288 Miscellaneous. ( lHAPT. xxm. 



their chief use is to keep down the larger predatory fish till man 

 comes in and dispenses with their services. 



Have you ever had a porpoise in a boat or net ? He is like 

 a bull in a china simp, is difficult to kill, and will stand a good 

 deal of cudgelling. The natives have a very simple way of 

 disposing of him. They just plug up the blow-hole with a lump 

 of clay, and he is soon suffocated. 



I once had a young whale on shore. What brought her 

 ashore, whether mistake, or fright of enemies, T know not. She 

 was in full health and vigour. We got hold of every rope and 

 every man we could muster, and tried to pull her further up, 

 but we might as well have pulled at Regent Street. Ropes broke 

 like pack-thread, and the tail, pardon me, the flukes, kept banging 

 on the rising tide, and making reports like a pistol. Men produced 

 knives and made great incisions in the poor thing's sides, so that 

 the whole arm passed in after the knife right up to the shoulder. 

 Every wave that came up went hack dyed with Mood. But to 

 no purpose, the tide was gaining on us faster than the whale 

 would die. It was clear she would soon have water enough to 

 float her, and then she would laugh us all to scorn. The above- 

 mentioned way of killing porpoises occurred to me. Sea-sand 

 was the only thing available. 1 took up handful after handful, 

 and reached up and poured them Into the Mow-hole faster than 

 she could blow them out. The effect was very rapid, and the 

 approaching tide, instead of helping her, helped us to get her 

 huge carcase higher up the shelving shore, and secure. 



Have you ever been in a boat that leaks in the bows, or in any 

 particular spot, and noticed the ready means by which the native 

 boatmen confine the leak to its own locality, and thereby keep the 

 rest of the boat dry, till such tunc as they can conveniently get it 

 caulked. Just fore and aft of the leak they run up a little wall of 

 dabbled clay as high as the water-mark. The consequence is that 

 the leak cannot spread. If you want a well for live bail it is easy 

 to apply this cheap and ready plan. Bore in the bottom of the 

 boat a hole or two of a size that you can easily plug with a cork 

 at other times : and fore and aft of this leak run up your mud 

 walls, making your well just as large or as small as you like. 



But if you want to keep bait alive at your house for any time. 

 and have no! a running stream, you must oxygenate the water by 



