210 THE OCEAN. 



carrying him down. In the following record, which 

 was inserted in a late Barbadoes paper, though the 

 description is not drawn up exactly as a Naturalist 

 would have done it, one has no difficulty in recognis- 

 ing an enormous Cephaloptera : — "On the 22nd of 

 August [1843], the Brig Eowena was lying in La 

 (xuayra Eoads, the weather perfectly calm : I disco- 

 vered the vessel moving about among the shipping. 

 I could not conceive what could be the matter. I 

 gave orders to heave in, and see if the anchor was 

 gone, but it was not : but to my surprise, I found a 

 tremendous monster entangled fast in the buoy-rope, 

 and moving the anchor slowly along the bottom. I 

 then had the fish towed on shore. It was of a flat- 

 tish shape, something like a devil-fish, but very 

 curious shape, being wider than it was long, and 

 having two tusks, one on each side of the mouth, 

 and a very small tail in proportion to the fish, and 

 exactly like a bat's tail. The tail can be seen on 

 board the Brig Bowena. Dimensions of the fish 

 were as follows : — length from end of tail to end of 

 tusks, 18 feet; from wing to wing, 20 feet; the 

 mouth, 4 feet wide ; and its weight, 3502 lbs." 



Every one may imagine how much the tedium of 

 a long voyage is relieved by the company of other 

 vessels, or even by the speaking of a passing ship^ 

 but a few who have only seen vessels lying in tiers, 

 side by side, at quays, or wharfs, are at all aware of, 

 or can readily understand, the anxious care with 

 which commanders guard against two ships on the 

 high sea coming within even a considerable distance 

 of each other. I have often been amused by hearing 



