The Lieutenant and Commander Part 4

"The south-east monsoon predominates from April to October in the s.p.a.ce last mentioned, and in some places reaches to the equator." In this case, the slow moving air near the southern tropic is brought, as in the ordinary case of the south-east Trade wind, to the quick-moving parts of the earth's surface.

The following remark of Horsburgh's, in describing the monsoons, is extremely valuable, and a.s.sists to explain Hadley's theory of these matters:--"The parts where the north-west and the south-east monsoons prevail with greatest strength and regularity are in the Java sea, and from thence eastward to Timor, amongst the Molucca and Banda islands, and onward to New Guinea;" for it will be obvious to any one who inspects the globe, on reading this pa.s.sage, that there occurs in the neighbourhood of the spots alluded to a powerful cause for the strength and regularity of the monsoons. The enormous island, or continent, as it might almost be called, of Australia, may well be supposed to act the part of a heater from October to April, when the sun is so nearly over it. During that period the equatorial air is drawn to the south, along the intermediate seas, amongst the Moluccas and other Spice islands, so as to produce a strong and steady north-westerly monsoon. Of course, the opposite effect will be produced when the sun retreats to the north, and leaves Australia to cool.

These instances are quite enough, I should imagine, to satisfy ordinary curiosity on this point; but professional men ought not to be contented till they have investigated all branches of this important topic; including that elegant and very useful episode, the land and sea breezes of all hot climates, and Horsburgh's East India Directory, which I have quoted above so frequently, is by far the best authority with which I am acquainted on these subjects. At the same time, I must not omit to do justice to a beautifully-written and accurate Essay on Winds and Currents, by that Prince of all Voyagers, Old Dampier; who, with means far more circ.u.mscribed than most of his successors, has contrived to arrange and condense his information in such a way as not only to render it available to practical men, but to make it intelligible and interesting to every cla.s.s of readers.[4]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] It is necessary to note here that these questions have been examined since Captain Hall wrote, by Commander Maury, late secretary to the American navy, in the true a.n.a.lytical spirit, and immense progress made in our knowledge of these winds by the ma.s.s of practical observations on the subject made by practical navigators, and published under his directions.--ED.

[4] The principle of "Great Circle Sailing," which now guides the navigator to the Indian Ocean, must be studied in connection with this chapter. "For every degree the ship changes her longitude south of the Line she sails a shorter distance along the great circle than on any other curve; for on the parallel of 60 thirty miles corresponds to a distance of sixty at the equator."--ROBERTSON'S _Theory of Great Circle Sailing_: Bell and Daldy.

CHAPTER VII.

PROGRESS OF THE VOYAGE.

Let people say what they please of the fine bracing weather of a cold climate, I have never seen any truth-speaking persons who, on coming fairly to the trial, did not complain of a cold frosty morning as a very great nuisance, or who did not cling eagerly to the fire to unbrace themselves again. For my own part, I have always delighted in the relaxation caused by hot weather; and, accordingly, I have very seldom, if ever, felt the weather disagreeably warm, even in India, especially when sailing on the open sea, or enjoying the free range of a wide country, under awnings and bungaloes, or stretched in a palanquin, or shaded by an umbrella on the back of an elephant.

Soldiers and sailors, whose duty exposes them at all hours, either on a march or in boats, are often struck down by the heat, and sigh with all their hearts for the bracing frosts of higher lat.i.tudes. But those who have the means of bringing to bear on their comforts the innumerable contrivances which the ingenuity of wealth has devised in the East, indeed, make its climate not only bearable, but one of the most enjoyable in the world.

As we sailed along on our voyage to India, gradually slipping down from the high to the low lat.i.tudes, the sun crept up higher and higher every day towards the zenith, while the thermometer, of course, rose likewise. What was most agreeable in this change from cold to warmth was the little difference between the temperature of the day and that of the night. As we approached the equator, the thermometer fell only from 82 in the day-time to 79 or 80 at night, which, on deck, was delightful. We did not, of course, come to this high temperature all at once; for on the 6th of May, the day after we pa.s.sed directly under the sun, the average of the twenty-four hours was 73, and at night 69 and 70.

