DEVIL FISHING. 19 



kee stage-drivers ascend their short hills. Still this 

 fugacious problem escaped his grasp, and the unpro- 

 pitiated monster, friction^ like the malicious Genius 

 in the Arabian tale, was ever thrusting in his Gor- 

 gon head, and converting motion into immobility. 



It happened that Jones, while engaged in these 

 inquiries, had gone to Beaufort in his small boat, 

 manned with but two oars, and met, on his return 

 to his plantation (which lay near the sea), two 

 devil-fish, disporting themselves on the surface of 

 the water, as innocently as if they had been angel- 

 fish now showing the dark hues of their broad 

 backs, now thrusting up a horn, now vibrating a 

 w r ing, and now impelling their enormous mass high 

 in air by the lever of their powerful wings. Jones 

 was a sportsman to the backbone ; he cast a glance 

 at the smallness of his boat, but it was a glance 

 only ; his eye rested on his bright harpoon, which 

 lay invitingly at his side. He sprang forward, 

 secured his line to the head of the boat, and darted 

 his harpoon at the nearest of the sportive monsters. 

 A violent fall, at full length, into the bottom of the 

 boat, as it shot forward almost from beneath his 

 feet, was the first indication he received that his 

 aim had been good ; and, casting upward his eyes, 

 he beheld his little boat buried, as it were, in the 

 waters, while the divided waves curled over it, but 



