52 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



enjoying a royal feast of his favourite dish in his 

 own cabin. 



The journey on the whole — this time and later on 

 — ^varied somewhat from the usual type of sea- 

 voyages. All the passengers were good sailors, 

 and all the crew were extremely ill, and we had to 

 attend them with restoratives or the stoking would 

 not have gone on. The stewardess, who had never 

 been to sea before, entirely collapsed, and was 

 invisible throughout the voyage, looked after by 

 my sister Mary. 



Birds were scarce; off Uist in Shetland I saw 

 several Great Skuas, and a day later had my first 

 sight of a party of six Buffon Skuas (Stercorarius 

 parasiticus), which flew within fifty yards of the 

 boat, so that I could make certain identification of 

 the species. They were travelling close to the 

 water, and their beautiful long tail-feathers gave 

 these graceful sea-pirates a peculiarly rakish style. 



Captain B. said that if I came to him on the 

 bridge at half-past eight on the morning of the 

 fifth day he could show me the first sight of Iceland. 

 To the very moment there appeared some jagged 

 spikes sticking up from the water away to the north. 

 Presently we made Reykianase, the south-western 

 corner of the island — a great mass of tumbled lava 

 rocks rising to a height of 800 feet, and looking barren 

 and inhospitable in the morning mists. Here a 

 heavy tide ran, and swarms of gannets and small 

 whales hunted the ubiquitous coal fish. Other 

 birds were also numerous. Swarms of Kittiwakes 

 wheeled and screamed; Great Skuas, with their 

 owl-like flight, and Fulmars were plentiful, whilst 

 strings of Brunnich's Guillemot, Razorbills and 



