———
BY WM. H. C. HOSMER.
———
Fire, famine, and slaughter,Have wasted our band—Our life-blood like waterHas moistened the land;But truly our riflesThe bullet will speed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.The raven is croakingA dirge for the slain—Our cabins lie smokingOn prairie and plain;But paths we will followTo carnage that lead,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.Our old men lie mangledBy wild-wolf and bear;Our babes we have strangled—Dread act of despair;And vengeance will nerve usTo desperate deed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.Pale robbers are swarmingIn hammock and vale;Their squadrons are formingWith flags on the gale;We dread not their footmen,Armed rider and steed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.
Fire, famine, and slaughter,Have wasted our band—Our life-blood like waterHas moistened the land;But truly our riflesThe bullet will speed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.The raven is croakingA dirge for the slain—Our cabins lie smokingOn prairie and plain;But paths we will followTo carnage that lead,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.Our old men lie mangledBy wild-wolf and bear;Our babes we have strangled—Dread act of despair;And vengeance will nerve usTo desperate deed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.Pale robbers are swarmingIn hammock and vale;Their squadrons are formingWith flags on the gale;We dread not their footmen,Armed rider and steed,While an arm can be lifted—One bosom can bleed.
Fire, famine, and slaughter,
Have wasted our band—
Our life-blood like water
Has moistened the land;
But truly our rifles
The bullet will speed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.
The raven is croaking
A dirge for the slain—
Our cabins lie smoking
On prairie and plain;
But paths we will follow
To carnage that lead,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.
Our old men lie mangled
By wild-wolf and bear;
Our babes we have strangled—
Dread act of despair;
And vengeance will nerve us
To desperate deed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.
Pale robbers are swarming
In hammock and vale;
Their squadrons are forming
With flags on the gale;
We dread not their footmen,
Armed rider and steed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.
———
BY J. HUNT, JR.
———
Be thou, like yon old mountain oak,Of sturdy mien—in purpose strong;And prove thyself to be unchanged,In every sense, from Right to Wrong.Let not success unbalance mind;In adverse times be honest, then;Support the Truth, and thou shalt march,A monarch, in the van of Men.
Be thou, like yon old mountain oak,Of sturdy mien—in purpose strong;And prove thyself to be unchanged,In every sense, from Right to Wrong.Let not success unbalance mind;In adverse times be honest, then;Support the Truth, and thou shalt march,A monarch, in the van of Men.
Be thou, like yon old mountain oak,
Of sturdy mien—in purpose strong;
And prove thyself to be unchanged,
In every sense, from Right to Wrong.
Let not success unbalance mind;
In adverse times be honest, then;
Support the Truth, and thou shalt march,
A monarch, in the van of Men.
Suggested by reading an account of the very ancient Willow which still stands in what were once the gardens of Semiramis, at Babylon, with which it is supposed to have been coeval.
Suggested by reading an account of the very ancient Willow which still stands in what were once the gardens of Semiramis, at Babylon, with which it is supposed to have been coeval.
———
BY MRS. E. L. CUSHING.
———
Oh, solitary tree!Living memento of the mighty Past!Strange, dreamy images the mind o’ercast,As dwell its thoughts on thee.Where roved SemiramisThou still doth stand—perchance her foot she staidBeneath thy silvery boughs—in their deep shadeTo woo the zephyr’s kiss.There now, thou standest lone;And as the winds thine ancient branches sway,Thou dost respond to their light mirthful play,With melancholy moan.[3]The wandering Arab hears,And deems in thee unearthly spirits dwell;Then hastes with flying foot the tale to tell,Of his dark doubts and fears.Ancient, mysterious tree!What secrets deep lie hidden in thy breast?’Twere strange, indeed, if aught could be at rest,Knowing what’s known to thee.Thou hast outlived thy race!Lone dweller, thou, amid decay and death,Where e’en the violet, with her perfumed breath,No eye may ever trace.Amid thy foliage dimThe wild bee murmurs not, nor e’er is heard,’Mong thy pale folded leaves, the chant of bird,Warbling her vesper hymn.Not so, oh mournful tree!When in their glory shone those gardens bright,And plants of every clime, full fair to sight,Smiled gayly there with thee.Then thou did’st proudly waveThy graceful boughs above the queenly headOf fair Semiramis, and soft dews shed,Her beauteous brow to lave.While at thy feet unrolled,Lay Shinar’s plain, in whose bright midst there shoneThe hundred gates of mighty Babylon—Her towers and domes of gold!Where are her glories now—Her valiant kings—and he who reared yon towerTo brave the heavens? Spent is their little hour!Oh, tree! why lingerest thou?There thou hast stood and seenTheir doom fulfilled—hast seen gray ruin sitIn their bright halls, and marked the dark bat flitWhere song and dance have been.Hoary and voiceless tree!Could’st thou find human utterance, to impartAll the bright secrets treasured in thy heart—Dark would the history be!Well might’st thou moralizeOn worldly hopes—thou that canst boast a span,Ne’er in Time’s earliest records reached by man—The mighty, nor the wise.Briefer than thine, oh tree!Earth’s glories are; for thou hast seen them pass,Age after age, as in a magic glass—Yet change comes not to thee.Still may Time pass thee by,Untouched, unscathed—sparing thee still to bindUs to the Past—thou that art close entwinedWith its strange history.
