‘non solum fures temporis sed etiam pecuniae’-they not only steal one's time in their friendly conversation and chatter but also steal one's money. This I now well experienced myself here, since it is very costly to eat at the Cape, and those inhabitants or Freemen who seek their sustenance from the ships arriving know well how to attract to themselves with special kindnesses the folk from those ships, when they come ashore, but also manage to gain from them what they own. Here money only is regarded, and nothing else, as in other places in the Indies, and without it one can do but little.
Worthy of note besides this were the waterfowl called Penguins seen in the Bay, which the French call Tauquets and Happevoye. These birds are just the size of a small wild duck, and swim very fast under water. Their food is small fishes, and when they catch up with their prey they follow and grasp it, and then show themselves again above the water like ducks. We also saw in lovely clear weather two whales, a male and a female, which coupled together and sought for this a calm sea, and chased each other.
[Notes on whales in Spitzbergen and Holland omitted.]
I must however make a short mention of the enemies* of the whale, which are the dolphins, the tunnies, and especially the swordfish.
This last-named fish is indeed not of the largest, since it is seldom seven ells long (and in many places shorter), so that it is far from reaching the size of the whale, for which however it has a natural enmity. From its snout there extends a bone about three or four inches broad, as long as a Brabant ell or somewhat more, set all along the sides with sharp spikes, as wide as the length of a finger. I have often seen them in the sea. This bone it uses against the whale in place of a sword, but it does not attack the same alone but rather in company of a good number of comrades. They all together attack the whale or other large fish, and cut it with the said sword so much in the belly that at last it must die from loss of blood, tired out and helpless. Then its enemies eat nothing of it but the tongue from its mouth, from which it occurs that dead whales are often to be found without tongues [eaten by the Killer-whale].
As greatly as the whale is hated and persecuted by the swordfish, as truly also it is loved and led by the little Trusch-fish*, of which Arnoldus Montanus tells in his description of Japan that it continually swims ahead of the whale, whose sight is not very clear, and warns him by a gentle touch of the tail should he come into danger of running aground on shallows or reefs.
Here I take my leave of the whales and swordfish, and from the sea make my way ashore, to let my readers take note of some things there which I passed over in my previous description of the Cape of bon Esperance; but I will not say much concerning these.
In Africa an unusual sort of cat is found, from which is obtained the Civet or Musk. The Civet-cat is very rough-haired, and from head to tail about an ell long. In short, it is the size of a marten or fox, in colour almost like a wolf. It eats very greedily raw flesh, mice and eggs, as also rice and all manner of sweet things. Near its genitals or kidneys these animals have a pouch full of small holes in which the Civet lies, like a white froth or
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