The struggles of these fish are marvellous, and a man runs great risk of being shaken off the boom, unless his legs are firmly locked in between the guys.Such is the tremendous vibration that a twenty-pound bonito makes in a man's grip, that it can be felt in the cabin at the other and of the ship; and I have often come in triumphantly with one, having lost all feeling in my arms and a goodly portion of skin off my breast and side, where I have embraced the prize in a grim determination to hold him at all hazards, besides being literally drenched with his blood.
Like all our fishing operations on board the CACHALOT, this day's fishing was conducted on scientific principles, and resulted in twenty-five fine fish being shipped, which were a welcome addition to our scanty allowance.Happily for us, they would not take the salt in that sultry latitude soon enough to preserve them; for, when they can be salted, they become like brine itself, and are quite unfit for food.Yet we should have been compelled to eat salt bonito, or go without meat altogether, if it had been possible to cure them.
We were now fairly in the "horse latitudes," and, much to our relief, the rain came down in occasional deluges, permitting us to wash well and often.I suppose the rains of the tropics have been often enough described to need no meagre attempts of mine to convey an idea of them; yet I have often wished I could make home-keeping friends understand how far short what they often speak of as a "tropical shower" falls of the genuine article.
The nearest I can get to it is the idea of an ocean suspended overhead, out, of which the bottom occasionally falls.Nothing is visible or audible but the glare and roar of falling water, and a ship's deck, despite the many outlets, is full enough to swim about in in a very few minutes.At such times the whole celestial machinery of rain-making may be seen in full working order.Five or six mighty waterspouts in various stages of development were often within easy distance of us; once, indeed, we watched the birth, growth, and death of one less than a mile away.First, a big, black cloud, even among that great assemblage of NIMBI, began to belly downward, until the centre of it tapered into a stem, and the whole mass looked like a vast, irregularly-moulded funnel.Lower and lower it reached, as if feeling for a soil in which to grow, until the sea beneath was agitated sympathetically, rising at last in a sort of pointed mound to meet the descending column.Our nearness enabled us to see that both descending and rising parts were whirling violently in obedience to some invisible force, and when they had joined each other, although the spiral motion did not appear to continue, the upward rush of the water through what was now a long elastic tube was very plainly to be seen.The cloud overhead grew blacker and bigger, until its gloom was terrible.
The pipe, or stem, got thinner gradually, until it became a mere thread; nor, although watching closely, could we determine when the connection between sea and sky ceased--one could not call it severed.The point rising from the sea settled almost immediately amidst a small commotion, as of a whirlpool.The tail depending from the cloud slowly shortened, and the mighty reservoir lost the vast bulge which had hung so threateningly above.Just before the final disappearance of the last portion of the tube, a fragment of cloud appeared to break off.It fell near enough to show by its thundering roar what a body of water it must have been, although it looked like a saturated piece of dirty rag in its descent.
For whole days and nights together we sometimes lay almost "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," when the deep blue dome above matched the deep blue plain below, and never a fleck of white appeared in sky or sea.This perfect stop to our progress troubled none, although it aggravates a merchant skipper terribly.As for the objects of our search, they had apparently all migrated other-whither, for never a sign of them did we see.
Finbacks, a species of rorqual, were always pretty numerous, and as if they knew how useless they were to us, came and played around like exaggerated porpoises.One in particular kept us company for several days and nights.We knew him well, from a great triangular scar on his right side, near the dorsal fin.
Sometimes be would remain motionless by the side of the ship, a few feet below the surface, as distinctly in our sight as a gold-fish in a parlour globe; or he would go under the keel, and gently chafe his broad back to and fro along it, making queer tremors run through the vessel, as if she were scraping over a reef.Whether from superstition or not I cannot tell, but Inever saw any creature injured out of pure wantonness, except sharks, while I was on board the CACHALOT.Of course, injuries to men do not count.Had that finback attempted to play about a passenger ship in such a fashion, all the loungers on board would have been popping at him with their revolvers and rifles without ever a thought of compunction; yet here, in a vessel whose errand was whale-fishing, a whale enjoyed perfect immunity.It was very puzzling.At last my curiosity became too great to hear any longer, and I sought my friend Mistah Jones at what I considered a favourable opportunity.I found him very gracious and communicative, and I got such a lecture on the natural history of the cetacea as I have never forgotten--the outcome of a quarter-century's experience of them, and afterwards proved by me to be correct in every detail, which latter is a great deal more than can be said of any written natural history that ever I came across.But I will not go into that now.Leaning over the rail, with the great rorqual laying perfectly still a few feet below, Iwas told to mark how slender and elegant were his proportions.
