824 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 26, iQQi. 
The impunity with which brigandage is carried on, and 
the consequent demoralization of the country, render easy 
the task of recruiting for the ranks of the various bodies. 
To organize a band is a process somewhat similar to 
shipping a crew for a voyage. It is bruited round that 
such and such a captain proposes to take the field and 
needs recruits; and among those who respond, if the chief 
is famous, not all are novices. Members of one band go 
over to another, according to their fancy. Accurate ac- 
counts of expenditure are kept, and a portion of all loot 
being put as'de for expenses, each member is entitled to 
his share from this general fund on quitting. In -dividing 
their booty a part is put aside for this expense fund, then 
the captain takes one-tenth, and the remainder is shared. 
Jealousies therefore exist among the chiefs, who do not 
care to sec perhaps their best men joining a rnore popular 
captain. Brigands' can never act without their spies and 
confederates, who obtain all .the requisite information, 
leaving the enterprise itself to be carried out by the 
band. Implacable in their vengeance on any confederate 
who may betray them, they command what services they 
require. Frequently the non-compliance with the demand 
to be supplied with provisions has been visited with the 
most condign punishment. 
It is one of their unalterable rules that no prisoner 
must be recaptured alive. This law it was that caused 
the massacre of the unfortunate Englishmen at Oropos. 
who were murdered as they tired and so became unable 
to keep up with the retreating band when troops were in 
pursuit. Therefore, in the captive's own interest, pursuit 
should be suspended pending the negotiations for ransom. 
Another of the unwritten laws by which they are in- 
exorably guided, and which always lean toward ferocity 
and bloodshed, is that no captive must escape without 
satisfying the demands of the band. The following 
story, told me under circumstances which gave it thrilling 
interest, will show how pitilessly thi.-^ law is carried out : 
.A.n unfortunate doctor, returning to his home at Ya- 
nina. fell into the hands of the brigand band under Cata- 
rakis. On being asked his means, he said he had £200 out 
at interest in Constantinople, and £180 which he was 
waiting to convey to his home when a safe opportunity 
occurred. The brigands agreed to take the £180. and the 
man with whom the doctor had been traveling, and from 
whom his liorses were hired, was setu to bring the money. 
Time passed, the doctor treated several wounded- members 
of the band and earned their gratitude, but the ransom 
arrived not. At last a message came from the trusted 
envoy, saying that he had been robbed of the money on 
the road. A meeting of the band was held, and the exe- 
cution of the law decided. I asked the narrator of this 
tale whether they had no compassion for one who had 
done so much for them. He replied: "Some of us 
wished to spare him, but the captain would not hear of 
it." I asked him how the law had been executed. Nothing. 
I learned, was said to the doctor; but, on passing a deep 
ravine, his attention was drawn to something down be- 
low. As he looked he was struck from behind and fell 
on the rocks. 
In September, 1879, the famous chief Niko perpetrated 
a crime as hideous as that which a civilized world has 
always declared Ed. About went too far in imagining. 
Niko entered a village, and, in the absence of the father, 
.carried off two little girls, aged eleven and seven re- 
spectively. The father made up and sent a sum of money, 
which Niko accepted as ransom for one child. The wishes 
of. the band were to release the younger, and three times 
the lots were drawn, each time in favor of the elder, who 
was accordingly released. A further demand was made 
on the father, which he would not meet, and, at the ex- 
piration of the time allowed, he received an intimation 
that he would find his child at a place named. The poor, 
little thing lay there dead, with its tliroat cut and a bunch 
of wild flowers still grasped in its hand. • 
After capturing a prisoner, the band will march for 
some days in different directions, with a view to baffling 
pursuit; and then the captive, being confided to a trust- 
worthy guard, is taken to a place tolerably secure and 
utterly unknown to the other members, excepting the 
chief and one man, who brings the supplies. Thus the 
capture of any of the outposts, on which duty the re- 
mainder of the band are employed, would be useless as a 
means of discovering the captive. Supplies are obtained 
from confederates, and are brought long distances. 
No band is complete without its tame sheep, one of a 
jet black color being preferred, as not easily visible at 
night. This animal, taken from the Hock when young, and 
brought up among the brigands, becomes much attached 
to them. I have been told of cases where the instinct 
of the sheep has given intimation of the presence of 
troops in ambush or approaching. But its chief use is 
to take charge of and lead the sheep carried off for provi- 
sions. The brigands will sometimes seize twenty to tlnrty 
at a time, herding them in some remote valley high up in 
the mountains, and consuming thorn as required, thus 
rendering themselves independent of supplies frotn be- 
low. 
