220 



AMERICAN FISHES. 



the sieve-like flooring of the ' camera della morte ' was drawn within a 

 few feet of the surface, a mixed multitude of large fish, chiefly of the 

 scomber family, all in violent agitation at what they saw and heard (for 

 the men were now gaily singing at the ropes), dashed and splashed about, 

 till the whole enclosure Avas covered with foam. The work of slaughter 

 soon commenced, and these great creatures, despatched by blows, were 

 hauled without difficulty on board the barge.* The chamber being now 

 empty, was let down again for new victims, while we followed the cargo 

 just shipped to the land-place ; thence, preceded by two drummers, off we 

 went in a procession to the Mercato Reale, where we found many great 

 eyeless thunny (the produce of a still earlier haul) already piled up in 

 bloody heaps on the flags, f Besides these, there were alalongas, whose long 

 pectorals had been draggled in the mire, with many other large and curi- 

 ous fish, and the formidably armed heads of two or three sword-fish, fixed 

 on end in the upper part of the woodwork of the same stalls, where their 

 huge bodies were exposed for sale below, cut up into bloodless white 

 masses, like so many coarse fillets of veal ; while whole hampers of labridae 

 attracted the least attentive eye by their lovely variegated and ever-vary- 

 ing tints. 



* Sometimes, we are told, when a very colossal thunny is caught, one of the crew mounts his back, and will 

 ride him, as Arion did the dolphin, several times round the inner enclosure, patting and taming him before he 

 is stabbed like his smaller companions. 



fThe eyes, being a perquisite of the crew, are torn out the first thing, to make oil for their lamps : the gills 

 also and the roes, which are eaten fresh, are commonly ripped out ind deposited in baskets by themselves. 

 These various mutilations of the thunny render its appearance in t'ue markets at all times unsightly and unin- 

 viting. In some cases, however, the fish are transferred in the first instance into an inner shed or shamble, 

 where a whole troop of them is speedily cut to pieces, and the sections (each of which has a name and a 

 market price of its own) are then exposed for sale. The young thunnies do not appear in public at all till 

 they have beea first carefully boiled in sea-water, and become than marine. 



