Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/73

 the eye and delicious to the taste: of these, the best is the red grouper. When on a calm, clear day, you glide among these lovely islands, in your boat, you seem to be sailing over a submarine flower garden, in which clumps of trees, shrubs, flowers, and gravel walks, are planted in wild, but regular confusion.

My chief employment was afloat, and according to my usual habit, I found no amusement unless it was attended with danger; and this propensity found ample gratification in the whale fishery, the season for which was just approaching. The ferocity of the fish in these southern latitudes appears to be increased, both from the heat of the climate and the care of their young, for which reason it would seem that the risk in taking them is greater than in the Polar seas.

From what I am able to learn of the natural history of the whale, she brings forth her young seldom more than one at a time in the northern regions, after which, with the calf at her side,