It is not to be imagined that everyone was pleased with these changes; for on board ship, as on sh.o.r.e, there exist discontented spirits, whose acquired habit it is to find fault with the existing state of things, be these what they may. To such cantankerous folks a growl of misery would really seem to be the great paradoxical happiness of their lives, and, in the absence of real hardship, it is part of your thorough-bred growler to prophesy. I have seen a middy of this stamp glad to find, on coming below, that some insignificant portion of his dinner really had been devoured by his hungry messmates, while he himself was keeping his watch on deck.

"I am used worse than a dog!" he would cry, secretly delighted to have gained the luxury of a grievance, "I can't even get a basin of pease-soup put by for me; it's an infernal shame, I'll cut the service!"

The diversity of climate on an Indian voyage furnishes capital nuts for these perturbed spirits. It is first too cold, then too hot; then there is not wind enough; then it blows too fresh in the squalls: by-and-bye the nights are discovered to be abominably close and sultry, and in the day the fierce flaming downright heat of the sun is still worse; then the calms are never to be over; or the lying trades, as they call them, have got capsized, and blow from the west instead of the east! After the line has been crossed, and the south-east wind is met with, the weather soon becomes what these ingenious fellows call too temperate, then it grows too cold again; and next off the Cape the lat.i.tude is too stormy. In this alone they have some reason; and I have often regretted that, by a royal ordinance of the King of Portugal, the name of this mighty promontory was changed from Cabo de Tormentos, the headland of storms, to its present spoony t.i.tle. In short, this grand voyage is merely a peristrephic panorama of miseries, which if they survive, say they, it will be happy for them.--Happy! Not a whit. It is out of their nature to be happy. To find fault, to fling away the good the G.o.ds provide them, and to aggravate the pain of every real wound by the impatience of idle complaints, is their diseased joy. "Evil, be thou my good!" they might well exclaim; for, instead of heightening the pleasures of life by full partic.i.p.ation, or subduing its inevitable evils, or, at all events, softening their asperity by enduring with fort.i.tude and cheerfulness what cannot be helped, these self-tormentors reject what is substantially pleasing, and cling with habitual but morbid relish to whatever is disagreeable.

As we glided along, through the Trade-winds, towards the neck of sea which divides Africa from South America, the symptoms of a change in climate became daily more manifest. Every skylight and stern window was thrown wide open, and every cabin scuttle driven out, that a free draught of air might sweep through the ship all night long. In the day-time, the pitch in the seams of the upper-deck began to melt, and, by sticking to the soles of our shoes, plastered the planks, to the great discomfiture of the captain of the after-guard. The tar, oozing from the cordage aloft, dropped on our heads, speckled the snow white boat covers, and obliged us to spread the hammock-cloths, to prevent the bedding being ruined by the spots. On the larboard or eastern side of the ship, which, of course, is always presented to the sun when crossing the Trades on the outward-bound voyage, the pitch and rosin with which the seams had been payed ran down in little streams across the lines of paint. To prevent, as far as we could, some of these annoyances, we spread the awnings over the decks, and triced up the curtains, fore and aft, while every art was used to introduce air to all parts of the ship. The half-ports were removed from the main-deck guns, the gratings put on one side, and as many windsails sent down the hatchways as could be made to catch a puff of air. Blue trousers and beaver sc.r.a.pers soon gave way before the elements, and were succeeded by nankeens, straw hats, and canvas caps. In the captain's cabin, where the presence of the governor, our pa.s.senger, still kept up the strait-laced etiquette of the service, coats and epaulettes appeared at dinner; but in the gun-room, the officers, the instant they came below, slipped on their light white jackets, and, disdaining waistcoat, seized their flutes and books, and drew their chairs as near as possible to the mouth of the windsail. In the midshipmen's berth, outside in the steerage, the shirt without neckcloth or stock, and sometimes with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was the most fashionable rig. The seamen and marines, of course, dined on the main-deck, not only that they might enjoy the fresh air breathing gently in upon them through the ports on the weather side, and sweeping out again by those to leeward, but that the lower deck might be kept as cool and airy as possible against the sultry feverish night season.

