116 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



until evening, when we again made a change to W. N. "W. 

 This gale reached its greatest fury on Saturday, the 23d, 

 and did not cease until Sunday noon, by which time it 

 had raged full forty hours. From now on we had an oc- 

 casional hailstorm, and between two and three in the 

 afternoon w« had the first, pretty thick snow-fall. The 

 few sails, which were set, had been well reefed. 



This week— during which we had experienced unusual- 

 ly stormy weather— was but a preparatory foretaste of 

 the experiences which were to be ours when we passed 

 the Cape. 



The period between Sunday, the 24th of August, and 

 the 3d of September can be covered in a very few words. 

 Encouraged by fresh Western and Southwestern breezes, 

 which were not very stormy in their nature, we made 

 pretty good speed and were sailing closer and closer along 

 the Patagonian coast, follovv T ed by flocks of Cape pigeons 

 and albatrosses. Owing to the fact that we kept close to 

 the coast, the current remained rather quiet and this pe- 

 riod of our voyage would undoubtedly have been one of 

 the most agreeable of the whole trip if the weather had 

 not been so rough and cold, notwithstanding the bright 

 sunshine. What was to have been a pleasant trip was 

 thus spoiled; and though we had not ice enough on board 

 to go skating, there were daily hail and snow-storms, 

 which compelled us to use shovels more than once. We 

 also had quite heavy fogs at times. 



The day after the last storm there floated reeds and 

 sea-weed in large quantities all around us. On Tuesday, 

 the 26th, we took a new kind of visitors on board in the 

 shape of a hitherto unseen species of sea-birds. As the 

 air was unusually calm, we were able to catch quite a 

 number of them in the previously described manner and 

 had at one time no less than fifteen of them running round 

 the deck; we threw the whole flock overboard as soon as 

 evening came and how they seemed to enjoy the swim- 

 ming again. These animals were somewhat larger than 

 big geese and distinguished themselves by their blue 

 beaks and pale-red swimming webs; their plumage was 



