ALABAMA. 121 



"everything it touches, provided the surface will cover 

 '•the organ, apparently without the volition of the 

 "animal, and so strongly as to resist one's endeavours 

 " to drag the fish up, without inserting something under 

 "the sucker. I have cut off the sucker of one for 

 " preservation." 



Next morning the captain speared a dolphin {Coryphcena 

 psittacus), and Gosse eagerly watched for those changes of 

 colour which are popularly supposed to attend the death 

 of these creatures. He was not disappointed. When the 

 expiring animal was first brought on board, it was silvery 

 white, with pearly reflections ; the back suddenly became 

 of a brilliant green, while the belly turned to gold, with 

 blue spots. This was the only change, except that all 

 these hues became dusky after death. They cooked the 

 fish, and found it firm and palatable. Little occurred in 

 the last tedious days of the voyage, beyond a terrific 

 tropical storm. Once a sailor hooked a king-fish, three 

 feet long, silvery blue, with opaline changes, and had just 

 dragged it in, when a shark leaped at it, like a dog, and 

 drew his fangs through the body. They were happy at 

 last when, on the morning of May 14, after a voyage 

 of four weeks, a long, low tongue of land, with a light- 

 house at the end of it, announced their arrival at Mobile 

 Point. The bay is a difficult one to enter ; at last, about 

 thirty miles up from the gulf, on turning a sandy cape, 

 covered with pine trees, the city of Mobile came into sight. 

 Philip Gosse's last entry in the diary of his voyage is thus 

 worded : — 



" Drawing so near to the time on which hangs my 

 " fate, my means nearly exhausted, and uncertain what 

 "success I may meet with, I have been all to-day 

 "oppressed with that strange faintness, a sickness of 

 " heart, which always comes over me on the eve of any 