On such occasions the men leave their tables and stools below, and either seat themselves tailor-fashion, or recline Roman-fashion. Nor is this in the least degree unpleasant; for the deck of a man-of-war is made as clean every morning as any table, and is kept so during the day by being swept at least once an hour. Of all the tunes played by the boatswain's pipe, that which calls the sweepers is the most frequently heard. When the order is given for dining on deck, the different messes into which the crew are divided occupy the spots immediately above their usual mess-places below, as far as the guns allow of their doing so. It has always struck me as very pleasing, to see the main-deck covered, from the after hatchway to the cook's coppers, with the people's messes, enjoying their noon-day repast; while the celestial grog, with which their hard, dry, salt junk is washed down, out-matches twenty-fold in Jack's estimation all the thin potations of those who, in no very courteous language, are called their betters.

Until we had crossed the North-east Trade, and reached the Calms, the ship's way through the water was too great to allow of bathing alongside; but we easily contrived a shower-bath, which answered very well. This consisted of a packing-box, the bottom of which was perforated with holes, triced up between two of the skids, near the gangway, and under the quarter of one of the boats on the booms. A couple of the top-men with draw-buckets supplied the water from above, while the bather stood on the main-deck, enjoying the shower. The time selected for this delightful bath was usually about four o'clock in the morning, after the middle watch was out, and before the exhausted officer tumbled into bed. A four hours' walk, indeed, in a sultry night, be it managed ever so gently, has a tendency to produce a degree of heat approaching to feverishness; and I have no words to describe the luxury of standing under a cool shower when the long task is ended. We were generally just enough fatigued to be sure of a sound, light, happy sleep, and just enough heated to revel in the coolest water that was to be had. In fact, we found that of the sea much too warm, being only two or three degrees below the temperature of the air. To remedy this, our plan was, to expose a dozen buckets-full on the gangway at eight or nine o'clock in the evening; and these, being allowed to stand till morning, became so much cooler by the evaporation in the night, that the shock was unspeakably grateful.

Perhaps there is not any more characteristic evidence of our being within the tropical regions than the company of those picturesque little animals, the flying-fish. It is true, that a stray one or two may sometimes be met with far north, making a few short skips out of the water, and I even remember seeing several close to the edge of the banks of Newfoundland, in lat.i.tude 45; but it is not until the voyager has fairly reached the heart of the torrid zone that he sees the flying-fish in perfection. I have hardly ever observed a person so dull or unimaginative that his eye did not glisten as he watched a shoal of flying-fish rise from the sea, and skim along for several hundred yards. There is something in it so totally dissimilar to everything else in other parts of the world, that our wonder goes on increasing every time we see even a single one take its flight. The incredulity of the old Scotch woman on this head is sufficiently excusable. "You may hae seen rivers o' milk, and mountains o' sugar,"

said she to her son, returned from a voyage; "but you'll ne'er gar me believe you have seen a fish that could flee!"

