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Passing the mouth of the Rappahannock, by some called the Tappahannock, where in shoal water were many fish lurking in the weeds, Smith had his first experience of the Stingray.
A huge stingray passed on its way, the edges of extended wings rippling never so gently, its shadow half the size of the boat; and presently, with ghostly glide, a dull-skinned shark came into view with motion so steady and apparently effortless that it might have been a spectre. The pectoral fins swayed listlessly. The swirl of the tail was as tender as a caress.
Dog-Fish. Spanish-Mackarel. Cavallies. Boneto's. Blue-Fish. Drum, red. Drum-Fish, black. Angel-Fish. Bass, or Rock-Fish. Sheeps-Heads. Plaice. Flounder. Soles. Mullets. Shad. Eat-Backs. Guard, white. Guard, green. Scate or Stingray. Thornback. Congar-Eels. Lamprey-Eels. Eels. Sun-Fish. Toad-Fish. Sea-Tench. Trouts of the Salt Water. Crocus. Herring. Smelts. Shads. Breams. Taylors.
Passing the mouth of the Rappahannock, by some called the Tappahannock, where in shoal water were many fish lurking in the weeds, Smith had his first experience of the Stingray.
The only thing the poor soul said when the war-whoop wakened them in the dead of the night and the door came crashing in, was, 'I told you so. They were her last words. Then Martha Westall dreamed of flowers, and two days later her son James stepped on a stingray over at Dale's Gift.
The delightful, and, indeed, indispensable amusement of bathing, is particularly dangerous in these countries. In the shallows you are liable to be struck by the stingray, a species of skate, with a sharp barb about the middle of its tail; and the effect of the wound is so serious, that I have known a person to be in a state of frenzy from it for nearly forty-eight hours.
It is worth noting that in every original document relating to this voyage, save one chart, this bay is called Stingray Bay, after, as Cook himself says, the great number of stingrays caught in it. In one chart, in Cook's own writing, the name Botany Bay is given; but all the Endeavour logs call it Stingray Bay, and the name Botany Bay was probably an afterthought.
There is also a fish called a stingray, which resembles a skate, only on one side of his tail grows out a sharp bone like a bodkin about four or five inches long, with which he sticks and wounds other fish and then preys upon them.
Passing the mouth of the Rappahannock, by some called the Tappahannock, where in shoal water were many fish lurking in the weeds, Smith had his first experience of the Stingray.
Those which I remember to have seen there of the kinds that are not eaten are the whale, porpoise, shark, dogfish, gar, stingray, thornback, sawfish, toadfish, frogfish, land crabs, fiddlers, and periwinkle.
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