Oh, solitary tree!Living memento of the mighty Past!Strange, dreamy images the mind o’ercast,As dwell its thoughts on thee.Where roved SemiramisThou still doth stand—perchance her foot she staidBeneath thy silvery boughs—in their deep shadeTo woo the zephyr’s kiss.There now, thou standest lone;And as the winds thine ancient branches sway,Thou dost respond to their light mirthful play,With melancholy moan.[3]The wandering Arab hears,And deems in thee unearthly spirits dwell;Then hastes with flying foot the tale to tell,Of his dark doubts and fears.Ancient, mysterious tree!What secrets deep lie hidden in thy breast?’Twere strange, indeed, if aught could be at rest,Knowing what’s known to thee.Thou hast outlived thy race!Lone dweller, thou, amid decay and death,Where e’en the violet, with her perfumed breath,No eye may ever trace.Amid thy foliage dimThe wild bee murmurs not, nor e’er is heard,’Mong thy pale folded leaves, the chant of bird,Warbling her vesper hymn.Not so, oh mournful tree!When in their glory shone those gardens bright,And plants of every clime, full fair to sight,Smiled gayly there with thee.Then thou did’st proudly waveThy graceful boughs above the queenly headOf fair Semiramis, and soft dews shed,Her beauteous brow to lave.While at thy feet unrolled,Lay Shinar’s plain, in whose bright midst there shoneThe hundred gates of mighty Babylon—Her towers and domes of gold!Where are her glories now—Her valiant kings—and he who reared yon towerTo brave the heavens? Spent is their little hour!Oh, tree! why lingerest thou?There thou hast stood and seenTheir doom fulfilled—hast seen gray ruin sitIn their bright halls, and marked the dark bat flitWhere song and dance have been.Hoary and voiceless tree!Could’st thou find human utterance, to impartAll the bright secrets treasured in thy heart—Dark would the history be!Well might’st thou moralizeOn worldly hopes—thou that canst boast a span,Ne’er in Time’s earliest records reached by man—The mighty, nor the wise.Briefer than thine, oh tree!Earth’s glories are; for thou hast seen them pass,Age after age, as in a magic glass—Yet change comes not to thee.Still may Time pass thee by,Untouched, unscathed—sparing thee still to bindUs to the Past—thou that art close entwinedWith its strange history.
Oh, solitary tree!
Living memento of the mighty Past!
Strange, dreamy images the mind o’ercast,
As dwell its thoughts on thee.
Where roved Semiramis
Thou still doth stand—perchance her foot she staid
Beneath thy silvery boughs—in their deep shade
To woo the zephyr’s kiss.
There now, thou standest lone;
And as the winds thine ancient branches sway,
Thou dost respond to their light mirthful play,
With melancholy moan.
[3]The wandering Arab hears,
And deems in thee unearthly spirits dwell;
Then hastes with flying foot the tale to tell,
Of his dark doubts and fears.
Ancient, mysterious tree!
What secrets deep lie hidden in thy breast?
’Twere strange, indeed, if aught could be at rest,
Knowing what’s known to thee.
Thou hast outlived thy race!
Lone dweller, thou, amid decay and death,
Where e’en the violet, with her perfumed breath,
No eye may ever trace.
Amid thy foliage dim
The wild bee murmurs not, nor e’er is heard,
’Mong thy pale folded leaves, the chant of bird,
Warbling her vesper hymn.
Not so, oh mournful tree!
When in their glory shone those gardens bright,
And plants of every clime, full fair to sight,
Smiled gayly there with thee.
Then thou did’st proudly wave
Thy graceful boughs above the queenly head
Of fair Semiramis, and soft dews shed,
Her beauteous brow to lave.
While at thy feet unrolled,
Lay Shinar’s plain, in whose bright midst there shone
The hundred gates of mighty Babylon—
Her towers and domes of gold!
Where are her glories now—
Her valiant kings—and he who reared yon tower
To brave the heavens? Spent is their little hour!
Oh, tree! why lingerest thou?
There thou hast stood and seen
Their doom fulfilled—hast seen gray ruin sit
In their bright halls, and marked the dark bat flit
Where song and dance have been.
Hoary and voiceless tree!
Could’st thou find human utterance, to impart
All the bright secrets treasured in thy heart—
Dark would the history be!
Well might’st thou moralize
On worldly hopes—thou that canst boast a span,
Ne’er in Time’s earliest records reached by man—
The mighty, nor the wise.
Briefer than thine, oh tree!
Earth’s glories are; for thou hast seen them pass,
Age after age, as in a magic glass—
Yet change comes not to thee.
Still may Time pass thee by,
Untouched, unscathed—sparing thee still to bind
Us to the Past—thou that art close entwined
With its strange history.
[3]
The creaking sound made by the branches of this aged willow, when moved by the wind, is believed by the superstitious Arabs to proceed from spirits dwelling among its foliage; and the fact that neither birds or insects ever frequent the tree, and that no flowers thrive in its vicinity, confirms them in their credulous belief.
———
BY WM. ALEXANDER.
———
Hail! holy Virtue! sweet celestial guest!To earth descending from the realms above,Erst camest thou a dear messenger of love!Man’s friend, be he or happy or distrest—Bright emanation of the eternal Mind,Thou express image of the One most high,The God of gods—of matchless purity—What refuge like to thee can we e’er find?Check us when led by Passion’s voice astray;Each idle wish, rude thought, do thou control;And fling thy golden radiance o’er the soul;That “more and more unto the perfect day,”It brightly still may shine—lit up by thee,A thing sublime—undimmed throughout eternity.
Hail! holy Virtue! sweet celestial guest!To earth descending from the realms above,Erst camest thou a dear messenger of love!Man’s friend, be he or happy or distrest—Bright emanation of the eternal Mind,Thou express image of the One most high,The God of gods—of matchless purity—What refuge like to thee can we e’er find?Check us when led by Passion’s voice astray;Each idle wish, rude thought, do thou control;And fling thy golden radiance o’er the soul;That “more and more unto the perfect day,”It brightly still may shine—lit up by thee,A thing sublime—undimmed throughout eternity.
