274 By Stream and Sea. 



were the beautiful islands and islets of the Straits of Malacca. 

 In these latitudes one of the sailors caught a booby bird. 

 As the sun sank rose-red over the island of Sumatra vivid 

 lightning began to play on the western horizon, and as we 

 watched the distant storm a dark form swept along the 

 bulwarks and silently vanished. In the brief twilight, which 

 in these low latitudes comes and departs without ceremony, 

 this mysterious apparition attracted considerable notice. A 

 young person given to sentiment suggested that it was the 

 Spirit of the Tempest hovering over us to warn us of im- 

 pending doom. Whatever it might be, it seemed to have a 

 decided penchant for hovering ; it hovered sometimes with- 

 in a few feet of us, mournfully flapping its long wings ; after 

 an absence of a few minutes, or moments as the case may be, 

 it would return, as though unable to overcome the doubt it 

 entertained of our honesty, or to resist the temptation of 

 keeping near the ship. 



Soon there was a shout forward, succeeded by a speedy 

 solution of the matter. The mysterious Spirit of the Tem- 

 pest was a booby bird ; it had been taken prisoner, and was 

 now being brought aft a miserable captive. It had fluttered 

 around the steamer until the coloured lights were being put in 

 their accustomed niches, and then the stupid bird, as if it 

 were a moth and the green lantern a candle, clumsily 

 alighted on the head of the man who had affixed the lamp. 

 It reminded me of the gannets of Bass's Rock, but was 

 smaller ; although its body did not weigh a pound, its wings 

 outstretched measured more than four feet. We tried the 

 silly creature by judge and jury, tying its wings as a tempo- 

 rary precaution, and allowing it to flap about as best it might 

 on the deck. The balance of evidence tended to show that 

 the booby most righteously deserves its name, that it fool- 

 ishly courts attacks that another bird would avoid, and that 



