Part 6
Swift upspringing the man answers gladly to the call. And forth to meet him come a joyous band of his fellows, their dancing feet scarce touching the earth. Not a weakling among them. Men and women and children alike clean-limbed and strong, with sparkling eyes and perfect gestures. Their nude shapes shine like burnished bronze with natural unguents, their white and well-set teeth glitter as they laugh whole-heartedly, their black, abundant hair is entwined with scarlet hibiscus, and their voices ring musical and full. They do not walk--they bound, they spring, and toss their arms in wildest glee.
Surrounding him, they bear him away to where a crystal river rushes headlong down through a valley of velvet green to cast itself tumultuously over a cliff-lip forty feet into the sea. As it approaches its leap the translucent waters whirl faster and faster in rising wreaths and ridges of dazzling white, until in one snowy mass, crowned with a pearly mist, it hurls itself into the smooth blue depths below. With one accord the wildly gambolling band hurl themselves into those limpid waters some hundreds of yards above the fall. As on softest couch they glide swiftly along, their peals of laughter echoing multitudinously from the green bosoms of the adjacent hills.
Faster and faster still they are borne onward until, singly and in groups, they flash out into the sunshine and plunge into the awaiting ocean. So swiftly do they pass that it seems but a breathing space since, far inland, they sprang from the banks into the river, and they now lie in blissful content upon the quiet sea, every nerve tingling from that frantic, headlong flight. Then, like the care-free children of Nature that they are, they abandon themselves to their wild sea-sports, outdoing the fabled Nereids. Around them gather in sympathy the gorgeous dolphins, the leisurely sharks, the fun-loving porpoises, while over their heads dart incessantly in arrowy flight glittering squadrons of flying-fish.
So they frolic untiringly until, by one impulse moved, they all dash off to where, outside the enormous headland of black rock which shelters the little bay, the vast and solemn ocean swell comes rolling shoreward, towering higher as it comes, until, meeting the bright beach, it raises itself superbly in one magnificent curve of white, and dashes against the firm-set earth with a deep note as of far-off thunder.
The merry players range themselves in line and swim seaward to meet the next wave as it comes. Diving beneath it they reappear upon its creaming shoulders, and by sheer skill balance there, elated almost beyond bearing by the pace of their mighty steed. Higher and higher they rise, clothed by the hissing foam, until from its summit they spring to land and race to the woods.
Only a breathing space passes, and again they come rushing shoreward to where a mimic fleet of light canoes lies covered with boughs to shield them from the sun. As if time were all important, they fling the leaves aside and rush the frail craft into the water, springing in as they glide afloat. Two by two they sail away, an occasional persuasive touch of the paddles sufficing to guide and propel them whithersoever they will.
The sun is nearing the western edge of their world, and his slanting beams are spreading lavishly over the silken waters broad bands of rich and swiftly changing colour. A hush that is holy is stealing over all things, a stillness so profound that the light splash of a flying-fish tinkles clear as a tiny bell. The happy people float along in a delicious languor, feasting their eyes upon the doubled beauty of the landscape near the shore, where the line dividing the reality from its reflection cannot be discerned.
Beneath them are constantly changing pictures no less lovely, the marvellous surfaces of the living coral with all its wealth of tinted anemones and brilliantly-decked fish of all shapes and all hues. Carried by the imperceptible current, they pass swiftly, silently, from scene to scene, over depths so profound that the waters are almost blue-black, and as suddenly coming upon a submarine grove of rigid coral trees, whose topmost branches nearly break through the placid surface.
Presently the sun is gone, and the tender veil of night comes creeping up from the East. Already the Evening Star, like a minute moon, is sending a long thread of silver over the purpling sea. Beneath the waters the sea-folk have begun their nightly illumination, and overhead are peeping out, one by one, the vedettes of the night. Bird and beast and fish have ceased their play, and a gentle wind arises. The canoes glide shoreward noiselessly, and the voyagers seek through scented pathways their leafy homes.
* * * * *
“Poor fellow, you look a bit stale and overworked! You ought to run down to the seaside for a week!”
And the suddenly-awakened clerk starts up, muttering a half-intelligible apology to his employer, who stands regarding him with a look of pity. But for a few fleeting moments he has been perfectly happy.
SOCIABLE FISH
In one of the most charming chapters of that truly charming book, Gilbert White’s “Natural History of Selborne,” the gentle author tells of some strange instances of sociability among the denizens of the farmyard, a craving for companionship that brought into intimate acquaintanceship such widely differing animals as a horse and a hen, a doe and some cattle. This, as a proof that loneliness is an abnormal condition of life even among the lesser intelligences of creation, “gives to think,” as our neighbours say; but probably few people would imagine that the same desire for society obtains even among the inhabitants of the deep and wide sea.