The favorite weapon of the day among the brigands is 
the Gras rifle; but it can only be obtained of deserters 
from the Greek army. Other weapons with which they 
are armed are the iMilonas or condenmed Greek rifle, and 
some few have Martinis. Besides the rifles they carry a 
short sword or yataghan, a hanger or smaller weapon of 
the same kind, a' revolver, and an assortment of knives— 
as they avoid eating their food with the kmife used for 
murder. Their ammunition is "worn in bandoliers on their 
chests, and slung around them. F.vcry man carries a 
wallet containing cleaning things for his riJlc. perhaps 
for himself, needles and thread, and odds and ends. There 
are also some spare wallets to contain the general prop- 
erty. 
The fustanella or plaited kilt is usually worn, and be- 
fore being put on it is soaked in oil, which makes it of the 
neutral color required, and renders it less pliable to re- 
tain parasites. A large cape with a capote or hood, and 
made of wool and goat's hair, completes their equipment. 
Some are foppishly inclined, and adorn themselves with 
most gorgeous gold-embroidered gannents. while others 
cover themselves with silver ornaments, of which a man 
will some thirtv- pounds' worth on his person. 
Flint and steel are carried by all; and they are very 
clever at making fires — one especially without smoke. 
■Very dry wood is necessary- for this purpose ; it is care- 
fully split, and the pieces laid crossways on each other, 
something in the fashion of the altars in "old saints;" 
light is applied on the top, and the sticks burn down- 
ward, giving out much heat, but no smoke. 
Strong drinks being avoided when on business, brigands 
become great connoisseurs of water, preferring streapas 
that run through beech forests to those where oak or pine 
leaves drop into the current. They also have their favor- 
ite springs, on the merits of which they descant as some 
people do of wine. 
Though many of them are ignorant savages, others are 
not wanting in education. It is common among them to 
re:;d and write their native Greek, and several speak other 
languages. The chief Niko has learned to read and write 
since he took to the life of a brigand, and in summer he 
carries a small selection of books about with him_; in 
winter his Hbrary is limited to a school edition of the 
life of Alexander the Great, and a manuscript of some 
of the miracles of old saints. Superstitious as all the class 
they belong to, these ruffians hold the Church in consider- 
able veneration. They never omit to cross themselves at 
their meals, though their conversation is mingled with the 
most hideous blasphemies. When one of their number 
is killed, or too badly wounded to keep up with the 
band, his head is cut off and carried away, partly with a 
view to escape identification, and partly that they maybe 
enabled to bury it within the precincts of the church yard, 
a custom they invariably endeavor to carry out. 
• Bird and Fish Migration. 
In every age and clime, and before the extent of their 
annual pilgrimage w?.s known or surmised, men mar- 
veled at the recurring flight of the winged wanderers of 
the tenuous air. They came and went; none beheld them, 
nor knew whither they sailed; naught of farewell did they 
give, but silently floated away into viewless space. With 
:i knowledge of the wanderings of the feathered host, 
greater has become the marvel and deeper the mystery 
ot their far-stretching flight, yet the journey of the 
plumed caravans, however worthy of the admiring praise 
bestowed in prose and verse, falls far short, in long-suf- 
fering privation, hardship and danger, of that imposed 
upon the migrants of the deep. 
We cannot lift the veil that shrouds the abyss of 
waters; we only Icnow that, somewhere from out its 
mysterious depths, there emerges, at regular intervals, a 
marine courser of graceful lines, which, with arrowy 
speed, plunges into the rushing current of our Northern 
rivers. This creature, cast in elegant mould, stirs the 
admiration of its supreme enemy, not so much by its 
symmetry of form, beauty of armor, or savor of flesh, 
as by its self-imposed privation and sacrifice, its daunt- 
less energy, its magnificent physical prowess. 
The kingly salmon, fresh from the oceans boundless 
pasturage, and nourished into condition fit for the terri- 
ble ordeal that awaits it, is a vital engine of wondrous 
power. Man's utmost cunning cannot shape a device that 
will move, or even lie. in the water as it will, nor can his 
subtle mind explain the dynamic relation of its various 
postures with the resulting motion. Up, through a 
plunging, watery avalanche, its lithe and supple body 
cleaves its way; or, witli the tenuous and mobile ele- 
ment as an unstable base, it is flung, in lofty arc, through 
the incumbent air. Yet these, and other impressive 
exhibitions of force, are effected by thin and delicate 
membranes, of action as diverse as the shifting pinions 
that the skill of the mariner adapts to the zephyr's kiss, 
the breeze's strain, or the tempest's rending blast. 
