810 
FOREST AND STREAM 
June 28, 1913 
of them soon released their hold and joined the 
other three in grasping nothingness through 
the air. Tliey looked like the arms, the whole 
creature seemed the body, of sornething long 
dead beneath the sea—a creature of the color, 
indeed, of death, with eyes that seemed to have 
seen All and Beyond. Myriad white suckers, 
looking like monstrous sea anemones, opened 
and closed in their places on the great tentacles, 
seeking something on which they could fasten 
their deadly grip. Surely Poe never saw an 
octopus, or we should have had a poem beside 
which Ulalume would seem a paean of gladness. 
The Jap, however, though he doubtless had 
read everything the morbid creator of “The 
Raven” ever wrote, evidently had no such 
thoughts, for he seized the steel “potato masher,” 
sprung a joint into the handle with one hand, 
and, as they dragged the clay jar upon the bow 
of the little boat, drove the razor-sharp blades 
straight into the beak and horrid eyes. No 
blood came, but in its place a black flood, ink¬ 
like, which spattered men and boat. In a mo¬ 
ment the tentacles fell quiet, the two men pulled 
the sack-like body from the jar, packed it in 
a covered bamboo case which I had not 
noticed, under the little fragmentary deck at the 
bow, and lowered the jar back into the depths. 
Thus we circled the bay, taking eight of the 
creatures, which looked like nothing so much as 
some long-time dwellers in the River Styx, be¬ 
fore we turned out into the broader Manzanillo 
Plafbor. Then, as we had about a mile of row¬ 
ing across deep water, Saki told me of this 
octopus-trapping industry, which has grown to 
quite respectable proportions in the harbors of 
Manzanillo, Mazatlan, San Bias, and Acapulco. 
The octopus, being soft bodied, is continuously 
seeking a hole in the rocks in which to stow 
h.is body, while his long arms reach out, search¬ 
ing the currents for food for his rapacious maw. 
The Jap fishermen, not averse tO' making 
money while making soundings of the Mexican 
coast for their home government, have taken 
advantage of this habit of the cuttlefish, and 
provides him with artificial holes in which to 
hide, in the shape of clay jars, lowered into 
niches in the coral reef. Inside the smaller 
harbors, the location of these traps is marked 
by the tripods of sticks. Outside, as in Manzan¬ 
illo Harbor proper, the water-glass is used, only 
the approximate location of each trap being re¬ 
membered. 
The traps are emptied every day, and are of 
small size, so that only the smaller octopi, those 
most suited for food, and, at the same time least 
dangerous, are taken. The supply according to 
Saki, is endless, and the dried, salted bodies 
find ready markets, both in Japan and among 
some of the Indian tribes of Mexico, notably 
those of Yucatan and the territory of Tepic. 
One other day, in April, some years before 
this octopus-trapping trip with the Jap, I rowed 
out into Manzanillo Harbor with another hunter 
of the sea, this time a Mexican Indian. I be¬ 
lieve, originally, he had been a Huichol tribes¬ 
man, or, possibly, of that queer sister tribe, the 
Coras, but he had lived so long among better 
grades of Indians that he had learned Spanish 
and was at least fifty years ahead of the rest 
of his tribesmen in the hills of the West Coast. 
He rowed alone save when I helped him. 
which was seldom, for even the April sun in 
Manzanilla is not conducive to exercise, especi¬ 
ally to one whose heaviest work for fifteen years 
has been the pounding of a typewriter. This 
fisherman, or sea-hunter, whichever you like to 
call him, was armed with a spear, or rather 
three spears, each about five feet in length, with 
long, slender, wooden shafts and sheet iron 
heads with barbs at least two inches in length. 
The head of each spear was about seven inches 
in length and it had two of these long barbs on 
either side. The cutting edges, both of the point 
and of each of the barbs as well as their ends, 
were razor-sharp, evidently ground down by 
long labor with some hard stone. The object 
of the long barbs appeared later. 
Quite evidently they were throwing, and not 
stabbing spears; the heads were fast to the 
shanks and to each spear handle, at the base 
of the head, was attached a thin but apparently 
strong rope, made of henequen fiber and woven 
by native rope makers. This rope was less than 
three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, yet I 
believe would have sustained a weight of 150 to 
200 pounds with ease, notwithstanding that it 
was home-made and not so closely woven as 
are most modern ropes. 
However, we did not linger along the 
shore on this trip, but struck right out across 
the sun-kissed little harbor toward the open sea. 