I do not now speak of such gregarious fish as compose the great shoals that beneficently visit the shallower waters washing populous countries, from whose innumerable multitudes whole nations may be fed without making any appreciable diminution in their apparently infinite numbers; but of those more varied and widely scattered species that are to be found near the sea-surface all over the ocean. In the ordinary routine of modern passenger traffic no observation of these truly deep-sea fish is possible, for, in the first place, the breathless panting of the propeller fills them with dread of the swiftly-gliding monster whose approach it heralds; and in the next, the would-be observer has no time to catch even a glimpse of the inhabitants of that teeming world beneath him with, perhaps, the exception of a rapidly-passing school of porpoises or the hurried vision of a sea-shouldering whale.
No, for the deliberate observation necessary in order to know something of the sea-people a sailing-ship must be chosen, the slower the better, one wherein may be felt to its fullest extent by the mindless, sightless passenger the “intolerable tedium of a long voyage.” In such a ship as this the student of marine natural history, provided he be not responsible to stern owners for the length of his passage, will welcome with great delight the solemn hush of the calm, when the windless dome above him is filled with perfect peace, and the shining circle upon which he floats is like the pupil of God’s eye. Then, leaning over the taffrail, looking earnestly down into the crystalline blue, you may see the bottom of the ship without visible support as if poised in a sky of deeper blue and more limpid atmosphere. The parasitic life that has already attached itself to the vessel is all busy living. Barnacles with their long, glutinous feet-stalks waving in imperceptible motion, are expanding from between their shells delicate fringes of brown, that, all eyes to see and hands to hold, allow nothing that can feed them to pass them by. And as they flex themselves inward with the supplies they have drawn from the apparently barren water, you can fancy that the pearly whiteness of the shells gleams with a brighter lustre as of satisfaction. The dull-hued limpets, like pustules breaking out upon the ship’s sheathing, may also be discerned, but less easily, because they have such a neutral tint, and love to nestle amongst a tangle of dank, deep-green sea-moss, that, except where the light from above breaks obliquely down upon it, looks almost black.
But a little patient watching will reveal a set of tiny arms forth-darting from the irregular opening in the apex of each limpet-cone. They, too, are busy continually, arresting every morsel, invisible to feeble human sight, that comes within their reach, and passing it within for the up-keep of the compact, self-contained residence. And there, can it be possible, at all this distance from land? It is not only possible but undeniable that there is a _crab_, an impudent, inquisitive little tangle of prying claws surrounding a disc about the size of a shilling. He strolls about in leisurely fashion, but making a track at all sorts of angles, among the living fixtures, skirting each barnacle or limpet with a ludicrous air of contempt, as it seems. You can almost imagine him saying: “I never saw such a lot of dead-an’-alive ornaments in my life. Say! how d’you like stoppin’ in the same old spot for ever an’ ever?” But, impervious to his rudeness, the busy creatures never cease their one set of movements, utterly ignoring his very existence. You cannot help but wonder what becomes of that little crab when the ship begins to move, for you know that he can’t possibly hold on against the tremendous brushing past of the water. He isn’t built for that.
The other parasites, whether animal or vegetable, have, you notice, been busy for who shall say how long adapting themselves to every condition of their dependent life, so that now, whatever motion be made by the ship, they present to the onrush of the water just the right angle of surface that will allow it to slip over them easily, while at the same time they are always in a position to levy contributions. There is a puzzling lead-coloured streak along the copper near the keel to which your eye returns again and again, for although it will persist in looking like a place whence a strip of sheathing has been torn, there is yet a suggestion of quivering life about it which is certainly not the tremulous outline given to every inanimate object under water. Suddenly your doubts are set at rest--the mystery is solved. The steward has cast over the side some fragments of food that settle slowly downwards, turning over and over as they sink and catching the diffused light at every point, so that they sparkle like gems. As they pass the almost motionless keel the leaden-looking streak suddenly detaches itself, and, almost startlingly revealed as a graceful fish, intercepts and swallows those morsels one after the other. You fetch a few more fragments, and, dropping them one by one, entice your new acquaintance nearer the surface, so that you may admire the easy grace of every movement, and study at your leisure the result of this creature’s development along certain lines of inventiveness.
It is a _Remora_, or “sucker,” a species of shark that never exceed a dozen pounds in weight. Having all the shark’s usual qualities of slothfulness, voracity, and timorousness, it is prevented from becoming ferocious also by its limitations of size and the feebleness of its teeth. And as it would be hopeless for it to attempt to prey upon other fish while they are alive, from its lack of the requisite speed as well as from the scarcity of fish of sufficiently small size in the deep waters which are its abiding-place, it has developed a parasitic habit, which saves it a whole world of trouble by insuring its protection, economising exertion, and keeping it in the midst of a plentiful food-supply. All these objects are attained in the simplest manner possible, aided by an unfailing instinct guiding the creature in its selection of an involuntary host.
