These Dolphins Are Very
Apt To Follow Our Ships, Not, So Far As I Think, From Any Love They Bear
For Men, As Some Authors Write, But To Feed Upon What May Be Thrown
Overboard.
Whence it comes to pass that they often become food to us;
for, when they swim close by the
Ships, they are struck by a broad
instrument full of barbed points, called a harping-iron, to which a rope
is fastened, by which to pull the instrument and the fish on board. This
beautiful dolphin may be taken as an emblem of a race of men, who, under
sweet countenances, carry sharp tongues. The bonitoes and albicores are
much like our mackerels in colour, shape, and taste, but grow to a very
large size. The flying-fishes live the most unhappy lives of all others,
as they are persecuted in the water by the dolphins, bonitoes, and
albicores, and when they endeavour to escape from their enemies in the
water, by rising up in flight, they are assailed by ravenous fowls in
the air, somewhat like our kites, which hover over the water in waiting
for their appearance in the other element. These flying-fishes are like
men who profess two trades and thrive in neither.
Early in the morning of the 12th June, we espied our long-wished-for
harbour, the bay of Saldanha, [Table-bay] about twelve leagues short
from the Cape of Good Hope, into which we came happily to anchor that
same forenoon.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 603 of 910
Words from 163908 to 164159
of 247546