Even the water was warm, and the great’sharks, 
hunting much more expertly than we ever could 
hope to do, passed us at frequent intervals, 
seemingly following regular game trails through 
the sea. Once in a while a school of flying fish, 
disturbed by a shark or a manta, would rise and 
“fly” for a few hundred feet, or a big yellow 
tail three or four feet in length would leap a 
meter out of the sea, attempting to escape in 
turn a shark larger even than he. 
Once clear of the harbor and on the smooth, 
oily ground swell of the Pacific, we hoisted the 
mast (an oar) and hung out a lateen sail, which, 
with the light breeze, was just enough to carry 
us along a trifle faster than Gratiano (the boat¬ 
man) could row. We had covered perhaps half 
a mile, when the Indian, who stood in the bow 
while I steered, waved his right hand; I turned 
the boat in the direction indicated, holding her 
over until his hand dropped, and, in a minute 
or two, we were running about thirty feet from 
and to one side of a gray mass floating like a 
huge jellyfish, on the sea. It was an octopus, 
but so different in appearance from the ones 
which come out of the pot-traps in the little bay. 
The long arms were stretched out in 
straight lines behind the round, sack-like body, 
which propelled itself slowly by a jerky motion, 
apparently something like that of the squids of 
the deep sea—caused by the alternate sucking 
in and sudden ejection of water. For the most 
part, however, the creature seemed to be float¬ 
ing idly on the swell, and we crept a trifle 
closer, until Gratiano picked up one of the 
spears and motioned me to hold the temporary 
catboat straight ahead. 
Then, just as we were abreast of the float¬ 
ing. devilfish, he cast the spear. The throw was 
good, and the barbs sank into the foot-wide 
sack which forms the main body of the octopus. 
The very water broke into life; the great arms 
leaped like snakes from the sea, and for a mo¬ 
ment it seemed that the octopus was going to 
shake out the light spear. An inky black fluid— 
the same that I was to see later in the trip with 
the. Japanese—dyed the water until we could 
scarcely see the devilfish. 
Gratiano waited until the struggles had 
ceased, and then hauled the creature in, hand 
over hand. The long barbs held, even in the 
soft, leathery body, and soon pierced through 
and through the flabby sack and the seven long 
arms were in the boat, to be stowed away in a 
well filled with salt water stronger than that of 
the sea in the bottom of the little craft. 
We hunted all the remainder of that day, 
and saw eleven of the octopi asleep, or swim^ 
ming slowly, on the ocean. At no time were 
we more than three hundred yards from shore, 
except once, when we pursued and lost an 
enormous cuttlefish, which I am rather glad we 
did not get, for once he raised one of his arms, 
and it seemed a good twenty feet in length. As 
it was, we secured seven through Gratiano’s 
skill with the spear, and he informed me that 
this was a much better bag than he usually 
made. 
“Under and Over” Pistols. 
In referring to early examples of double- 
barreled firearms having their barrels placed 
one above the other mention has been made of 
the extensive vogue formerly enjoyed by flint¬ 
lock pistols of this kind. Muzzleloading guns 
and rifles were often constructed after this 
fashion, with the barrels turning on a pivot, so 
that one lock served to discharge both. Pistols, 
otherwise of a similar kind, had usually two 
locks and fixed barrels. They resembled as 
nearly as possible the ordinary double pistols 
with barrels side by side, but their flat shape 
enabled them to be carried more conveniently 
in holster or pocket. The pistol referred to 
bears upon both locks the name “Garner,” and 
upon the top barrel “London” is engraved. 
Two bands of inlayed gold decorate the breech, 
there is a silver escutcheon on the butt, and 
both the touch holes are of platinum. The 
platinum plugs are set in midway between the 
two barrels. That on the right-hand side is 
bored diagonally upward, to communicate with 
the center of the cupped breecli of the top bar¬ 
rel, and that on the left diagonally downwards 
to reach the lower barrel. The locks are ex¬ 
tended forward along the barrels and are secured 
by hook-shaped metal projections one on either 
side of the lower barrel. The usual pin or 
side nail going through both locks fixes them in 
the stock. External safeties, sliding on the 
lock plates, serve to bolt the cocks in the half- 
cock position, the “hammers” being down and 
the pans covered. The pistol bears' Birming¬ 
ham proof marks, and these suggest for its 
production a date subsequent to the year 1813, 
when these marks were first used. The con¬ 
ventional style of engraving adopted would be 
appropriate for the period of transition from 
the flint to the detonating systems. The name 
Garner does not'occur in lists of London gun- 
makers from 1812-1820, which have been con¬ 
sulted, but these lists are by no means exhaus¬ 
tive. Thanks are due to Mr. Thomas Turner, 
the proof master of Birmingham, for the loan 
of this interesting specimen from his collection 
of old firearms.—London Field. 
