JAN. 1769 OFF TERRA DEL FUEGO 47 
There were also plenty of albatrosses. Indeed, I have ob- 
served a much greater quantity of birds upon the wing in 
gales than in moderate weather, owing perhaps to the 
tossing of the waves, which must render swimming very 
uneasy. They must be more often seen flying than when 
they sit upon the water. 
The ship has been observed to go much better since her 
shaking in the last gale of wind; the seamen say that it is 
a general observation that ships go better for being, as they 
say, loosened in their joints, so much so that in a chase it 
is often customary to knock down stanchions, etc., to make 
the ship as loose as possible. 
10th. Seals plentiful to-day, also a kind of bird, 
different from any we have before seen. It was black, and 
a little larger than a pigeon, plump like it, and easily known 
by its flapping its wings quickly as it flies, contrary 
to the custom of sea-birds in general. This evening a 
shoal of porpoises of a new species swam by the ship; 
they are spotted with large dabs of white, with white under 
the belly: in other respects, as swimming, etc., they are 
like common porpoises, only they leap rather more nimbly, 
sometimes lifting their whole bodies out of the water. 
11th. This morning at daybreak we saw the land of 
Terra del Fuego. By eight o’clock we were well in with it. 
Its appearance was not nearly so barren as the writer of 
Lord Anson’s voyage has represented it. We stood along 
shore, about two leagues off, and could see trees distinctly 
through our glasses. We observed several smokes, made 
probably by the natives as a signal to us. 
The hills seemed to be high, and on them were many 
patches of snow, but the sea-coast appeared fertile, the trees 
especially being of a bright verdure, except in places exposed 
to the south-west wind, which were distinguishable by their 
brown appearance. The shore itself was sometimes beach 
and sometimes rock. 
12th. We took Beroe inerassata, Medusa limpidissima, 
plicata and obliquata, Aleyonium anguwillare (probably the 
thing that Shelvocke mentions in his Voyage Round the 
