The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 128, November, 1908Various
History
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 128, November, 1908
Various
Adventure stories -- Periodicals; English periodicals; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Voyages and travels -- Periodicals
After this fourth experience I confessed that my nerve was considerably
shaken. To go on living by myself in London was only to court disaster
and live in daily expectation of a fifth attempt on my life. I need
not trouble the reader with the details of my consultations with the
Benedicts and my father, who became reconciled to me on hearing my
story. The end of it was that, after a few months' strict seclusion
with a coach in the country, I entered the Militia.
At L----, where I am stationed, I ought to be fairly safe among my
brother officers and the soldiers. And yet, who knows? Perhaps Wyngate
(who goes about openly in London, dines at the best restaurants, and
stares defiantly at friends of mine who know the story) is tired of
pursuing me, or thinks the game is not worth the candle. I hope so, at
any rate, for I sometimes feel that if he keeps to his purpose he will,
sooner or later, achieve it.
DOLPHIN=HUNTING.
+By Victor Forbin.+
A vivacious account by a French journalist of his introduction to a
curious sport of which practically nothing is known in this country.
For a long time a hotbed of patriotic Anglophobia, St. Malo, the
ancient city whose proud boast it is that it has never been conquered,
has been of recent years quietly annexed, so to speak, by its former
foe, and has become a popular resort with English tourists, so that
the poorest of its shops is proud to display on its front windows the
welcoming motto, "English spoken."
The Malouins themselves are the boldest sailors of France; it is a
saying among them that "they have the love of the sea in their blood."
The sons and grandsons of daring privateers, they pass nearly their
whole lives at sea, many of them going every year to the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland for the cod-fishing season.
Even the well-to-do classes, gentry or bourgeoisie, are fond of
maritime pastimes such as fishing and yachting. Their favourite
diversion, however, is dolphin-hunting, a sport which the authorities
encourage by every means in their power, since dolphins and porpoises
are causing terrible havoc among the schools of herring and sardines on
the French coast, thus destroying the livelihood of the fisher-folk.
[Illustration: "DELPHINUS DELPHIS," THE LARGEST SPECIES OF DOLPHIN
FOUND OFF THE BRITTANY COAST--IT WEIGHS FROM THREE TO FOUR HUNDRED
POUNDS, AND MAY REACH NINE FEET IN LENGTH.
_From a Photograph._]
During a recent stay in the suburbs of St. Malo, my host insisted upon
introducing me to the enchantment of a sport of whose very existence I
had hitherto been ignorant.
"You cannot possibly return to Paris until you have killed your
porpoise, can you?" he asked, insinuatingly.
"I am here for rest, not for butchery," I replied, indolently.
"But just think of the story you will have to tell," he continued. "A
dolphin hunt! It is old to us Malouins, but what a novelty for you, a
newspaper man, a Parisian!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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