177& THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 121 



during the last twenty-four hours, it had set strong 

 to the northward, as we experienced a difference of 

 twenty-nine miles between our observed latitude and 

 that by dead reckoning. Upon the whole, till some 

 better astronomical observations are made on shore 

 on the eastern coast of Brazil, I shall conclude that 

 its longitude is thirty-five degrees and a half, or thirty- 

 six degrees west, at most. 



We proceeded on our voyage, without meeting 

 with any thing of note, till the 6th of October. Being 

 then in the latitude of 35 \5' S., longitude 7 4.5' W., 

 we met with light airs and calms by turns, for three 

 days successively. We had, for some days before, 

 seen albatrosses, pintadoes, and other petrels ; and 

 here we saw three penguins, which occasioned us to 

 sound ; but we found no ground with a line of one 

 hundred and fifty fathoms. We put a boat in the 

 water, and shot a few birds ; one of which was a black 

 petrel, about the size of a crow, and, except as to 

 the bill and feet, very like one. It had a few white 

 feathers under the throat; and the under-side of the 

 quill-feathers were of an ash-colour. All the other 

 feathers were jet black, as also the bill and legs. 



On the 8th, in the evening, one of those birds 

 which sailors call noddies, settled on our rigging, and 

 was caught. It was something larger than an English 

 black-bird, and nearly as black, except the upper part 

 of the head, which was white, looking as if it were 

 powdered ; the whitest feathers growing out from the 

 base of the upper bill, from which they gradually 

 assumed a darker colour, to about the middle of the 

 upper part of the neck, where the white shade was 

 lost in the black, without being divided by any line. 

 It was web-footed ; had black legs and a black bill, 

 which was long, and not unlike that of a curlew. It 

 is said these birds never fly far from land. We knew 

 of none nearer the station we were in, than Gough's 

 or Richmond Island, from which our distance could 

 not be less than one hundred leagues. But it must 



