THE FRIGATE BIKD. 



103 



traversing the Atlantic, arrives in mighty billows, swollen to enor- 

 mous heights, with a terrific clash and shock, the tranquil petrels 

 labour imperturbably. " I saw them," says M. de Quatrefages, 

 " describe in the air a thousand curves, plunge between two waves, 

 reappear with a fish. Swiftest when they followed the wind, slowest 

 when they confronted it, they nevertheless poised always with the 

 same ease, and never appeared to give a stroke of the wing the more 

 than in the calmest weather. And yet the billows mounted up the 

 slopes, like cataracts reversed, as high as the platform of Notre Dame, 

 and their spray higher than Montmartre. They did not appear more 

 moved by it." 



Man has not their philosophy. The seaman is powerfully affected 

 when, at the decline of day, a sudden night darkening over the sea, he 

 descries, hovering about his barque, an ominous little pigeon, a bird 

 of funereal black. Black is not the fitting word ; black would be 

 less gloomy : the true tint is that of a smoky-brown, which cannot 

 be defined. It is a shadow of hell, an evil vision, which strides along 

 the waters, breasts the billows, crushes under its feet the tempest. The 

 stormy petrel (or " St. Peter") is the horror of the seaman, who sees in 



