Daily Tobacco Leaf Chronicle

KNOCKED OUT BY A FISH.

Unpleasant Experience of an Amateur Sailor with a Large Flying Fish.

Persons who have not experienced some seafaring among the West India islands and become to some extent familiarized with the tricks and antics of the flying fish which abound in these waters will be surprised at the velocity they attain in their short flights. The fish will never leave the water unless compelled to do so by their natural enemies, the dolphins, and when they do fly they shoot through the air like a rocket.

Some years ago, while on a voyage to Rio Janeiro, I had an experience off the Cuban coast with a flying fish that I am not likely to forget and which made me the subject of considerable merriment among my older companions. The majority of them were old sailors who had visited these waters many times before and were well acquainted with the tricks of the winged fish.

They prefer flying at night, and it was during the midnight watch that I met with my adventure. The night was one of those balmy evenings peculiar to sub-tropical waters, seldom if ever experienced in the north. The full moon was shining so brightly that one could almost feel its rays. The breeze had fallen away completely, allowing the sails to flap lazily against the spars in accompaniment to the monotonous squeaking of the vessel as she wallowed lazily in the trough of the long ground swell. As far as eye could reach around the horizon not a ripple was visible on the surface of the sea. The very elements appeared to be slumbering. The whole watch, with the exception of the man at the wheel and I, were gathered around the combings of the fore hatch spinning yarns and smoking. I was seated upon the capstan on the "lookout," but the somnolence of the very atmosphere itself kept me in a drowsy state just between waking and sleeping.

This, together with the musical chirping of the "Mother Carey's chickens" in the fore rigging, proved too much for my feeble efforts at wakefulness, and several times I came within an ace of falling overboard. This continued until near the end of my watch, when as I peacefully dozed off I heard a sudden "swish," and before I was aware of what had happened I received a terrific blow between the eyes, the force of which knocked me off the capstan over the windlass and down to the deck. I leaped up, seized a belaying pin and demanded to know who hit me. My answer was a burst of laughter, and one of the men pointed to the topgallant forecastle at a large flying fish flapping on the deck. It had struck me while passing over the ship, and raised a lump the size of a hen's egg between my eyes. We fried the fish the next morning and breakfasted off of it.- New York Herald.