78 A HUNDEED YEARS 



translated it into Gaelic very well. Osgood saw a strange 

 bird, black with some white. He could not make out 

 whether it were a sort of tern or some dark-coloured gull. 

 He thought it more resembled the former species than 

 the latter. 



"Towards three o'clock .the pilot arrived. The 

 breeze, that had been very fresh and favourable, was 

 lulling, and fell almost completely soon after we got 

 out of Lochmaddy. As the evening advanced we got 

 tired of the Jessie, as she was rather going backwards, 

 so again we ordered the boat and four rowers and away 

 we went to one of the numerous islands that bounded 

 us on the left. There were scarcely any birds there; it 

 was not sufficiently steep and rocky. Osgood had a 

 bathe, notwithstanding that the shore was very rough 

 and stony, and Deantag, our terrier, discovered the 

 former retreat of some kind of petrel. The nest we got 

 after a great deal of tearing up of clods, but, much to 

 our sorrow, there were no eggs. The nest was fresh and 

 much larger than the nests of the stormy petrels — I 

 should think about twice the size — and it must have 

 been that of a shearwater. Deantag scratched and 

 whined at several other holes, but having no spade 

 and no time to spare (for we saw the vessel retreating 

 from us) we were obliged to leave the hidden treasures 

 untouched. Our men did not spare their arms, and 

 by dint of hard rowing we gained upon and at length 

 reached the Jessie, which the current was fast taking back 

 to Lochmaddy, and there, in fact, we were next morning, 

 much to our annoyance. At the turn of the tide the 

 current changed and helped us on our course north- 



I 