The pleasant Trade, which had wafted us with different degrees of velocity, over a distance of more than a thousand miles, at last gradually failed. The sails began to flap gently against the masts, so gently, indeed, that we half hoped it was caused, not so much by the diminished force of the breeze, with which we wore very unwilling to part, as by that long and peculiar swell which,

"In the torrid clime Dark heaving,"

is productive of oscillating motion on the ship; but the faint zephyrs, which had coquetted with our languid sails for an hour or two, at length took their leave, first of the courses, then of the topsails, and lastly of the royals and the smaller flying kites aloft. In vain we looked round and round the horizon for some traces of a return of our old friend the Trade, but could distinguish nothing save one polished, dark-heaving sheet of gla.s.s, reflecting the unbroken disc of the sun, and the bright clear sky in the moving mirror beneath. From the heat, which soon became intense, there was no escape, either on deck or below, aloft in the tops, or still higher on the cross-trees; neither could we find relief down in the hold; for it was all the same, except that in the exposed situations we were scorched or roasted, in the others suffocated. The useless helm was lashed amidships, the yards were lowered on the cap, and the boats were dropped into the water, to fill up the cracks and rents caused by the fierce heat. The occasion was taken advantage of to shift some of the sails, and to mend others; most of the running-ropes also were turned end for end. A listless feeling stole over us all, and we lay about the decks gasping for breath, seeking in vain some alleviation to our thirst by drink! drink! drink! Alas, the transient indulgence only made the matter worse!

Meanwhile, our convoy of huge China ships, rolling very slowly on the top of the long, smooth, and scarcely perceptible ridges, or sinking as gently between their summits, were scattered in all directions, with their heads in different ways, some looking homeward again, and some, as if by instinct, keeping still for the south. How it happens I do not know, but on occasions of perfect calm, or such as appear to be perfectly calm, the ships of a fleet generally drift away from one another; so that, at the end of a few hours, the whole circle bounded by the horizon is speckled over with these unmanageable hulks, as they may for the time be considered. It will occasionally happen, indeed, that two ships draw so near in a calm as to incur some risk of falling on board one another. I need scarcely mention, that, even in the smoothest water ever found in the open sea, two large ships coming into actual contact must prove a formidable encounter. As long as they are apart their gentle and rather graceful movements are fit subjects of admiration; and I have often seen people gazing, for an hour at a time, at the ships of a becalmed fleet, slowly twisting round, changing their position, and rolling from side to side, as silently as if they had been in harbour, or accompanied only by the faint, rippling sound tripping along the water-line, as the copper below the bends alternately sunk into the sea, or rose out of it, dripping wet, and shining as bright and clean as a new coin, from the constant friction of the ocean during the previous rapid pa.s.sage across the Trade-winds.

But all this picturesque admiration changes to alarm when ships come so close as to risk a contact; for these motions, which appear so slow and gentle to the eye, are irresistible in their force; and as the chances are against the two vessels moving exactly in the same direction at the same moment, they must speedily grind or tear one another to pieces. Supposing them to come in contact side by side, the first roll would probably tear away the fore and main channels of both ships; the next roll, by interlacing the lower yards, and entangling the spars of one ship with the shrouds and backstays of the other, would in all likelihood bring down all three masts of both ships, not piecemeal, as the poet hath it, but in one furious crash. Beneath the ruins of the spars, the coils of rigging, and the enormous folds of canvas, might lie crushed many of the best hands, who, from being always the foremost to spring forward in such seasons of danger, are surest to be sacrificed. After this first catastrophe, the ships would probably drift away from one another for a little while, only to tumble together again and again, till they had ground one another to the water's edge, and one or both of them would fill and go down. In such encounters it is impossible to stop the mischief, and oak and iron break, and crumble in pieces, like sealing-wax and pie-crust.

Many instances of such accidents are on record, but I never witnessed one.

To prevent these frightful _rencontres_ care is always taken to hoist out the boats in good time, if need be, to tow the ships apart, or, what is generally sufficient, to tow the ships' heads in opposite directions. I scarcely know why this should have the effect, but certainly it appears that, be the calm ever so complete, or dead, as the term is, a vessel generally forges ahead, or steals along imperceptibly in the direction she is looking to; possibly from the conformation of the hull.

Shortly after the Trade-wind left us, a cloud rose in the south, which soon filled the whole air, and discharged upon us the most furious shower I ever beheld. The rain fell down in perpendicular lines of drops, or spouts, without a breath of wind, unaccompanied by thunder or any other noise, and in one great gush or splash, as if some prodigious reservoir had been upset over the fleet from the edge of the cloud.

