Sea Creature Adventures

Today, we’re setting sail into the deep, unpredictable waters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We have curated three maritime short stories centered around the wonders of ocean life.

As always we begin with a biographical look at our authors.

Our voyage begins with an unusual encounter in the waters around Bermuda in 'Gregory and the Scuttle', penned by the renowned American naturalist Charles Haskins Townsend. 

Following that, we dive into two distinct tales from the legendary Australian South Seas adventurer, Louis Becke. First, a darkly comedic look at maritime folklore in 'The Whale Cure', followed by a vivid glimpse into regional sea life in 'The Sea Salmon Season in Australia'. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Narrated Archives, the podcast where we dust off forgotten pages and bring historical prose back to life. I’m your host, Sally Barron. Today, we’re setting sail into the deep, unpredictable waters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We have curated three maritime short stories centered around the wonders of ocean life.

Our voyage begins with an unusual encounter in the waters around Bermuda in 'Gregory and the Scuttle', penned by the renowned American naturalist Charles Haskins Townsend. Following that, we dive into two distinct tales from the legendary Australian South Seas adventurer, Louis Becke. First, a darkly comedic look at maritime folklore in 'The Whale Cure', followed by a vivid glimpse into regional sea life in 'The Sea Salmon Season in Australia'.

Before we lower the anchor and submerge ourselves in these literary waters, let’s get to know the brilliant, seafaring minds behind today's selections.

First up today, we have Charles Haskins Townsend. He was born on September 29, 1859, in the small borough of Parnassus, Pennsylvania, right along the Allegheny River. As the son of a reverend, his family fully expected him to follow tradition and join the clergy. But Townsend later joked that he was simply 'too fully occupied with the natural world to consider the supernatural.' He attended local public and private schools before chasing his passion to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, where he graduated and laid the groundwork for his scientific career. Decades later, in 1909, his massive contributions to science earned him an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Washington and Jefferson College. 

If you visited New York City in the early decades of the twentieth century, there’s a huge chance you crossed paths with his legacy. Townsend spent a staggering 35 years as the Director of the New York Aquarium, single-handedly turning it into an international powerhouse for marine research. Before he settled down in New York, Townsend spent years out on the open water conducting deep-sea explorations for the U.S. Fish Commission. He eagerly sailed to the Galapagos to study giant tortoises and meticulously pored over old logbooks to map out historic whaling routes. Because he spent so much time on actual research vessels, his writing seamlessly blends rigid scientific detail with the genuine, gripping narrative of an old-school explorer. He lived a remarkably full, long life dedicated to conservation, ultimately retiring to the warm shores of Florida in 1937 to enjoy a quiet, well-earned peace after decades at sea. 

Our second author today, who gave us our final two stories, is George Lewis Becke—though the literary world just knew him as Louis Becke. Becke was born on June 18, 1855, in the beautiful coastal town of Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia. From the very beginning, formal education was a bit of a losing battle for young Louis. He had a childhood straight out of Huckleberry Finn, constantly running away from home, walking the coastal headlands with local Aboriginal people, and learning to sail. When his family moved to Sydney in 1867, they tried to settle him down at the Fort Street Model School. But city life and stuffy classrooms couldn't compete with the call of the ocean; Becke spent far more time skipping class to go fishing than he did actually studying. 

By the time he was just fourteen, he talked his way onto a ship bound for San Francisco. At sixteen, he stowed away to Samoa, kicking off a life so wild it makes Hollywood scripts look tame. He survived a catastrophic typhoon shipwreck and worked as a supercargo master under Captain 'Bully' Hayes—one of the last notorious pirates of the Pacific. That association actually landed Becke in a courtroom facing piracy charges, though he managed to walk away a free man. When he finally traded his sea legs for a typewriter, he published over thirty books. Critics eventually called him the 'Kipling of the Pacific' because he didn't write flowery, romantic prose. Instead, he delivered short, sharp, unfiltered stories that captured the true, gritty reality of the people who lived and died on the Pacific waves.