Hail! holy Virtue! sweet celestial guest!
To earth descending from the realms above,
Erst camest thou a dear messenger of love!
Man’s friend, be he or happy or distrest—
Bright emanation of the eternal Mind,
Thou express image of the One most high,
The God of gods—of matchless purity—
What refuge like to thee can we e’er find?
Check us when led by Passion’s voice astray;
Each idle wish, rude thought, do thou control;
And fling thy golden radiance o’er the soul;
That “more and more unto the perfect day,”
It brightly still may shine—lit up by thee,
A thing sublime—undimmed throughout eternity.
THE SHARK AND HIS HABITS.
Far as the breeze can bear, or billows foam,All seas their kingdom, and each clime their home.
Far as the breeze can bear, or billows foam,All seas their kingdom, and each clime their home.
Far as the breeze can bear, or billows foam,
All seas their kingdom, and each clime their home.
As free as a bird says the proverb—as free as a fish say we; for if fish be not their own masters, who are? No other creature has half the facilities for shifting quarters and changing domicile that he has. Furnished with a body in itself a perfect locomotive, a vigorous tail for a piston, and cerebral energy in lieu of steam, the sea offers itself as a railroad of communication and transport in every direction, and the North or South Pole is the only natural terminus to the journey. Man cannot compete with fish here; for few, from various lets and hindrances, care to vagabondize at will, and of these, fewer still possess the means of indulging their fancies—yachts. The yacht animal enjoys himself, no doubt, cruising about the high seas for amusement; but this pleasure has risks, as well as obvious limits. Squalls may upset, or whirlpools engulf the frail craft; the masts may be struck by lightning, the keel by sunk rocks; her rudder may be carried away; her sails torn to ribbons; her ribs melt in the red glare of fire on board; or, if she adventure too far in northern latitudes, the crew is liable to incarceration; and fortunate if, after six months’ bumping, “nipping,” and crushing, they bring her off at last, and manage to escape white bears, famine, and an icy grave. Besides these liabilities to mischief, the wants of those on board compel constant forced halts; here for coal, there for water, and sundry runnings into harbor in dirty weather to the delay of the ship’s voyage; all which “touchings” in order to “go” must retard a sigh in its passage from Indus to the Pole exceedingly.
In birds, wings supply the place and greatly exceed the efficiency of sails; but even wings have their limitations of action, and are also subject to many mishaps. Birds can neither soar toward heaven, nor skim across the waters without being continually made sensible of this; the stoutest pinion cannot long beat the icy air of high altitudes, and remain unnumbed; thus high and no higher may the eagle æronaut mount; and among birds of passage how many thousands die in transit to another continent; who, trusting—like Icarus—to uncertain wings, drop into and cover whole roods of ocean with their feathery carcases.
Quadrupeds again, are even more restricted in wandering over the earth; natural obstacles are continually presenting so many bars to progress in advance: the dry and thirsty desert where no water is; inaccessible snow-capped mountain ridges; the impenetrable screen of forest-trees; the broad lake; the unfordable and rapid river; the impassable line of a sea-girt shore; any of these impediments are enough to keep beasts within an area of no very great range. Thus it fares with all creatures, denizens of either earth or air; but none of these obstacles impede the activity of fish. They may swim anywhere, and everywhere, through the boundless expanse of waters; and, in defiance of trade-winds and storms, traverse the open seas at every season, unchecked; surrounded on all sides with suitable food, and finding at different depths a temperature alike congenial to health and comfort, whether in the torrid or the frozen zone. Some of the scaly tribe, to whom fresh water is not less palatable than salt or brackish, may even go far inland; visit without “Guide” lakes hitherto undescribed by tourists, or follow, à la Bruce, the meanderings of some mighty river from the mouth up to its sources. Supported in a fluid of nearly the same specific gravity as themselves, the upper portion of the body throws no weight upon the lower, and weariness is impossible. Where there is no fatigue repose becomes unnecessary, and accordingly we find these denizens of the deep—like their “mobile mother,” the sea, “who rolls, and rolls, and rolls, and still goes rolling on”—are never perfectly at rest. When all the day has been passed in swimming, and the evening paddled out in sport, away float these everlasting voyagers in a luxurious hydrostatic bed, and are borne through the night wherever the current chances to carry them; and, with only an occasional instinctive gulping for a mouthful of air to replenish the exhausted swim-bladder, on they go till early dawn—bursting upon a pair of unprotected eye-balls, gives the owners thereof timely notice to descend deeper, and to strike out fins and tail in whatever direction waking thoughts may suggest. To such tourists Madame de Stael’s definition of travel—Le voyage, un triste plaisir—cannot, of course, apply. Their whole journey through life is indeed singularly placid, conducing to health, and extreme longevity; for though it be not absolutely true as affirmed by Aristotle, that fish have no diseases or “plagues,” it nevertheless is certain that large fish—adequately supplied with little ones for food, well armed, and capable of defending themselves against greater enemies—will live several centuries—a Nestorian age, to which immunity from sudden changes of temperature, as well as a secured sufficiency of wholesome diet, together with their well-known habit of taking things coolly, no doubt materially contribute. So long a period allowed for growth, and such a fine field too for development as the open sea affords, readily explain the enormous size reached by some fish of rapacity in their vast domains, and particularly by those ocean pirates, the dreaded and dreadfulsharks; who, according to the authorities, though “overwhelmed with cruelty,” yet “come to no misfortune like other” fish; whose eyes swell with fatness; who do even as they list; growing up the terror of navigators and the scourge of the deep.
