BY TIIE EEMOHA. 185 



' fisher-fish,' formerly employed by the Cubans, by means of 

 the flattened disc on his head, furnished with suckers, fixed 

 himself on the shell of the sea-turtle, which is so common in 

 the narrow and winding channels of the Jardinillos. " The 

 reves" says Christopher Columbus, " will sooner suffer him- 

 self to be cut in pieces than let go the body to which he 

 adheres." The Indians drew to the shore by the same cord, 

 the fisher-fish and the turtle. When Gomara, and the learned 

 secretary of the emperor Charles V., Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, 

 promulgated in Europe this fact which they had learnt from 

 the companions of Columbus, it was received as a traveller's 

 tale. There is indeed an air of the marvellous in the recital 

 of d'Anghiera, which begins in these words : " Non aliter ac 

 nos canibus gallicis per aequora campi lepores insectamur, in- 

 cola3 [CubsB insul] venatorio pisce pisces alios capiebant." 

 (Exactly as we follow hares with greyhounds in the fields, 

 so do the natives [of Cuba] take fishes with other fish trained 

 for that purpose). We now know, from the united testimony 

 of Rogers, Dampier, and Commerson, that the artifice re- 

 sorted to in the Jardinillos to catch turtles, is employed 

 by the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Africa, near Cape 

 Natal, at Mozambique, and at Madagascar. In Egypt, at 

 San Domingo, and in the lakes of the valley of Mexico, the 

 method practised for catching ducks was as follows : men, 

 whose heads were covered with great calabashes pierced 

 with holes, hid themselves in the water, and seized the birds 

 by the feet. The Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, 

 have employed the cormorant, a bird of the pelican family, 

 for fishing on the coast : rings are fixed round the bird's 

 neck to prevent him from swallowing his prey, and fishing 

 for himself. In the lowest degree of civilization, the sa- 

 gacity of man is displayed in the stratagems of hunting 

 and fishing: nations, who probably never had any com- 

 munication with each other, furnish the most striking 

 analogies in the means they employ in exercising their 

 empire over animals. 



I lost that part of my journal. It Is doubtless the fear of danger that 

 causes the remora not to loose his hold when he feels that he is pulled by 

 cord, or by the hand of man. The svcet spoken of by Columbus and 

 Martin d'Anghiera, wa* probably the Echeneis naucrate* and not U* 

 Echeneis remora. 



