14 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



knots an hoar. On the first day, a Bonito, or as sailors would sometimes 

 call it, an Albacore, was struck by the grains, a sort of small compound 

 harpoon, but escaped with a wound in his side, which was very visible 

 in the water, and enabled us to recognise the individual. Observing that 

 it continued with us day after day, we were led to notice and distinguish 

 other individuals, and ascertained that we Avere not sailing through a 

 shoal, as had been supposed, but that precisely the same fishes continued 

 with us, and regulated their course by ours. They easily kept up with 

 the vessel, and even our wounded companion glided on with great 

 apparent ease, and seemed to suffer little from his misfortune. His 

 station was generally upon our starboard bow, while another, well known 

 at night by a phosphorescent appearance about the tail, was constantly 

 found under our larboard quarter. We often attempted to take this 

 with the grains, but it swam so low as to escape from every effort, and 

 refused every bait which we could offer. The whole shoal pursued no 

 prey, so far as we could perceive, unless they did so when sometimes 

 darting rapidly around in every direction, from whence they would soon 

 return to the side of the vessel and their regular rate of swimming. We 

 offered them baits of various kinds, but they would take none except a 

 rough sort of fly made with feathers, and by this stratagem we obtained 

 from among them several very excellent dinners. We thought that the 

 circumstance which kept them near to us so long, and through a distance 

 of seven hundred miles, was the brightness of the ship's copper ; and that 

 they left us suddenly, when near to the American coast, because they per- 

 ceived the bottom of the ocean. A few hours after they were gone, we also 

 conjectured that we could discern it, that it was naked and white ; 

 nevertheless we sailed two hundred miles afterwards, in a south-west 

 course, before we saw the land a little north of Bahia ; and then found 

 that such was the colour and state of the shore. 



There may be various tribes of fishes, inhabiting the deeper waters, 

 with which we are wholly unacquainted ; and the larger individuals of 

 species already known, seldom, I think, approach the surface ; and when 

 t^iey dp so, perhaps no vessel is near to observe them. Those which 



