364 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



efforts, was informed that letters could not be delivered 

 until ten o'clock, the precise hour fixed for our de- 

 parture from the anchorage at Belem. 



The voyage from Lisbon along the coasts of Portugal 

 and Galicia is usually enjoyed, even by fair-weather 

 sailors. The case is often otherwise with the Bay of 

 Biscay, but on this occasion there was nothing of which 

 the most fastidious could complain. I have sometimes 

 doubted whether injustice has not been done to that 

 much-abused bay, which, in truth, is not rightly so 

 called by those bound from the north to the coast of 

 Portugal. It is simply a part of the Atlantic Ocean, 

 adjoining the coast of Europe between latitudes 

 43° 46' and 48° 28'. 1 1 have not been able to ascertain 

 that the wind blows harder, or that the sea runs 

 higher there than elsewhere in the same latitudes, 

 and am inclined to rank the prejudice against that 

 particular tract of sea-water among vulgar errors. 



The adventurer who has attempted to open up a 

 trade with some distant region is accustomed, as he 

 returns home, to count up the profits of his expedi- 

 tion ; and in somewhat the same spirit the man who 

 pursues natural knowledge can scarcely fail to take 

 stock of the results of a journey. It is his happy 

 privilege to reckon up none but gains, and those of 

 a kind that bring abiding satisfaction. He may feel 

 some regret that outer circumstance or his own short- 

 coming have allowed opportunities to escape, and 

 lessened the store that he has been able to accumu- 

 late ; but as for the positive drawbacks, which seemed 

 but trivial at the time, they absolutely disappear in 

 the recollection of his experiences. Thinking of these 



