The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-22
MONSTERS OF THE DEEP.
The Dangers of Devil.
 struction of Careless Whalers.


 The Dangers of "Devils sFishing
 struction of Careless Whalers.
 When youngster I was homeward bound from Sant' Ana with a cargo of mahogany, and when off Cape Cam peche was one calm afternoon leaning over the taffrail looking down into tn blue profound on the watch for fish. A gloomy shade came over the bright wa ter, up rose a fearsome monster some eighteen feet across, and in general out line more like skate or ray than any thing else, all except the head. The what appeared to be two curling horns about three feet apart rose one on each side of the most horrible pair of eyes imaginable. A sharks eyes as he turns sideways under your vessels counter and looks up to see if any one is coming are ghastly, green and cruel; but this things eyes were all these and much more. I felt that the Book of Revelations was incomplete without him. and his gaze haunts me yet AL though quite sick and giddy at the sight of such bogey, I could not move until the awful thing suddenly waving what seemed like mighty wings, scared up out of the water soundlessly to height of about six feet, falling again with a
 thunderous splash that might have been heard for miles. I must have tainted with fright, for the next thing I was conscious of was awakening under
 the rough doctoring of my shipmates.
 Since then I have never seen one leap
 upward in the daytime. At night,
 vt.,1 tIAA ntId
 splash is constantly to be heard, al- though why they make that bat-like leap out of their proper element is not easy to understand. It does not seem possible to believe such aWe-inspiring horrors capable of plaful gamboling. At another time, while mate of bark loading in the Tonala river, one of the Mexican mahogany ports, I was fishing one evening from the vessels deck with
 a very stout line and hook for large fish.
 A proving devil-fish picked up my
 bait and, feeling the hook, as l sup
 pose, sprang out of water with it. l am almost ashamed to say that l made no attempt to secure the thing, which was comparatively small specimen, but al lowed it to amuse itself, until, to my great relief, the hook broke, and re- covered the use of my line, my even- ing's sport quite spoiled.
 Another widely known and feared dewil-fish has it's headquarters in the | Northern Pacific, mostly along the | American coast, especially affecting the | Gulf of California This huge creature | is a mammal, one of the great whale | family really rorqual of medium size | and moderate yield of oil. Like the
 rest of this much -detested and feared | (among whalers) branch of the Ceta- l cea, it carries but tiny fringe of val ueless whalebone, and, therefore, as | compared with the sperm and right | whales, it's value is small. Yet at cer-
 tain seasons of the year the American | whaleships often think it worth their
 while to spend a month or so bay | whaling in some quiet inlet unknown to and uncared for by, the bustling mer- | chantmap.
 Only the elite of the Yankee whale | men, dexterous and daring as are all | the tribe, can hope to get to winward | of the diabolically cunning giants whom they abuse with such fluent and 1 frequent flow of picturesque profanity, | It is peculiar characteristic of this animal that it seems ever on the alert, , scarcely exposing for one moment it's broad back above the sea-surface when rising to spout, and generally traveling, I unlike all it's congeners, not upon, but'a | few feet below, the water. For this reason, and in this fishery alone, the whalers arm themselves with iron shafted harpoons, in order to strike