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A breeze rattled the halliards against the mast, and ruffled the blue water of the bay in little patches. We hurried into our clothes, while the Chief warned us to keep out of the cockpit, and not get everything wet. Sprague struggled with his shirt, and declaimed his favorite poem in a muffled tone. "'And the flyin' fishes play, And speaking of flying-fishes, where is Simon?
They had left home in mid-winter; but now they were in the tropics, near the line, and everything was sultry, sleepy, and warm. Flying-fishes were jumping from the waves on to the deck, and when the dusk of night was come, the passengers would stand by the hour together watching the phosphorus on the water.
But with this misery we had the commodity of great store of fish, as dolphins, bonitos, and flying-fishes, whereof some fell into our ships; wherehence they could not rise again for want of moisture, for when their wings are dry they cannot fly. From the first day of our departure from the islands of Cape Verde, we sailed 54 days without sight of land.
It was very hot and still; the great sea people seemed to be revelling in some sort of Sabbath of their own, and the waters lay quiet and shining under the eye of Heaven. Here and there a drove of small flying-fishes rose and skimmed over the surface like swallows, but they too soon plunged into the blue and sought below that the cool green depths.
Wednesday they had pardelas and great quantities of seaweed. Columbus began to be sure that they had passed "the islands" and were nearing the continent of Asia. Thursday they had a flock of pardelas, two pelicans, a rabihorcado and a gull. Friday, the fifth of October, brought pardelas and flying-fishes.
The children here took a smaller steamer for the twenty-mile trip across to Catalina Island, and on the way over they saw a whole "school" of whales and a flight of flying-fishes. Yes, really and truly, these little fish fly or sail through the air, for their fins balance them like a parachute.
And every once in a while, when the top of her head got too hot, she would dive under the ship and come up on the other side. In this way, too, she used to catch herrings on Tuesdays and Fridays when everybody on the boat ate fish to make the beef last longer. When they got near to the Equator they saw some flying-fishes coming towards them.
The booby is about the size of a duck, some entirely white and others grey, having feet like a duck, and subsist mostly on flying-fishes, which they catch while in the air. I have made many a meal on these birds, but it was for want of other victuals, for they taste very fishy, and are apt to make one sick, if not previously well salted.
And the fishes asked the parrot if this was Doctor Dolittle's ship. When she told them it was, they said they were glad, because the monkeys in Africa were getting worried that he would never come. Polynesia asked them how many miles they had yet to go; and the flying-fishes said it was only fifty-five miles now to the coast of Africa.
The evaporation caused by the blazing sun of these tropics made the water a deeper blue than in cooler latitudes, as in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans the greens are almost as vivid as the blues about the line. I watched the thousand flying-fishes' fast leaps through the air, and caught gleams of the swift bonitos whose pursuit made birds of their little brothers.
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