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- CHAPTER XIII.
Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South
Seas
At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified
the scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was in the
ascendant.
It’s famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas’ boundless prairies; I
commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean moors
of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange monsters float
by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere are they found in
the books of the naturalists.
Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And
whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The
sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden
worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights
unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and bats alone
should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a live man to
vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who, while
exploding “Vulgar Errors,” heartily hugged all the mysteries in the
Pentateuch.
But look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like
that? An enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a Delta of
mouths. Slowly it sinks, and is seen no more.
Doctor Faust saw the devil; but you have seen the “Devil Fish.”
Look again! Here comes another. Jarl calls it a Bone Shark. Full as
large as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth
overlap its jaws like those of the walrus. To seamen, nothing strikes
more terror than the near vicinity of a creature like this. Great ships
steer out of its path. And well they may; since the good craft Essex,
and others, have been sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts
his horny snout through a Carribean canoe.
Ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from
the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed.
For the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by
hundreds; but by thousands and by myriads. Trust me, there are more
sharks in the sea than mortals on land.
And of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs.
But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the
sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are
classed under one family; which family, according to Muller,
king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of
the Chondropterygii.
To begin. There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called
by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard
knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar.
At times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a
slaughtered whale. They are the vultures of the deep.
Then we often encountered the dandy Blue Shark, a long, taper and
mighty genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a Bond-
street beau, and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. This dainty
spark invariably lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail.
But he looked infernally heartless.
How his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage
swagger of the Tiger Shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended
mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might
devour. These gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in
the South Seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a
tit-bit, a stray sailor. No wonder, then, that sailors denounce them.
In substance, Jarl once assured me, that under any temporary
misfortune, it was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that
in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals of Tiger Sharks.
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