No. G37] ONCE MORE THE SUCKING-FISH 173 



Olid Italian version was corrected or annotated by Co- 

 lumbus in the margin, where the true story of the remora 

 fishing at Zanzibar was given from an Arabic source, 

 from which Columbus retained two foreign terms. He 

 had found in his source hassa, the turtle caught by the 

 remora, and the name was apparently entered into the 

 margin from which Bernaldez got his threefold caza 

 ''chase." Indeed, it appears that in his ''que ansi' le 

 llamaban ellos caza," it referred originally to the fishes 

 caught, that is, to the turtles, which from the resem- 

 blance to Spanish caza, "chase," produced the unfortu- 

 nate pun. It will be noticed that in the "Journal of the 

 Second Voyage" the corresponding passage runs "they 

 take certain fishes which they call reversos," where the 

 second Italian version says "fishing by aid of a certain 

 fish called marigione," that is, "diver." Now the Arabic 

 word for "diver" is gavvdsah. Anciently the initial 

 guttural was rendered in Spanish by a simple g, but in 

 the fifteenth century this Arabic word would sound to a 

 European ear as reverso or reveso, which it actually as- 

 sumed in the Columbus story. No such Spanish word 

 is anywhere else recorded for the remora. Again, the 

 marginal gloss, from Bernaldez, "hunting with a fish," 

 must have been "caza con un pez," which Peter Martyr 

 took to be the name of the fish, the remora, hence he mis- 

 read the first as guaicanwn, and called this the Indian 

 name for the fish, a w^ord which is only recorded as a 

 quotation from Peter Martyr. 



From the previous discussion it follows : 



1. The remora fishing is very old and originated in the 

 Indian Ocean, but did not get into literature before Co- 

 lumbus. 



2. Odoric of Pordenone's cormorant fishing was from 

 the start confused w^ith the fishing by means of an otter 

 and, in Kamusio's second version, was dimly identified 

 with the remora fishing. 



3. Ramusio's second version was, before the time of 

 Columbus, influenced by an Arabic source or explained 



