at direction, while, at the same time, the ship stood to
the southward and anchored in 28 fathoms, four miles inside the
barrier-reef. On our way we passed numerous small coral patches, and
others were afterwards found to the westward, running in irregular lines,
and partially blocking up the passage inside the barrier, which it was
expected would have been found clear.

CHANGEABLE WEATHER.

We remained here for five days, during which period we had much variety
of weather--sometimes blowing hard from East-South-East to
East-North-East with squalls and thick gloomy weather--at other times
nearly a calm, the air disagreeably close and muggy, the temperature
varying from 75 to 85 degrees, with occasional heavy rain.

SUCKING-FISH AND SHARK.

Small fish appeared to abound at this anchorage. I had never before seen
the sucking-fish (Echeneis remora) so plentiful as at this place; they
caused much annoyance to our fishermen by carrying off baits and hooks,
and appeared always on the alert, darting out in a body of twenty or more
from under the ship's bottom when any offal was thrown overboard. Being
quite a nuisance, and useless as food, Jack often treated them as he
would a shark, by spritsail-yarding, or some still less refined mode of
torture. One day some of us while walking the poop had our attention
directed to a sucking-fish about two and a half feet in length which had
been made fast by the tail to a billet of wood by a fathom or so of spun
yarn, and turned adrift. An immense striped shark, apparently about
fourteen feet in length, which had been cruising about the ship all the
morning, sailed slowly up, and, turning slightly on one side, attempted
to seize the apparently helpless fish, but the sucker, with great
dexterity, made himself fast in a moment to the shark's back--off darted
the monster at full speed--the sucker holding on fast as a limpet to a
rock, and the billet towing astern. He then rolled over and over,
tumbling about, when, wearied with his efforts, he laid quiet for a
little. Seeing the float, the shark got it into his mouth, and
disengaging the sucker by the tug on the line, made a bolt at the fish;
but his puny antagonist was again too quick, and fixing himself close
behind the dorsal fin, defied the efforts of the shark to disengage him,
although he rolled over and over, lashing the water with his tail until
it foamed all around. What the final result was, we could not clearly
make out.

Ma