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.
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