, 1888-10-19
CAPTURING A swoRoFIsH.


a Vicious Monster. Being Wounded
Pierces a Block Island Boat.
A man stands on a little platform in
front of the bow armed with a harpoon
having a sharply and deeply barbed
point, SO that in piercing the fish, if it
goes in far enough, it cannot be easily
got out, let the fish be as ugly as he may.
The iron is so arranged, in connection
with a pole and cord, that the cord can
be detached from the harpoon, the pole
pulled back, and the harpoon left firmly
fixed in the now maddened fsh-the
line, a very strong rope, 300 feet long,
being fast to the iron and the other end
secure on b vessel. This end is imme-
diately fastened securely to an empty
barrel, which is then thrown overheard,
and it marks the course and position of
the enraged fish.
1t also enables the vessel to send out a
life boat to haul in, tire out and, if pos
sible, capture the ugly fellow. And ugly
he is, if he is a young fish. If he is old
and heavy, he is much ~quieter-even
with a harpoon in him. 1t is the
younger, l~ivelier fellows that are SO full
of ugly courage-that attack and kill
whales, and attack, indeed, pretty much
everything in the ocean, unless it may
be the sea serpent and the devil fish.
That they will attack a man, even a
bather, who is in water not over his head,
and kill him, too, unless he can make
wonderful time in getting into shallower
water, was proved a few years ago in the
case of a young Catholicpriest who was
attacked while bathing on the California
shore, in water just above his hips; he
was fearfully gashed and nearly killed
hnfrrn he oO,,1l 100 --
In its fury at being h~arpooned, it rushes
at the small boat and thrusts its ugly
sword up through the boats bottom.
Woe to the man it hitsl
Our harpooner fastened to a fish that
was secured, as it happened, with little
trouble, though the harpoon only pene-
trated a little way into his big carcass.
He proved to be 10 feet s inches long,
and weighed undoubtedly 450 pounds.
Much larger ones have been caught, but
rarely. We also secured two others, MOI
30 large. And it was with the second
one that there was an exciting time. He
proved to be "a young man" among his
fellows, and an ugly young fellow, too.
Having him well ~harpooned, and the
barrel going dancing at q great rate
against thew ind-for it is a curious md
hitherto unrelated 1T that a swordfsh,
when %harpooned. ways rushes off to
w1ndward-the Ike boat put out to secure
him after duly playing" him. In it
went a Block Islander belonging to the
vessel, and two courageous passengers.
By the time they reached the barrel, they
were a mile from the vessel, and could
be seen, with a glass, pulling in on the
line.
They worked the fish a good while.
When a swordfsh, finding himself bar
pooned and hopelessly held, really gives
up the fight, he suddenly turns and goes
to, leeward. The men at the line under
stand what that movement means. They
were still playing this fellow, and ex-
hausting him, when, having several
times had him hauled in close to the
boat, so that his blue figure was dis
tinctly visible, and as often permitted
him to go 100 feet off or more, some
thing happened which caused the captain
of the steam yacht a mile off, looking
through his glass, to exclaim: They're
in troublel he has struck the boati''-
and to order an instant start for them,
He was lone too soon. The enraged
fish, withdrawing some sixty feet, had
made one of those arrowlike rushes upon
the boat, which can be equaled in its
velocity by no other fish in the sea. The
sword pierced the bottom of the boat a
little side of the keel, near the enter
coming up nearly two feet. Fortu-
nately men AVE learned ere now not to
sit down in a boat engaged in hauling in
a swordfsh. By standing (as well as
they CAM their feet present a smaller
surface, and hence a diminished chance
of being hit. Last year one mans boot
heel was partly hit, knocking him head
long.
In the present instance one of the men
had a narrow escape of hardly ten inches.
But the men were saved. Indeed, tho
boat, being a shell lifeboat, would hardly
have sunk, although it was already half
full of water and the men hard at work
baling when the steam yacht reached
them. The vicious fish was repeatedly
lanced through the head and neck till he
got comparatively quiet, when, in haul
ing him up the side, with the harpoon
purchase at the shoulder and the long
graphing hook at the tail, a slipknot was
successfully got over his wide forked tail
and then-we had him. But for this
last grip he would have turned the boat
over. But the way he dashed the sea
with that tail was a caution. Hartford
Times.
Another r,rra co.