The ancients have left us many lively representations of the sanguinary proceedings of these ill-omened Squali, whose reign of terror, after four thousand years of historical renown, remains as firmly established over the waters as ever. In early times, several different species of sharks were confounded, and supposed identical; but as knowledge of the sea and its marine stores has increased, it is now ascertained beyond controversy that these cartilaginous monsters, all of whom are the same in daring and voracity, and terrible according to their size and strength, are of various species. Under the heading “Canicula,” Pliny relates, in his usual pleasant style, the proceedings of one of these, evidently our Tope, the Squalus milandra of the French, La Samiola of the Mediterranean; where, by the way, they still abound, to the terror and detriment alike of Italian and Maltese boatmen. Though this Canicula averages but twelve feet, he is equal to the gigantic white shark incynopicimpudence and rapacity; he has often been known to seize sailors standing beside their craft, and tardy bathers still in their shirts. The poor pearl divers of the Indian seas have particular reason to dread his approach; and the method anciently adopted by them to evade his jaws is very similar to what the black population of the East follow to the present day, and generally with complete success.
“The dyvers,” says Pliny, “that use to plunge down into the sea, are annoyed very much with a number of Sea-hounds that come about them, and put them in great jeopardie . . . . much ado they have and hard hold with these hound-fishes, for they lay at their bellies and loines, at their heeles, and snap at everie part of their bodies that they can perceive to be white. The onely way and remedie is to make head directly affront them, and to begin with them first, and so to terrifie them; for they are not so terrible to a man as they are as fraid of him againe. Thus within the deepe they be indifferently even matched; but, when the dyvers mount up and rise againe above water, then there is some odds betweene, and the man hath the disadvantage, and is in the most daunger, by reason that whiles he laboureth to get out of the water he faileth of meanes to encounter with the beast against the streame and sourges of the water, and therefore his only recource is to have helpe and aid from his fellowes in the ship; for having a cord tied at one end about his shoulders, he straineth it with his left hand to give signe of what daunger he is in, whiles he maintaineth fight with the right, by taking into it his puncheon with a sharp point, and so at the other end they draw him to them; and they need otherwise to pull and hale him in but softly; marry, when he is neere once to the ship, unless they give him a sodaine jerke, and snatch him up quickly, they may be sure to see him worried and devoured before their face; yea, and when he is at the point to be plucked up, and even now ready to go abourd, he is many times caught away out of his fellowes hands, if he bestir himself not the better, and put his own good will to the helpe of them within the ship, by plucking up his legges and gathering his body nimbly togither, round as it were in a ball. Well may some from shipbourd proke at the dogges aforesaid with forkes; others thrust at them with trout speares and such like weapons, and all never the neare; so crafty and cautelous is this foule beast, to get under the very belly of the bark, and so feed upon their comrade in safetie.”
The portraits of two other species besides the Canicula have been so well delineated by the ancients, as to render the recognition of the originals perfectly easy, and exempt from any possibility of mistake. One of these is the Saw-fish of modern writers, described by Aristotle under the name ofPristis, and by Pliny under the Latin synonymSerra. The saw, or rake, of this shark is at first a supple cartilaginous body, porrect from the eyes, and extending sometimes fifteen feet beyond them. In the earlier stages of development it is protected in a leathery sheath; but hardening gradually as the ossific deposition proceeds, its toothed sides at length pierce the tough integument; the Serra flings away the scabbard, and, after a very little practice, becomes a proficient in the use of his weapon, and always ready for instant assault upon any body or any thing that may or may not offer molestation. Thus formidably armed, and nothing daunted, the larger and fiercer the adversary the more ardently the Serra desires to join battle; above all, the destruction of the whale seems to occupy every thought, and to stimulate to valorous deeds; no sooner is one of these unwieldy monsters descried rolling through the billows, than our expert Sea-fencer rushes to the conflict; and, taking care to avoid the sweep of his opponent’s tremendous tail, soon effects his purpose, by stabbing the luckless leviathan at all points, till he—exhausted by loss of blood—dies at last anemic, like Seneca in the bath. Martyns relates a fight off the Shetland Isles, which he witnessed from a distance, not daring to approach the spot, while the factitious rain spouted up from the vents of the enraged sea mammal, poured down again in torrents sufficient to swamp a boat, over the liquid battle field. He watched them a long time as they feinted, skirmished, or made an onslaught; now wheeling off, but only to turn and renew the charge with double fury. Foul weather, however, coming on, he did not see the final result of the fray; but the sailors affirmed that such scenes were common enough to them, and generally ended in the death of the whale; that when he wasin extremis, the victor would tear out and carry away the tongue—the only part he cared for—and that, on his departure, they themselves drew near, and enjoyed undisputed possession of the huge carcase.
