It often happens that this unfortunate little creature, after alternate dips and flights, finding all its exertions of no avail, at last drops on board the vessel, verifying the old remark:
Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.
There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with its tail and dies. When eating it you would take it for a fresh herring. The largest measure from fourteen to fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after pursuing it to the ship, sometimes forfeits his own life.
In days of yore the musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain, and then take an airing amongst the dolphins: "inter delphinas Arion." But nowadays our tars have quite capsized the custom, and instead of riding ashore on the dolphin, they invite the dolphin aboard. While he is darting and playing around the vessel a sailor goes out to the spritsail yard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded at one end, and armed at the other with five barbed spikes, he heaves it at him. If successful in his aim there is a fresh mess for all hands. The dying dolphin affords a superb and brilliant sight:
Mille trahit moriens, adverse sole colores.
All the colours of the rainbow pass and repass in rapid succession over his body, till the dark hand of death closes the scene.
From the Cape de Verd Islands to the coast of Brazil you see several different kinds of gulls, which, probably, are bred in the Island of St. Paul. Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes near enough to let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line, when it is calm, sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance. They are descried from the ship by means of the dorsal fin, which is above the water.
On entering the Bay of Pernambuco, the frigate pelican is seen watching the shoals of fish from a prodigious height. It seldom descends without a successful attack on its numerous prey below.
As you approach the shore the view is charming. The hills are clothed with wood, gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of any considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs parallel to the coast and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The vessels are moored betwixt it and the town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour through a very narrow passage, close by a fort built on the reef. The hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents, is on your right-hand, and an island thickly planted with cocoa-nut trees adds considerably to the scene on your left. There are two strong forts on the isthmus betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway to aid the pilot.