39^ Boobies and Penguins 



perched along its edge a dozen tiny birds. I glared 

 at them, disbeUeving my sight for a moment, then 

 reaching out I took one in my hand, and found that 

 it was a tired-out little swift that had thus taken 

 refuge among us, and the fact moved me strangely. 



Many such waif-visitors I have seen and in many 

 seas, but most pathetic of all I think was one during 

 a strong monsoon in the China Sea. The sturdy ship 

 under a heavy press of canvas was striving to get 

 across to Manilla from Hong Kong. It was a bleak 

 dismal day, and I stood at the wheel, my whole atten- 

 tion taken up with the object of keeping the plunging 

 vessel as near the wind as possible without shaking 

 a shred of her straining canvas ; when suddenly I 

 became aware of a large bird that, with heavily- 

 flapping wings, was striving hard to get on board, 

 yet for some obscure reason was afraid to trust itself 

 to windward, lest, apparently, it should lose command 

 of itself and be blown against something that would 

 do it injury. For over an hour I watched its painful 

 labours alone, for the second mate was leaning over 

 the break of the poop in deep meditation, and it was 

 impossible under sea etiquette that I should call him. 

 I cannot tell you how I suffered for that poor bird. 

 He came so close that I knew him for a stork — I saw 

 his long neck and beak, and his slender legs tucked 

 closely beneath him. And I did want him safe. I 

 almost prayed for his deliverance, he made such a 

 gallant fight for life. But alas ! he would not trust 

 himself to windward, he would persist in coming up 

 under the lee quarter, where the eddy from the spanker 

 poured down strongly enough to sweep away the most 

 powerfully winged bird that ever flew. I saw him 

 grow weaker and weaker, still fighting vainly against 

 overwhelming odds, and at last in one of his swoopings 