The other well-definedSqualusof the ancients is thezygænaof Oppian, the Marseilles Jew-fish, the Balance-fish, the Hammer-fish, and were these not aliases enough already, the T-fish might be suggestedas an appropriate synonym to add to the rest, the form of this letter suiting the outline of the fish to a tittle. The down stroke represents the body, and the horizontal bar at top the singular transverse head, at the opposite extremes of which two very salient, yellow eyes are situated, commanding from their position an extensive field of vision. When any thing occurs to ruffle the temper of the savage monster, these jaundiced eye-balls suddenly change to a blood-red hue, and roll, furiously glaring, in their projecting orbits; the portal of the mouth opens, and a huge, human tongue, swollen, inflamed, and papillated, surrounded by a whole armory of rending teeth, is thrust forth, presenting to view a creature so strange, hideous and malevolent, that nothing in nature can be compared to him. The domestic circle of theSqualus zygænanumbers every year twenty-four new members; this fearful fecundity of the mother is providentially kept in check by the violent decease of most of the young in cunabulis, for these little cacodemons, untaught by their parents or Dr. Watts to consider it at all “a shameful sight forSqualiof one family to snarl, and snap, and bite,” commit the most cold-blooded fratricides, and even eat one another,proh pudor! without any remorse; besides this, when grown-up relations come on a visit, the young set are not secure from “battle, murder, and sudden death,” for a single moment, save when directly under the paternal nose; as a natural consequence, few of the nefarious brood survive childhood, or ever attain to full maturity of size and malice. Of such as escape infantine dangers, many in after life fall victims in hostile encounters with larger congeners; in particular with the white shark. The average length of theS. zygænais only eight or nine feet, but he does not fear to confront the powerful Requin himself, and fight him, too, with such pluck, resolution, and fury, that though the greatly superior weight of the other at length prevails, the victor does not leave the bloody battle-field scatheless, but like a second Pyrrhus, with the conviction that one more such conquest would undo him. We never saw any of these sea-termagants alive and in action, and must therefore refer the reader for full particulars to M.Lacepède, who had that advantage; but to judge from sundry recently dead specimens, with fins down, tail at rest, the hammer head resting on the pavement, and one eye only to be seen at a time, she was quite ill-looking enough to justify belief in all that biographers have recorded against her.
These are the only three sharks of which the ancients have left us any discriminative account, though they doubtless were acquainted with many others frequenting southern seas. It must have been one of this gigantic race, and probably the white shark, to which Oppian refers in the latter part of the fifthHalieatic.
“The gashed and gory carcase, stretched at full length, a ghastly spectacle! is even yet an object of recoil and superstitious dread. A vague fear of vengeance keeps awhile the most curious of the captors aloof; at length some venture to approach; one man looks into the gigantic jaws, and sees a triple tier of polished and pointed teeth; another wonders at the width of back; a third admires the herculean mould of the lately terrible tail; but a landsman, beholding the unsightly fish at a distance, exclaims—‘May the earth, which I now feel under me, and which has hitherto supplied my daily wants, receive when I yield it, my latest breath, from her bosom. Preserve me, oh Jupiter! from such perils as this, and be pleased to accept my offerings to thee from dry land. May no thin plank interpose an uncertain protection between me and the boisterous deep. Preserve me, oh Neptune! from the terrors of the rising storm, and may I not, as the surge dashes over the deck, be ever cast out amidst the unseen perils that people the abyss; ’t were punishment enough for a mortal to be tossed about unsepulchred on the waves, but to become the pasture of a fish, and to fill the foul maw of such a ravenous monster as I now behold, would add tenfold horror to such a lot!’”
We participate entirely with this landsman in hearty detestation of sharks, well remembering the mixed awe, interest and disgust inspired by the view of a white shark, albeit, a small one for the species, captured after a furious resistance off the Thunny fishery of Palermo in the night, and brought in next morning by the sailors, at the market hour. Dozens of colossal thunnies, alalongas, pelamyds, and swordfish, lay that morning scarcely noticed: the object of general attraction was the dread Canesca, whose mangled body was stretched by itself in the middle of the Place, surrounded by an appalled yet admiring throng, all loud in exclamations and inquiries. The men who had secured the fish, perfectly satisfied with the results of the night’s toil, smoked their pipes complacently, and gave the particulars of the capture to those who pressed round eagerly to hear the exciting tale. Women, of course, mingled largely in the crowd—when were they, of the lower class, ever absent from any spectacle of horror? and accordingly, with either an infant in arms, or clutching a child by the hand, they pointed out the fish to their equally excited neighbors, and with many fierce gesticulations called him “bruto,” “scelerato,” “il Nerone dei pesci,” and other conventional names of abuse for a shark in Sicily; everybody was exclaiming, everybody rejoicing over his destruction. “Eccola Beppo; we have him, you see at last,” said one of the crew to a nearing boatswain, just come into the market. “Buon’ giorno a lei, I make you my bow, sir,” said the other, doffing his red worsted cap to the fish; “we are all happy to see you on shore; after this you will not invadela camera della morte[4]and make a way for the thunny to slip through our fingers again. No, indeed, my lads, now we really have him, you may mend your nets with something like a sense of security.” “Par Bacco and St. Anthony! will you tell me, sir, where you have put the flannel drawers you took from out of my felucca, as they were drying on Sunday last,five minutes after Giuseppe’s legs were out of them?” “Cane maledetto—accursed hound—where’s my brother’s hand you snapped off as he was washing it over the side of his boat, not a week ago?” “Caro lei!did you now chance to swallow Padre Giacomo’s poodle, which disappeared so suddenly the day before yesterday, as he was swimming to shore with his master’s stick?” “Gentlemen,” said the master boatman, and proprietor of the Canesca, “you will get moreoutof him by lookingintohim, than by asking unanswered questions; so here, my lads,” addressing two of his men, “wash his head and gills well, and show that gentleman—ourself—he is not so small a Canesca as he is pleased to think.”
