72 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



Sails for Per- In the year 1816, two days before the 

 vernal equinox, I sailed from Liverpool for 

 Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast 

 of Brazil. There is little at this time of the year, in 

 the European part of the Atlantic, to engage the atten- 

 tion of the naturalist. As you go down the channel, 

 you see a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized 

 gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend 

 you a little way into the Bay of Biscay. When it 

 blows a hard gale of wind, the stormy petrel makes its 

 appearance. While the sea runs mountains high, and 

 every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, 

 this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, 

 on rapid pinion, up and down the roaring billows. 

 When the storm is over, it appears no more. It is 

 known to every English sailor by the name of Mother 

 Carey's chicken. It must have been hatched in iEolus's 

 cave, amongst a clutch of squalls and tempests ; for 

 whenever they get out upon the ocean, it always con- 

 trives to be of the party. 



^ m ■> Though the calms, and storms, and adverse 

 winds in these latitudes are vexatious, still, 

 when you reach the trade winds you are amply repaid 

 for all disappointments and inconveniences. The trade 

 winds prevail about thirty degrees on each side of the 

 equator. This part of the ocean may be called the 

 Elysian Eields of Neptune's empire; and the torrid 

 zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habita- 

 bilis aestu," is rendered healthy and pleasant by these 