Our n.o.ble commander, delighted with the opportunity of replenishing his stock of water, called out, "Put shot on each side, and slack all the stops down, so that the awnings may slope inwards. Get buckets and empty casks to hand instantly!"

In a few minutes the awnings were half full of water, and a hole connected with a hose having been prepared beforehand near the lowest point, where the canvas was weighed down by the shot, a stream descended as if a c.o.c.k had been turned. Not a drop of this was lost; but being carried off, it was poured into a starting-tub at the hatchway, and so conveyed by a pipe to the casks in the hold. By the time the squall was over we had filled six or eight b.u.t.ts; and although not good to drink, from being contaminated by the tar from the ropes and sails, the water answered admirably for washing, which was our object in catching it.

Ever since the days of Captain Cook it has been the practice to allow the crew two washing days per week, on the details of which proceeding we all know the misery of putting on wet clothes, or sleeping in damp sheets. Now, a shirt washed in salt water is really a great deal worse than either; putting on linen washed in salt water, you first dry your unhappy shirt by exposing it to the sun or the fire till it seems as free from moisture as any bone; you then put it on, in hopes of enjoying the benefit of clean linen. Alas, not a whit of enjoyment follows! For if the air be in a humid state, or you are exposed to exercise, the treacherous salt, which, when crystallised, has hidden itself in the fibres of the cloth, speedily melts, and you have all the tortures of being once more wrapped in moist drapery. In your agony, you pull it off, run to the galley-range, and toast it over again; or you hang it up in the fiery heat of the southern sun, and when not a particle of wet seems to remain, you draw it on a second time, fancying your job at last complete. But, miserable man that you are! the insidious enemy still lurks there, and no art we yet know of will expel him, save and except that of a good sound rinsing in fresh water.

I need scarcely add, then, that there are few favours of the minor kind which a considerate captain may bestow on his crew more appreciated than giving them as much fresh water as will serve to carry off the abominable salt from their clothes, after they have first been well scoured in the water of the ocean; it is a great comfort, and an officer of any activity, by a judicious management of the ship's regular stock, and, above all, by losing no opportunity of catching rain water, need seldom be without the means of giving to each man of his crew a gallon twice a-week during the longest voyage.

It was from an old and excellent officer I first learned, that, by proper and constant care, this indulgence might almost always be granted. It is not easy, I freely admit, at all times, and in all climates, to keep a supply Of washing-water on board. But a captain ought to do what is right and kind, simply because it is right and kind, regardless of trouble; and his conduct in this respect should not be uninfluenced by the manner in which it is received; at all events, he may be certain that if his favours be not well received, the fault lies in his manner of giving them. Sailors have the most acute penetration possible on these occasions; and if the captain be actuated by any wish except that of doing his duty uniformly and kindly, the Johnnies will see through it all, and either laugh at him or hate him.

CHAPTER VIII.

AQUATIC SPORTS.

One day, after we had lost the north-east Trade wind, a furious squall, unperceived till it reached us, swept through the fleet. These violent tornadoes are generally called white squalls, from being unattended by those black heavy rain clouds. On the occasion of ordinary squalls, even with the advantage of the warning given by rising clouds, it is not always easy to escape their force unhurt. If the wind be fair, a natural reluctance is felt to shorten sail, at all events, until the squall is so near that there is an absolute necessity for doing so, and inexperienced officers are often deceived by the unexpected velocity with which the gust comes down upon them.