The clean water soon brought out the features, as the blood and ooze were removed; and though the collapsed eye-balls, unsupported as in life, no longer shot menacing glances from their cartilaginous pivots, but fell back opaque and dimmed into the sockets, an expression any thing but amiable was still exhibited in their barred pupils of Minerva gray. The whole forehead was bathed with that phosphorescent mucus or jelly which gives this fish its luminous and spectral appearance, when seen in the dusk, and adds new terrors to the ill-omened apparition. The aspect of the face was malign enough; but when the den of his mouth was forced open, and we ventured to peep in, and saw there three rows of sharp and pointed teeth, that alive in one effort of volition might have been brought to bear all at once upon the largest prey, and made him spout blood at every pore, it became apparent that a fish, even like this of only eight or nine feet long, with such a jaw to tear, such a trunk to smash, and such a tail to stun, must have been capable of destroying the life of almost any creature he might encounter; and we entered readily into the feelings of delight and triumph expressed by the fishermen at the capture of so thoroughly amauvais sujet. Besides the jeopardy in which he places life, the mischief a single shark will occasion to the thunny and cod fisheries is incalculable; two or three of these marauders suffice to interrupt, and sometimes effectually to disconcert all the operations of the poor fishermen. The blue shark in particular, during the pilchard season, will hover about the tackle, clear the long lines of every hook, biting them off above the bait—break through the newly shot nets, or fairly swallow the distended mesh-work and its draught together.
Nor is this all, nor yet the worst mischief recorded of sharks: fond as they are of fish, they greatly prefer flesh, and, unfortunately for man, his flesh before that of beast or bird. Acutely discriminative, too, in taste, their partiality is decidedly for a European rather than an Asiatic—for a fair rather than a dark skin: on this account, in a mixed group of bathers, the white complexioned are always the selected victims of a first attack; but to get at human flesh of any description, they will make extraordinary efforts—bound for this purpose out of the sea like tigers from a jungle, right athwart a vessel in full course, to pick off some unwary sailor occupied in the rigging—or leap into a high fishing-boat, to the consternation of the crew, and grapple with the men at their oars; or, when hard pressed and hungry, even spring ashore and attack man on his own element.
A famished shark will snap up every thing; but though he may swallow all, yet there are some morsels even a shark cannot stomach; witness the following lively anecdote from theEdinburgh Observer:
“Looking over the bulwarks of the schooner (writes a correspondent of the Scotch newspaper,) I saw one of these watchful monsters winding lazily backward and forward like a long meteor; sometimes rising till his nose disturbed the surface, and a gushing sound like a deep breath rose through the breakers; at others, resting motionless on the water, as if listening to our voices, and thirsting for our blood. As we were watching the motions of this monster, Bruce (a little lively negro and my cook) suggested the possibility of destroying it. This was briefly to heat a fire-brick in the stove, wrap it up hastily in some old greasy cloths as a sort of disguise, and then to heave it overboard. This was the work of a few minutes, and the effect was triumphant. The monster followed after the hissing prey; we saw it dart at the brick like a flash of lightning and gorge it instanter. The shark rose to the surface almost immediately, and his uneasy motions soon betrayed the success of the manœuvre; his agonies became terrible, the waters appeared as if disturbed by a violent squall, and the spray was driven over the taffrel where we stood, while the gleaming body of the fish repeatedly burst through the dark waves, as if writhing with fierce and terrible convulsions. Sometimes also we thought we heard a shrill, bellowing cry as if indicative of anguish and rage, rising through the gurgling waters. His fury, however, was soon exhausted; in a short time the sounds broke away into distance, and the agitation of the sea subsided; the shark had given himself up to the tides, as unable to struggle against the approach of death, and they were carrying his body unresistingly to the beach.”
A poet is born a poet, and a shark is born a shark; in infancy a malignant, a sea-devil from the egg. When but a few weeks old, and a few inches in length, a Lilliputian Squalus exhibits a pugnacity almost without parallel for his age; attacking fish two or three times older and larger than himself, and if caught and placed upon a board for observation, resenting handling to the very utmost of his powers, striking with the tail a finger placed on any part of the body where it can be reached. But though always thus hostile to man, and generally so to each other, love for a season subjugates even these savage dispositions, and makes them objects of a reciprocal regard.
M. Lacepède, who seems to have entered intimately into the private feelings of sharks, speaks highly of their amours.
Plutarch bears testimony to the tenderness of sharks for their offspring. He says:—‘In paternal fondness, in suavity and amiability of disposition, the shark is not surpassed by any living creature. The female brings forth young, not perfect, butinclosed each in a pouch, and watches over these till the brood is excluded with the anxiety as it were of a second birth. After this both parents vie with each other in procuring food, and teaching their offspring to frolick and swim; and should danger threaten the defenseless little ones, they find in the open mouth of their affectionate progenitors a sure asylum;’ ‘from which,’ says Oppian, who relates the same story with variations, ‘they issue forth when the alarm is over and the waters again safe.’
Notwithstanding these short paroxysms of tenderness, taken as a class, it may be safely asserted that nothing in nature is more savage than the whole Dog-fish tribe, the only difficulty being to determine precisely to which of the several species the bad pre-eminence belongs; whether to the White, the Blue or Basking Shark, the Canesca, the Zygæna, the Rough-hound or Bounce, &c., for they areallRed Republicans of the deep; strife is their element, blood their delight, cruelty their pastime. Even the soft sex, which amongst most creatures deserves this winning epithet, in the Squalidæ is so far from being a recommendation, that the females are more ferocious than the males. A Messalina sharkess has been known to dash into a crowd of unhappy bathers, tearing and butchering all one after another, nor, till wearied out and gorged, but still unsated with her victims, leave the spot
Et lassata viris, nondum satiata, recessit.
Et lassata viris, nondum satiata, recessit.
Well, indeed, do these “fell, unhappie, and shrewd monsters,” as Pliny calls them, deserve the ill names bestowed by man—Lamia the fury, witch or hobgoblin; Anthropophagus, or man-eater, and Requin; so called, in anticipation of the requiems which may certainly be offered up by friends for the soul of any one whose body comes in the way of a shark.