In shapely curves, gently tapering toward either ex- 
tremity of the body, are masses of muscle, braced and 
supported by a flexible framework of ribs and spinal 
column, that, with pliant lateral sweeps, urge it forward 
with amazing power. These masses of flesh are divisible 
into flakes, that, for the most i^art, may be considered as 
separate intercostal muscles, constricting the ribs, and 
effecting bodily flexures varying in degree. At the out- 
set of the salmon's fluvial 'journey, upon quitting the 
ocean's brine, these flakes are separated by films of fat, 
not only serving as a lubricant to the intervening mus- 
cles, but also as'"a fuel, and furnishing, with other depos- 
its, a store of energy to the organic engine that, in its 
far wanderings, knows no source of supply save the fruit- 
ful mother of waters' from whose bosom it departs. For 
the finny migrant, in its arduous pilgrimage, the end of 
which, with many colonies, is death to each and every 
individual, finds, or at least seeks, no sustenance in the 
alien element to which, in all-absorbing parental anxiety, 
it is irresistibly impelled. 
This abstention is the seeming outcome of a stern and 
inflexible evolutionary process, remorseless to the indi- 
vidual, but kindly to the race, which it seeks to con- 
ser\'e. In the formation and growth of the migratory 
instinct, especially when involving the attainment of re- 
mote spawning places, it is obvious that a seasonable 
arrival would be oftenest affected by such fish as hastened 
most to their destination. Delay would hazard the fiill 
development of the spawn, and its eiiiorced deposit in 
barren places; or. if cast in suitable localities, the result- 
ing progeny, in competition with earlier and more vigor- 
ous hatchings, would be the weaker in the struggle for 
existence, and thus afford fewer survivals. Moreover, 
the departure of the yovmg fish is taken at a defi- 
nite period, and such as lacked a proper degree of devel- 
opment, if ioining the main body, would soonest suc- 
cumb to the hardships and dangsrs of the long seaward 
journey. If remaining behind, and imdertaking later the 
descent oi their natal stream, rheir lesser number, and, 
perhaps, a more nnpropitiious. but certainly a more un- 
timely season, would inure to their greater disadvantage. 
Such influences, exerted generation after generation, and. 
with pitiless operation, ever sifting out the laggards and 
conserving the expeditious, would necessarily tend to 
develop a race in which the breeding impulse would be- 
1 The abundance and size of North Pacific fish is amaiing. Cod. 
herring, halibnt, salmon, etc., aveiagt greater weight than those ft 
the AUantic. Salmon have been catight exceeding 100 pounds. 
come paramount, extingvushing both the desire and lit 
capacity for food, and followed to exhaustion and deati 
With the king or quinnat salmon, and probably wii 
all species, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific, a modii 
cation of the alimentary organs seems to be effecte^ 
noon the entry of the fish into fresh water. The gtiUel' 
contracts and the stomach shrinks, so that the retention 
or even the swallowing, of food would be difficult. A| 
the Pacific breeding stations the streams are barricades 
so as to arrest the ascent of the salmon, and thus to hol| 
them pending the requirenjents of the hatchery. A r& 
lentless impulse, bred in their dull brains through thj 
winnowing ages, chains tht; struggling fish to their plac^ 
below the barrier, where, for weeks and even for months 
they blindly breast the river's current, its steady flow: 
yielding thctn no rest, nor bearing them appreciable sus: 
tenance. From three to five months is the usual perioi] 
of detention, and, when it is considered that, througl 
all that time, the fish, unnourished and unrefreshed, art 
engaged night and day in holding their ground, the fea] 
may be regarded as one with scarce a parallel in animati 
nature. 
Its accomplishment, however, involves a fearful drait 
upon the physical powers, for, from the moment that thj 
armored pilgrim emerges from the brine, he, to all apl 
pearance. subsists upon his own substance, consumes hii 
own flesh and blood. The vital current that, in ricti 
and abundant flow, strengthened everv' muscle and steel 
every nerve, slowly and steadily diminishes, and at lal 
almost disappears. Day by day, the inter-muscular layei 
of fat diminish, and finally vanish, the rosy hue of thi 
wasting flesh turns to a dirty white, and even the scale- 
fall away and appear to be absorbed into the body. Intf 
the alimentary ftirnace of this wonderful organic enginu 
is everything apparently cast that will feed the flickerinij 
flame of life, until the worn and ravaged encasement, lil^ 
a dismantled hulk, drifts, without guidance or impulse, 
the mercy of the descending waters. 
