By G. BROWNE GOODE.
The gray old city of Siena, hidden away, almost forgotten amidst
the hills of Tuscany, contains one object peculiarly interesting to
Americans. Within its walls Christopher Columbus was educated, and
hither returning in his days of prosperity, he deposited, doubtless
with impressive ceremonies, a memento of his first voyage over the sea.
His votive offering hangs within and over the main portal of the old
collegiate church, for many years closed, and now rarely visited by
tourists. Grouped together in a picturesque and very dusty trophy may
be seen the helmet, armor and weapons of the great navigator, and with
them the weapon of a warrior who was killed resisting the approach of the
strange ships—the sword of an immense sword-fish. A sword-fish was no
novelty to seafaring men accustomed to the waters of the Mediterranean,
still the beak of this defender of the coast was preserved by the crew of
Columbus, and for nearly four centuries has formed a prominent feature in
the best preserved monument of the discoverer of America.
A similar though less impressive memorial hangs in the great hall of the
Bremen Rathaus, side by side with the clumsy ship-models, the paintings
of stranded whales, and the trophies of armor which illustrate the
history of the old Hanse-town (Free City). It is a painting, of the size
of life, of a sword-fish, taken by Bremen fishermen in the river Weser,
with a legend inscribed beneath in letters of the most angular type:
“ANNO . 1696 . DEN . 18 . JULI . IST . DIESER .
FISCH . EIN . SCHWERTFISCH . GENANNT . VON . DIESER .
STADT . FISCHERN . IN . DER . WESER . GEFANGEN,” ETC.
This swift, mysterious animal seems at a period remote in antiquity to
have literally thrust itself into the notice of mankind by means of its
attacks upon the boats in the Mediterranean. Pliny knew it and wrote:
“The sword-fish, called in Greek Xiphias, that is to say in Latin,
Gladius, a sword, hath a beake or bill sharp-pointed, wherewith he will
drive through the sides and planks of a ship, and bouge them so that they
shall sink withall,” and the naturalists of the sixteenth century knew
almost as much of its habits as those of the present day. Few fishes
are so difficult to observe, and a student may, like the writer of this
article, spend summer after summer in the attempt to study them with few
results, other than the sight of a few dozen back-fins cutting through
the water, a chance to measure and dissect a few specimens, and perhaps
the experience of having the side of his boat pierced by one of their
ugly swords. Yet, while little is known of their habits, few fishes are
so generally known by their external characters.
No one who has seen a sword-fish or a good picture of one, soon forgets
the great muscular body, like that of a mackerel, a thousand times
magnified, the crescent shaped tail, measuring three feet or more from
tip to tip, the scimitar-like fins on the back and breasts, the round,
hard, protruding eyes, as large as small foot balls, and the sword-like
snout, two, three or four feet in length, protruding, caricature like,
from between its eyes. This feature has been recognized in almost every
European language, and while many other fishes have names by the score,
this has in reality but one. The “Sword-fish” of our own tongue, the
“Zwaard Fis” of Holland, the Italian “Sifio” and “Pesce-Pada,” the
Spaniard’s “Espada,” and the French “Espadin,” “Dend” and “Epee de Mer,”
are variations upon a single theme, repetitions of the “Gladius” of
ancient Italy, and “Xiphias,” the name by which Aristotle, the father of
Zoölogy called the same fish twenty-three hundred years ago. The French
“Empereur,” and the “Imperador” of the Spanish West Indies carry out the
same.
A vessel cruising in search of sword-fish proceeds to the fishing grounds
and sails hither and thither, wherever the abundance of small fish
indicates that they ought to be found. Vessels which are met are hailed
and asked whether sword-fish have been seen, and if tidings are thus
obtained the ship’s course is at once laid for the locality where they
were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with
the keen eye which practice has given him, he can readily descry the
tell-tale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles.
The sword-fish has two cousins, the spear-fish and the sail-fish, which
bear to it a close family resemblance. Their bodies, however, are
lighter, their outlines more graceful, and their swords more round and
slender. The latter has an immense sail-like back fin, which it throws
out of the water while swimming near the surface. An English naval
officer, Sir Stamford Raffles, wrote home from Singapore in 1822: “The
only amusing discovery we have recently made is that of a sailing fish,
called by the natives _Ikan layer_, of about ten or twelve feet long,
which hoists a mainsail, and often sails in the manner of a native boat,
and with considerable swiftness. I have sent a set of the sails home, as
they are beautifully cut, and form a model for a fast sailing boat. When
a school of these are under sail together they are frequently mistaken
for a fleet of native boats.”
While there is but one species of sword-fish which occurs in the tropical
and temperate parts of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, about New
Zealand, and in the eastern Pacific from Cape Horn to California
there are several kinds of sail-fishes, and at least eight species of
spear-fish. The naturalists of the United States Fish Commission have
recently discovered that we have along our Atlantic coast a fine species
of sail-fish, and one or two of spear-fishes, in addition to the true
sword-fish, which has been known to exist here since the days of the
Spanish explorers.
