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FIRE FISHING OF GENOESE How the Italian Fisherman Makes His Catches in Flame Gruesome Octopus Mostly Sougrlit and andHarpooned Harpooned AVIien Dazzled Dazzledby by Flare If a traveler is anxious to tread outside the beaten road and to see something of the real life of the people he can hardly do better than to make a fisherman his friend and join in the pesca al fugo as the Genoese call fire fishing Here lie will see a serious way of earning bread and combine it with a sport not easily surpassed in picturesque ness Zest is lent to this industry if such it can be called by the uncertainly that attends it The work goes for something the wood for the fire again means trouble to collect or money to buy oil to give the water an artificial calmness and per ¬ haps not the least part of the price to an Italian peasant sleep If you put the question to an Italian as I have often done he will answer Eh per la pesca basta prendere del pesci Its enough to catcli fish But he will go on to explain that while the firefishing gives the most incident it requires more cost costNo No one I think ever forgets his first impres ¬ sions of this sport writes Ben Kendim in Jlackwoods Magazine The first effect is dazzling and eyes that are half blinded by the flar ¬ ing crimson in the end of the boat fail at the be giunihg to penetrate the green stillness of the water Then gradually as ones sight becomes ac ¬ customed to new conditions curious sea creatures aplMar below the ripple and refraction of the near surface and stare up from the chasms of the rocks or from the indeterminate twilight where piw torch and lifting seaweed struggle for mastery masteryTENTOOTHED TENTOOTHED HARPOON THE WEAPON WEAPONFish Fish seem to lie like shadows between two un ¬ certainties almost one would say a part of the darkness of some fissure detached and thrown up tentatively toward the inquisitive fire Before the dim shapelessness has time to melt in the depths or to become more definite the liarpooner proves the reality of the hanging shadow There is u splash as the sjxar with its ten teeth drives down to the fish and a thread of light rises from very prong With the same suddenness the spear returns through a turmoil of the waters dripping phosphorus answers the phosphorus of the sea and a sickly illumination which drowns the reflection of the stars marks the place of the blow blowA A burst of execration or jubilant voices proclaim the failure or success of the strike The dark Italian faces somber in the firelight are intent upon their business and eager eyes read the quiet water as a scholar reads a page The brunt of the work and responsibility fall upon the spearsman in the bows for other duties besides that of striking devolve on him His hand must be quick with the oil can to soothe the ripple at the moment of its birth back to a perfect transparency while his yes are not only strained in a perpetual examina ¬ tion of the sea lint meet the continual glare of the light which on this open water and in a faint breeze sometimes breaks into a cloud of sparks that make a halo round his head headThe The least practiced because least lucrative form of firefishing is the most picturesque its game is the octopus and its mise en scene a cavern where a boat cannot penetrate The creature is usually found in the shallow of the rocks and cannot resist the spell of the light One must frankly admit that the capture of one of the beasts is a revolting incident in an enchanting night The 4I olpo an onomatopoetic word if ever there was one is a cheap and common food in maritime Italy In a village which I have in mind I knew an an ¬ cient man who had the audacity to set up an hotel where the menu consisted entirely of octopus His sense was that he was deaf and dumb and also probably a little mad though from his other de ¬ ficiencies the degree of this last failing was not easily arrived at atEOW EOW THE OCOXOPTTS IS LTJBED LTJBEDThe The mans occupation was simple in the extreme and consisted only in paddling round the rocks with t red rag in tow This color attracts the octopus I which once it has seized upon an object never wil ¬ lingly relinquishes it Vho I once asked another fisherman who ever goes to that hotel and why Eh iwveretto ci vanno per carita he said Poor man they go for the sake of charity Charity in tiiis form however had its limits and the mute was obliged to give up his experiment The life of tills mans brother is an instance of the kindness of Italians generally and of individual wrongheaded ness This peatant lived fourteen years as an out ¬ law in the mountain to escape his military service During this period he was kept by the contadini his hiding place was never betrayed and every now and then when it was certain that the carabineri would not he present he attended a festa festaThe The Italian of the rural districts combines a picturesqueness of diction and a camaraderie that are not easily reviled Everything in Heaven or on earth is at once and fluently accounted for by i reason hut to the searcher after knowledge the reason itself often requires a long explanation For instance when the sport has been unusually bad I liave heard the church acrimoniously attacked and traced the origin of the venom to a supposed sco inunica excommunication unquestionably the re ¬ sult of a meeting on the quay with the parish priest The weather prophet is every mans trade where life dcneuds in any form upon the sea and if the pupil is willing there are always many nasters ready to teach him infallible ways of pre ¬ dicting storm or sunshine If for instance the Iolphins go northward good weather is certain but if their way is to the east wind may be ex ¬ pected The dolphins go to the south and west for the inadequate reason that it is merely the will of the beast And the old fisherman will sometimes speak of the ancient superstition that siys these creatures when they die change to all the colors of the rainbow