The finny caravan, at the outset of its fateful pilgrima 
to the cradle of its race, breasts the ocean in a mass' 
host, the burdened females, with anxious care for t' 
promise of the future, proceeding behind a vanguard 
the largest and strongest of their brethren. In th 
armor's silvery sheen, no joint unloosened, no plate 
placed; in their gay coloring, flashing with rainbow hii 
in the swellin.g curves of their shapely forms, as, wit] 
buoyant grace and eager bound, they course the sparla 
ling waves, those knightly pioneers betoken a fullness ( 
preparation for their mission of hardship, danger an 
death. Sad, indeed, is the contrast presented later, wherj 
with thinned ranks, and frames battered, distorted anii 
emaciated, they feebly and ineffectively seek to return t' 
the far-off fountain of their strength. 
Keeping close to the coast, perhaps as a partial prote< 
tion against a multitude of enemies, the approach oi tH? 
embattled array is discernible at a distance, thejr denS' 
ranks surging torw.ard over the heaving ocean. So assidij 
uously do they seek the cover of the land that, when ei:; 
countering a deep bay. they have been observed to follov 
its indented curves in preference to taking a straigl' 
course across its mouth. Watchful of marine assauUi;; 
but unwary of other dangers that enmesh their shouv 
ward path, they speed along, and only as they near theji^ 
destined estuary do they become otherwise circumspec. 
Carefully reconnoitering. they .suspend their advance 
perhaps with a view of eft'ecting a satisfactory^ identifica|| 
tion; perhaps to determine the presence of dangers feare I 
but unseen. After this preliminary halt they enter the esti:; 
ary's confines, and where the ocean's brine mingles witll 
the alien element to which they shrink from coramittinl 
themselves, a longer halt is made. iHere. upon the boif 
der between fruitful and barren waters, they may tarry 
week or more, gaily disporting themselves in a mediu^j 
that lends to beauty of form every grace of motion. _ Thet 
vacant brains cannot be prescient of coming privatio!, 
and suffering; they cannot linger because mindful of tR 
tragedj' to which their present joys form only a mockii^ 
overture. Perhaps they await a proper adjustment of thi 
temperature of the effluent waters; perhaps a due devel 
opment of their quickening burden; but, more likely, a, 
adaptation to an unaccustomed element. Day by d.i.'' 
however, their parental anxieties deepen and soon 
common and an overwhelming impulse urges thei:. 
forward into a valley of death whose rushing waters b« 
come the fruitful nursery of a new life. ^ 
Sometimes to wondering, sometimes to incredulou 
ears, there have been borne tales of the finny wealth tij 
.-Alaskan waters; but. as a matter of exact information, '! 
may be mentioned that upon Aug. 2, 1S89, the canner 
nets at the entrance of Kariuk River took in, by actiu 
count, 153.000 salmon of an average weight of 20 pound:; 
That was" the number of quinnat. or king salmon, yielde 
in one day, by a little island river but a score of yard 
in breadth at its mouth, and scarce as many miles ii 
length. From the single fact that instanced, it will easil 
be inferred that, in vastness of number, in orderliness t: 
movement, and in absorption of purpose, the fluvial n 
vance of these finny hosts forms a deeply impre^, 
spectacle, .^gainst the river's ebb there flows a counte 
but a living tide that, filling its bed from bank to bank 
surges upward in dense and compact array, seeking, witj 
fervid resolve, to attain the life-giving upper reaches C 
the opposing stream. These are gravelly^ beds, in s. 
low waters, whose rapid flow and limited depth a : 
to the deposited germs an abundance of air and suns 
that quickens them into active life. Within these i- 
the parent fish scoop hollows that receive the ova, whic 
they then cover with gravel: but the accomplishmen: • 
the' untiuenchable aim that, tlirough weeks or months i 
toilsome endeavor, has sustained them, seems to br ^i 
no abatement of parental concern. Little, very little, ca 
they now do to funher the development of their preci u 
brood, rocked in bright and sparkling waters, wi ■ 
eveiy mo'ion bears to the loosely covered germs t 
meed of vitalizing oxygen. Nevertheless, though uu 
kindiv nurtured, the anxious parents seem loth to qu 
a "It is said that the incoming mass of salmon so choke sojr.c 
the smaller streams as to cause them to overflow their banks. 
Atkinson's Travels on Amoor River in "Cruise of the Marcfce^a 
streams - , t. . ■ 
and thus many are driven to spawn in tne upper traDutaries 
large rivers. 
I 
