_In Which I Learn a Deal About Sea Monsters in General and the Giant
Squid in Particular_
“A squid of _that_ size?” cried the young second mate, doubtfully,
while I gave my closer attention to the long, dark brown body that lay
quivering upon the surface of the sea.
“There’s bigger,” said Mate Hollister, grimly. “Ask any old Norwegian
hardshell about the ‘kraken.’ I don’t mean the octopus; I mean the real
devil-fish--the squid.”
“I know the octopus and the squid are two different creatures,” said
Barney.
“Yes. And that yonder is a squid--a devil-fish of the largest size.
There! you can see his fore-arms now--look!”
I had observed something moving thirty feet beyond one end of the bulky
brown creature. Two snake-like tentacles suddenly whipped out of the
water. They bore between their ends a struggling fish. In a moment
tentacles and fish disappeared, apparently sucked in toward the head of
the monster.
“Good-bye, Johnny Fish!” said Mr. Hollister, grimly. “The parrot-beaks
of that gentleman have snapped him up.”
I had seen small squid. This beast lying on the sea so near us was
between fifty and sixty feet long, with an average diameter of
something like five feet, and a ten-foot breadth of tail.
The squid are the natural food of the sperm whale. Often the whale
is so greedy for the squid that it tackles one of these giants and
swallows the hard and indigestible beak which, causing a disease
in the cetacean’s stomach, sometimes brings about the death of the
gourmand. As parts of squid beaks have been found imbedded in masses of
ambergris, scientists are quite convinced that this gormandizing of the
sperm whale on squid is the immediate cause of that secretion in its
stomach which, strange as it may seem, is the basis of many of the best
perfumes. Ambergris is a very valuable “by-product” of the sperm whale.
The orca--that tiger of the sea--is inordinately fond of the squid,
too, as a diet. This devil-fish, with its eight short arms, each
covered on the underside with innumberable “suckers,” and its two
fishing-arms which have suckers only at the extremity, excites no fear
in the killer-whale.
Concealed at the base of the squid’s ten arms is the terrible beak,
shaped like that of a hawk, except that the upper jaw shuts into the
lower. This beak is likewise dark brown in color, almost black at the
tips, and is supported by powerful muscles.
Years ago there was a huge squid captured at Catalina, on the southern
shore of Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. This squid was bought by the New
York Aquarium and was the largest perfect specimen of its kind ever
examined by scientists. Of course, they had to satisfy themselves with
a post-mortem examination!
The beak of this immense fish--which could not have been much larger
than the one we were contemplating from the deck of the Seamew--was as
big as a six-gallon keg.
No animal can have a more formidable appearance, or a more deadly
grasp, than these squid. It would seem as though the long, flexible,
muscular tentacles were a sufficient means of defense and offense,
without their being armed with the terrible suction cups.
These cups have a serrated edge like a handsaw, and are used for
anchors as well as to secure prey. They cling with the greatest
tenacity, it being easier to tear away an arm from the body of the
squid, than to force the beast to give up its hold. It has all the
desperate nature of a bulldog.
The beak, or jaw, is provided with terrible teeth, and even the
tongue is covered on the upper part by a horny bed, bristling in the
center with a series of recurving teeth, while its edge is armed with
three other erect teeth, which are slender and hooked. A man might as
well put his hand into a knitting machine and expect to take it out
unscarred, as to risk a hand in the jaws of a squid. Those teeth tear
the creature’s food to shreds.
And one other characteristic the squid possesses which gives it
advantage over both enemy and prey. When excited, and at will, it can
eject a substance like ink--indeed, it was used by the ancients as
ink--by which it clouds the sea, and so often escapes an enemy. Its own
eyes being of a phosphorescent nature, it can see well enough through
the haze of this cloud of ink, therefore its prey cannot escape.
Besides, its fishing-arms being three times the length of its other
tentacles, the squid can “fish a long way from headquarters.”
This ink of the squid, or cuttle-fish, when dried, is used in
water-color painting, and is known by the name of “sepia.” It is
practically indestructible.
Now, all this by the way of introducing the squid. The Seamew crept by
the creature and I, for one, was not sorry to see it finally disappear.
And from what the men told about the cuttle-fish I judged that it would
have been the part of unwisdom for Mr. Barney to have fired at the
creature.
“Lemme tell you,” said old Job Perkins, leaning on the rail beside me.
“Them ain’t critters to fool with. I know. I been there and learned.”
“Did you ever get real close to a big squid, Job?” I asked him.
“Big enough and near enough to suit me,” he said, wagging his head and
expectorating over the rail. “I went up against a reef-squid once--in
the Galapagos, it was--and that was enough for Job. Yes, sir!
“I was in the clipper ship Chelsea that time, I was,” continued the old
man, taking another “chaw.” “Cap’n Daggett ordered a boat ashore for
turtles. He shot ’em for soup and fresh meat. Good eatin’, too. But I
took a seal-club with me, for I wanted a sea-lion’s skin to make me a
pair of moccasins, and I’d heard ’em roaring when we dropped anchor.
“I went off by myself and waded around a low, rocky point, in water not
ha’f knee deep, but deep jest outside, when I saw Mr. Squid moving
along atop of the water. He made considerable thrashing as he come
along, like a whirligig waterwheel; his body part looked bigger than I
am, and his arms two or three times as long--at any rate, them two long
arms was tremendous.
