1836.1

A Chapter on Sharking.

were always as inseparable as substance and its 'contiguity of shade,' we had acquired the appropriate soubriquet of the Siamese. But aside from our dimidial companionship, we were far from being counterparts, since Ned was six-feet-two, without stretching, while I could hardly raise a perpendicular of five-feet-four, with a tall-crowned hat, and a tiptoe to boot. Like the antitheses in the old epigram,

'He looked just like a mile in length,

And I like a mile stone.'

Nor did we differ more in altitude, than in person and complexion. I was ruddy, and of a delicate chubbiness; he, bronzed and sallow, and exceeding thin and spare withal. Yet, notwithstanding this ghostly exility of figure, in all the athletic exercises of the gymnasium, in which, by-the-by, he engaged with the keen hilarity of boyhood, he had no equal. His feats of strength and agility were alike the wonder and admiration of us all; and yet they never seemed to cost him an effort, or awaken in him one feeling of conscious superiority. I remember one day, when we were all on the gymnasium, that a stalwart sophomore from Ohio, by a powerful effort, overleapt the hitherto unattained mark which Ned had made two years before. His fellows immediately set up a boisterous shout in glorification of their classmate's triumph. Ned had been ill for several days, and we were standing aside from the melée, quietly enjoying the merriment of the various groups around us. I looked at him despairingly, as the cry of Ohio against the world!' broke from the partisans of the successful Buckeye. "Twas a gallant leap,' observed Ned, gathering up the long skirts of his slender doublet, and fetching three strides to the salient point,' he bounded like a stag full a yard beyond the ne plus ultra of his rival.

4

'You've been barking up the wrong tree, this time,' cried the goodnatured Ohioan to his silent and crest-fallen applauders, and till some I suspicion he's one of us gets his foot-handles strung with the thews of a panther, I guess we'd best let old Connecticut chalk out for us. one of that bounding brotherhood, who, the Indians say, leaped over the Wabash and Mississippi as easily as a greyhound clears a log-fence.' Ned and I were vacating as I have said, at his But to return. father's charming residence, situated in one of the loveliest valleys which look out upon Long-Island Sound. It was in the latter part of September. We had been confined to the house for several days by the equinoctial storm,' during whose tempestuous and protracted transit we had overhauled our fishing appliances and rifles, and indeed set in order all the appurtenances of our other out-door amusements. This done, we sat down perforce, and waited the pleasure of the boisterous elements to release us from our impatient durance. For the equanimity we displayed on this occasion, silence were the safest eulogy. We were enfranchised at last, however, and by one of the loveliest mornings that ever dispelled the twofold dreariness of night and storm. sun wheeled up from behind the low woodlands of Rhode-Island, he seemed to rejoice that there was not a cloud in the whole horizon to obstruct the full tide of his glorious effulgence. The air was like a liquid and impalpable crystal, bright and clear as empyreal ether. So perfect was its translucency, that the remotest objects within the scope of vision, showed to the eye in all the distinctness of comparative proxi

As the

mity. The rocky outline of the neighboring islands and promontories seemed to have been chiseled but yesterday, so sharply were their rough features defined; while the tall light-house on Montauk, far away across the sound, towered up against the clear sky as distinctly as at a league's distance. This singular aerial transparency seems peculiar to the first few weeks of our autumnal season, soon to be contrasted with that equally beautiful phenomenon, the mellow, dreamy, ethereal haziness which characterizes the period of our Indian summer.

The atmosphere was not only thus clear and effulgent, but calm and bland as the breath of a slumbering angel. Not a breeze was on the wing, and the sphered rain-drops lay stirlessly glistening in the cups of the pale flowers of autumn, waiting the warmer kisses of the sun to exhale their radiant incense. A few frosts had already fallen upon the foliage, and their subtle alchemy had converted the uniform verdure of summer into innumerable bright tints, which clothed the whole landscape as with the vesture of a thousand rainbows. Every tree, and bush, and herb, seemed arrayed as if for a gorgeous masquerade-some in robes of richest crimson, others in garniture of regal scarlet, but most in draperies of varying gold. Nor was the charm of music wanting to complete the scene. Many a familiar bird still lingered amid the haunts of its summer joyousness, and poured out its plaintive matins in that soft and melancholy tone in which affection warbles 'home, sweet home,' when passing from its portal forever. The ocean, too, seemed instinct with the spirit of tranquillity which brooded over earth and air. It exhibited far less commotion than is usual after the equinoctial tempest. The wind, indeed, had lulled early the preceding night, and when morning dawned, the tired billows were slowly sinking to repose. Altogether, it was a scene to steal into a susceptible heart, soothing its troubled emotions like the influence of a sweet opiate scene to make one in love with the beauty of external nature, and grateful that his lot was cast in so pleasant a province of this breathing universe.