 GREGORY AND THE SCUTTLE

THIS is a tale of the warm sea-tides that daily and nightly flood the channels among the Bermuda Islands. I had almost written it 'The Scuttle and Gregory,' but it was Gregory who carried on the campaign aggressively and finally triumphed with the trap-net, so that the sea-monster was dragged away into captivity.

At our first meeting, when I described the creature whose subjection I wished to accomplish, Gregory said, 'That’s the scuttle.' I suggested the word cuttle, as, perhaps, more appropriate, but it was not appreciated. The scuttle by any other name could never be satisfactory to him. Quibbling over a mere title seemed unnecessary, so I made an effort to get down to essentials and adopted Gregory’s word. As a result of our conference, Gregory took certain implements of capture and sailed out of the bay; only to return, after a considerable absence, with an empty boat.

He had, however, matured certain plans which it seemed reasonable to follow out. It appeared that a combination of forces was desirable, so I contracted for the services of both Gregory and his boat, and we set about the circumvention of the scuttle by fair measure or foul.

As we sailed away in the light morning breeze, Gregory expatiated upon the subtlety of the scuttle and the labors of the black toilers of the sea, who had sought to capture him.

'How big is he?' I inquired.

'Not too big, sir,' said Gregory, holding up a short oar by way of suggesting dimensions.

I was interested, for I had read, in a book by one Hugo, how a man had once entered a sea-cave, and had had a fearful struggle with the creature. Respecting the truth of this, however, there is reasonable doubt, although I know of the capture of an octopus of the seas about Vancouver Island, which actually measured several oars' lengths across its outspread arms. But all this is not telling the story of Gregory’s search. 

The scuttle eluded us for many days, artfully removing choice foods from the snares we set for him; but we sometimes caught faint glimpses of him down under the over-hanging borders of coral reefs, where he sat in shadowy caverns, thrusting forth his horrifying arms to seize the unwary sea-people.

While Gregory with great caution moved the boat close by the rocks, I peered constantly through the water-glass to the grayish depths where the fierce-jawed moray has his hunting-grounds, and where the sharp-stinging medusa drifts along, moving out of the way of no creature whatsoever. It was an enchanted world that lay beneath us, and I saw many strange things which cannot be described here.

But I must explain about the water-glass, an article with which all fishermen of the Bermudas are familiar. Like many another indispensable thing, it is of simple construction, being nothing more than a wooden bucket with a bottom of glass. By placing it on the surface of the water and inserting one’s face in the open top, it is possible to see distinctly whatever may be beneath.

We worked our way at times into small bays where green sea-lettuce lay in the shallow water in masses. These we overturned with our oar and boat-hook, hoping to come upon the wily object of our pursuit.

The lair of the scuttle, according to Gregory, may be discovered by certain unmistakable signs. It is the accustomed way of the creature to drag his prey to his hiding-place, there to devour it at leisure. Crafty in the capture of his victims, and wily in the concealment of himself from observation, he makes no attempt to hide the débris of his feasts. He thrusts his garbage forth from his stronghold, unconcerned as to where it fall, provided the entrance be clear for his own movements. If he has feasted high on lobster or oyster, crab or clam, a mountain of shells proclaims his lair. The heap may grow until it would fill a basket as large as a man could lift.

Knowing his weakness for these dainties, Gregory gathered a supply, hoping to lure the scuttle into his power. He did, in fact, nearly succeed on one occasion  lowering a tempting morsel near where the creature lay concealed. A long arm snatched and held the bait until the sharp, hidden hook tore loose, and Gregory almost fell over as he jerked the stout line.

This method might have succeeded if I had not been anxious to take my departure from the islands and so urged haste. Whereupon Gregory, who was big and powerful and did not fear a personal encounter with the scuttle, became more aggressive.

On the following day, when the tide was motionless and the water glassy, he saw the scuttle disappear under a narrow ledge a couple of fathoms down in the clear, greenish channel. He was overboard in an instant, and with a few quick strokes reached the bottom. Looking down through the water-glass I could see the whitish soles of his bare feet as he made tremendous upward thrusts with his legs.

