52 CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 
than rain, began to fall, and continued the whole mght, 
with so sensible a degree of cold, that instead of melting 
under an equinoctial sun in the lightest cloathing, as 
our gentlemen expected, they were glad to resume their 
woolens. 
The albicores which had accompanied us in vast shoals to 
the edge of soundings, and were taken in such numbers, 
that besides being consumed fresh to satiety, the crews of 
both vessels pickled and salted several barrels, now entirely 
disappeared, and with them the sea birds ; the white colour 
of the water changed to the oceanic blue before we struck 
soundings, the marine animals much decreased, and the sea 
lost a great portion of its luminosity. 
From the 5d to the 8th we were plagued with light airs, 
veering towards midnight to the west as far as S. W., and 
having for an hour or two sufficient strength to send the 
ship two or three miles an hour, then again dying away to 
light airs, which in the morning veered to south and 8.S.E. ; 
these variations being the only signs of the mutual re-action 
of the land and sea on the atmosphere ; and indeed we ex- 
perienced similar variations morning and evening since 
making Prince’s island. 
The nature of this part of the coast is doubtless the cause 
of the want of more marked alternate breezes from the land 
