第23章 GETTING SOUTHWARD(4)

The weather continued calm and clear, and as the flying-fish were about in such immense numbers, I ventured to suggest to Goliath that we might have a try for some of them.I verily believe he thought I was mad.He stared at me for a minute, and then, with an indescribable intonation, said, "How de ol' Satan yew fink yew gwain ter get'm, hey? Ef yew spects ter fool dis chile wiv any dem lime-juice yarns, 'bout lanterns 'n boats at night-time, yew's 'way off." I guessed he meant the fable current among English sailors, that if you hoist a sail on a calm night in a boat where flying-fish abound, and hang a lantern in the middle of it, the fish will fly in shoals at the lantern, strike against the sail, and fall in heaps in the boat.It MAY be true, but Inever spoke to anybody who has seen it done, nor is it the method practised in the only place in the world where flying-fishing is followed for a living.So I told Mr.Jones that if we had some circular nets of small mesh made and stretched on wooden hoops, Iwas sure we should be able to catch some.He caught at the idea, and mentioned it to the mate, who readily gave his permission to use a boat.A couple of "Guineamen" (a very large kind of flying-fish, having four wings) flew on board that night, as if purposely to provide us with the necessary bait.

Next morning, about four bells, the sea being like: a mirror, unruffled by a breath of wind, we lowered and paddled off from the ship about a mile.When far enough away, we commenced operations by squeezing in the water some pieces of fish that had been kept for the purpose until they were rather high-flavoured.

The exuding oil from this fish spread a thin film for some distance around the boat, through which, as through a sheet of glass, we could see a long way down.Minute specks of the bait sank slowly through the limpid blue, but for at least an hour there was no sign of life.I was beginning to fear that I should be called to account for misleading all hands, when, to my unbounded delight, an immense shoal of flying-fish came swimming round the boat, eagerly picking up the savoury morsels.We grasped our nets, and, leaning over the gunwale, placed them silently in the water, pressing them downward and in towards the boat at the same time.Our success was great and immediate.We lifted the wanderers by scores, while I whispered imploringly, "Be careful not to scare them; don't make a sound." All hands entered into the spirit of the thing with great eagerness.As for Mistah Jones, his delight was almost more than he could bear.

Suddenly one of the men, in lifting his net, slipped on the smooth bottom of the boat, jolting one of the oars.There was a gleam of light below as the school turned--they had all disappeared instanter.We had been so busy that we had not noticed the dimensions of our catch; but now, to our great joy, we found that we had at least eight hundred fish nearly as large as herrings.We at once returned to the ship, having been absent only two hours, during which we had caught sufficient to provide all hands with three good meals.Not one of the crew had ever seen or heard of such fishing before, so my pride and pleasure may he imagined.A little learning may be a dangerous thing at times, but it certainly is often handy to have about you.The habit of taking notice and remembering has often been the means of saving many lives in suddenly-met situations of emergency, at sea perhaps more than anywhere else, and nothing can be more useful to a sailor than the practice of keeping his weather-eye open.

In Barbadoes there is established the only regular flying-fishery in the world, and in just the manner I have described, except that the boats are considerably larger, is the whole town supplied with delicious fish at so trifling a cost as to make it a staple food among all classes.

But I find that I am letting this chapter run to an unconscionable length, and it does not appear as if we were getting at the southward very fast either.Truth to tell, our progress was mighty slow; but we gradually crept across the belt of calms, and a week after our never-to-be-forgotten haul of flying-fish we got the first of the south-east trades, and went away south at a good pace--for us.We made the Island of Trinidada with its strange conical-topped pillar, the Ninepin Rock, but did not make a call, as the skipper was beginning to get fidgety at not seeing any whales, and anxious to get down to where he felt reasonably certain of falling in with them.Life had been very monotonous of late, and much as we dreaded still the prospect of whale-fighting (by "we," of course, I mean the chaps forward), it began to lose much of its terror for us, so greatly did we long for a little change.Keeping, as we did, out of the ordinary track of ships, we hardly ever saw a sail.We had no recreations; fun was out of the question; and had it not been for a Bible, a copy of Shakespeare, and a couple of cheap copies of "David Copperfield" and "Bleak House," all of which were mine, we should have had no books.