The scuttle was disturbed by the suddenness of the attack, and as he had not selected a favorable place for concealment, decided to make off, and lost no time in doing so. He may have caught sight of the whites of Gregory’s determined eyes. He was barely quicker, however, than the quick arm of the man, and might have been seized had he not played a scurvy trick: the water suddenly turned black.

It appears that the creature always bears a sac of inky fluid ready in an instant to darken the water all about him, and can dart away under an impenetrable cloud of his own conjuring. This characteristic, which I had hitherto read of, I now saw verified. By magic the scuttle had disappeared, and a moment later there was a porpoise-like snort as Gregory’s head popped above the surface.

Later, we had proof also of the scuttle’s mysterious power of suddenly changing his color. Like the chameleon, he may appear conspicuously dark at one moment and inconspicuously pale at another against the grayish, ragged wall of the coral reef. This I made sure of as our boat came close to another of his hiding-places. Although he was in full sight, it took me some minutes to realize that the ghostly outlines pointed out to me were not a part of the gray background of jagged rock. He can, moreover, instantly turn brown or become spotted, as I later saw with my own eyes after we had got him into our power.

It was clear that there was nothing more to be done in that locality; so Gregory clambered aboard and we held counsel together as the boat drifted broadside up the channel with the tide; and the earnestness of the man made so profound an impression on me that when we parted in the evening I was not without hope that my mission would eventually be crowned with success.

But the next day we were again disappointed. Gregory dived and had the scuttle in his arms almost before I could brush from my eyes the salt water his splash threw over me. As he came up alongside, however, trouble began, for the scuttle got a grip on the bottom of the boat with his many sucker-covered arms, and, while Gregory was getting his breath, his hold slipped, and again the creature was off. Just how he managed to disappear so suddenly remains a mystery; neither Gregory, who went under again, nor I, who promptly reached for the water-glass, got the faintest glimpse of him. Doubtless he shot away body foremost, after the manner of his kind, every one of his eight arms contributing to the haste of his departure.

Failing in all these manœuvres, I began to scout among lonely pools under the cliffs, where, if cautious, one may see strange sea-folk when the tide is out. Gregory, left alone with his stratagems, disappeared for a few days. The last glimpse I had of him was of a  very black man with a very earnest face, loading a huge wicker contrivance into a boat. I had considerable faith in his resourcefulness, for he knew the reefs and caves as well as did the scuttle himself.

But my solitary patrol of the rocky shore proved fruitless, and I was glad, two days later, to find Gregory sitting on a stone wall down by the little dock, swinging his bare feet and enjoying the hot sunshine, but not much inclined to talk. He told me that he had gone to a distant island village in search of a large trap-device used for catching fish. This, with the help of another fisherman, he had lowered into a deep cleft among the reefs two or three miles to the westward. I was to go with him the next day to see if by any possibility the scuttle had been deluded into entering it, for it was baited with something which the always hungry monster was pretty sure to investigate.

We were off early in the morning, but made slow progress, as there was little wind. It was fully three hours before we arrived at the sunken trap, which Gregory located by the bearings of certain distant cliffs, for there were few portions of the reef showing at high tide. The breeze being light, the stone killick with line attached was thrown overboard without lowering the sail. Through the water-glass we made out the framework of the big trap on the bottom. I let out more anchor-line, the sloop drifting astern until we were nearly over the trap, when Gregory yelled that the scuttle was ours.

He let down a grapple, and after some heaving and hauling we dragged the cumbersome contrivance on board. The hatch over the water-filled well of the sloop was shoved back to make ready for the entrance of our captive. I kept a firm grip on the trap while Gregory, all the while shouting instructions to me and abuse at the scuttle, undid the fastenings at one corner. It took a deal of punching with an oar to dislodge the creature, whose eight arms were reaching in all directions. When one of them thrust through an opening and took a turn around Gregory’s bare arm. There was a ripping sound as he tore the arm away from that sucker-covered arm of the scuttle, but no harm was done to either combatant.

