Many years ago I was sent with a wrecking party of native seamen to take
possession of a Swedish barque which had gone ashore on the reef of one
of the Marshall Islands, in the North Pacific. My employers, who had
bought the vessel for £100, were in hopes that she might possibly be
floated, patched up, and brought to Sydney. However, on arriving at the
island I found that she was hopelessly bilged, so we at once set to work
to strip her of everything of value, especially her copper, which was
new. It was during these operations that I made acquaintance with both
poisonous and stinging fish. There were not more than sixty or seventy
natives living on the island, and some of these, as soon as we anchored
in the lagoon, asked me to caution my own natives--who came from various
other Pacific islands--not to eat any fish they might catch in the
lagoon until each one had been examined by a local man. I followed their
injunction, and for two or three weeks all went well; then came trouble.
I had brought down with me from Sydney a white carpenter--one of the
most obstinate, cross-grained old fellows that ever trod a deck, but an
excellent workman if humoured a little. At his own request he lived on
board the wrecked barque, instead of taking up his quarters on shore in
the native village with the rest of the wrecking party. One evening as I
was returning from the shore to the schooner--I always slept on board--I
saw the old man fishing from the waist of the wreck, for it was high
tide, and there was ten feet of water around the ship. I saw him
excitedly haul in a good-sized fish, and, hailing him, inquired how many
he had caught, and if he were sure they were not poisonous? He replied
that he had caught five, and that “there was nothin' the matter with
them.” Knowing what a self-willed, ignorant man he was, I thought I
should have a look at the fish and satisfy myself; so I ran the boat
alongside and clambered on board, followed by two of my native crew. The
moment we opened the fishes' mouths and looked down their throats we saw
the infallible sign which denoted their highly poisonous condition--a
colouring of bright orange with thin reddish-brown streaks. The old
fellow grumbled excessively when I told him to throw them overboard, and
then somewhat annoyed me by saying that all the talk about them being
unsafe was bunkum. He had, he said, caught and eaten just the same kind
of fish at Vavau, in the Tonga Islands, time and time again. It was no
use arguing with such a creature, so, after again warning him not to eat
any fish of any kind unless the natives “passed” them as non-poisonous,
I left him and went on board my own vessel.
We had supper rather later than usual that evening, and, as the mate and
myself were smoking on deck about nine o'clock, we heard four shots in
rapid succession fired from the wreck. Knowing that something was wrong,
I called a couple of hands, and in a few minutes was pulled on board,
where I found the old carpenter lying writhing in agony, his features
presenting a truly shocking and terrifying appearance. His revolver lay
on the deck near him--he had fired it to bring assistance. I need not
here describe the peculiarly drastic remedies adopted by the natives to
save the man's life. They at first thought the case was a hopeless one,
but by daylight the patient was out of danger. He was never able to turn
to again as long as we were on the island, and suffered from the effects
of the fish for quite two or three years. He had, he afterwards told me,
made up his mind to eat some of the fish that evening to show me that he
was right and I was wrong.
A few weeks after this incident myself and a native lad named Viri,
who was one of our crew and always my companion in fishing or shooting
excursions, went across the lagoon to some low sandy islets, where we
were pretty sure of getting a turtle or two. Viri's father and mother
were Samoans, but he had been born on Nassau Island, a lonely spot in
the South Pacific, where he had lived till he was thirteen years of
age. He was now fifteen, and a smarter, more cheerful, more intelligent
native boy I had never met.
His knowledge of bird and fish life was a never-ending source of
pleasure and instruction to me, and the late Earl of Pembroke and Sir
William Flower would have delighted in him.
It was dead low tide when we reached the islets, so taking our spears
with us we set out along the reef to look for turtle in the many
deep and winding pools which broke up the surface of the reef. After
searching for some time together without success, Viri left me and
went off towards the sea, I keeping to the inner side of the lagoon.
Presently in a shallow pool about ten feet in circumference I espied
a small but exceedingly beautiful fish. It was about four inches in
length, and two and a half inches in depth, and as it kept perfectly
still I had time to admire its brilliant hues--blue and yellow-banded
sides with fins and tail tipped with vivid crimson spots. Around the
eyes were a number of dark yellowish or orange-coloured rings, and the
eyes themselves were large, bright, and staring. It displayed no alarm
at my presence, but presently swam slowly to the side of the pool and
disappeared under the coral ledge. I determined to catch and examine
the creature, and in a few minutes I discovered it resting in such a
position that I could grasp it with my hand. I did so, and seizing it
firmly by the back and belly, whipped it up out of the water, but not
before I felt several sharp pricks from its fins. Holding it so as to
study it closely, I suddenly dropped it in disgust, as strange violent
pains shot through my hand. In another two minutes they had so increased
in their intensity that I became alarmed and shouted to Viri to come
back. Certainly not more than five or ten minutes elapsed before he
was with me; to me it seemed ages, for by this time the pain was
excruciating. A look at the fish told him nothing; he had never seen
one like it before. How I managed to get back to the schooner and live
through the next five or six hours of agony I cannot tell. Twice I
fainted, and at times became delirious. The natives could do nothing for
me, but said that the pain would moderate before morning, especially if
the fish was dead. Had its fins struck into my foot instead of my hand I
should have died, they asserted; and then they told the mate and myself
that one day a mischievous boy who had speared one of these abominable
fish threw it at a young woman who was standing some distance away. It
struck her on the foot, the spines penetrating a vein, and the poor girl
died in terrible agony on the following day. By midnight the pain I
was enduring began to moderate, though my hand and arm were swollen
to double the proper size, and a splitting headache kept me awake
till daylight. The shock to the system affected me for quite a week
afterward.
