210 THE OCEAN. 
carrying him down. In the following record, which 
was inserted in a late Barbadoes paper, though the 
description is not drawn up exactly as a Naturalist 
would have done it, one has no difficulty in recognis- 
ing an enormous Cephaloptera:—“On the 22nd of 
August [1843], the Brig Rowena was lying in La 
Guayra Roads, the weather perfectly calm: I disco- 
vered the vessel moving about among the shipping. 
I could not conceive what could be the matter. I 
gave orders to heave in, and see if the anchor was 
gone, but it was not: but to my surprise, I found a 
tremendous monster entangled fast in the buoy-rope, 
and moving the anchor slowly along the bottom. I 
then had the fish towed on shore. It was of a flat- 
tish shape, something like a devil-fish, but very 
curious shape, being wider than it was long, and 
having two tusks, one on each side of the mouth, 
and a very small tail in proportion to the fish, and 
exactly like a bat’s tail. The tail can be seen on 
board the Brig Rowena. Dimensions of the fish 
were as follows :—length from end of tail to end of 
tusks, 18 feet; from wing to wing, 20 feet; the 
mouth, 4 feet wide; and its weight, 3502 lbs.” 
Every one may imagine how much the tedium of 
a long voyage is relieved by the company of other 
vessels, or even by the speaking of a passing ship; 
but a few who have only seen vessels lying in tiers, 
side by side, at quays, or wharfs, are at all aware of, 
or can readily understand, the anxious care with 
which commanders guard against two ships on the 
high sea coming within even a considerable distance 
of each other. I have often been amused by hearing 
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