Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/72

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long shape and blueish colour, and having a very quick descending motion: its course was N.W. and it disappeared in the horizon after a momentary duration. Our distance from St. Jago was fifty-five leagues at noon, notwithstanding which, we saw a swallow following our vessel, and making numberless circles round it. The necessary manœuvres of trimming the sails, in the evening disturbed it from its roost on one of the gun-ports, upon which it took shelter in the carved work of the stern. The two following days it continued to attend the ship on her course. During this time we observed many bonitos in the sea around us, which frequently shot past us with great velocity; but notwithstanding our endeavours to catch them with hooks, and strike them with harpoons, we could not take a single one. The crew were more successful in hooking a shark of about five feet in length. Its common attendants, the pilot-fish (gasterosteus ductor) and sucking-fish (echeneis remora), likewise appeared with it; but with this difference, that the former carefully avoided being caught, and swam about very nimbly; but the latter stuck so fast to the shark's body, that four of them were hauled on deck with it. We dined on part of the shark the next day, and found it a tolerable food when fried, but rather of difficult digestion on account of its fat.