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.
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