During the first part of our voyage we saw scarcely any fish, excepting some whales, a few sharks, and flying fish; but after weathering Cape Horn we met with numerous shoals of sea porpoises, several of whom we caught, and as we had been for some time without fresh provisions, I found it not only a palatable, but really a very excellent food. To one who has never before seen them, a shoal of these fish[34] presents a very striking and singular appearance; beheld at a distance coming towards a vessel, they look not unlike a great number of small black waves rolling over one another in a confused manner, and approaching with great swiftness. As soon as a shoal is seen, all is bustle and activity on board the ship, the grains and the harpoons are immediately got ready, and those who are best skilled in throwing them take their stand at the bow and along the gunwale, anxiously awaiting the welcome troop as they come, gambolling and blowing around the vessel, in search of food. When pierced with the harpoon and drawn on board, unless the fish is instantly killed by the stroke, which rarely happens, it utters most pitiful cries, greatly resembling those of an infant. The flesh, cut into steaks and broiled, is not unlike very coarse beef, and the harslet in appearance and taste is so much like that of a hog, that it would be no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other; from this circumstance the sailors have given the name of the herring hog[35] to this fish. I was told by some of the crew, that if one of them happens to free itself from the grains or harpoons, when struck, all the others, attracted by the blood, immediately quit the ship and give chase to the wounded one, and as soon as they overtake it, immediately tear it in pieces. We also caught a large shark, which had followed the ship for several days, with a hook which I made for the purpose, and although the flesh was by no means equal to that of the herring hog, yet to those destitute as we were of anything fresh, I found it eat very well. After passing the Cape, when the sea had become calm, we saw great numbers of albatrosses, a large brown and white bird of the goose kind, one of which Captain Salter shot, whose wings measured from their extremities fifteen feet. One thing, however, I must not omit mentioning, as it struck me in a most singular and extraordinary manner. This was, that on passing Cape Horn in December, which was midsummer in that climate, the nights were so light, without any moon, that we found no difficulty whatever in reading small print, which we frequently did during our watches.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Santa Catharina.
[33] This is now, so far as Great Britain is concerned, a reminiscence of a vanished trade: the South Sea whaling is extinct.
[34] The zoological reader does not require to be told that the porpoise, a very general term applied by sailors to many small species of cetaceans, is not a "fish."
[35] Porc poisson of the French, of which porpoise is simply a corruption.
CHAPTER III
INTERCOURSE WITH THE NATIVES—MAQUINA—SEIZURE OF THE VESSEL AND MURDER OF THE CREW