would
hook a jack fish (game, and up to 25 lbs.), and sometimes get into a
shark of very big proportions. Indeed, the sharks are a nuisance, and
will sometimes cut your tarpon in two close to your boat, and they
eagerly await the time when you land your fish and unhook him to turn
him loose.
Another noble fish, of which I was lucky enough to get several, was the
king-fish, long, pike-shaped and silvery, a most beautiful creature, and
probably the fastest fish that swims. I had not realized just how quick
any fish could swim till I hooked one of these. He acts much as the
tarpon does. But I have not yet told how the latter, the king of the
herring race, does act. On being hooked he makes a powerful rush for a
hundred yards or so; then he springs straight up high out of the water,
as much as six to ten feet, shakes his head exactly as a terrier does
with a rat, falls back to make another rush and another noble spring. He
will make many springs before you dare take liberties and approach the
landing shore. But the peculiarity of this fish is that his runs are not
all in one direction. His second run may take quite a different line;
and at any time he may run and spring into or over your boat. When two
anglers have fish on at the same time, and in close neighbourhood, the
excitement and fun are great. The tarpon's whole mouth, palate and jaws
have not a suspicion of muscle or cartilage about them; all is solid
bone, with only a few angles and corners where it is possible for the
hook to take good hold. Unless the hook finds such a fold in the bones
you are pretty sure to lose your fish--three out of four times. Probably
by letting him gorge the bait you will get him all right, but it would
entail killing him to get the hook out. In winter the tarpons go south,
and perhaps the best place to fish them is at Tempico in Mexico. But let
me strongly recommend Aransas Pass in September. There is good
quail-shooting, rabbits, and thousands of water-fowl of every
description; also a very fair little hotel where I happened to be almost
the only visitor. At Catalina Islands, by the way, whose climate is
absolutely delightful, where there are good hotels, and where the
visitors pass the whole day in the water or on land in their
bathing-suits, one can hire glass-bottom boats, whereby to view the
wonderful and exquisitely beautiful flora of the sea, and watch the
movements of the many brilliantly-coloured fish and other creatures that
inhabit it. The extraordinary clearness of the water there is
particularly favourable for the inspection of these fairy bowers. One
day I determined to try for a Jew-fish, just to see how such a huge,
ungainly monster would act. Anchoring, we threw the bait over, and in a
short time I pulled in a rock cod of nearly 7 lbs. weight. My boatman
coolly threw the still hooked fish overboard again, telling me it would
be excellent bait for the big ones we were after. Well, I did not get
the larger fish; but the sight on looking overboard into the depths was
so astonishing as to be an ample reward for any other disappointment. On
the surface was a dense shoal of small mullet or other fish; below them,
six or eight feet, another shoal of an entirely different kind; below
these another shoal of another kind, and so on as far down as the eye
could penetrate. It was a most marvellous sight indeed, and showed what
a teeming life these waters maintain. It seemed that a large fish had
only to lie still with its huge mouth open, and close it every now and
then when he felt hungry, to get a dinner or a luncheon fit for any
fishy alderman. It must be a fine field for the naturalist, the
ichthyologist, probably as fine as that round Bermudas' coral shores, as
illustrated by the new aquarium at Hamilton. But I can hardly think that
the fish of any other climate can compare for brilliancy of colouring
and fantastic variety of shape with those captured on the Hawaiian coast
and well displayed in the aquarium at Honolulu.
I must not forget to mention that at Aransas Pass one may sometimes see
very large whip or sting-rays. They may easily be harpooned, but the
wonderful stories told me of their huge size (I really dare not give the
dimensions), their power and ferocity, quite scared me off trying
conclusions with them. There one may also capture blue-fish, white-fish,
sheepheads and pompanos; all delicious, the pompanos being the most
highly-prized and esteemed, and most expensive, of America's many fine
table fishes. Order a pompano the first opportunity.
Having already mentioned sharks, it may be stated here that one captured
in a net on the California coast four years ago was authoritatively
claimed to be the largest ever taken, yet his length was only some 36
feet; although it is true that the _Challenger_ Expedition dredged up
shark teeth so large that it was judged that the owner must have been
80 to 90 feet long. The Greynurse shark of the South Seas is the most
dreaded of all its tribe; it fears nothing but the Killer, a savage
little whale which will attack and whip any shark living, and will not
hesitate to tackle even a sperm whale. Shark stories are common and
every traveller has many horrible ones to recount. Yet the greatest and
best authorities assert that sharks are mere scavengers (as they are,
and most useful ones) and will never attack an active man, or any man,
unless he be in extremities--that is, dead, wounded or disabled; though,
as among tigers, there probably are some man-eaters. A large
still-standing reward has been offered for a fully-certified case of a
shark voluntarily attacking a man, other than exceptions as above noted,
and that reward has not yet been claimed. Whenever I hear a thrilling
shark story I ask if the teller is prepared to swear to having himself
witnessed the event; invariably the experience is passed on to someone
else and the responsibility for the tale is laid on other shoulders. On
a quite recent voyage a talkative passenger confidently stated having
seen a shark 70 feet long. I ventured to measure out that distance on
the ship's deck, and asked him and his credulous listeners to regard and
consider it. It gained me an enemy for life.
One of the most famous and historical sharks was San José Joe, who
haunted the harbour of Corinto, a small coast town in Salvador. Every
ship that entered the harbour was sure to have some bloodthirsty fiend
on board to empty his cartridges into this unfortunate creature.
His carcass was reckoned to be as full of lead as a careful
housewife's pin-cushion of pins. But all this battering had no effect
on him. Finally, and after my own visit to that chief of all
yellow-fever-stricken dens, a British gun-boat put a shell into Joe and
blew him into smithereens. In many shark-infested waters, such as around
Ocean Island, the natives swim fearlessly among them. This ocean island,
by the way, is probably the most intrinsically valuable spot of land on
earth, consisting of a solid mass of coral and phosphate. "Pelorus
Jack," who gave so much interest to the Cook Channel in New Zealand, was
not a shark.