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Of the fibres of the cocoa-nut they make thread for fastening together the several parts of their canoes and belts, either round or flat, twisted or plaited; and of the bark of the erowa, a kind of nettle which grows in the mountains, and is therefore rather scarce, they make the best fishing lines in the world; with these they hold the strongest and most active fish, such as bonetas and albicores, which would snap our strongest silk lines in a minute, though they are twice as thick.
So to Hytyhoo, with all our canvas spread, and coquetting with the warm, breezy Trades, we bowled along; gliding up and down the long, slow swells, the bonettas and albicores frolicking round us. I HAD scarcely been aboard of the ship twenty-four hours, when a circumstance occurred, which, although noways picturesque, is so significant of the state of affairs that I cannot forbear relating it.
Her hull was encrusted with barnacles, which completely encased her. Three pet sharks followed in her wake, and every day came alongside to regale themselves from the contents of the cook's bucket, which were pitched over to them. A vast shoal of bonetas and albicores always kept her company.
The larger are somewhat like red gurnards, and are said to prey on their smaller cousins, which are also pursued by bonitos, albicores, and dolphins of various species, as well as by numerous sea-birds.
Occasionally a whale spouted forth a jet of vapour and spray with a loud noise like that emitted by the safety valve of a steam engine; while albicores, bonitos; and dolphins, with various other fish, could be seen here and there, sporting and tumbling, as they came to the surface, sending a circle of wavelets extending far and wide around.
The central and intertropical parts of the Atlantic swarm with Pteropoda, Crustacea, and Radiata, and with their devourers the flying-fish, and again with their devourers the bonitos and albicores; I presume that the numerous lower pelagic animals feed on the Infusoria, which are now known, from the researches of Ehrenberg, to abound in the open ocean: but on what, in the clear blue water, do these Infusoria subsist?
It is to avoid their enemies under water that they take fin and mount into the air; but the old proverb, "out of the frying-pan into the fire," is but too applicable in their case, for in their endeavours to escape from the jaws of dolphins, albicores, bonitos, and other petty tyrants of the sea, they rush into the beaks of gannets, boobies, albatrosses, and other petty tyrants of the sky.
"One of the big albicores, I dare say," he said. "They are very strong in the water. But he has not broken your line, has he?" "I'm afraid so," I replied, as I hauled away till the lead rattled against the ship's side.
Albicores, bonitoes, and dolphins followed the ship for several days in succession; and one albicore, which had a mark on his back, from which we knew it, followed us from 3 degrees north latitude to 10 degrees south latitude, a distance of eight hundred and forty miles. An immense whale rose close to us one day, like an island emerging from the deep.
They are acquainted only with a dead fish. Did they ever remark the keen, bright, diabolical eye of a shark watching for his expected victim? I know nothing in nature more piercing, more dread-inspiring. Here were collected sharks, and pilot-fish, and albicores, bonettas, dolphins, flying-fish, and numberless others, for which old Mr Stunt, to whom I applied, could give me no name.
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