During many subsequent visits to the Marshall Group our crews were
always cautioned by the people of the various islands about eating
fish or shell-fish without submitting them to local examination. In the
Radack chain of this widely spread out archipelago we found that the
lagoons were comparatively free from poisonous fish, while the Ralick
lagoons were infested with them, quite 30 per cent, being highly
dangerous at all times of the year, and nearly 50 per cent at other
seasons. Jaluit Lagoon was, and is now, notorious for its poisonous
fish. It is a curious fact that fish of a species which you may eat with
perfect safety, say, in the middle of the month, will be pronounced by
the expert natives to be dangerous a couple of weeks later, and that
in a “school” of pink rock bream numbering many hundreds some may have
their poison highly developed, others in but a minor degree, whilst many
may be absolutely free from the taint. In the year 1889 the crew of a
large German ship anchored in one of the Marshall Islands caught some
very large and handsome fish of the bream kind, and the resident natives
pronounced them “good.” Three or four days later some more were taken,
and the cook did not trouble to ask native opinion. The result was that
eight or nine men were taken seriously ill, and for some time the lives
of several were despaired of. Two of them had not recovered the use
of their hands and feet at the end of ten weeks, and their faces,
especially the eyes and mouth, seemed to be permanently, though slightly
distorted. All the men agreed in one particular, that at midday they
suffered most--agonising cramps, accompanied by shooting pains in the
head and continuous vomiting to the point of exhaustion, these symptoms
being very pronounced during the first week or eight days after the fish
had been eaten.
That kind-hearted and unfortunate officer, Commodore J. G. Goodenough,
took an interest in the poisonous and stinging fish of the Pacific
Islands, and one day showed me, preserved in spirits of wine, a
specimen of the dreaded _no'u_ fish of the Hervey Group--one of the most
repulsive-looking creatures it is possible to imagine out of a child's
fairy book. The deadly poison which this fish ejects is contained in a
series of sacs at the base of the spines, and the commodore intended to
submit it to an analyist. By a strange coincidence this gallant seaman
a few months afterwards died from the effects of a poisoned arrow shot
into his side by the natives of Nukapu, one of the Santa Cruz group of
islands.
This _no'u_ however, which is the _nofu_ of the Samoans, and is widely
known throughout Polynesia, and Melanesia under different names, does
not disguise its deadly character under a beautiful exterior like the
stinging fish of Micronesia, which I have described above. The
_nofu_ which is also met with on the coasts of Australia, is a devil
undisguised, and belongs to the angler family. Like the octopus or the
death-adder (_Acanthopis antarctica_) of Australia, he can assimilate
his colour to his environment. His hideous wrinkled head, with his
staring goggle eyes, are often covered with fine wavy seaweed, which in
full-grown specimens sometimes extends right down the back to the tail.
From the top of the upper jaw, along the back and sides, are scores of
needle-pointed spines, every one of which is a machine for the ejection
of the venom contained at the root. As the creature lies hidden in a
niche of coral awaiting its prey--it is a voracious feeder--it cannot be
distinguished except by the most careful scrutiny; then you may see that
under the softly waving and suspended piece of seaweed (as you imagine
it to be) there are fins and a tail. And, as the _nofu_ has a huge
mouth, which is carefully concealed by a fringe of apparently harmless
seaweed or other marine growth, he snaps up every unfortunate small fish
which comes near him. In the Pacific Islands the _nofu_ (_i.e._, “the
waiting one “) is generally a dark brown, inclining to black, with
splashes or blotches of orange, or marbled red and grey. In Australian
waters--I have caught them in the Parramatta river, Port Jackson--they
are invariably either a dark brown or a horrid, dulled yellow.
Despite its poison-injecting apparatus this fish is eaten by the natives
of the Society, Hervey, and Paumotu groups of islands, in the South
Pacific, where its flesh is considered a delicacy. It is prepared for
cookery by being skinned, in which operation the venomous sacks are
removed. In 1882, when I was living on the island of Peru in the Gilbert
Group (the Francis Island of the Admiralty charts), a Chinese trader
there constantly caught them in the lagoon and ate them in preference
to any other fish. Here in Peru the _nofu_ would bury itself in the soft
sand and watch for its prey, and could always be taken with a hook. And
yet in Eastern Polynesia and in the Equatorial Islands of the Pacific
many deaths have occurred through the sting of this fish, children
invariably succumbing to tetanus within twenty-four hours of being
stung.
A little more about poisonous fish, _i.e._, fish which at one time of
the year are good and palatable food and at others deadly. In the lagoon
island of Nukufetau (the “De Peyster Island” of the charts), where the
writer lived for twelve months, the fish both within the lagoon and
outside the barrier reef became highly poisonous at certain times of the
year. Flying-fish (which were never caught inside the lagoon) would be
safe to eat if taken on the lee side of the island, dangerous, or at
least doubtful, if taken on the weather side; _manini_, a small striped
fish much relished by the natives, would be safe to eat if caught on the
reef on the western side of the island, slightly poisonous if taken four
miles away on the inside shore of the eastern islets encompassing
the lagoon. Sharks captured outside the reef, if eaten, would produce
symptoms of poisoning--vomiting, excessive purging, and tetanus in a
modified form; if caught inside the reef and eaten no ill effects would
follow. Crayfish on one side of the lagoon were safe; three miles away
they were highly impregnated with this mysterious poison, the origin of
which has not yet been well defined by scientists.