December 19.
During these last two days nothing very extraordinary, or of
sufficient importance to deserve being handed down to the
latest posterity, has occurred ; except that this morning a swinging rope
knocked my hat into the
sea, and away it sailed upon a
voyage of discovery, like poor La Perouse, to return no more,
I suppose; unless, indeed, like Polycrates, the fortunate tyrant
of Samos, who threw his favourite ring into the ocean, and found
it again in the stomach of the first fish that was served up at his
table, -I should have the good luck (but I by no means reckon
upon it) to catch a dolphin with my bat upon his bead: as to a
porpoise, he never could squeeze his great numskull into it ; but
our dolphin of last week was much about my own size, and I daresay such
another would find
my bat fit him to a miracle, and
look very well in it.
