assuring me that fish of this kind were employed on the coast in catching turtles. The mode of doing this is by confining the fish with a line to the boat, when it is said invariably to dart forwards, and to attach itself by its sucker to the lower shell of the first turtle found on the water, which prevents its sinking, and enables the fisherman to secure his prey. The reason for this fish fastening on the turtle, is supposed to be done (as the Bishop observed) with a view to self-preservation, and its strength is so great, that, when once fastened, the turtle very rarely is known to escape.[1] This account appears to me somewhat extravagant, and almost incredible, but it sinks into nothing when compared with the tales told by Pliny of another species of the same fish; among which, that of "its stopping a galley, rowed by four hundred men, conveying Prince Caius to Antium," is not the least remarkable, though it was an occurrence that struck all the spectators, as he confesses, with astonishment—hence its Latin name of Remora. (Vide C. Plinii Nat. Hist. L. XXXII. cap. i.)
On the 11th, we left Mesuril, and returned to Mosambique by the way of Cabaçeiro. On our road we observed several trees of a curious species, called Malumpava, (a species of Adansonia,) which seems to expend its powers of vegetation in the trunk, and might, from its bulk, not unaptly be called the Elephant tree, as it sometimes measures full seventy feet in circumference, though it bears few leaves or branches in proportion. I measured one of the above magnitude, growing in a remote thicket, under which I had previously observed with some surprise, several human skulls and bones, with two or three small drinking vessels, lying on a rude kind of couch. The Portuguese could give me no explanation of this singular fact, but I conjectured that the place was used as a burying-ground by some of the natives; it being a custom with the Kaffers, (vide Mr. Barrow's Tra-
- ↑ I was not aware, until after I had written the above, that this method of fishing had been noticed by Dr. Shaw; he mentions it (p. 209. Vol. IV. Part i.) on the testimony of Count de Cepede, from a manuscript of Commerson—a circumstance that tends at least to prove the universal belief of the fact among the Portuguese.
