DECEMBER 16.
What little wind there is blows so perversely, that we have
been obliged to alter our course; and instead of Antigua, we are
now told that the Summer Islands (Shakespeare's "still vexed.
Bermoothes") are the first land that we must expect to see.
I am greatly disappointed at finding such a scarcity of monsters ;
I had flattered myself that as soon as we should enter the
Atlantic ocean, or at least the tropic, we should have seen whole
shoals of sharks, whales, and dolphins, wandering about as plenty
as sheep upon the South Downs; instead of which, a brace of
dolphins, and a f6w flying-fish and porpoises, are the only inhabitants
of the ocean who have as yet taken the trouble of paying
us the common civility of a visit. However, I am promised that
as soon as we approach the islands I shall have as many sharks
as heart can wish.
As I am particularly fond of proofs of conjugal attachment
between animals (in the human species they are so universal
that I set no store by them), an instance of that kind which the
captain related to me this morning gave me great pleasure.
While lying in Black River harbour, Jamaica, two sharks were
frequently seen playing about the ship; at length the female was
killed, and the desolation
of the male was excessive:-"Che, faro senz' Eurydice? "
What be did
without her remains a secret, but what be did
with
her was clear enough; for scarce was the breath out of his Eurydice's body,
when be stuck his
teeth in her, and began to eat
her up with all possible expedition. Even the sailors felt their
sensibility excited by so peculiar a mark of posthumous attachment and to
enable him to perform
this melancholy duty the
more easily, they offered to be his carvers, lowered their boat, and
proceeded to chop his better half in pieces with their hatchets ;
while the widower opened -his jaws as wide as possible, and
gulped down pounds upon pounds of the dear departed as fast
as they were thrown to him, with the greatest delight and all
the avidity imaginable. I make no doubt that all the while be
was eating he was thoroughly persuaded that every morsel which
went into his stomach would make its way to his heart directly!
" She was perfectly consistent," he said to himself; "she was
excellent through life, and really she's extremely good now she's
dead ! " I doubt whether the annals of Hymen can produce a
similar instance of post-obitual affection. Certainly Calderon's
"
Amor despues de la Muerte" has nothing that is worthy to be
compared to it ; nor do I recollect in history any fact at all
resembling it, except perhaps a circumstance which is recorded
respecting Cambletes, king of Lydia, a monarch equally remark
.able for his voracity and uxoriousness, and who, being one night
completely overpowered by sleep, and at the same time violently
tormented by hunger, eat up his queen without being conscious
of it, and was mightily astonished the next morning, to wake
with her hand in his mouth, the only bit that was le ft of her.
But then Cambletes was quite unconscious what he was doing
whereas the shark's mark of attachment was evidently intentional.
