364 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



it and we towed it onto the beach at high tide, and at 

 the ebb it was high and dry. I hired some men, who 

 got it up out of the reach of the water; then I got a 

 tent over it, and made a hundred dollars before it 

 began to get too loud; then I sold the blubber to a 

 man, reserving the skeleton, which I sold to an Eastern 

 museum. So whaling alongshore pays when you know 

 how to go at it. 



"One year I found a lot of cuttlefish that ran into 

 the surf. I was riding along the beach, and I got a 

 pole and rode into them, and killed about twenty, I 

 guess. Some were eight or ten feet long. I hauled 

 them up and showed them for four or five days in my 

 whale tent; then, after taking out the bills, eyes, and 

 pens, which I sold as curios, I sold them to the fisher- 

 men, who salted them down for bait. Each cuttle 

 had a pen a foot long, a beautiful object, as delicate 

 and fragile as a feather pen. The eyes when hardened 

 look like pearls, and they are mounted as pins. The 

 bills are chestnut-color, and look just like a parrot's 

 bUl. 



"There is another curiosity about a cuttlefish. 

 Each one has a sac of indehble ink; and — would you 

 believe it? — tourists would pay ten cents to have 

 their name written on a handkerchief with the pen 

 and ink of the animal. When I get as far as that I 

 always say, 'No one will believe that story unless you 

 have the pen and ink.' So I would sell the pen for 

 two bits, or fifty cents, and the ink sac for the same; 

 and lots of them bought the eye pins. There 's a lot 

 to know in this business. For instance, most all the 

 fishermen throw away the heads of fishes, especially 

 those of groupers; nobody wants them. But in each 