Even the oldest sailors are apt to miscalculate the time likely to elapse before the wind can touch them. In these cases, unless the men be very active, the sails are torn, and sometimes a mast or a yard is carried away. It is, besides, often doubtful whether there is wind or merely a plump of rain in the squall; there are, therefore, few points of distinction more remarkable between the seamanship of an old and a young officer, than their power of judging of this matter. To a man quite inexperienced, a squall may look in the highest degree threatening; he will order the top-gallant clew-lines to be manned, place hands by the topsail haulyards, and lay along the main clew-garnets. His more experienced captain, however, being apprised of the squall's approach, steps on deck, takes a hasty look to windward, and says quietly to the officer of the watch, "Never mind, there's nothing in it, it's only rain; keep the sails on her."

But although the older authority nine times in ten proves correct in his judgment, even he might find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell exactly upon what his confidence rested. Sailors boast, indeed, of having an infallible test by which the point in question may be ascertained, their secret being clothed in the following rhymes so to call them:--

"If the rain's before the wind, 'Tis time to take the topsails in; If the wind's before the rain, Hoist your topsails up again."

The practical knowledge alluded to, however, comes not by rhymes, but by experience alone, with a kind of intuitive confidence. Many long and hard years of study, and myriads of forgotten trials must have been gone through to give this enviable knowledge.

No experience, however, can altogether guard against these sudden gusts or white squalls, since they make no show, except, sometimes, by a rippling of the water along which they are sweeping. On the occasion above alluded to there was not even this faint warning. The first ships of the convoy touched by the blast were laid over almost on their beam-ends, but in the next instant righted again, on the whole of their sails being blown clean out of the bolt-ropes. The Theban frigate and the Volage, then lying nearly in the centre of the fleet, were the only ships which saved an inch of canvas, owing chiefly to our having so many more hands on board, but partly to our having caught sight of the ruin brought on the vessels near us, just in time to let fly the sheets and haulyards and get the yards down. But even then, with the utmost exertion of every man and boy on board, we barely succeeded in clewing all up.

When this hurricane of a moment had pa.s.sed, and we had time to look round, not a rag was to be seen in the whole fleet; while the Wexford, a ship near us, had lost her three top-gallant masts and jib-boom, and, what was a much more serious misfortune, her fore-topmast was dangling over the bows. Part of the fore-topsail was wrapped like a shawl round the lee cat-head, while the rest hung down in festoons from the collar of the fore-stay to the spritsail yard-arm. A stout party of seamen from each of the men-of-war were sent to a.s.sist in clearing the wreck, and getting up fresh spars; and a light fair wind having succeeded to the calm in which we had been lolling about for many days, we took our wounded bird in tow, and made all sail towards the equator. By this time, also, the China ships had bent a new set of sails, and were resuming their old stations in the appointed order of bearing, which it was our policy to keep up strictly, together with as many other of the formalities of a fleet in line of battle and on a cruise as we could possibly maintain.

While we were thus stealing along pleasantly enough under the genial influence of this newly-found air, which as yet was confined to the upper sails, and every one was looking open-mouthed to the eastward to catch a gulp of cool air, or was congratulating his neighbour on getting rid of the tiresome calm in which we had been so long half-roasted, half-suffocated, about a dozen flying-fish rose out of the water, just under the fore-chains, and skimmed away to windward at the height of ten or twelve feet above the surface. But sometimes the flying-fish merely skims the surface, so as to touch the tops of the successive waves, without rising and falling to follow the undulations of the sea; that they also rise as high as twenty feet out of the water is certain, being sometimes found in the channels of a line-of-battle ship; and they frequently fly into a 74 gun-ship's main-deck ports. On a frigate's forecastle and gangways, also elevations which may be taken at eighteen or twenty feet, they are often found. I remember seeing one, about nine inches in length, and weighing not less, I should suppose, than half-a-pound, skim into the Volage's main-deck port just abreast of the gangway. One of the main-topmen was coming up the quarter-deck ladder at the moment, when the flying-fish, entering the port, struck the astonished mariner on the temple, knocked him off the step, and very nearly laid him sprawling.

