No. 637] ONCE MORE THE SUCKING-FISH 167 



the remora is found off the coast of Zanzibar, where it 

 is in the same way connected with the catching of large 

 fish. But we have a circumstantial report of the em- 

 plojTnent of the sucking-fish in the catching of sea tur- 

 tles in Joao dos Santos' ''Ethiopia oriental," which was 

 published in 1609 : 



Tlie flshermen kill turtles at sea [along the coast of Mozambique] 



amono: the rocks near the coast a kind of fish two ^spans in length, 

 called by the Moors sapi, which is as much the enemy of the turtle 

 as the ferret is of rabbits. The sapi has a very dark grey skin in- 



of a pig. Its neck is about half a span long, on the back of which is 

 a shell of the same length and three fingers wide, which is formed of 



leeches do, and it has the same faculty of sucking blood. For this 

 reason when it meets a turtle it attacks it and wounds it in the neck 

 or legs with this shell, and sucks its blood until it is satiated, leaving 

 the turtle nearly dead, it being unable to resist or get away, as it is 

 large and unwieldy and the sapi very nimble. 



When the fishermen have caught some of these sapis they put them 

 in a basin of salt water and take them in the boat with them. They 

 tie a long line to their tails and then put out to sea in search of turtles, 

 which usually swim on the surface bf the water. When they catch 

 sight of a turtle they throw out the fish fastened by the tail,, as one 

 lets loose a ferret in a leash after a rabbit, and the fish immediately 

 attacks the turtle witli as great force as if it was free and had received 

 no hann from tlie hook with which it was caught, or as if it was not 

 itself a i)risoner. When it reaches the turtle it fastens on it so tightly 

 that it never looses its hohl. and as soon as the fishermen feel that 

 it had done so they pull in the line and draw it over the water without 

 its loosening its hold, and the turtle, although very big and heavy, is so 

 dominated and tormented by the fish that it does not fight with it, but 

 lets itself be carried off easily because of the pain it suffers while they 

 are pulling it in, as at that time the fish grips it much tighter. Thus 

 the turtle is bronsht to tlie side of rlic boat, when the fishermen quickly 

 seize it in their hands and lift it in, and tlie fisli tliey put hack into its 

 basin. In this manner they catch a number of turtles.^ 



In the Bantu language of Zanzibar wo have "tesa, 

 turtle; the kassa is caught by niean^: of tlio taza fish, 



5 George McCall Theal, "Records of Southeastern Africa" (London), 

 1901, Vol. VII, p. 325 ff. 



