The Dolphin 343 
pitiless heat, seemed to scream in very agony 
at every lunge of the ship. All the expedients 
known to mariners were brought into play. The 
foremast was hammered by all hands. The cap- 
tain of the galley, a jolly shipmate under some 
circumstances, whistled for the wind with a rare 
faith, while the good skipper swore and believed 
himself bewitched as the days sped by. 
Such monotony became intolerable, and I 
began to occupy myself by rowing about in a 
boat, always keeping near the ship in case the 
welcome wind should come. We were on the 
outskirts of the famous Sargasso Sea. Great 
patches of sargassum, the gulfweed, covered the 
water everywhere, each islet forming, at least to 
me, a fascinating world in itself. They were float- 
ing islands with marvellous populations, — crabs, 
shells, shell-less “shells,” and fishes, —all colored 
the exact tint of their surroundings, a rich green. 
Here was the strange antennarius, or walking fish, 
with its nest, a bunch of weed held together by a 
glutinous secretion and covered with myriads of 
eggs the size of a pin’s head. So marvellous was 
this fish in its mimicry that I could hardly dis- 
tinguish it from the weed when lying on it, even 
with my face but two feet distant. 