What with the lurching of the sloop, the rocking of the big unsteady trap, the resistance of our captive, and Gregory’s shouting, there was considerable turmoil for so limited an area as we occupied on our small craft. The scuttle was gradually crowded down, and was presently forced to take refuge in the well to escape the  man’s oar. In the bottom of the trap lay the empty shell of the great crayfish which had tempted the creature to his undoing. With the hatch back in place, and the trap lashed against the windward side of the mast, our work was done.

After a pull on the sheet, I took the tiller and my companion rested from his labors; but his tongue was loosened, and by the time we came to anchor in the twilight, he had said more about the scuttle than I have been able to recall, and a good deal that I am not hopeful of being able to verify. Nevertheless, he had earned his reward, and as the lights were beginning to glimmer around the harbor, he went to his home with a comfortable jingle of coins in his pocket.

When the steamer sailed away to the north, the scuttle was a captive on board, staring with unwinking eyes at the passengers who came to gaze at him. He escaped from confinement twice during the voyage, and we had no small difficulty in getting him properly secured. We learned that a large prisoner, if he is persistent enough, may take flight through a comparatively small hole, and we were therefore unremitting in our watchfulness until the captive was landed securely within the walls of the ancient fortress at the Battery.

And that is how the octopus came to the Aquarium.

THE “WHALE CURE”

I once heard a man who for nearly six years had been a martyr to rheumatism say he would give a thousand pounds to have a cure effected.

“I wish, then, that we were in Australia or New Zealand during the shore whaling season,” remarked a friend of the writer; “I should feel pretty certain of annexing that thousand pounds.” And then he described the whale cure.

The “cure” is not fiction. It is a fact, so the whalemen assert, and there are many people at the township of Eden, Twofold Bay, New South Wales, who, it is vouched, can tell of several cases of chronic rheumatism that have been absolutely perfectly cured by the treatment herewith briefly described. How it came to be discovered I do not know, but it has been known to American whalemen for years.

When a whale is killed and towed ashore (it doesn’t matter whether it is a “right,” humpback, finback, or sperm whale) and while the interior of the carcase still retains a little warmth, a hole is out through one side of the body sufficiently large to admit the patient, the lower part of whose body from the feet to the waist should sink in the whale's intestines, leaving the head, of course, outside the aperture. The latter is closed up as closely as possible, otherwise the patient would not be able to breathe through the volume of ammoniacal gases which would escape from every opening left uncovered. It is these gases, which are of an overpowering and atrocious odour, that bring about the cure, so the whalemen say. Sometimes the patient cannot stand this horrible bath for more than an hour, and has to be lifted out in a fainting condition, to undergo a second, third, or perhaps fourth course on that or the following day. Twenty or thirty hours, it is said, will effect a radical cure in the most severe cases, provided there is no malformation or distortion of the joints, and even in such cases the treatment causes very great relief. One man who was put in up to his neck in the carcass of a small “humpback” stood it for sixteen hours, being taken out at two-hour intervals. He went off declaring himself to be cured. À year later he had a return of the complaint and underwent the treatment a second time.

All the “shore” whalemen whom the writer has met thoroughly believe in the efficacy of the remedy, and by way of practical proof assert that no man who works at cutting-in and trying out a whale ever suffers from rheumatism. Furthermore, however, some of them maintain that the “deader” the whale is, the better the remedy. “More gas in him,” they say. And any one who has been within a mile of a week-dead whale will believe that.

Anyway, if there is any person, rheumatic or otherwise, who wants to emulate Jonah's adventure in a safe manner (with a dead whale), let him write to the Davidson Brothers, Ben Boyd Point, Twofold Bay, N.S.W., or to the Messrs. Christian, Norfolk Island, and I am sure those valorous whalemen would help him to achieve his desire.

THE SEA “SALMON” SEASON IN  AUSTRALIA

The sea salmon make their appearance on the southern half of the eastern seaboard of Australia with undeviating regularity in the last week of October, and, entering the rivers and inlets, remain on the coast till the first week of December. As far as my knowledge goes, they come from the south and travel northwards, and do not appear to relish the tropical waters of the North Queensland coast, though I have heard that some years ago a vast “school” entered the waters of Port Denison.

