Morning journal and courier., 1886-01-11
EELS ON TAP.
The Sharp Eye Of Captain SnuMe Finds Food for His Starving

EELS ON TAP. Finds Food for His Starving Crew.
 From the New York Sun. The old sailor stood on the pier by the fish market and looked down at the floating crates from which man was lifting live eels with a scoop net The sight of the eels
 broughta far away look into his eyes, and he 1 meditatively threw chew of tobacco into l the water and took fresh one, and sat down on the string piece. A young man sat down beside him and said: "Lots of fine stew in that crate there ehs''
 The old sailor looked around reproach. fully.
 ''Eel stew may be fine to you. It was to ] me once. I can remember when jest dotted sawed out to him as has for six weeks at 6 time, eels don't have no more power over his appetite nor landsmans whistle has on g gale; not but what gales comes O. whistlin aboard ships sometimes"
 The young man had listened respectfully ! and the old sailor, after sly look out of the corners of his eyes, continued mournfully: ''1 was able seaman aboard the Soup pergong a neat little fruiter out O Boston, ] in the Panama trade. Not but what might a bin bo'sen, for the captain axed me | to take the berth, but I told him how wasn't competent, and he'd better try me as an A. B. first. Sailors isn't allers as modest as I be, but most on 'em is modester nol shore folks gives em credit for. "We had 8 fairish run down the coast anC until we'd passed to southard of Jamaica, | the wind holdin' mostly to northard and eastard, and lifting us along from 12 to | 13 knots an hour on the average, though, il 1 course, we sometimes took squirt as might | be called fast sailin. Then the wind lett us | and for nigh on to two weeks we jest lay there rollin' and sizzlin' until we didn't have any grease left into us. Captain Snaffie was a DOW erful patient man for reg'lar down easter but this was leetle too much fol him, it was. He called me aft one day, and he says, says he:
 " Bob, how do she head?' s'I has look, and then I says respectful like: 'Cap'in, she's headin' dead to wind ard'
 ''The captain he eyes me pretty close for a minute, and then he has a look at the bar ommyter, after which he says: She do
 and the gale will be here in two hours at most
 ''True for it, for when we'd got her all l snug and ship shape the water began to bile off to the nor'east, and away we scud for Yucatan. We got there, too, sooner nor we expected. Leastwise, I, bein' on lookout in the mid watch, see breakers ahead, and
 afore I could pucker my mouth to sing
 out, we was right into em. ''We was running down light and weren (
 drawin' more nor six feet of water, and in
 consequence we was landed pretty we'll in shore, and didn't have no great difficulty in
 maxim the beach with the small boat arter the gale went down a bit. And sich beach you never see. In course you didn't cause you never was a sailor. Nobody as never went to sea never saw much worth tellin' about, nohow. Why, that 'ere beach were nowhere less nor foot under water, and the whole island were under water at high tide 'ceptin' a leetle knoll into the middle of it, which we was six hours a sculln' to owin to the bushes and the trees bein' so thick together. You orter see them trees. I've hearn' tell of the trees in Californy,
 but bein' they don't grow alongshore never thought they was worth 1ookin' arter; any how, they ain't circumstance to the trees
 on that island. We'll, there we was, with nothin' to eat nor to drink, havin' never had a bite since six bells the evenin' afore. We spied around all day among them trees and never see so much as a peewee. Next day l it weren't no better, but the third Cap | tain Snafie he made a diskivery. He were a powerful smart man, were the captain, and no mistake. Eff it hadn't bin for him we'd a-starved afore timber hooker tuck us l away six weeks later.
 "'Bob, says he, he says along about | we'll, maybe it were eight bells, and maybe it were two; I was that beat out I'd clean lost track of time-'Bob, do you see that air big tree right in the wake of that 'ere saplin' with red and weller leaves on to it!'' I do,' says l.
 Well, says he, don't nothin' peculiar about it strike yer eyes'
 1T has a good look at it, but nothin peculiar could B see.
 q Look at that 'ere knot hole iist under the first crotch, says he.
 ''So, in course, looks I reckon you nev.
 CT see more astonished nap nor was, ever eff I had been goin' to sea, man and boy | nigh on to twenty year. Suthin' as was alive was in that hole and stickin of its head outen the hole, and that 'ere suthin weren't to be mistook by man as had sol eel pots into the Connecticut river and haG bobbed for the critters in pretty much every stream from the Kennebec to the Mis-,
 sissipp4.
 | yer right. It's eels.'
 C Turn to and shin up there and git him, he says and in course I did, and it were thunderin' fine one, too, bein' more than two | feet long. Pretty soon another one stuck his | head outen the hole, and another shins | mp and gets him, and then another and an-
  | admiral. That ere was the time when thinks cells was delicaoy, l did. Arte1 we'd eat so much eel that I'm afraid you believe me if I was to give you the measure, | the captain he sits down and picks his teeth with slinter while hs looks medtatively
 at the knot hole. Bimeby he says, says he: Bob, pretty tough shinnin' up that ere big tree, ehf
 Yes, says l, n wonderin' what he were thinkin' of. You never see such q man nl | that Capt. Snaffie was. There never werenl no smarter man ever took the sun nor him | You see he'd worked on aVermont farm afore afore took up seafarin', and he knowed suth in about everything on shore AS farmers has | to to make n Twin. He were lookin' very
 hard at the knot hole all the time, and pretty | soon he says:
 |" Bob, says he, whats the use O shin nin' up there, anyhow
 !" How on arth will ever we get any more cells, Tess we do, sir" says I. " Tap the tree,' says he. "True for it, he was right The mate | who was a smart man. too, he'd saved & mar | lin spike outen the wreck and we soon had a dozen holes into the tree and the eels pour | in outen 'em like sap"
 The young man looked puzzled, and eau tiously ventured to say:
 "You forgot to tell me, captain, how the cells got into the tree."
 ''So did, so did. That were the strang
 est part of it, and it took the captain, smart | man as he were, more'n 8 week to find out | In course he solved the problem. Bob, says he, one day, you've beer wonderin' what in tarnation makes them eels
 run up into the tree when cells in general l isn't such fools as to commit suicide.' " Yes, sir,' says I. I has, "'Well, Bob he says, they can't helr | theirselves. You see what tremendous | spreads the tops of them trees has, and you knows how hot the sun shines down on tc | lem. In course you do, and you knows that l the evaporation of the sap outen the leaves l is remarkable, but I'll bet you wouldn't be
 lieved it was more'n 79s,00O gallons a day outen that ere one tree eff I hadn't a told | you. In course that water has ter come III | from the roots what's awash every set of the l tide, and there is such tremendous current | rushin' up them two-inch pores into the | tree there that them eels gets sucked right in | It's caplary attraction as does it, Bob l though I never see such a example of i afore'