BY THE EEilOKA. 
185 
‘ fislier-fisli,’ foTEierly employed by the Cubans, by means of 
the flattened disc on his head, furnished with suckers, fixed 
himself on the shell of the sea-turtle, which is so common in 
tile narrow and winding channels of the Jardinillos. “ The 
reves," says Christopher Columbus, “will sooner sufter him- 
self to be cut in pieces than let go the body to which he 
adheres.” The Indiana drew to the shore by the same cord, 
the fisher-fish and the turtle. When Gomara, and the learned 
secretary of the emperor Charles V., Peter Maidyr d’ Anghiera, 
promulgated in Europe this fact which they had learnt from 
the companions of Columbus, it was received as a traveller’s 
tale. Tliere is indeed an air of the marvellous in the recital 
of d’ Anghiera, which begins in these words : “ Non aliter ac 
*ios canibus gallicis per sequora campi Icpores iusectamur, in- 
oola; [Cubae insul®] venatorio pisee pisces alios capiebant.” 
(Exactly as wo follow bares with greyhounds in the fields, 
*so do the natives [of Cuba] take fishes with other fish trained 
tor that purpose). We now Imow, from the united testimony 
of Eogers, Dampier, and Commerson, that the artifice re- 
ported to in the Jardinillos to catch turtles, is employed 
'•y the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Africa, near Capo 
^atal, at Mozambique, and at Madagascar. In Egypt, at 
^an Domingo, and in the lakes of the valley of Mexico, the 
'"ethod practised for catching ducks was as follows men, 
"hose heads were covered with great calabashes pierced 
" ith holes, hid themselves in the water, and seized the birds 
the feet. The Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, 
Ijave employed the cormorant, a bird of the pelican family, 
^or fishing on the coast : rings are fixed round the bird’s 
’leek to prevent him from swallowing his prey, and fishing 
^or himself. In the lowest degree of civilization, the sa- 
b'aeity of man is displayed in the stratagems of hunting 
"’id fishing : nations, who probably never had any com- 
munication with each other, furnish tho most striking 
"iialogies in the means they employ in exercising their 
empii-e over animals. 
1 lost that part of my journal. It is doubtless the fear of danger that 
vauses the remora not to loose his hold when he feels that he is pulled by 
"cord, or by the band of man. The sitcet spoken of by Columbus and 
lartin d*A.nghiera, was probably the Jlcbeneis naucratee and not thi 
^cheneis repoora. 