Given a dear, sunny day and a smooth sea the advent of these fish to the bar harbours and rivers of New South Wales presents a truly extraordinary sight. From any moderately high bluff or headland one can discern their approach nearly two miles away. You see a dark patch upon the water, and were it not for the attendant flocks of gulls and other aquatic birds, one would imagine it to be but the passing reflection of a cloud. But presently you see another and another; and, still farther out, a long black line flecked with white can be discerned with a good glass. Then you look above—the sky is cloudless blue, and you know that the dark moving patches are the advance battalions of countless thousands of sea salmon, and that the mile-long black and white streak behind them is the main body of the first mighty army; for others are to follow day by day for another fortnight.

Probably the look-out man at the pilot station is the first to see them, and in a few minâtes the lazy little seaport town awakes from its morning lethargy, and even the butcher, and baker, and bootmaker, and bank manager, and other commercial magnates shut up shop and walk to the pilot station to watch the salmon “take” the bar, whilst the entire public school rushes home to prepare its rude tackle for the onslaught that will begin at dark.

The bar is a mile wide or more, and though there is but little surf, the ebbing tide, running at five knots, makes a great commotion, and the shallow water is thick with yellow sand swept seaward to the pale green beyond. Presently the first “school” of salmon reaches the protecting reef on the southern side—and then it stops. The fish well know that such a current as that cannot be stemmed, and wait, moving slowly to and fro, the dark blue compactness of their serried masses ever and anon broken by flashes of silver as some turn on their sides or make an occasional leap clear out of the water to avoid the pressure of their fellows.

An hour or so passes; then the tumult on the bar ceases, the incoming seas rise clear and sandless, and the fierce race of the current slows down to a gentle drift; it is slack water, and the fish begin to move. One after another the foremost masses sweep round the horn of the reef and head for the smooth water inside. On the starboard hand a line of yellow sandbank is drying in the sun, and the passage has now narrowed down to a width of fifty yards; in twenty minutes every inch of water, from the rocky headland on the south side of the entrance to where the river makes a sharp turn northward, half a mile away, is packed with a living, moving mass. Behind follows the main body, the two horns of the crescent shape which it had at first preserved now swimming swiftly ahead, and converging towards each other as the entrance to the bar is reached, and the centre falling back with the precision of well-trained troops.ADD  4:13 And then in a square, solid mass, thirty or forty feet in width, they begin the passage, and for two hours or more the long dark lines of fish pass steadily onward, only thrown into momentary confusion now and then by a heavy swell, which, however, does no more than gently undulate the rearmost lines of fish, and then subsides, overcome by the weight and solidity of the living wall.

Along the beach on the southern side of the river stand a hundred or more yelling urchins, with stout lines fitted with many baitless hooks and weighted with a stone. As the swarming fish press steadily on within ten feet or less of the shore the children fling their lines across, and draw them quickly in. Sometimes two or three fish are “jagged” at once, and as the average weight is 10 lb. the jagger takes a turn of the line around his waist and straggles up the beach. Even if he has but one fish hooked amidships he has all he can do to drag him out from the countless thousands and land him. It is not an eminently ideal or sportsmanlike sort of fishing, this “jagging,” but it possesses a marvellous enjoyment and fascination for the youth of ten, and older people as well; for a full-grown salmon is a powerful fellow, and his big, fluke-like tail enables him to make a terrific rush when under the influence of terror or when chasing his prey.