On the top of its head, which is perfectly flat, it has developed an arrangement which has, perhaps, the most artificial appearance of anything found in animated Nature. It is in plan an oblong oval, with a line running along its middle, to which other diagonal lines, perfectly parallel to each other, extend from the outer edge. The whole thing is curiously like the non-slipping tread moulded upon the soles of many lawn-tennis shoes. This strangely patterned contrivance is really an adhesive attachment of such strength that, when by its means the fish is holding on to any plane surface, it is impossible to drag the body away, except by almost tearing the fish in half. Yet by the flexing of some simple muscles the fish can release its body instantly, or as instantly re-attach itself. Of course, it always adheres to its host with its head pointing in the same direction as the host usually travels, because in that manner the pressure of the water assists the grip of the sucker and keeps the whole body lying flatly close to whatever is carrying it along. In this position it can perform all the natural functions. Its wide mouth gapes; its eyes, set one on either side of its flattened head, take in a most comprehensive view of the prospect, so that nothing having the appearance of edibility can pass that way without being seen and, if the speed of its host admits, immediately investigated. Thus its sociability is obviously of the most selfish kind. It sticketh closer than a brother, but affection for its protecting companion forms no part of its programme. Its number is, emphatically, One.
I have used the word “host” intentionally, because the remora does not by any means limit its company to ships. It is exceedingly fond of attaching itself to the body of a whale, and also to some of the larger sharks. Indeed, it goes a step further than mere outward attachment in the latter case, because well-authenticated instances are recorded where several suckers have been found clinging to a huge shark’s palate. This is another stage on the way to perfect parasitism, because under such circumstances these daring lodgers needed not to detach themselves any more. They had only to intercept sufficient food for their wants on its way from the front door to the interior departments. I have also seen them clinging to the jaw of a sperm whale, but that jaw was not in working order. It was bent outwards at right angles to the body, and afforded harbourage to a most comprehensive collection of parasites, barnacles especially, giving the front elevation of that whale an appearance utterly unlike anything with life.
But John Chinaman has outwitted the superlatively lazy remora. By what one must regard as a triumph of ingenuity he has succeeded in converting the very means whereby this born-tired fish usually escapes all necessity for energy into an instrument for obtaining gain for other people. The mode is as follows: First catch your remora. No difficulty here. A hook and line of the simplest, a bait of almost anything that looks eatable lowered by the side of a ship, and if there be a sucker hidden there he will be after the lure instantly. The only skill necessary is to haul him up swiftly when he bites, because if he be allowed to get hold of the ship again you may pull the hook out of his jaws, but you will not succeed in detaching him. Having caught a remora, the fisherman fastens a brass ring closely round its body, just at its smallest part before the spread of the tail. To this he attaches a long, fine, and strong line. He then departs for the turtle grounds with his prisoner. Arriving there he confines himself to keeping the remora away from the bottom of his boat by means of a bamboo. Of course the captive gets very tired, and no turtle can pass within range of him without his hanging on to that turtle for a rest. The moment he does so the turtle’s fate is sealed. Struggle how he may, he cannot shake loose the tenacious grip of the sucker, and the stolid yellow man in the sampan has only to haul in upon the line to bring that unwilling turtle within range of his hands and lift him into the boat. And this ingenious utilisation of the sucker’s well-known peculiarity has also commended itself to the semi-barbarous fishermen of the East African littoral, who are not otherwise notable for either ingenuity or enterprise.
Before we dismiss the remora to his beloved rest again it is worthy of notice that he himself gives unwilling hospitality to another sociable creature. It is a little crustacean, rather like an exaggerated woodlouse, but without the same power of curling itself into a ball. It is of a pearly white colour, very sluggish in its movements, but with tenacious hooks upon its many legs it holds on securely to the inside of the sucker’s mouth near the gill-slits, being there provided with all the needs of its existence, without the slightest effort of its own. Its chief interest to naturalists lies in its strange likeness to the fossil trilobites so plentifully scattered among various geological strata.
But while you have been watching the remora a visitor from the vast openness around has arrived, as if glad of the society afforded by the ship. Yet in this case the idea seems a fond conceit, because the new-comer is only a “jelly-fish,” or “Medusa.” It is really an abuse of language to use the word “fish” in connection with such an almost impalpable entity as the Medusa, because while a fish is an animal high up the scale of the vertebrata, a Medusa is almost at the bottom of the list of created things. When floating in the sea it is an exceedingly pretty object, with its clear, mushroom-shaped disc uppermost, and long fringe of feathery filaments, sometimes delicately coloured, waving gracefully beneath with each pulsation of the whole mass. It has no power of independent locomotion, no--but, there, it is not easy to say what it _has_ got, since if you haul one up in a bucket and lay it on deck in the sun, it will melt entirely away, leaving not a trace behind except two or three tiny morsels of foreign matter which did not belong to its organism at all. Yet if one of these masses of jelly comes into contact with your bare skin it stings like a nettle, for it secretes, in some mysterious way, an acrid fluid that serves it instead of many organs possessed by further advanced creatures. As the present subject passes beneath your gaze you notice quite a little cluster of tiny fish smaller even than full-grown tittlebats, perhaps a dozen or so, who look strangely forlorn in the middle of the ocean. It may be that this sense of loneliness leads them to seek the shelter of something larger than themselves, something which will be a sort of rallying-point in such a wide world of waters.
