64 THE MAROON PAKTY; 



yards of achieving the passage out of the Gulf, when gradually the 

 wind slackened. Of this we had intimation by perceiving that the 

 cutter made little advance : in a minute or two she was only able to 

 keep her way, the current sending her back as fast as the wind pro- 

 pelled her forward. " Out with the sweeps," cried the skipper ; 

 Goodenough took charge of the helm, and the captain and all the 

 sailors went to the sweeps (long oars). All would not do the light 

 air subsided into a calm, and, in spite of the efforts of the sweeps we 

 were entering into the Gulf stern foremost. Our voyage was one of 

 pleasure we therefore cared little for returning to the Gulf; but it 

 vexed all the seamen on board to see the cutter " progress backward" 

 (as Goodenough called it) ; however there was no danger in this, and 

 in a few minutes we found ourselves on the inner-side of the Dragon's 

 Mouth, in safe anchorage. 



' Let go the throat-haulyards down with the gaf-topsail let go 

 the anchor," sung the skipper ; these orders were executed, and we 

 went to dinner. 



The principal dishes that composed our repast were a morocaye, a 

 species of tortoise, equal, or superior to green turtle ; a groper, a de- 

 licious fish, perhaps the finest in the West Indies, especially when 

 stewed with claret; it is a fish, the growth of which is unlimited; some 

 are taken that scarce weigh half a pound, and others of enormous 

 size. In 1812, one was brought to the fish-market at Port of Spain, 

 weighing nine hundred pounds ! When very large they are called 

 " Jew-fish." 



We were scarcely seated at dinner, when our attention was rivetted 

 by a new and most extraordinary phenomenon it was no other than 

 a concert; but the most original and singular of any that I ever 

 heard. It was indeed one, that I should have scarcely ventured to 

 describe ; but that an account of similar music occurs in White's Voy- 

 age to Cochin China." 



Immediately under our vessel we heard a commencement of wild 

 and pleasing sounds, similar to those which we could imagine might 

 proceed from a thousand CEolian harps, beginning in slow tones, but 

 gradually swelling into an uninterrupted stream of harmony ; to this 

 might be added the booming of Chinese gongs, mellowed by distance 

 then again was heard to join sounds like the chorus of many human 

 voices, chanting from the height of treble to a deep bass ; indeed it is 

 useless to attempt a description, for I am not able to find any satis- 

 factory similitude to it, either in nature or art. During the time we 

 heard this submarine concert, we felt, or thought we felt, a slight vi- 

 bration of the vessel. 



We paused at first from our meal, and each looked in the other's 

 face with a vague inquiry. No one could afford information, until a 

 seaman, who had formerly been a fisherman, informed us that it was 

 caused by a shoal of trumpet-fish. Long after this little voyage was 

 performed, I obtained a specimen of the vocal residents of the deep. 

 Might not some similar vocal-fish have caused the fable of the syrens ? 

 The trumpet-fish is about thrice the thickness of a man's thumb, 

 twenty-two inches long, including a singular kind of supplementary 

 tail, or membrane growing out of its tail, about the thickness of strong 