Once over the bar and into the placid waters of the tidal river, the vanguards of the hundreds of thousands to follow pursue their way steadily up the shallow flats and numberless blind creeks, where they remain till spawning is over. Every day some fresh accessions to their numbers, and at nighttime strange, indescribable sounds are heard, caused by the movements of the fishes' tails and fins as they swim to and fro, and one section, meeting another, endeavours to force a right-of-way. On the third or fourth evening the sharks and porpoises appear, having followed the “schools” in from the sea, and wreak fearful havoc among them. Sometimes in a deep pool or quiet reach of the river one may see a school of perhaps five or six thousand terrified salmon, wedged one up against the other, unable to move from their very numbers, while half a dozen sharks dash in among them and devour them by the score; and often as the current runs seaward hundreds of half bodies of salmon can be seen going out over the bar. At night time the townspeople appear on the scene in boats with lanterns and spears, and for no other purpose than the mere love of useless slaughter, kill the fish till their arms are exhausted. At places within easy access of Sydney by steamer or rail some few thousands of salmon are sent to market, but as the flesh is somewhat coarse, they are only bought by the poorer members of the community, 4 pence. and 6 pence  each being considered a good retail price for a 10 lb. fish. 

The roes, however, are excellent eating, and some attempt has been made to smoke them on a large scale, but like everything else connected with the fishing industry (or rather want of industry) in New South Wales, has failed. It sometimes happens (as I once witnessed in Trial Bay, on the coast of New South Wales) that heavy weather will set in when the salmon are either passing inwards over the bars or are returning to sea. The destruction that is then wrought among them is terrific. On the occasion of which I speak, every heavy roller that reared and then dashed upon the beach flung upon the sands hundreds of the fish, stunned and bleeding. At one spot where the beach had but a very slight inclination towards the water from the line of scrub above high-water mark there were literally many thousands of salmon, lying three and four deep, and in places piled up in irregular ridges and firmly packed together with sand and seaweed.

There is a striking contrast in how the final chapters of these two men closed, mirroring the very different lives they lived. Charles Haskins Townsend passed away peacefully on January 28, 1944, at the ripe old age of 84 in Coral Gables, Florida. He died with a towering legacy, credited by time as a national hero who saved three rare varieties of 'critters' from the brink of extinction—the giant Galapagos tortoise, the Alaskan reindeer, and the fur seal. His was a life of structure, honor, and enduring scientific triumph.

Louis Becke, on the other hand, met a final chapter plagued by the same chaotic, tragic currents that followed him at sea. In February of 1913, at just 57 years old, Becke passed away completely alone in a rented room at the York Hotel in Sydney. After years of battling cancer, mounting debts, and fading fame, he was found dead sitting upright in his chair—with the scattered, ink-stained pages of an unfinished manuscript resting on the desk right in front of him. Because he died penniless, his writer friends had to pool their money together just to bury him at Waverley Cemetery, right on the cliffs overlooking the massive South Pacific ocean he spent his entire life exploring.

Two completely different lives, but bound forever by their obsession with the deep blue.

If today's maritime expedition stirred your inner adventurer, you can explore Louis Becke's journeys further through the Louis Becke Digital Archive, and check out historical aquarium efforts via the University of Chicago Press Journals. 

There is a striking contrast in how the final chapters of these two men closed, mirroring the very different lives they lived. Charles Haskins Townsend passed away peacefully on January 28, 1944, at the ripe old age of 84 in Coral Gables, Florida. He died with a towering legacy, credited by time as a national hero who saved three rare varieties of 'critters' from the brink of extinction—the giant Galapagos tortoise, the Alaskan reindeer, and the fur seal. His was a life of structure, honor, and enduring scientific triumph.

Louis Becke, on the other hand, met a final chapter plagued by the same chaotic, tragic currents that followed him at sea. In February of 1913, at just 57 years old, Becke passed away completely alone in a rented room at the York Hotel in Sydney. After years of battling cancer, mounting debts, and fading fame, he was found dead sitting upright in his chair—with the scattered, ink-stained pages of an unfinished manuscript resting on the desk right in front of him. Because he died penniless, his writer friends had to pool their money together just to bury him at Waverley Cemetery, right on the cliffs overlooking the massive South Pacific ocean he spent his entire life exploring.

Two completely different lives, but bound forever by their obsession with the deep blue.

If today's maritime expedition stirred your inner adventurer, you can explore Louis Becke's journeys further through the Louis Becke Digital Archive, and check out historical aquarium efforts via the University of Chicago Press Journals. 

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The story may have ended, but the archive is always open. We’ll see you in the next chapter of the Narrated Archives.  Thank you for listening.