204 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



been placed there as a resort for the myriads of birds that 

 annually visit this desolate region of the earth for the pur- 

 pose of rearing their young at a distance from all dis- 

 turbers of their peace. How unlike the open, bold, honest 

 mariner, whose face needs no mask, who scorns to skulk 

 under any circumstances ! 



" The vessel herself is a shabby thing; her sails are 

 patched with stolen pieces of better canvas, the owners of 

 which have probably been stranded on some inhospitable 

 coast, and have been plundered, perhaps murdered, by the 

 wretches before us. Look at her again. Her sides are 

 neither painted nor even pitched; no, they are daubed 

 over, plastered and patched with stripes of sealskins laid 

 along the seams. Her deck has never been washed or 

 sanded; her hold — for no cabin has she — though at present 

 empty, sends forth an odor pestilential as that of a charnel- 

 house. The crew, eight in number, lie .sleeping at the foot 

 of their tottering mast, regardless of the repairs needed 

 in every part of her rigging. But see ! she scuds along, and, 

 as I suspect her crew to be bent on the commission of some 

 evil deed, let us follow her to the first harbor. 



" There rides the filthy thing. The afternoon is half 

 over. Her crew have thrown their boat overboard; they 

 enter and seat themselves, one with a rusty gun. One of 

 them sculls the skiff toward an island, for a century past the 

 breeding-place of myriads of guillemots, which are now to 

 be laid under contribution. 



