When this hurricane of a moment had passed, and we had time to look round, not a rag was to be seen in the whole fleet; while the Wexford, a ship near us, had lost her three top-gallant masts and jib-boom, and, what was a much more serious misfortune, her fore-topmast was dangling over the bows.  Part of the fore-topsail was wrapped like a shawl round the lee cat-head, while the rest hung down in festoons from the collar of the fore-stay to the spritsail yard-arm.  A stout party of seamen from each of the men-of-war were sent to assist in clearing the wreck, and getting up fresh spars; and a light fair wind having succeeded to the calm in which we had been lolling about for many days, we took our wounded bird in tow, and made all sail towards the equator.  By this time, also, the China ships had bent a new set of sails, and were resuming their old stations in the appointed order of bearing, which it was our policy to keep up strictly, together with as many other of the formalities of a fleet in line of battle and on a cruise as we could possibly maintain.

While we were thus stealing along pleasantly enough under the genial influence of this newly-found air, which as yet was confined to the upper sails, and every one was looking open-mouthed to the eastward to catch a gulp of cool air, or was congratulating his neighbour on getting rid of the tiresome calm in which we had been so long half-roasted, half-suffocated, about a dozen flying-fish rose out of the water, just under the fore-chains, and skimmed away to windward at the height of ten or twelve feet above the surface.  But sometimes the flying-fish merely skims the surface, so as to touch the tops of the successive waves, without rising and falling to follow the undulations of the sea; that they also rise as high as twenty feet out of the water is certain, being sometimes found in the channels of a line-of-battle ship; and they frequently fly into a 74 gun-ship’s main-deck ports.  On a frigate’s forecastle and gangways, also elevations which may be taken at eighteen or twenty feet, they are often found.  I remember seeing one, about nine inches in length, and weighing not less, I should suppose, than half-a-pound, skim into the Volage’s main-deck port just abreast of the gangway.  One of the main-topmen was coming up the quarter-deck ladder at the moment, when the flying-fish, entering the port, struck the astonished mariner on the temple, knocked him off the step, and very nearly laid him sprawling.

I was once in a prize, a low Spanish schooner, not above two feet and a-half out of the water, when we used to pick up flying-fish enough about the decks in the morning to give us a capital breakfast.  They are not unlike whitings to the taste, though rather firmer, and very dry.  They form, I am told, a considerable article of food for the negroes in the harbours of the West Indies.  The method of catching them at night is thus described:—­In the middle of the canoe a light is placed on the top of a pole, towards which object it is believed these fish always dart, while on both sides of the canoe a net is spread to a considerable distance, supported by out-riggers above the surface of the water; the fish dash at the light, pass it, and fall into the net on the other side.