EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION 425 



three weeks of sea grub. I have turned out this time 

 an excellent sailor and have been most comfortable all 

 the way from New York here. 



We 've got quite a menagerie on board, — a monkey, 

 a parrot, three cats, a puppy, and a huge goat, which in 

 1899 was given the Albatross by one of the chiefs at 

 the Marquesas. He brought us then about a dozen kids, 

 all most diminutive. We kept two, ate all the others. 

 Of the two, one was carried off the deck by a heavy sea 

 off the Gilbert Islands, the other is now on board, a 

 huge hairy and horny beast which feeds mainly on shav- 

 ings and blotting-paper, and is full of mischief. The 

 goat was a great friend of the former executive officer 

 who occupied my room, so " Billy " comes and sees me 

 every morning when I am having coffee and toast to see 

 what he can pick up. 



After waiting a few days in Callao, Agassiz started 

 for Easter Island on December 3, without having been 

 able to clean the ship's bottom, for a vessel already in 

 dock proved to be so badly injured that she seemed 

 likely to remain there indefinitely. 



The line from Callao to Easter Island first disclosed 

 the fact that west and south of the Humboldt Current, 

 a vast tract of desert sea stretches uninterruptedly over 

 a huge area of the Pacific Ocean. Until about 90° W. 

 the hauls continued much as they had been on the pre- 

 vious line, but after this as the ship left the current 

 matters changed rapidly, and the expedition found itself 

 in a region almost barren of pelagic fauna, while the 

 trawl brought up from the bottom nothing but quanti- 

 ties of manganese nodules, sharks' teeth, and whales' 

 ear-bones. 