It seems somewhat strange that no reference to the sword-fish is to be
found in the narratives of the voyages of Columbus. The earliest allusion
in American literature occurs in Josselyn’s “Account of two Voyages to
New England,” printed in 1674, in the following passage:
“The twentieth day we saw a great number of sea-bats or owles, called
also flying-fish; they are about the bigness of a whiting, with four
tinsel wings, with which they fly as long as they are wet, when pursued
by other fishes. In the afternoon we saw a great fish called the
Vehuella, or Sword-fish, having a long, strong and sharp fin like a
sword-blade on the top of his head, with which he pierced our ship, and
broke it off with striving to get loose; one of our sailors dived and
brought it aboard.”
Although sword-fish were sold in the New York fish market as early as
1817, it was not until 1839 that the writers in ichthyology consented to
consider it an American fish.
The sword-fish comes into our waters in pursuit of food. At least this
is the most probable explanation of their movements, since the duties of
reproduction appear to be performed elsewhere. Like the horse-mackerel,
the bonito, the blue-fish and the squeteagus, they pursue and prey upon
the schools of menhaden and mackerel which are so abundant in the summer
months. “When you see sword-fish, you may know that mackerel are about!”
said one old fisherman to the writer. “Where you see the fin-back whale,
following food,” said another, “there you find sword-fish.” They feed
chiefly upon fish which swim crowded together in close schools, rising
among them from beneath and striking to the right and left with their
swords until they have killed a number, which they then proceed to
devour. An old fisherman described to the writer a sword-fish in the act
of feeding in a dense school of herring, rising perpendicularly out of
the water until its sword, with a large portion of its body, was exposed,
then falling flat over on its side, striking many fish as it fell, and
leaving a bushel of dead ones floating at the surface.
They are most abundant in the region of Cape Cod, or between Montaulk
Point and the eastern part of George’s Banks, and during July and August,
though some make their appearance in the latter part of May, and a few
linger until snow falls. They are seen at the surface only on quiet
summer days, in the morning before ten or eleven, and in the afternoon
after four o’clock. Old fishermen say that they rise when the mackerel
rise, and follow them down when they go.
A sword-fish, when swimming near the surface, usually allows its dorsal
fin and the upper lobe of its caudal fin to be visible, projecting out of
the water several inches. It is this habit which enables the fishermen
to detect the presence of the fish in the vicinity of their vessel. It
moves slowly along, and the schooner, even with a light breeze, finds no
difficulty in overtaking it. When excited its movements are very rapid
and nervous. Sword-fish are sometimes seen to leap entirely out of the
water. Early writers attributed this habit to the tormenting presence
of parasites, but such a theory seems unnecessary. The pointed head,
the fins of the back and abdomen snugly fitting into grooves, the long,
lithe, muscular body, with contour sloping slowly from shoulders to tail,
fit it for the most rapid and forcible movement through the water. Prof.
Richard Owen, the celebrated English anatomist, testifying in court in
regard to its power, said: “It strikes with the accumulated force of
fifteen double-handed hammers. Its velocity is equal to that of a swivel
shot, and is as dangerous in its effects as a heavy artillery projectile.”
Many very curious instances are recorded of their encounters with other
fishes, or of their attacks upon ships. It is hard to surmise what may be
the inducement to attack objects so much larger than themselves. Every
one knows the couplet from Oppian:
“Nature her bounty to his mouth confined,
Gave him a sword, but left unarmed his mind.”
It surely seems as if the fish sometimes become possessed with temporary
insanity. It is not strange that when harpooned they retaliate upon
their assailants. There are, however, numerous instances of entirely
unprovoked assaults upon vessels at sea, both by the sword-fish, and
still more frequently by the spear-fish (known to American sailors by
the name of “boohoo,” apparently a corruption of “Guebucu,” a word
apparently of Indian origin, applied to the same fish in Brazil). The
writer’s note-book contains notes upon scores of such instances. The
ship “Priscilla,” from Pernambuco to London had eighteen inches of sword
thrust through her planking; the English ship “Queensbury,” in 1871,
was penetrated to a depth of thirty inches, necessitating the discharge
of the cargo; the “Dreadnought,” in 1864, when off Colombo, had a
round hole, an inch in diameter, bored through the copper sheeting and
planking; the schooner “Wyoming,” of Gloucester, in 1875, was attacked in
the night time by a sword-fish, which pushed his snout two feet into her
planking, and then escaped by breaking it off.
One of the traditions of the sea, time honored, believed by all mariners,
handed down in varied phrases in a hundred books of ocean travel, relates
to the terrific combats between the whale and the sword-fish, aided
by the thrasher shark. The sword-fish was said to attack from below,
goading his mighty adversary to the surface with his sharp beak, while
the shark, at the top of the water, belabors him with strokes of his
long lithe tail. Thus wrote a would-be naturalist from Bermuda in 1609:
“The swoard-fish swimmes under the whale and pricketh him upward. The
threasher keepeth above him, and with a mighty great thing like unto
a flaile, hee so bangeth the whale that hee will roare as though it
thundered, and doth give him such blows with his weapon that you would
think it to be a crake of great shot.”
