We had good weather, on the whole, to the Maldives. There were a good many days of calm or light airs, and we ran into one gale that continued for a little more than a day, and blew itself out. It did not seem so very bad, although it kept the men busy and wet. For the greater part of the time it was very pleasant sailing, with the {245} wind dead astern or on the port quarter, and not too hot if I could lie on my back in the shadow of a sail, and look up at the sky and the foretruck describing a slow ellipse against it. The heel of the bowsprit was my favorite place, but on our present point of sailing that was fairly in the sun until the afternoon was half gone, even with the staysails out to starboard; and nobody—no white man—could bear the sun beating down upon him long with any comfort. I could stand the smell of the ship, which blew over me as I lay there. Indeed, I liked the smell of the ship. It was chiefly of oil and tar and rope and general hotness, and it brought back vividly to my mind the wharves of New Bedford on a summer noon. When I had any time in the mornings I used to stand just abaft the foremast on the port side. It was wiser, of course, not to be caught loafing, although the officers would usually fail to see me when I was in plain sight. Standing so, I gazed off at the dimpling sea—on two occasions I saw a smudge of smoke on the horizon, and once I saw a sail—or, looking down, I watched the little wave, continuously breaking, which our bows pushed aside. We often had schools of flying fish about us, and sometimes I could see great numbers of albacore about the ship, a fish not unlike our horse-mackerel. The albacore chased the flying fish—not into the air, although they would often leap clear of the water—and caught them, too, by being on hand when they struck the water again. The albacore had their enemies. One morning I noticed that the albacore were huddled close to the ship, swimming in close ranks. Suddenly they disappeared—they had gone to the other side of the hull, I found—and I saw a swift shadow pass where they had been. It looked much like a shark swimming fast, at a considerable depth. Then the albacore were back again, and the shadow returned. The albacore scattered and fled, and the pursuer, a great swordfish, was among them, slashing with his {246} sword, killing three or four. When they were gone, the swordfish returned from the pursuit, I suppose, and ate those he had killed. I did not see that part of it. We saw swordfish more than once, big fellows, twelve feet long or more, apparently basking on the surface. The men called them sail-fish. They have an enormous back fin, folded down on the back when they swim fast, but often erect above the water when they lie at the surface. It acts like a sail, and carries them along at a very fair speed.