50 



ing. He had a large round transparent globule, 

 intersected with red veins, under the belly, which 

 some imagined to proceed from a rupture, and to 

 be the occasion of his disease. But I could not 

 discover any vestige of a wound ; and the globule 

 was quite solid to the touch ; neither did the fish 

 appear to be sensible when it was pressed upon. 

 No one on board had ever seen this kind of fish 

 till then ; its name is the " Doctor Fish." 



A black pilot came on board yesterday, in a 

 canoe hollowed out of the cotton-tree ; and when 

 it returned for him this morning, it brought us 

 a water-melon. I never met with a worse article 

 in my life ; the pulp is of a faint greenish yellow, 

 stained here and there with spots of moist red, so 

 that it looks exactly as if the servant in slicing it 

 had cut his finger, and suffered it to bleed over 

 the fruit. Then the seeds, being of a dark purple, 

 present the happiest imitation of drops of clotted 

 gore 5 and altogether (prejudiced as I was by its 

 appearance), when I had put a single bit into my 

 mouth, it had such a kind of Shylocky taste of raw 

 flesh about it (not that I recollect having ever 

 eaten a bit of raw flesh itself), that I sent away my 

 plate, and was perfectly satisfied as to the merits of 

 the fruit. 



1816. — January 1. 

 At length the ship has squeezed herself into 

 this champagne bottle of a bay ! Perhaps, the 



