A dolphin. full diverfion, and among other fish, we caught a great number of dolphins: Not those of the porpefs kind, who have mouths that make a terrible appearance: but that beautiful fish which our painters vilely figure on the figns. It is a long flim fish, from three to feven feet in length. The belly is a filvery white, and the back the fineft colors on a dufky olive ground: The fins and tail are very elegant, efpecially one fin that extends along the back: Its head is broad and fhort: the eyes bright and large. Well dreffed, it is exceeding good. A dish of this fine creature was generally one of the fix we had every day for dinner; to which we fat down at twelve o'clock. We breakfasted at eight, and fupped at the fame hour at night. We had every thing in great plenty; not only fish and flesh, butter and biscuit; but very fine milk for our tea, and coffee, and puddings, from two goats we had on board. The 7th of September, we left the Salvages on our backs, ran at a pleasant fiveknot gale for several days, that is, 120 miles in 24 hours. We cut through mountain feas, and once more happily paffed the tumbling bay of Biscay. Due north we steered, and began to approach the Western Islands; when of a fudden all the winds failed us, and for fix days we ftood ftock ftill. Had this happened under the line, we should have been finely roasted; but as we were in a good latitude, and the weather charming, it was delightful. We took falmon and turbot every day, and fared deliciously. The hands got a blue fhark, and a white shark, large and terrible fishes, but had fecured them by ropes round their bodys, fo as to prevent fuch mischief as the fea-wolf was like to do us; and they dreffed pieces of them, which we found to be delicious eating. The white shark, reader, is the most a fhark. dreadful of all its fpecies. This was fourteen feet long, and proportionably thick, and at leaft 700 pounds weight: the head flat and monftrous; the mouth enormous; the teeth broad, triangular, and dreadful: It had fix rows of them, and many of them were ferrated: The eyes were prodigious large and terrible: And yet this all-devouring monfter a failor fought with a knife in its own. element, the reverend Mr. Hughes affures us, in his history of Barbados. But Dr. Hill obferves upon the relation, that we cannot but congratulat the author on this happy conclufion of his uncommon performance; the history is worthy of the ftory, and the story of the hiftory. As to the blue fhark, it is a smaller kind of the fquali, but a fierce and frightful animal. It is about fix feet long, and called the blue shark, because its back is a deep The adventure of Milburn foreft. deep and beautiful blue color. The other is all over white, and bright as filver. But as to the lull; fix days, as I fayed, we lay becalmed in an ocean that was smooth as a mill-pond, and during that time, it was agreed among us, that every one of the company fhould recite the ftrangeft affair that befell them in life. Who fhould tell first, the cafting of lots was to fhew, and as it fell upon Mifs Weft to relate, that agreeable young lady proceeded at once, and gave us an amazing true history. In the month of June, the year 1738, I went to see an old lady, my relation, who lived in a country house in the north of England, and purposed to spend the fummer at the place: but I had not been a week there before I was forcibly carryed away, and hurried by violence to a confinement, that was the most furprizing spot, and difplayed as wonderful a fcene as ever was tranfacted I imagine in the world. The principal actor was a great wicked man, who is ftill alive. The farce began in the following way. Some agreeable young ladys in the neigh bourhood had engaged me to act with them a French paftoral of Moliere, in a Sylvan theatre that was in the center of a wood not far from my relation's houfe. Several female friends were invited to fee this performance, and and three or four clergymen, who came with their wives. It was my part to begin, and I entered, repeating thefe lines: Les arbres, ces rochers, cette eau, ces gazons Ont pour mois des appas a ne laffer jamais ny I love thefe folitary scenes, thofe fimple beautys which are by nature formed. There is nothing here but what enchants the eye. Thofe trees, thofe rocks, thofe rivulets, this fresh turf, are to me pleasures that never tire. But before I could make an end, twelve men appeared, compleatly armed, and like forefters, dreft in green. They ordered the company, upon pain of death, not to stir, and then two immediatly carryed me away, déguisé en Nymphe, in the dress of a Sylvan nymph, as I played. The violence deprived me of my fenfes, and it was fometime before I recovered them again; for, on opening my éyes, I found myself, to my great astonishment, at a confiderable distance from home, and feated in an Italian chair, by the fide of the biggeft, and most hideously ugly Moor that ever came into the world. When I faw the condition I was in, inftantly I filled the air with my crys, and invoked every power, mi ministers of grace and men, to rescue me from the hands of the monster I was in. My lamentations were in vain. No friendly being could I fee. The chair, like the wind, rolled swiftly on. I was obliged to take the Moor's advice, and be still. He told me he must stop my mouth, if I continued to make any more noife, but if I would quietly travel on, I fhould be used with all the deference and respect I could defire for there was no defign to offer me the leaft injury, but, at our journey's end, to deliver me into the hands of his master, a great and good man, who wanted to make me his wife. Who this was, and why he did not make his addresses in perfon, at Mrs. Compton's house, he had orders not to tell. His mafter would explane to my fatisfaction, what was dark in this affair, and I might be well affured, that into the hands of a handfomer, richer, and sweeter-tempered husband, it was impoffible for any woman to come. He had a feat like a paradice. He lived like a prince. And nothing but jocund humor, and whatever can please the eye, or charm the car, or regale the appetite, were administered within his happy mansion. to cloths, there was every thing of the richest kind at the house, ready made for my wearing, the black continued to tell me, and if I pleased to change my drefs, I would find As |