The white shark is one of the largest of the tribe, and measures sometimes from twenty to twenty-five feet; there is however another, theSqualus Maximus, only met with in northern latitudes, which greatly transcends him; reaching, when fully developed, thirty and even forty feet in length. One taken off Marseilles with a whole man in armor,integer et cadavere toto, pouched in his stomach, affords some grounds for supposing that the great fish that swallowed the prophet Jonah was a shark; especially as this case of the warrior is not a solitary instance, for Rondolet relates the story of a man and his dog going down the open mouth of a shark into the stomach, the first to look about him and to say he had been there, the other to prowl round and pick up offal. That Jonah was swallowed by thisPiscis Anthropophagusis probable, though only conjectural; that he was not swallowed by awhaleis certain, for whales have very small gullets and no internal “accommodation for a single man,” like the shark; their food consists entirely of small narrow creatures an inch or two long, and not thicker round than the barrel of a common-sized quill.
The origin of this mistake, perpetuated by sculptors and painters, proceeds from a misconception of the Hebrew wordtannanim, translatedwhale, but evidently designating large fish generally; just as its Latin equivalentcete, signifies any heavy fish; size, not species, determining the appellation.
Great as are the dimensions of many existing Squali, there can be no doubt that some of the antediluvian period greatly exceeded in size any species at present known. We are indebted to M. Lacepède for this discovery, and the ingenious procedure by which he arrived at it deserves notice. M. Lacepède was one of the first naturalists who applied the since well understood and more fully developed principle ofex pede Herculemto the objects of natural history. Having received from Dax, in the Pyrenees, a shark’s tooth of the very unusual size of four inches and a half in the enamel, or the part visible above the socket, he was prompted to discover, if possible, the size of its original possessor; for this purpose he measured first the teeth, and next the bodies of all the Squali accessible to him in the museums of Paris, and found in every case, that the relative proportion they bore to each other was as one to two hundred, and applying this general scale to the particular tooth from Dax, M. Lacepède found that he held in hand the relic of a creature that in the days of the flesh must have been fully seventy feet long. The proportions between the body and the head being also definite, it was as readily made clear that a Squalus stretching to this length had jaws with a bow above thirteen feet, and a mouth capable of gaping more than twenty-six feet round. In comparison with such a Squalus, those chronicled by Rondolet requiring two horses to drag them, and even one mentioned by Gillius, weighing four thousand pounds, dwindle into mere minnows and gudgeons.
Cruel as all Squali undoubtedly are, reasons perhaps might be suggested, if not wholly exculpatory of their conduct, sufficient to obtain them an acquittal before either a French or an Italian court of judicature. The French verdict would bemeurtre, avec circonstances attenuantes. An Italian jury would at once pronounce a shark criminal,arabbiato—in a passion—consider this sufficient excuse, and summarily dismiss the case. Such lenient judgments might be based on the grounds of their having teeth unusually numerous, efficient, and long; and on temperament; but sharks possessalso, enormous abdominal viscera; full one-third of the body is occupied with spleen or liver, and the bile and other digestive juices secreted from such an immense apparatus, and poured continually into the stomach, must be enough to stimulate appetite prodigiously, and what hungry animal was ever tender-hearted? We read in theAnabasis, that the Greeks would not treat with the Persians about a truce till after dinner; and every one knows that to be the time most propitious to charity and good neighborhood; a hungry man is ever a churl, andventre affamé n’a point d’oreilles. A shark’s appetite is never appeased; for, moreover, in addition to his bilious diathesis, he is not a careful masticator of victuals, but hastily bolts a repast, producing thereby not only the moroseness of indigestion, but a whole host oftænias, which goad and irritate the intestine to that degree,that the poor Squalus is sometimes quite beside himself from the torment, and rushes like a blind Polyphemus through the waves in search of any thing to cram down his maw and allay such urgent distress; he does not seek to be cruel, but he is cruelly famished, and must satisfy, not only his own ravenous appetite, but the constant demands of these internal parasites, either with dead or living animals; so, sped as from a catapult, he pounces on a quarry, and gorges, like a boa constrictor, a meal sometimes so great as to press upon and protrude a large portion of the intestine, which, after one of these crapulous repasts, may not unfrequently be seen trailing several feet from the body.
It is an interesting fact in the history of sharks—and one by no means without precedent in our own—that violent passions, parasites, and indigestions, do not seem to ruffle the equable current of the blood, and that the pulse continues regular, and averages only sixty beats in a minute. As with us a good digestion, (the common accompaniment of a quiet pulse) may be and often is connected with a bad disposition, who knows but that Heliogabalus and Nero, those admirable human types and representatives of the genus shark in so many other particulars, may have resembled them in this also, and in the midst of their orgies and atrocities have enjoyed a calm circulation.
Sharks are sometimes eaten, but more out of bravado and revenge than because they afford a desirable food. Athenæus indeed records that the Greeks were Squalophagi, but they would eat any thing. Archistratus, thebon-vivantof his book, will not allow men to object to a shark diet, merely because the shark sometimes diets upon men. Galen, on the other hand, denounces shark’s flesh, but only from its supposed tendency to produce melancholy. We do not know whether the Latins ever ate them. Among modern nations, Italians and Sicilians cook only the belly of the old fish; and fœtal sharks not much bigger than gudgeons, whenever they can procure a dish. In the still less dainty Hebrides, theSqualus vulgarisis consumed entire; in England they are not relished; but in Norway and Iceland the inhabitants make indiscriminate use of every species that they capture, hanging up the carcases for a whole year that the flesh may mellow. Though no part of the shark is really wholesome, one part, the liver, very valuable in a commercial point of view from the abundance of oil squeezed from it, is highly prejudicial for food, as we learn, on the evidence of the following case of an obscure French cobbler, recorded by an eminent French physician:—
Sieur Gervais, his wife and two children, supped upon a piece of shark’s liver; in less than half an hour all were seized with invincible drowsiness, and threw themselves on a straw mattress; nor did they arouse to consciousness till the third day. At the end of this long lethargy their faces were inflamed and red, with an insupportable itching of the whole body; complete desquamation of the cuticle followed, and when this flaying process was concluded, the whole party slowly recovered.