“It headed into a little bay ahead of me,” pursued Job, “and when it
got into about three foot of water it dropped anchor and began to feel
around with three or four of its arms. The upperside of them arms were
brown colored like the rocks, with wrinkles and stiff bristles all
along the edge; the underside was white--sort of a nasty, yallerish,
dead-looking white--with suckers like saucers in two rows. What I took
to be the head had something like eyes; but I couldn’t make ’em out
plain.
“Ye know how it is when ye see a snake, when you’re walking on shore,”
said old Job. “Ye always want to try and kill it. That’s the way I felt
about that squid. I didn’t think of any danger when I waded to it, but
it seemed to be watchin’ me, for it squared round, head-on. I hit it a
clip with my iron-bound seal-club, when, quick as a thought, it took
a turn around the club with one o’ them short suckers, and held on. I
pulled my blessedest, but the critter was too much for me. Then’s when
I’d oughter backed out.
“But I was obstinate and I kept tugging at the club. Just then it
showed its head--it shot out from the knob in front, a brown-and-purple
spotted thing with the eyes showing. And in a second one of its arms
was around me. It wound around my bare leg and another shot around my
neck. The suckers took hold like a doctor’s cups.
“It began to heave and haul on me. You kin guess I pulled and hollered.
I got out my knife and hacked at it, but it would have mastered me--it
sure would!--if Cap’n Daggett hadn’t come running along the shore and
fired both barrels of his gun into its head. Then it let go and slid
back into deep water, squirting its nasty ink all about.
“I ain’t never fooled with no squid again,” concluded Job Perkins.
“They ain’t no pets.”
It was later in that day, when I was standing my trick on lookout, and
the Seamew had got a better wind and was forging ahead at a spanking
pace, that Mr. Hollister and Mr. Barney stood near me and I heard the
second mate ask the older man about the experience _he_ had had with a
giant squid.
“Yes,” said Mr. Hollister, “when I was a young fellow I ran against
one of those squids, and I never want to bother with another one. I
was mate of a little schooner--the Pearl, she was--150 tons and a crew
of six men forward, with the cook. We were bound from the Mauritius to
Rangoon in ballast, to return with paddy, and had put in at Galle for
water. Three days out we fell becalmed in the bay--about latitude 8
degrees 50 minutes North, longitude 84 degrees 5 minutes East.
“On the 10th of May about five o’clock in the afternoon--eight bells, I
know, had gone some time before--we sighted a two masted screw steamer
on our port quarter, about five or six miles off. Very soon after, as
we lay motionless on a sea like glass, a great mass rose slowly to the
surface about half a mile on our larboard side, and remained spread
out, as it were, and stationary.
“Even at that distance I could see that it was fully as long as the
Pearl, and I sung out to the skipper to ask what he thought it was.
“‘Blest if I know,’ says he. ‘Barring its size, color and shape, it
might be a whale. Some deep-sea critter, sure enough,’ and he dove
below and came up with a heavy rifle.
“The crew was discussing it, too, and as the skipper was preparing to
fire at the thing, Bill Darling, a Newfoundlander, exclaimed, putting
up his hand:
“‘Have a care, Skipper. That ere is a squid and it’ll capsize ye if ye
hurt him.’
“I’d heard of squid, and seen squid,” proceeded Mr. Hollister, “and so
had the skipper. But we both laughed at old Bill. The skipper up with
his gun and let her go. He hit the thing, and it shook all over; there
was a great ripple all around him and he began to move.
“‘Out with all your axes and knives!’ shouted Bill, ‘and cut at any
part of him that comes aboard.’
“The old fellow taking the deck in that way made the skipper mad, and I
was some surprised myself. You know how old sailors are--superstitious,
as Negroes were in slavery. We couldn’t do anything to move the
schooner, of course, and the skipper and I didn’t say a thing to the
crew. Bill and the two others got axes and one other a rusty cutlass.
We were all looking over the side at the advancing monster; but I for
one, didn’t believe it was dangerous.
“We could now see a huge, oblong mass, moving by jerks, just under the
surface of the water, and an enormous train following. The oblong body
was at least half the size of the Pearl and just as thick. The wake,
or trail, might have been a hundred feet long.
“In the time I’ve taken to tell you,” said Mr. Hollister, “the brute
struck us and the ship quivered under the thud; I wasn’t scared a mite
until then. The skipper gave a yell and plugged away with his rifle
another time. And then monstrous arms like trees seized the vessel and
she keeled over; in another second the monster was aboard, squeezing
its great polypus bulk in between the two masts.
“Bill screamed, ‘Slash for your lives!’ But all our slashing and
yelling didn’t do a mite of good. Holding on by his arms, the monster
slipped back into the sea again, and dragged the vessel down with him
on her beam-ends.
“The skipper and I were thrown into the water. I caught sight of old
Bill and one of the others squashed up betwixt the mast and one of them
arms. It was an awful sight, I tell you.
“Of course, the Pearl’s hatches were open and in a few moments she
filled and went down. Those two went with her. The rest of us escaped
the brute’s tentacles and a boat from the Strathowen--the steamer we’d
seen--picked us up a little later.
“That was the finish of the Pearl and two brave men,” added Mr.
Hollister, gravely. “And she isn’t the only craft that’s been carried
down by a giant squid. Most folks I’ve told it to think it’s a sailor’s
yarn. But the crew and the passengers of the Strathowen could swear to
it--and did so, too. The story was printed in the Indian papers when we
reached Madras. And you’ve seen one of the beasts yourself, to-day, and
know to what an enormous size they grow. There are dangerous monsters
in the sea, Mr. Barney; but I reckon there’s nothing worse than a
healthy, full-grown devil-fish.”