grains, spoken of above, resembles nothing so much that I know of as the trident which painters thrust into the hands of Daddy Neptune.  If my nautical recollections, however, serve me correctly, this spear has five prongs, not three, and sometimes there are two sets, placed in lines at right angles to one another.  The upper end of the staff being loaded with lead, it falls down and turns over the fish, which is then drawn on board on the top of the grains, as a potato or a herring might be presented on the point of a fork.

The dolphin is eaten and generally relished by every one, though certainly a plaguy dry fish.  It is often cut into slices and fried like salmon, or boiled and soused in vinegar, to be eaten cold.  The bonito is a coarser fish, and only becomes tolerable eating by the copious use of port-wine.

It happened in a ship I commanded that a porpoise was struck about half-an-hour before the cabin dinner; and I gave directions, as a matter of course, to my steward to dress a dish of steaks, cut well clear of the thick coating of blubber.  It so chanced that none of the crew had ever before seen a fish of this kind taken, and in consequence there arose doubts amongst them whether or not it was good, or even safe eating.  The word, however, being soon passed along the decks that orders had been given for some slices of the porpoise to be cooked for the captain’s table, a deputation from forward was appointed to proceed as near to the cabin door as the etiquette of the service allowed, in order to establish the important fact of the porpoise being eatable.  The dish was carried in, its contents speedily discussed, and a fresh supply having been sent for, the steward was, of course, intercepted in his way to the cook.  “I say, Capewell,” cried one of the hungry delegates, “did the captain really eat any of the porpoise?”

“Eat it!” exclaimed the steward, “look at that!” at the same time lifting off the cover, and showing a dish as well cleared as if it had previously been freighted with veal cutlets, and was now on its return from the midshipmen’s berth.

“Ho! ho!” sung out Jack, running back to the forecastle; “if the skipper eats porpoise, I don’t see why we should be nice; so here goes!” Then pulling forth the great clasp-knife which always hangs by a cord round the neck of a seaman, he plunged it into the sides of the fish, and, after separating the outside rind of blubber, detached half-a-dozen pounds of the red meat, which, in texture and taste, and in the heat of its blood, resembles beef, though very coarse.  His example was so speedily followed by the rest of the ship’s company, that when I walked forward, after dinner, in company with the doctor, to take the post-mortem view of the porpoise more critically than before, we found the whole had been broiled and eaten within half-an-hour after I had unconsciously given, by my example, an official sanction to the feast.