Happily no lives were lost on this occasion, for it would have indeed been grievous to have seen our shipmates sacrificed to the MANES of a mere black-fish, after successfully encountering so many mighty whales.The episode gave us a great deal of unnecessary work getting the two halves of the boat saved, in addition to securing our fish, so that by the time we got the twelve remaining carcasses hove on deck we were all quite fagged out.But under the new regime we were sure of a good rest, so that did not trouble us; it rather made the lounge on deck in the balmy evening air and the well-filled pipe of peace doubly sweet.
Our next day's work completed the skinning of the haul we had made, the last of the carcasses going overboard with a thunderous splash at four in the afternoon.The assemblage of sharks round the ship on this occasion was incredible for its number and the great size of the creatures.Certainly no mariners see so many or such huge sharks as whalemen; but, in spite of all our previous experience, this day touched high-water mark.Many of these fish were of a size undreamed of by the ordinary seafarer, some of them full thirty feet in length, more like whales than sharks.Most of them were striped diagonally with bands of yellow, contrasting curiously with the dingy grey of their normal colour.From this marking is derived their popular name--"tiger sharks," not, as might be supposed, from their ferocity.That attribute cannot properly be applied to the SQUALUS at all, which is one of the most timid fish afloat, and whose ill name, as far as regards blood-thirstiness, is quite undeserved.Rapacious the shark certainly is; but what sea-fish is not? He is not at all particular as to his diet; but what sea-fish is? With such a great bulk of body, such enormous vitality and vigour to support, he must needs be ever eating; and since he is not constructed on swift enough lines to enable him to prey upon living fish, like most of his neighbours, he is perforce compelled to play the humble but useful part of a sea-scavenger.
He eats man, as he eats anything else eatable because in the water man is easily caught, and not from natural depravity or an acquired taste begetting a decided preference for human flesh.
All natives of shores infested by sharks despise him and his alleged man-eating propensities, knowing that a very feeble splashing will suffice to frighten him away even if ever so hungry.Demerara River literally swarms with sharks, yet I have often seen a negro, clad only in a beaming smile, slip into its muddy waters, and, after a few sharp blows with his open hand upon the surface, calmly swim down to the bottom, clear a ship's anchor, or do whatever job was required, coming up again as leisurely as if in a swimming-bath.A similar disregard of the dangerous attributes awarded by popular consent to the shark may be witnessed everywhere among the people who know him best.The cruelties perpetrated upon sharks by seamen generally are the result of ignorance and superstition combined, the most infernal forces known to humanity.What would be said at home of such an act, if it could be witnessed among us, as the disembowelling of a tiger, say, and then letting him run in that horrible condition somewhere remote from the possibility of retaliating upon his torturers? Yet that is hardly comparable with a similar atrocity performed upon a shark, because he will live hours to the tiger's minutes in such a condition.
I once caught a shark nine feet long, which we hauled on board and killed by cutting off its head and tail.It died very speedily--for a shark--all muscular motion ceasing in less than fifteen minutes.It was my intention to prepare that useless and unornamental article so dear to sailors--a walking-stick made of a shark's backbone.But when I came to cut out the vertebra, Inoticed a large scar, extending from one side to the other, right across the centre of the back.Beneath it the backbone was thickened to treble its normal size, and perfectly rigid; in fact, it had become a mass of solid bone.At some time or other this shark had been harpooned so severely that, in wrenching himself free, he must have nearly torn his body in two halves, severing the spinal column completely.Yet such a wound as that had been healed by natural process, the bone knit together again with many times the strength it had before--minus, of course, its flexibility--and I can testify from the experience of securing him that he could not possibly have been more vigorous than he was.
A favourite practice used to be--I trust it is so no longer--to catch a shark, and, after driving a sharpened stake down through his upper jaw and out underneath the lower one, so that its upper portion pointed diagonally forward, to let him go again.The consequence of this cruelty would be that the fish was unable to open his mouth, or go in any direction without immediately coming to the surface.How long he might linger in such torture, one can only guess; but unless his fellows, finding him thus helpless, came along and kindly devoured him, no doubt he would exist in extreme agony for a very long time.
Two more small cows were all that rewarded our search during the next fortnight, and we began to feel serious doubts as to the success of our season upon the line grounds, after all.Still, on the whole, our voyage up to the present had not been what might fairly be called unsuccessful, for we were not yet two years away from New Bedford, while we had considerably more than two thousand barrels of oil on board--more, in fact, than two-thirds of a full cargo.But if a whale were caught every other day for six months, and then a month elapsed without any being seen, grumbling would be loud and frequent, all the previous success being forgotten in the present stagnation.Perhaps it is not so different in other professions nearer home?
