THE LATE ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, ESQ. 265 
all felt the cold exceedingly keen and penetrating. It ap- 
peared as if it had come directly upon us from the very 
bosom of some stupendous iceberg in the vicinity, for I could 
not, without serious inconvenience, show my face to it, 
accustomed as I have been for years past to the temperature 
of a mild Australian winter, and the fervour of a north- 
wester, furnace-breathing blast, in its opposite or summer 
season. The thermometer, on such occasions, fell below the 
freezing point. Most of us had chilblains in the incipient 
stage, either on our hands or feet; which, however, soon 
disappeared, causing no further inconvenience, so soon as 
we had doubled the great southern promontory, and had 
pushed our way to a more mild and genial clime. On the 
20th of May, after looking for eighty-nine days upon the 
surface of a circle of ocean, (the rim of which we used daily 
to trace, to catch any object that might exist within the 
range of vision), with only here and there an albatross, or a 
few of the procellaria-kind of sea fowls, to skim along before 
the gale, to relieve the monotony of the aqueous scene, it 
may readily be conceived with what interest the report on 
eck of ‘a sail in sight’? was received by us; one and all 
ran out of the cabin, to witness the novel scene. 
The stranger, who was to windward of us, was a brig, 
with her head to the southward; and as we could not ap- 
proach her as the wind then was, and she showing no dispo- 
sition to bear down towards us, we did not communicate. 
On the 27th, our ninety-sixth day out, we crossed the line, 
in long. 26° W. without being detained by those calms to 
which ships either outward or homeward bound, are often- 
times subjected at that stage of their voyage. On the 9th of ` 
June we were on the northern tropic, when a large vessel was 
seen ahead, from the topsail yard. Being immediately under 
the sun (one’s shadow was dumpy, equal on all sides), we 
had, in consequence of the rarefaction of the atmosphere 
during the day, light airs, so that two days elapsed before we 
were able to come up with her, (we being evidently the better 
