Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-23
AT MAGDALENA BAY
Reco|Iections of the Place as
It Was in 1895.
WATERS ALIVE WITH FISH
Crew of the Thetis Treated to Some
Weird Cooking.
FOOD THROWN OVERHEARD
Preparations Made by Mexicans to
Receive Battleship Fleet and Cap
ture the American Dollar.
WATERS ALIVE WITH FISH
FOOD THROWN OVERHEARD

together at -Magdalena bay Tor the puf-
pose of welcoming the dollars of the,
men of the American battleship fleet
have an odd look to me-" said a man
who used to be a yeoman in the navy.
Not. understand. because I have any
doubt as to the >genuineness of the pic
lures: they're all right. because they're
reproduced from recent photographs.
mean that 1t seems queer to me to see
these shacks and tents and things bloom
ing. as it were. on that desolate Magda-
lena bay shore. I remember the Mag
dalena bay shore as positively the most
desolate, the bleakest. aridest, most I'M
inviting patch of beach that l ever
clapped eyes upon. and 1 did my share
of cruising around the bald spots.
Instead Of these long. irregular rows
of temporary shanties, there was just one
implanted shack on the Magdalena bay
beach when my ship was in the bay for
target practice early in 1895. That one
shack. with the Mexican flag floating
over it. was, 1 understand, the custom
house; but 1 couldn't figure out. at the
Time why there should have been Gus
tom house there. There wasn't any mer
chandise to be appraised that I ever saw.
and my ship was there nearly three
weeks.
A Lonely Life.
mo sort of a merchant vessel not even
mango schooner. dropped In there while
we were anchored in the bay; and we'd
have been lonesome indeed for the sight
Of something human on the seascape had
not the old man-O'-war Thetis been an
chored near us, the officers of the Thetis
being engaged for their sins IN making
survey of the bay. But there was the
little custom house smuggling. ugly and
&AtI <o1 f0~ <xf &NA
black. bleak half-mountains. upon which
not SO much as a sprig of grass grew,
much less a bush or tree. Lower
California Is desert, and that piece of 1t
that, juts into Magdalena bay is the des-
ertest part of it.
THE only amusement that the men
for'ard entitled to liberty had in Magda
lena bay that time was fishing. We'd
get permission from the First Luff to
use one Of the ships boats and shoot
our lines any old place. it made no differ
ence. The waters of the bay literally
swarmed with magnificent Spanish mack
cred, rock cod and yellow tail. / never
saw SO many FISH before or since. nor
such hungry ones. They'd fall for any
old kind of bait and they seemed to be
actually glad to be yanked out of those
lonesome waters into human boat.
THE flesh of these fishes. considering
the latitude. was remarkably hard and
below in the tropics before getting into
Magdalena bay. and the tropical Ash.
beautiful enough to look at. with their
gorgeous prismatic tints, are the wabbly.
more of fifht for freedom than would
hooked butterfly. The meat Of these
tropical fishes. too. is as soft jelly,
and UNBEATABLE by men used to eating the
fish of more northerly ATTITUDES. We had
a perfect gorge on the fish we caught in
licious favor of the rock cod yet.
Killed by Gun Shock.
I'VE had some other astronomical ex
periences in Magdalena bay, though. that
didn't pan out at all. There are just
about octillions of whopping big sea tur
ties In Ma8dalena bay-huge, ugly fellows.
some OF them as much as a thousand
years old. the sharps said. and shipmates
of mine who had cruised among the Gala
pages Islands told me they'd never seen
more turtles around that famous turtle
group than they saw right in Magdalena
bay. l know that our ship had to pillow
right through schools and schools of the
brutes In maneuvering at target prac-
tice. The turtles wouldn't get out of the
way, and SO We rammed EN-. They'd
stick around the ship when we were fir
ing the big guns at target practice. and
the detonation would stun them. and
they'd look quite listlessly dead for an
hour or so after the firing ceased; then
they'd buck up again and prong out their
vicious heads and crawl off about their
business.
Our big-gun firing. by the way. killed
many thousands of the fishes 900: they
lay around us. belly up in their silver and
gold scales. for hours after we'd quit FIR
ing; and then they'd be gradually gobbled
by carrion-eating inhabitants of the dead
that had got a wireless about the good
4 LIT AfrxkI NIL, ood
We'll. we had a lot of Greek hands on
board our ship, and some of them were
mess cooks. These Greek mess cooks are
the great ones to frame up weird kinds of
grub. and the weirder it is the more they
seem to like 1t themselves, or pretend to
like 1T. anyhow. They caught some of
these turtles and tried to stake us to tur-
tie steaks. Nothing doing. We were
pretty hungry for human food AT that.
having been up against the tough. stringy
meats and the pithy. tasteless vegeta bles
at our stops on the west coast of South
and Central America. and having fed
mostly on salt junk and cracker hash in
the cruising intervals; but. nay, we
couldn't go the turtle steaks. and
wouldn't. either. Pretty high. pretty high.
sea turtle steaks: like the concentrated es-
sence of passe fish. plus certain indig
enous,, personally-conducted aroma and
SAVIOR of their own. that reminded some
of us Of the effiuvia Of the serpents' house
at menagerie.
Steaks Go Overheard.
when mess gear was sounded one day,
all hands for'ard found cuts off these tur-
tie steaks on the platters. and all hands,
with just one glance and just one sniff,
picked up the pans of turtle steaks and
tossed them over the side into the merry
whipping sea. Later the Greek mess
cooks tried to unload sea-turtle soup on
their messes. Failure. Frost. The sea-
turtle soup smelt like skllful commin-
Cling Of energetic RoquefOrt and the
sweepings Of the giraffe house, and over
the side that went, too.
After our long cruising in the low lat-
tudes. our salt junk. when the lid was
raised, diffused an aroma very different.
indeed, from that of the musk-perfumed
seaweed. and we had to work ourselves
into a deliberate state of preOccupation of
mind when we ate it; but the salt junk
was good enough for us alongside of that
sea-turtle stuff. I know that they do
world that produce all sorts of fine eats
solid and liquid: but not with fellows like
those Magdalena bay turtles. that were
old, sullen and tired of life when Richard
the Lion Heart was putting on his first
pair Of long iron pants.
"Then the octopus grub--the Greek
mess cooks tried to spring that on US
while we were in Magdalena bay. too.
Miserable fasco again. You know. there
fishermen do eat. I don't know what
these parts are, and am not particularly
curious about 1t. But these Greek mess
hands of ours caught slews Of the Magda-
lena bay devilhsh. drained all of the
writing fluid out of them and threw EN-