The gale gradually blew itself out, leaving behind only a long and very heavy swell to denote the deep-reaching disturbance that the ocean had endured.  And now we were within the range of the Sargasso Weed, that mysterious fucus that makes the ocean look. like some vast hayfield, and keeps the sea from rising, no matter how high the wind.  It fell a dead calm, and the harpooners amused themselves by dredging up great masses of the weed, and turning out the many strange creatures abiding therein.  What a world of wonderful life the weed is, to be sure!  In it the flying fish spawn and the tiny cuttle-fish breed, both of them preparing bounteous provision for the larger denizens of the deep that have no other food.  Myriads of tiny crabs and innumerable specimens of less-known shell-fish, small fish of species as yet unclassified in any work on natural history, with jelly-fish of every conceivable and inconceivable shape, form part of this great and populous country in the sea.  At one haul there was brought on board a mass of flying-fish spawn, about ten pounds in weight, looking like nothing so much as a pile of ripe white currants, and clinging together in a very similar manner.

Such masses of ova I had often seen cast up among the outlying rocks on the shores of the Caribbean Sea, when as a shipwrecked lad I wandered idly about unburying turtle eggs from their snug beds in the warm sand, and chasing the many-hued coral fish from one hiding-place to another.

While loitering in these smooth waters, waiting for the laggard wind, up came a shoal of dolphin, ready as at all times to attach themselves for awhile to the ship.  Nothing is more singular than the manner in which deep-sea fish will accompany a vessel that is not going too fast—­sometimes for days at a time.  Most convenient too, and providing hungry Jack with many a fresh mess he would otherwise have missed.  Of all these friendly fish, none is better known than the “dolphin,” as from long usage sailors persist in calling them, and will doubtless do so until the end of the chapter.  For the true dolphin (DELPHINIDAE) is not a fish at all, but a mammal a warm-blooded creature that suckles its young, and in its most familiar form is known to most people as the porpoise.  The sailor’s “dolphin,” on the other hand, is a veritable fish, with vertical tail fin instead of the horizontal one which distinguishes all the whale family, scales and gills.

It is well known to literature, under its sea-name, for its marvellous brilliancy of colour, and there are few objects more dazzling than a dolphin leaping out of a calm sea into the sunshine.  The beauty of a dying dolphin, however, though sanctioned by many generations of writers, is a delusion, all the glory of the fish departing as soon as he is withdrawn from his native element.

But this habit of digression grows upon one, and I must do my best to check it, or I shall never get through my task.