I go The Albacore 



our own race, who sought to devour us without giving 

 us a chance of escape. Many of my fellows who had 

 braved the innumerable dangers of infancy with me 

 fell victims on these occasions. So we gradually 

 separated, some were eaten, more strayed away, 

 independently gathering their livelihood from the 

 abundant sea, but all who survived were growing with 

 astounding rapidity, and preparing to take their place 

 in the royal ranks of the great Albacore. 



Could I but detail to you the events of the next 

 two years, they would fill a goodly volume of hair- 

 breadth escapes and amazing travel. I cannot claim 

 to have visited any profound depths, for our people 

 are essentially surface-fish and do not descend deeper 

 than one hundred fathoms. But within that limit 

 I have, I think, explored most of ocean's fastnesses, 

 braved most of the dangers that await our people. 

 Many days did I linger about the base of St. Paul's 

 Rocks in the North Atlantic eating my fill continually 

 of all species of deep-water fish smaller than myself, 

 who were utterly unable to escape the clash of my 

 unerring and lethal jaws. Here I learned to avoid 

 the fearful toils of the brooding cuttle-fish, having 

 torn myself free from the deadly touch of an arm of 

 one of these monsters crouching in a darksome cave. 

 Here, too, by a turn of my body, almost as swift as 

 light, did I avoid the thrust of a giant relative of mine, 

 a sword-fish, whose weapon grazed my body along 

 its entire length, leaving a wide white weal whereby 

 I became known and identified in after years, not 

 merely by mine own people but by men. 



But I escaped all these dangers, as did many of 

 my fellows bom at the same time in the ^gean, and 

 ranged the ' waters of Mid- Atlantic as being in my 

 rightful realm, a veritable sovereign of the sea. I 