Perhaps the lovely streamers dangling have aroused their curiosity, but, whatever the motive, you see the little group, huddled round the Medusa, popping in and out from the edge of the disc, through which you can plainly see them as they pass beneath. It is quite pretty to watch those innocent games of the sportive little fish, but presently you notice that one of them doesn’t play any more. He is entangled among those elegant fringes and hangs like a little silver streak, brightening and fading as it is turned by the pulsatory movement of the Medusa. And if you could watch it long enough you would see it gradually disappear, absorbed into the jelly-like substance by the solvent secreted by the Medusa for that purpose. Still unconscious of their companion’s fate, the other little victims continue to play in that treacherous neighbourhood, voluntarily supplying the needs of an organism immeasurably beneath them in the sum-total of all those details that go to make up conscious life.
Closely gathered about the rudder and stern-post is another group of larger fish, the several individuals being from 4 in. to 8 in. long, and most elegant in shape and colour. They evidently seek the ship for protection, for they scarcely ever leave her vicinity for more than 2 ft. or 3 ft. If one of them does dart away that distance after some, to you, imperceptible morsel of food, it is back again in a flash, sidling up to her sheathing closer than ever, as if dreadfully alarmed at its own temerity. A small hook baited with a fragment of meat will enable you to catch one if only you can get it to fall close enough to the rudder--no easy matter, because of the great overhang of the stern. In the old-fashioned ships, where the rudder-head moved in a huge cavity called the rudder-trunk, I have often caught them by dropping my hook down there, and very sweet-eating little fish they were. Sailors call them “rudder-fish,” a trivial name derived from their well-known habit, but they are really a species of “caranx,” and akin to the mackerel tribe, which has so many representatives among deep-water fish. They are, perhaps, the most sociable of all the fish that visit a ship far out at sea; but they present the same problem that the crab did a little while ago: What becomes of them when a breeze springs up and the vessel puts on speed?
I have often watched them at the beginning of a breeze, swimming steadily along by the side of the stern-post, so as to be clear of the eddies raised by the rudder; but it was always evident that a rate of over three knots would leave them astern very soon. Not less curious is the speculation as to whence they come so opportunely. There seems to be very few of them, yet an hour or two’s calm nearly always shows a little company of them cowering in their accustomed place. As you watch them wonderingly, a broad blaze of reflected light draws your attention to the splendid shape of a dolphin gliding past and exposing the silver shield of his side to the sun’s rays, which radiate from it with an almost unbearable glare. At that instant every one of the little fish beneath you gather into one compact bunch, so close to the stern-post that they look as if part of it. When they can no longer keep up with the ship’s protecting bulk how do they escape the jaws of such beautiful ravenous monsters as that which has just passed? The swift flying-fish cannot do so, even with the swallow-like speed that he possesses and the power of skimming through the air for a thousand yards at a flight. What chance, then, can our shrinking little companions possibly have, or how do they survive amidst so many enemies? It is an unsolvable mystery.
What is this cold grey shadow stealing along through the bright blue water by the keel? A shark, and a big one too. No one doubts the reason for _his_ sociability; in fact, he (or she) is credited by most sailors with a most uncanny knowledge of what is going on aboard any ship he chooses to honour with his company. We need not be so foolish as to believe any of these childish stories, especially when the obvious explanation lies so closely on the surface. Heredity accounts for a great many things that have long been credited with supernatural origins, and the shark’s attachment to the society of ships is so plainly hereditary that the slightest thought upon the subject will convince any unbiased person of the reasonableness of the explanation. For many generations the shark, born scavenger that he is, has learned to associate the huge shadow cast by a ship with food, not perhaps in such mountainous abundance as that provided by the carcass of a dead whale, but still scattering savoury morsels at fairly regular intervals. From its earliest days--when, darting in and out of its mother’s capacious jaws, it has shared in the spoil descending from passing ships--to the end of what is often a very long life, ships and food are inseparably associated in whatever answers to its mind in the shark. Man, alive or dead, always makes a welcome change of diet to a fish that, by reason of his build, is unable to prey upon other fish as do the rest of his neighbours.