- a

After breakfast, Ned proposed that we should go on a fishing excursion among the nearest islands. We'll take the rifles along,' said he, 'so that if Neptune prove unpropitious, we may try what feathered favors Jupiter shall vouchsafe us. Old Hal shall be our coxswain, and when we grow weary, we'll get him to spin us a yarn or two by way of merry-making: his oceanic memory is a perfect spicery to the palate of an uninitiated terrene.'

Hal had been a sailor from early boyhood; had visited every clime, almost every port, between the poles; till at length, worn down by age, rendered premature by the hardships and jovial imprudences incident to his perilous avocation, and unable any longer to find employment as a seaman, his desolate situation had excited the ready sympathy of Mr. Ashton, who benevolently gave the old weather-beaten cosmopolite a home and quiet haven beneath his hospitable roof. Here he promptly evinced his gratitude in the performance of numerous little household offices within the easy exercise of his shattered powers. He was never so happy, however, as when abroad upon the billows, which had been to him as boon companions from his earliest years. In one of his excursions upon the sound with Ned, they had picked up a beautiful boat, which had evidently been made by a master-workman, for some

wealthy amateur in aquatic amusements. It was a fairy craft, gracefully modelled, exquisitely finished, and of such airy lightness withal, that it seemed to spring away, at the impulse of wind or oar, with the fleetness of a startled deer. Ned had happily yclept it the 'Procellaria,' after that swift-winged and adventurous bird, whose home is on the deep'-whose delight, the wildest commotion of the elements. This was Hal's hobby-his home-his cynosure the ocean to the river of his thoughts. If his services were required at the house, there was no mistaking his whereabout; for all knew that Hal and the Procellaria, like Chang and Eng, were sure to be found in a fraternal proximity.

Our arrangements having been completed, we proceeded to the beach, where we discovered old Hal snugly ensconced in the boat, with a fine stock of bait, and a viaticum of substantial refreshments, adequate to a protracted voyage round Cape Cod.

'What have we here, commodore?' cried Ned, as he leaped over the gunwale, and plumped upon a prodigious coil of rope.

Nothing but a queer kind of a grappling-iron, and a bit of spun-yarn to keep it from losing overboard in a squall,' replied the good-natured tar, with more than his usual animation. 'D'ye see, Sir, when I was down to the borough this morning, I heard say there was a grampus or so in the offing, and thinking you'd like to see how we do things off Greenland, I borrowed a harpoon for the 'casion, and have rigged her as crank as a Nantucketer.'

Good!' shouted Ned, boisterously, good! my brave Palinure; and if you'll just harness our craft to such a courser, and give us a morning's airing upon the sound, you shall be sole owner and captain of the Procellaria, forever, and a day after. Give us the oars, and

let's away.'

'No, no, Mr. Nedward,' returned Hal, anagrammatically, I must take the oars myself, for that blamed line gale has kept me in bilboes such a dog's age, that I long to try how 't will feel to wing the little petrel again. You take the helm, and let your shipmate stow himself away there in the bows so 's to keep her trim, and if old Hal don't show a sea-sarpent's wake, blame me! Cast off there, and give me room to set my nets!'-and as he bowed his sinewy and still vigorous frame to the oar, the little bark sprang away as if instinct with our own buoyant spirits.

We were soon off the eastern extremity of Fisher's Island. Around us stretched the beautiful bay of Stonington, formed on the one hand by the rocky peninsula of that ancient and chivalrous borough, and on the other by the low, sandy cape at the south-western verge of RhodeIsland. It was flood-tide, and as the calm still continued, the expanse over which we were gliding seemed a plain of molten silver, bright, smooth, and motionless, save at the mighty lift of the ground-swell, whose solemn pulsations heaved beneath us, at regular intervals, like the heart of a slumbering giant. Now and then the burnished surface was broken by the dark form of the unwieldy porpoise, as he rose to view and disappeared, with a sluggish somerset, from 'the warm precincts of the cheerful day.' Flocks of black ducks floated idly upon the sunny waters; multitudes of white gulls careered in graceful evolutions above, while high in mid-air an occasional osprey might be seen, hover

ing for a moment on poised wings, then plunging like a bolt sheer into the silent depths, in pursuit of its scaly prey. Here and there a becalmed smack lay basking in the golden light, with all its white sails glassed in the liquid mirror beneath, while the jovial song and the merry jest came ringing across the bay from its winding shores, where groups of hardy fishermen were preparing for their exciting toil.

As the young leviathan we were seeking was no where to be seen, we concluded to pay our less ambitious addresses to his smaller brethren of the deep, and having cast anchor accordingly, we commenced operations on the porgies, black-fish, flounders, et id omne genus of small fry. We had not fished long, however, before I cried out that my line was entangled at the bottom, and could n't be extricated.

