44 DOLPHINS 



several days and nights, as if in expectation some accident 

 might eventually reward his patience and perseverance, 

 till at last he would become the victim of his oAvn 

 voracious nature, and gorge a hook baited with a large 

 piece of salt pork, by which means his enormous bulk was 

 soon laying its length on the quarter-deck. At another I 

 would watch, with indescribable excitement and delight, 

 the apparent evolutions of the dolphin, as, in pursuit of 

 his prey, that would frequently fly over the ship, he 

 would bare his golden back, and blow with his wide 

 nostrils the spray from before him, till, after an unsuccess- 

 ful chase, our men would find means to land him too on 

 the quarter-deck ; and then did I witness the truth of a 

 description a noble poet, from his own observation, after- 

 wards so beautifully drew of the death of that remarkable 

 denizen of the ocean, and my memory has often been 

 alive to the aptitude and nicety of the simile : — 



" Parting day 

 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang embues 

 With a new colour, as it gasps away 

 The last still loveliest — till 'tis gone, and all is gray." 



At the captain's and ward-room officers' tables I 

 listened with eager attention when the conversation 

 turned on naval tactics or engagements, in which some 

 one of them may have participated, and have often 

 induced the men in the night watches to repeat some act 

 of individual bravery, either before the enemy or in 

 rescuing a shipmate from a watery grave. All these 

 things, small as they may be reckoned, had entered into 

 my system, and helped to elevate my mind far beyond 

 my years and the sphere in which I was boru. How 



