The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-20
THE coNCHs OF coNcHrowN.
Their Peculiarities and Their Trade.
GOnch SteW-Catching Green Tnr-

Key West Letter in New York Post.
''I'n be dog-goned if know why we're
called Conchs," was the reply of typical
Conch to my query one morning as we
pulled out on to the reef. "P'raps it's be-
cause we're fond of fish and conchs; and
I'll be logged if a man who kin eat conch
don't deserve some special name. All white
Bahamians is called Conchs. The gals is
queen Conchs. reckon; and the men-an
emery lot, some of 'em-I reekons they're
just plain Conchs, or, mebby, boss
Conchs.''
My Conch did not have an exalted opin-
Ion of his race in general, but he was a
pessimist, and all things were considered
from a gloomy point of view. He was a
tall, lank fellow, round-shouldered, with
a yellow and tan-colored skin His hair
was almost white and hung from beneath
his battered straw hat in wisps, which
often mistook for hay which he thrust in
to keep his head cool. He was a Ba-
hamian, originally from Nassau, but had
drifted over to Key West and was now
a resident of Conchtown, in that Ameri-
can city, where Spanish is the mother
tongue and native-born citizens are in the
minority.
I'VE had fair pickins over yander" he
said, until them Dagoes got in here and
tried to run us out; but I reckon we kin
keep a holt; leastwise I'm tryin', and
between spongin, cOnchin' and turtlin', 1
reckon l kin make a go of her"
Braizely, for that was my Conchs
name, lived on the northwest shore of
Key West. in what was known as Conch-
town, as here all the Conchs were sup
posed to congregate Some were fisher
men, and filled their smack wells with
Il
lowtan along the Florida reef, which they
carried to Havana, where there is a poor
local fish supply; others owned spongers,
and had the skeletons of the sponge piled
up in curious heaps in their back yards;
Others, again, devoted themselves to the
capture of turtles intended for the New
York market Braizely was one of the lat
ter. Barracuda Braizely, they called him,
because he was long, slender and sharp
nosed, like this fish, and, again, he had
lost several of his fingers by having one
of these fishes attack him in a well.
Braizely had invited me to go on a tur-
tie trip with him, so that 1 could see the
operation, and he ''reckoned L have some
sport over yander," indicating down the
reef. In front of his little white house,
with its water butt on every corner, its
cocoanut trees, and its group of mango
apples and alligator pears, the warm wa
ter of the Gulf broke muscally upon the
coral sands. Two hundred feet out from
the shore was his crawl, an oblong corral,
forty or fifty feet long, built of slaves in
water about four feet deep, in which green
turtles slept away the time, or slowly
perambulated up and down with a pecu-
liar flying, screw-like motion of their flip
pers. The contents of the crawl had been
disposed Of and would sail by the next
northern steamer, and Braizely and l
were going down the reef to replenish the
supply.
We were soon aboard a trim little fish
ing smack of thirty tons burden, equip
ped with a well for grouper fishing The
dingy was fast astern, the sails hoisted,
the mooring slipped, and we sped away
down the reef by Sand Key light then
pulled up in the winds eye, and headed
for the Marquesas. Braizely was captain
and cook-both of equal importance-and,
telling one of the two colored men to take
the helm, he sat down by a pile of pink
Tipped conchs, and with Ratchet began
preparing one of these succulent mollusks.
Taking one of the beautifully tinted shells
IN his left hand, he would toss it about
until he had it in the right position then
by several sldllful picks with his Ratchet
he would detach the small end Of the shell,
and with an air profoundly professional
unscrew the animal and deposit it on the
deck. The meat was as white and delicate
in appearance as chicken. but there the
resemblance ended, as it was as tough as
rubber.
This remarkable Wand the Conch cut up
and made into a stew (which he professed
to enjoy.
The following morning we lay at anchor
In the lee of one of a group of coral
islands with little beaches all about them
like lace collars, the interior mass of
verdure six or eight feet high-the bay
cedar, whose leaves in falling covered the
sand with red and yellow mosaic CRATE
full to the eye in this land of glaring sun.
The keys were surrounded by reefs
through which blue channels ran like
rivers of turquoise. In them and on the
shoals among the coral lurked the fierce
eyed barracuda and the sharp-nosed king
fish. The snake-like head of the moray
darted out between the branches, and, like
birds of paradise In their vestments of
color, odd-shaped angel fishes swan idly
up and down, or poised gracefully before
the stony limitations of trees. Here was
the home of the green turtle, which fed
upon the succulent sea grasses of the
shadows and crawled out upon the sands
at night to deposit its eggs.
I had heard that there was not a Conch
on the reef who could peg turtle at such
long range as my host and the sun had
not been up long before he hauled the
dingy alongside, then unslung a long
slender pole from the shrouds, and. after
steadying the boat for me to drop In,
showed or. Inc COncn never fOWed
boat; he dropped a long slender oar into
the oar-lock cut in the stern, and with
his left hand sculled the dingy along rap
Idly in manner singularly picturesque
He headed for a stretch of the reef that
reached out into the Gulf. where the
water was about four feet deep and the
bottom was covered with a hat-leafed
weed, known as turtle food, expecting to
md the game on their grazing ground.
The Gulf, as smooth as glass; stretched
away In every direction, the keys, with
their white rivers of coral and sand and
tops of green, resting on 1t like gems set
IN quicksilver. The only sounds which
broke the stiffness were the distant roar
OF tumbling waves as they fell on the
outer reef and the ventriloquistic notes
OF the laughing gull Here q delicate rip
pie on the water told of the dorsal fin Of
marauding shark on the same errand
perhaps as ourselves; then suddenly a
school OF mullots arrayed IN silver. gls-
tenlng In the sun, leaped into the air to
eVade the fierce gar or barracuda.
The Couch had taken out his turtle peg
"a long, slender pole. into which fitted
triangular peg that In turn was held by