[4]
The last compartment of the complicated network called amandrague, in which the thunny are harpooned and slain.
The knights ofEspaña, the valiant,Sought long for the fountain of youth,And this legend of old-time they reverencedAs an oracle uttered by Truth:That over the foaming Atlantic,In a kingdom of ever-bright flowers,Safely sheltered from danger, it offeredTo all who in faith sought its bowers,A draught from its goblet like nectar—And, thenceforth the beauties of youth,With its loves, and its joys, all unchanging,Remained with them ever, forsooth.And I have a fountain upspringingIn crystalline beauty for me;I have drunk of its waters, and gladlyTo others now proffer them free.In a cool, shady grotto it gushes,Surrounded by sweet-perfumed flowers,I call it my shrine for devotion,There pass I my happiest hours.White lilies, so pure, of the valleyGather round it like children at home,And violets creep to its margin,For a kiss from its sparkling, bright foam;The heart’s-ease peeps out from the clustersOf lilies, to look in its face,For often is vividly mirroredTherein all her beauty and grace.Though the rose from my cheek will soon vanish,And the sheen from my tresses must fade,—Though others will see on my foreheadThe footprints that long years have made;Yet youth is now with me, and neverWill I lose it—no! never grow old,For the naiad that dwells in my fountain,To me, a high secret has told.Oh! what is the beauty of figure,The outer youth, vain as the wind!A beauty eternal, unfading,I have in the heart and the mind.My heart shall continue as youthful,In affections and sympathies bold,And my mind in its thoughts and its fanciesShall never be wrinkled or old.Ay! I will not grow old! for my fountain—Contentment—ne’er fails to supplyEvery grace, every beauty, I covet,And I cannot her bounty deny.A. G. H.
The knights ofEspaña, the valiant,Sought long for the fountain of youth,And this legend of old-time they reverencedAs an oracle uttered by Truth:That over the foaming Atlantic,In a kingdom of ever-bright flowers,Safely sheltered from danger, it offeredTo all who in faith sought its bowers,A draught from its goblet like nectar—And, thenceforth the beauties of youth,With its loves, and its joys, all unchanging,Remained with them ever, forsooth.And I have a fountain upspringingIn crystalline beauty for me;I have drunk of its waters, and gladlyTo others now proffer them free.In a cool, shady grotto it gushes,Surrounded by sweet-perfumed flowers,I call it my shrine for devotion,There pass I my happiest hours.White lilies, so pure, of the valleyGather round it like children at home,And violets creep to its margin,For a kiss from its sparkling, bright foam;The heart’s-ease peeps out from the clustersOf lilies, to look in its face,For often is vividly mirroredTherein all her beauty and grace.Though the rose from my cheek will soon vanish,And the sheen from my tresses must fade,—Though others will see on my foreheadThe footprints that long years have made;Yet youth is now with me, and neverWill I lose it—no! never grow old,For the naiad that dwells in my fountain,To me, a high secret has told.Oh! what is the beauty of figure,The outer youth, vain as the wind!A beauty eternal, unfading,I have in the heart and the mind.My heart shall continue as youthful,In affections and sympathies bold,And my mind in its thoughts and its fanciesShall never be wrinkled or old.Ay! I will not grow old! for my fountain—Contentment—ne’er fails to supplyEvery grace, every beauty, I covet,And I cannot her bounty deny.A. G. H.
The knights ofEspaña, the valiant,
Sought long for the fountain of youth,
And this legend of old-time they reverenced
As an oracle uttered by Truth:
That over the foaming Atlantic,
In a kingdom of ever-bright flowers,
Safely sheltered from danger, it offered
To all who in faith sought its bowers,
A draught from its goblet like nectar—
And, thenceforth the beauties of youth,
With its loves, and its joys, all unchanging,
Remained with them ever, forsooth.
And I have a fountain upspringing
In crystalline beauty for me;
I have drunk of its waters, and gladly
To others now proffer them free.
In a cool, shady grotto it gushes,
Surrounded by sweet-perfumed flowers,
I call it my shrine for devotion,
There pass I my happiest hours.
White lilies, so pure, of the valley
Gather round it like children at home,
And violets creep to its margin,
For a kiss from its sparkling, bright foam;
The heart’s-ease peeps out from the clusters
Of lilies, to look in its face,
For often is vividly mirrored
Therein all her beauty and grace.
Though the rose from my cheek will soon vanish,
And the sheen from my tresses must fade,—
Though others will see on my forehead
The footprints that long years have made;
Yet youth is now with me, and never
Will I lose it—no! never grow old,
For the naiad that dwells in my fountain,
To me, a high secret has told.
Oh! what is the beauty of figure,
The outer youth, vain as the wind!
A beauty eternal, unfading,
I have in the heart and the mind.
My heart shall continue as youthful,
In affections and sympathies bold,
And my mind in its thoughts and its fancies
Shall never be wrinkled or old.
Ay! I will not grow old! for my fountain—
Contentment—ne’er fails to supply
Every grace, every beauty, I covet,
And I cannot her bounty deny.
A. G. H.