Ha! ha!- Davy Jones has got holt the eend on't, then,' laughed Hal, 'or else you've snubbed a turkle; for the devil of a rock is there in a hundred fathom of us to make fast to. Let me take an observation in that quarter, Mr. Landon; and taking the line, he hauled it taut over his fore-finger, and then scanned it for a few seconds with all the grave tangibility with which the physician feels the pulse of his patient. Jest as I guessed,' continued the old piscator, with a knowing chuckle, cautiously and with no little exertion drawing in foot by foot the stretched and quivering line; jest as I guessed, my hearties; if there is'nt life at both eends of this 'ere yarn, then I'm as dead as a smoked herring.' As he pronounced the last word, his unknown antagonist rose to view— an enormous skate-fish, almost equalling in circumference an ordinary coach-wheel. It would seem that I had accidentally fastened the hook into one of his lateral, bat-like extremities, and hence the difficulty of raising him to the surface horizontally, or in plain palaver, flatwise.

'Hail, prince of Neptune! - Thane of anglers!-king!' cried Ned, with a bow of humorous obeisance toward me: 'henceforth let worthy Ike Walton hide his diminished head in thy august presence,' he continued, glancing at the unquiet monster that lay floundering and splashing before us.

'What shall we do with our unwieldy game?' inquired I; 'we can't get him into the boat without capsizing her.'

Up anchor, and let's tow him ashore; 'twill be a rare sight to the uninitiated monstrum horrendum, informe ingens, mirabile visu.'

We had scarcely re-shipped the little kedge, before we discovered, at the distance of a furlong, the dark fin of some gigantic fish cleaving the smooth surface of the bay directly toward us.

Shark! a white shark, by the gods!' exclaimed Hal, with startling emphasis on the first word, as he seized the harpoon, and planted himself firmly for the anticipated emergency.

Haul in that lubberly skate nearer, Mr. Landon

there, that 'll do; 'vast now, and belay.'

nearer yet

To me it was a moment of fearful expectancy; for a fisherman had recently been attacked in his boat and devoured by one of these rapacious anthropophagi; but to my companions, judging from their animated countenances, the opening scene was one of intense and gratifying interest. There they both stood, braced and motionless as statues; 'the old harpooner with his brawny and bared right arm thrown back, poising the barbed and terrible missile clutched in his familiar grasp; while Ned's gaunt figure leaned over his left shoulder, his long rifle

outstretched at arm's length, and his dark eye glancing like a diamond along the burnished tube. On swept the greedy monster as with the speed of wings; but when within a few yards of his flouncing prey, he warily veered from his direct course, and spun several times round our motionless boat, as if reconnoitering its dangerous propinquity. At length his insatiate voracity triumphed over his wiser caution, and darting like an arrow upon his helpless victim, with one clasp of his shear-like jaws he literally cut out a huge segment of its living circumference. He had evidently reached some vital organ, for, after a brief yet violent struggle, the mangled carcass floated stirlessly upon the bubbling and incarnadined waters. So sudden was the creature's attack, and so immediate his recoil, while craunching his first gory mouthful, that no opportunity was offered for closing with him to advantage. Again he swept round us in a narrow circle, (I could have almost leaped upon his back from the boat,) but in the twinkling of an eye returned, and as he hung upon the bite for a moment as if to gloat on his tempting feast, a large portion of his huge body lay fairly exposed above the rippling surface.

Philip's right eye!' shouted Ned, as he lodged a ball obliquely in the small fierce orb of the rapacious animal.

Fair play and no gouging, my hearties,' responded the old whaleman, with a most grotesque grin of exultation, as his whizzing shaft was buried to the shank in the thick muscles of his terrible victim. 'I rather guess,' chuckled he, 'we shall be pretty consid'able near cronies for one cruise at least: you'll tow us into the offing any how, 'fore we part convoy, my larkin.'

And up Salt River, perhaps,' interrupted Ned, with ominous jocularity.

The instant he was struck by his daring assailants, the maddened leviathan threw his whole length clear of the water, and falling with a frightful splash back into his native element, he shot away across the sound with an appalling velocity. I shall never forget the shuddering hiss of the coiled line as it was running out over the smoking gunwale of the little boat, which trembled the while like a living nerve, as if conscious of the peril momently awaiting her.

'Give way, for God's sake! cried the excited harpooner, tossing an oar to Ned, and plying the other with might and main, give way pull for dear life, my hearty! We must get headway on the petrel, or when that 'ere coil brings up, 'twill take the bow out of her-ay, her very eye-teeth.'

It was a fortunate idea of Hal's, for had we lain still a half minute longer, we should have been inevitably swamped, at the first strain of the spent warp. As it was, I looked upon a speedy wet jacket as a most rational probability, notwithstanding the vigorous remigration of my companions; but the little bark bowed herself to the shock without a groan or the fracture of a splinter, and darted away in the trail of her sea-charger with a breathless velocity.

'Aint she raal bunkum?' exclaimed Hal, hitching up his flabby waistband, and patting the polished taffrail with his sun-burnt hand. Blame my eyes, if I b'lieve a streak o' lightning could start a pinfeather out o' the little petrel. Keep her trim, my hearties; she goes it bravely; and d'ye see, Mr. Landon, steady the helm amidships, or

the'