Then there was the fishing.One did not have to go in search of it, for it was there at the rail.A three-inch steel hook, on the end of a stout line, with a piece of white rag for bait, was all that was necessary to catch bonitas weighing from ten to twenty-five pounds.Bonitas feed on flying-fish, wherefore they are unaccustomed to nibbling at the hook.They strike as gamely as the gamest fish in the sea, and their first run is something that no man who has ever caught them will forget.Also, bonitas are the veriest cannibals.The instant one is hooked he is attacked by his fellows.
Often and often we hauled them on board with fresh, clean-bitten holes in them the size of teacups.
One school of bonitas, numbering many thousands, stayed with us day and night for more than three weeks.Aided by the Snark, it was great hunting; for they cut a swath of destruction through the ocean half a mile wide and fifteen hundred miles in length.They ranged along abreast of the Snark on either side, pouncing upon the flying-fish her forefoot scared up.Since they were continually pursuing astern the flying-fish that survived for several flights, they were always overtaking the Snark, and at any time one could glance astern and on the front of a breaking wave see scores of their silvery forms coasting down just under the surface.When they had eaten their fill, it was their delight to get in the shadow of the boat, or of her sails, and a hundred or so were always to be seen lazily sliding along and keeping cool.
But the poor flying-fish! Pursued and eaten alive by the bonitas and dolphins, they sought flight in the air, where the swooping seabirds drove them back into the water.Under heaven there was no refuge for them.Flying-fish do not play when they essay the air.
It is a life-and-death affair with them.A thousand times a day we could lift our eyes and see the tragedy played out.The swift, broken circling of a guny might attract one's attention.A glance beneath shows the back of a dolphin breaking the surface in a wild rush.Just in front of its nose a shimmering palpitant streak of silver shoots from the water into the air--a delicate, organic mechanism of flight, endowed with sensation, power of direction, and love of life.The guny swoops for it and misses, and the flying-fish, gaining its altitude by rising, kite-like, against the wind, turns in a half-circle and skims off to leeward, gliding on the bosom of the wind.Beneath it, the wake of the dolphin shows in churning foam.So he follows, gazing upward with large eyes at the flashing breakfast that navigates an element other than his own.He cannot rise to so lofty occasion, but he is a thorough-going empiricist, and he knows, sooner or later, if not gobbled up by the guny, that the flying-fish must return to the water.And then--breakfast.We used to pity the poor winged fish.It was sad to see such sordid and bloody slaughter.And then, in the night watches, when a forlorn little flying-fish struck the mainsail and fell gasping and splattering on the deck, we would rush for it just as eagerly, just as greedily, just as voraciously, as the dolphins and bonitas.For know that flying-fish are most toothsome for breakfast.It is always a wonder to me that such dainty meat does not build dainty tissue in the bodies of the devourers.Perhaps the dolphins and bonitas are coarser-fibred because of the high speed at which they drive their bodies in order to catch their prey.But then again, the flying-fish drive their bodies at high speed, too.
Sharks we caught occasionally, on large hooks, with chain-swivels, bent on a length of small rope.And sharks meant pilot-fish, and remoras, and various sorts of parasitic creatures.Regular man-eaters some of the sharks proved, tiger-eyed and with twelve rows of teeth, razor-sharp.By the way, we of the Snark are agreed that we have eaten many fish that will not compare with baked shark smothered in tomato dressing.In the calms we occasionally caught a fish called "hake" by the Japanese cook.And once, on a spoon-hook trolling a hundred yards astern, we caught a snake-like fish, over three feet in length and not more than three inches in diameter, with four fangs in his jaw.He proved the most delicious fish--delicious in meat and flavour--that we have ever eaten on board.
The most welcome addition to our larder was a green sea-turtle, weighing a full hundred pounds and appearing on the table most appetizingly in steaks, soups, and stews, and finally in a wonderful curry which tempted all hands into eating more rice than was good for them.The turtle was sighted to windward, calmly sleeping on the surface in the midst of a huge school of curious dolphins.It was a deep-sea turtle of a surety, for the nearest land was a thousand miles away.We put the Snark about and went back for him, Hermann driving the granes into his head and neck.When hauled aboard, numerous remora were clinging to his shell, and out of the hollows at the roots of his flippers crawled several large crabs.
It did not take the crew of the Snark longer than the next meal to reach the unanimous conclusion that it would willingly put the Snark about any time for a turtle.