Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/443

 10, 1863.] sharks they had seen about there lately: for though there are much bigger ones about, they cannot be caught with the conger-lines. Once the fisherman got hold of some enormous fish, whether large porpoise, shark, or some skate, like that caught by the Eddystone, which weighed a quarter of a ton, he of course could not tell; but three men could not move it, and at last the creature gave a steady pull, and went off with line, hook, copper wire, and all.

These sharks are by no means so uncommon about our coast as many people suppose. Not only are they seen at Land’s End (where I have noticed a huge back-fin working along quite close to the shore), but along the South Devon coast. We have heard this year of a regular family of sharks hanging about the Isle of Wight, and occasionally one has ventured near enough to the Brighton beach to frighten ladies from their morning dip. Not long ago, at Exmouth, a friend of mine caught a small shark on the spiller-lines, and managed to kill him and bring him home, after nearly capsizing the boat.

There are several different sorts of sharks occasionally seen by Land’s End. The huge basking-shark, which has attained the length of twenty or even thirty feet, according to the books, though his proper home is further up St. George’s Channel, sometimes floats about in these waters: but, as he only feeds on jelly-fish, and does not break into the nets or chase away the other fish, he is not much hated or noticed by the Covemen. Then there is the blue shark, our old friend, who is very destructive to the fish, and drives them from the baits; the fishermen hate him very hard, and refuse positively to eat a slice of him. This is the worst insult they can pay any creature, for I believe they do or would eat any other. I told one of them how sailors are often rather glad to try a slice of shark beef, and he replied with profound disgust:

“Sir! I would just so soon eat a slice of the old devil!”

And I believe him. However, I never saw them torturing one deliberately, as the Welsh fishermen will put pins or thorns in the eyes of a dog-fish, and turn him out, or as these very men treat the skates; they dislike these last for being very heavy and very profitless, besides entangling all the lines with their struggles. When the skate comes up at last with his nose out of water, sighing and grunting, they as often as not cut the hook clean out of him, and let him sink or swim away if he can.

Besides these there are the Fronken shark, the Porbeayle or Beaumaris shark, the fox or ape shark (a rare fish, with one flap of his tail prolonged out of all proportion), and the usual small fry of dog-fish, of various kinds, among which are the small spotted dog or nuss (corrupted from its Scotch name Robin Huss), the large spotted dog, the shark-ray or monk or angel, the blackmouthed dog, and the tope or miller’s dog (le milandre of Cuvier). These, of course, are much smaller, though I have caught a grey dog more than five feet long; and though, in the narrow seas, a fish of nine feet seems very large, yet he is a mere baby compared with the tropical sharks, the Port Royal shark, the enormous hammer-head, or that still more monstrous creature which was caught near Aden not long ago, I mean one which was hauled in by all hands on a steamer bringing back soldiers from Pekin, and which was said to measure forty-one feet.

After we had killed our shark, the dead of the tide came on, in which very few fish bite. The bait hangs quietly at the bottom, and, even if a fish touch it, hardly moves: so that at this time of the night it requires a very practised hand to recognise the gentle vibration caused by some large fish playing with the hook. Of course, unless one does make sure somehow, and without striking hard, the fish blows the bait out of his mouth when the hook pricks him, and comes no more. Even at other times it is sometimes impossible to tell if the fish is on, as a large conger will swim up with the bait, and only begin to kick when close to the surface.

It was very dark now, and we were obliged to keep a sharp look-out for steamers. We carried a lantern and lots of candle-ends, not wishing to be run down by some Liverpool vegetable-steamer, or Frenchman. The fishermen say that they are sometimes in great danger from the neglect of the sailors, who do not attend to the shouting and the light in some rather foggy nights. They told me that they liked American vessels least and the French best of all they saw; because the Americans, they said (unfoundedly, as I suppose), would occasionally tie their helm and go to sleep; they liked the French, because they often stopped to buy fish for money or grog.

The Land’s Enders have an idea that few English and no French can catch fish at all like them, and if you want to provoke their scorn, tell them of Welsh or French conger-fishers. Foreigners, they say, they cannot abide, and by foreigners they mean especially Welsh, Irish, Manxmen, and French. Of these they hate the Welsh most, since they enter into competition with them sometimes in the mines and other rough work across the Channel. The Welsh do not like Cornish labour being brought in to reduce the price, and try to make their life a burden to them. They go over to Ireland for the herring fishery, and have an amusing idea of the dirt of Ireland. One of them gravely assured me that he had to drag his new Jersey frock behind his boat from Kingston harbour to Land’s End, to clean it. I tried to express deep sympathy and joy that it was not spoilt by the remedy or its cause. They get on much better with the Manxmen, who do not, however, mix much with their Cornish visitors; but they look with a friendly eye on the French sailors. I heard one with great pride telling how he had sold a skate, of a hundred weight, to a French ship, at a halfpenny a pound, whereas the whole fish was hardly worth bringing back to their village, being at most worth sixpence, as they do not value the London dish of crimped fins of skate. Some fishmonger might possibly make a good thing of buying up these skates for almost nothing, as the railway comes within eleven miles of the village. They have evidently not heard of the Breton conger fishery, as I heard a story (solemnly vouched for) of two