Skeptical modern science is not satisfied with this interpretation of
any combat at sea seen at a distance. It recognizes the improbability of
aggressive partnership between two animals so different as the sword-fish
and a shark, and explains the turbulent encounters occasionally seen at
sea by ascribing them to the attacks of the killer whale, _Orca_, upon
larger species of the same order.
There can be little doubt that sword-fish sometimes attack whales just as
they do ships. This habit is mentioned by Pliny, and furnishes a motive
for all of Edmund Spenser’s “Visions of the World.”
“Toward the sea turning my troubled eye
I saw the fish (if fish I may it cleepe)
That makes the sea before his face to flye
And with his flaggie finnes doth seeme to sweepe
The fomie waves out of the dreadfull deep.
The huge Leviathan, dame Nature’s wonder,
Making his sport, that manie makes to weep:
A Sword-fish small, him from the rest did sunder,
That, in his throat him pricking softly under,
His wide abysse him forced forth to spewe,
That all the sea did roare like heavens thunder,
And all the waves were stained with filthie hewe.
Hereby I learned have not to despise
Whatever thing seems small in common eyes.”
Baron Sahartur, in a letter from Quebec in 1783, described a conflict
between a whale and a sword-fish which took place within gun shot of
his frigate. He remarks: “We were perfectly charmed when we saw the
sword-fish jump out of the water in order to dart its spear into the
body of the whale when obliged to take breath. This entertaining show
lasted at least two hours, sometimes to the starboard and sometimes to
the larboard of the ship. The sailors, among whom superstition prevails
as much as among the Egyptians, took this for a presage of some mighty
storm.”
There are two great sword-fisheries in the world, one on the coast of
New England, and the other in the waters about Sicily. The former gives
employment, in different years, to from twenty to forty vessels, and from
sixty to one hundred and twenty men; the latter to over three hundred
boats and seventeen hundred men. In Italy the annual product of the
fishery amounts to about 320,000 pounds, while in New England, counting
the fish taken incidentally by halibut and mackerel vessels, the yield is
at least 1,000,000 pounds.
The apparatus used in killing sword-fish is very simple. It consists of
the “pulpit” or “cresembo,” a frame for the support of the harpooneer
as he stands upon the end of the bow-sprit, the “lily iron” or “Indian
dart,” which is attached by a long line to a keg serving as a buoy, and
is thrust into the fish by means of a pole about sixteen feet in length.
As the vessel cruises over the schooling grounds a lookout is stationed
at the masthead, whose keen eye descries the tell-tale dorsal fins at
a distance of two or three miles. By voice and gesture he directs the
course of the vessel until the skipper can see the fish from his station
in the pulpit. There is no difficulty in approaching the fish with a
large vessel, although they will not suffer a small boat to come near
them. When the fish is from six to ten feet in front of the vessel, it is
struck. The harpoon is never thrown, the pole being too long. The dart
penetrates the back of the fish, close to the side of the high dorsal
fin, and immediately detaches itself from the pole, which is withdrawn.
The dart having been fastened, the line is allowed to run out as far as
the fish will carry it, and is then passed into a small boat, which is
towing at the stern. Two men jump into this and pull in upon the line
until the fish is brought in alongside.
The pursuit of the sword-fish is much more exciting than ordinary
fishing, for it resembles the pursuit of large animals upon land. There
is no slow and careful baiting and patient waiting, and no disappointment
caused by the capture of worthless “bait-stealers.” The game is seen
and followed, outwitted by wary tactics, and killed by strength of arm
and skill. The sword-fish sometimes proves a powerful antagonist, and
sends his pursuers’ vessel into harbor, leaking and almost sinking from
injuries which he has inflicted. I have known a vessel to be struck by
wounded sword-fish as many as twenty times in one season. There is even
the spice of personal danger to give savor to the chase. One of the crew
of a Connecticut schooner was severely wounded by a beak thrust through
the oak floor of the boat in which he was standing, and penetrating two
inches into his naked heel. A strange fascination draws men to this
pursuit when they have once learned its charm. An old sword-fisherman,
with an experience of twenty years, told me that when he was on the
fishing ground he fished all night in his dreams, and that many a time he
had bruised his hands and rubbed the skin off his knuckles by striking
them against the ceiling of his bunk when he raised his arms to thrust
the harpoon into imaginary monster sword-fishes.
* * * * *
The home and its apartments should not be treated as a dead thing, where
we make best arrangement of its fittings, and there leave it. It must
grow in range and in expression with our necessities, and diverging, and
developing tastes. The best of decorators can not put that last finish
which must come from home hands. It is a great canvas always on the easel
before us—growing in its power to interest every day and year—never
getting its last touches—never quite ready to be taken down and parted
with. No home should so far out-top the tastes of its inmates that they
can not somewhere and somehow deck it with the record of their love and
culture. It is an awful thing to live in a house where no new nail can
be driven in the wall, and no tray of wild flowers, or of wood-mosses be
set upon a window sill. The ways are endless, in short, in which a house
can be endowed with that home atmosphere which shall be redolent of the
tastes of its inmates.—_Donald G. Mitchell._