Page:Unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Philip Quarle.pdf/19

 be improved to a quantity large enough to serve me for a meal, then lays them up against a proper time to set them, so spent the remainder of that summer in walking about the island, watering his lodge, weeding his root plantation, attending his nets, which now and then supplied him with an antelope or goat, to eat at intervals between; fish he commonly found on the rock after high winds and storms: never failing to visit the sea three or four times a-week, according as the weather did prove: thus diverting many anxious hours with variety of objects that element affords. Sometimes he had the pleasure to see great whales chasing one another, spouting large streams of water out of their gills and nostrils: at other times, numbers of beautiful dolphins rolling amongst the waves: now and then a quantity of strange monstrous fish playing on the surface of the sea, some whereof had heads (not common to fishes) like those of hogs, others not unlike those of dogs, calves, horses, lions, bulls, goats, and several other creatures; some chasing another sort, which to avoid being taken, would quit their element, and seek refuge in the air, and fly some yards above the water till their fins, being dry, obliged them to plunge in again.

In this prosperous way he lived fifteen years, finding no alteration in the weather or seasons, nor meeting in all the time with any transactions worthy of record: still performing his usual exercises, and taking his walk with all the content and satisfaction his happy condition could procure, entirely forsaking all thoughts and desires of ever quitting the blessed station he then had in his possession.