The Portuguese Have
Named Them All, According To Some Obvious Property.
Thus they call some
_rushtails_, because their tails are small and long like a rush, and not
proportionate to their bodies; some _fork-tails_, because their tails
are very broad and forked; others again _velvet-sleeves_, because their
wings are like velvet, and are always bent like a mans elbow.
This bird
is always welcome, as it appears nearest the Cape. I should never have
an end, were I to tell you all particulars, but shall touch on a few
that may suffice, if you mark them well, to give cause for glorifying
God in his wonderful works, and in the variety of his creatures.
To say something of fishes: In all the places of calms, and especially
in the burning zone near the line, there continually waited on our ship
certain fishes, called _tuberones_[401] by the Portuguese, as long as a
man, which came to eat such things as might fall from the ship into the
sea, not even refusing men themselves if they could light upon any, and
if they find any meat hung over into the sea, they seize it. These have
waiting upon them continually six or seven, small fishes, having blue
and green bands round their bodies, like finely dressed serving men. Of
these two or three always swim before the shark, and some on every side,
[whence they are called _pilot fish_, by the English mariners.] They
have likewise other fishes [called _sucking fish_] which always cleave
to their bodies; and seem to feed on such superfluities as grow about
them, and they are said to enter into their bodies to purge them, when
needful. Formerly the mariners used to eat the sharks, but since they
have seen them devour men, their stomachs now abhor them; yet they draw
them up with great hooks, and kill as many of them as they can, thinking
thereby to take a great revenge. There is another kind of fish almost as
large as a herring, which hath wings and flieth, and are very numerous.
These have two enemies, one in the sea and the other in the air.
[Footnote 401: Evidently sharks, from the account of them. - E.]
That in the sea is the fish called _albicore_, as large as a salmon,
which follows with great swiftness to take them; on which this poor
fish, which cannot swim fast as it hath no fins, and only swims by the
motion of its tail, having its wings then shut along the sides of its
body, springeth out of the water and flieth, but not very high; on this
the albicore, though he have no wings, giveth a great leap out of the
water, and sometimes catcheth the flying fish, or else keepeth in the
water, going that way as fast as the other flieth. When the flying fish
is weary of the air, or thinketh himself out of danger, he returneth to
the water, where the albicore meeteth him; but sometimes his other
enemy, the sea-crow, catcheth him in the air before he falleth.
With these and the like sights, but always making our supplications to
God for good weather and the preservation of our ship, we came at length
to the south cape of Africa, the ever famous Cape of Good Hope, so much
desired yet feared of all men: But we there found no tempest, only
immense waves, where our pilot was guilty of an oversight; for, whereas
commonly all navigators do never come within sight of land, but,
contenting themselves with signs and finding the bottom, go their course
safe and sure, he, thinking to have the winds at will, shot nigh the
land; when the wind, changing into the south, with the assistance of the
mountainous waves, rolled us so near the land that we were in less than
14 fathoms, only six miles from _Capo das Agulias_, and there we looked
to be utterly lost. Under us were huge rocks, so sharp and cutting that
no anchor could possibly hold the ship, and the shore was so excessively
bad that nothing could take the land, which besides is full of _tigers_
and savage people, who put all strangers to death, so that we had no
hope or comfort, but only in God and a good conscience. Yet, after we
had lost our anchors, hoisting up our sails to try to get the ship upon
some safer part of the coast, it pleased God, when no man looked for
help, suddenly to fill our sails with a wind off the land, and so by
good providence we escaped, thanks be to God. The day following, being
in a place where they are always wont to fish, we also fell a fishing,
and caught so many, that they served the whole ships company all that
day and part of the next. One of our lines pulled up a coral of great
size and value; for it is said that in this place, which indeed we saw
by experience, that the corals grow on the rocks at the bottom of the
sea in the manner of stalks, becoming hard and red.
Our day of peril was the 29th of July. You must understand that, after
passing the Cape of Good Hope, there are two ways to India, one within
the island of Madagascar, or between that and Africa, called the Canal
of Mozambique, which the Portuguese prefer, as they refresh themselves
for a fortnight or a month at Mozambique, not without great need after
being so long at sea, and thence in another month get to Goa. The other
course is on the outside of the island of St Lawrence or Madagascar,
which they take when they set out too late, or come so late to the Cape
as not to have time to stop at Mozambique, and then they go on their
voyage in great heaviness, because in this way they have no port; and,
by reason of the long navigation, and the want of fresh provisions and
water, they fall into sundry diseases.
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