I was once in a prize, a low Spanish schooner, not above two feet and a-half out of the water, when we used to pick up flying-fish enough about the decks in the morning to give us a capital breakfast. They are not unlike whitings to the taste, though rather firmer, and very dry. They form, I am told, a considerable article of food for the negroes in the harbours of the West Indies. The method of catching them at night is thus described:--In the middle of the canoe a light is placed on the top of a pole, towards which object it is believed these fish always dart, while on both sides of the canoe a net is spread to a considerable distance, supported by out-riggers above the surface of the water; the fish dash at the light, pa.s.s it, and fall into the net on the other side.

Shortly after observing the cl.u.s.ter of flying-fish rise out of the water, we discovered two or three dolphins ranging past the ship, in all their beauty, and watched with some anxiety to see one of those aquatic chases of which our friends of the Indiamen had been telling us such wonderful stories. We had not long to wait; for the ship, in her progress through the water, soon put up another shoal of these little things, which, as the others had done, took their flight directly to windward. A large dolphin, which had been keeping company with us abreast of the weather gangway at the depth of two or three fathoms, and, as usual, glistening most beautifully in the sun, no sooner detected our poor dear little friends take wing, than he turned his head towards them, and, darting to the surface, leaped from the water with a velocity little short, as it seemed, of a cannon-ball.

But although the impetus with which he shot himself into the air gave him an initial velocity greatly exceeding that of the flying-fish, the start which his fated prey had got enabled them to keep ahead of him for a considerable time.

The length of the dolphin's first spring could not be less than ten yards; and after he fell we could see him gliding like lightning through the water for a moment, when he again rose, and shot forwards with considerably greater velocity than at first, and, of course, to a still greater distance. In this manner the merciless pursuer seemed to stride along the sea with fearful rapidity, while his brilliant coat sparkled and flashed in the sun quite splendidly. As he fell headlong on the water at the end of each huge leap, a series of circles were sent far over the still surface, which lay as smooth as a mirror; for the breeze, although enough to keep the royals and top-gallant studding sails extended, was hardly as yet felt below.

The group of wretched flying-fish, thus hotly pursued, at length dropped into the sea; but we were rejoiced to observe that they merely touched the top of the swell, and scarcely sunk in it, at least they instantly set off again in a fresh and even more vigorous flight. It was particularly interesting to observe that the direction they now took was quite different from the one in which they had set out, implying but too obviously that they had detected their fierce enemy, who was following them with giant steps along the waves, and now gaining rapidly upon them. His terrific pace, indeed, was two or three times as swift as theirs, poor little things! and the greedy dolphin was fully as quick-sighted as the flying-fish which were trying to elude him; for whenever they varied their flight in the smallest degree, he lost not the tenth part of a second in shaping a new course, so as to cut off the chase; while they, in a manner really not unlike that of the hare, doubled more than once upon their pursuer.

But it was soon too plainly to be seen that the strength and confidence of the flying-fish were fast ebbing. Their flights became shorter and shorter, and their course more fluttering and uncertain, while the enormous leaps of the dolphin appeared to grow only more vigorous at each bound. Eventually, indeed, we could see, or fancied we could see, that this skilful sea sportsman arranged all his springs with such an a.s.surance of success, that he contrived to fall, at the end of each, just under the very spot on which the exhausted flying-fish were about to drop! Sometimes this catastrophe took place at too great a distance for us to see from the deck exactly what happened; but on our mounting high into the rigging, we may be said to have been in at the death; for then we could discover that the unfortunate little creatures, one after another, either popped right into the dolphin's jaws as they lighted on the water, or were snapped up instantly afterwards.

It was impossible not to take an active part with our pretty little friends of the weaker side, and accordingly we very speedily had our revenge. The middies and the sailors, delighted with the chance, rigged out a dozen or twenty lines from the jib-boom end, and spritsail yard-arms, with hooks baited merely with bits of tin, the glitter of which resembles so much that of the body and wings of the flying-fish, that many a proud dolphin, making sure of a delicious morsel, leaped in rapture at the deceitful prize.