CAPE HORK. 



77 



and webbed ; the eyes are black ; the bill hooked, with one 

 exterior nostril ; tail short. The breast is beautifully white, 

 and the back, wings, and tail, spotted black and white ; and 

 from that circumstance, Frezier says, the sailors called them 

 damiers, or draught-boards.* Its motions are graceful. It sails 

 about the stern of vessels at sea, sometimes balancing itself 

 upon the wing, and again dropping gently to the surface, to 

 pick up any crumbs that may have been thrown overboard, 

 and then mounts upon its untiring course. When caught, as 

 many were with hook and line trailed over the stern, it is un- 

 able to rise from the deck, and attempts to defend itself by 

 ejecting the contents of the stomach, and a pure yellow oil of 

 a fishy odor. 



The silver variety is of about the same size. The breast is a 

 brilliant white, and the back, wings, and tail, are of a light 

 leaden hue, but of silvery brightness ; in other respects it does 

 not differ very much from the first. 



On the 8th of October, though nearly four hundred miles 

 from land, (the latitude being 61° 49* S., and the longitude 

 74° 50' W.) the birds still followed us. Besides the pigeons, 

 numbers of albatross were caught at the stern, and afforded 

 fine sport to many persons on board. On the ninth, the wind 

 changed from west to south-west by west, and all the birds 

 left us, but returned again on the eleventh, when the wind 

 hauled to the northward and westward, and remained with us 

 till we arrived at Valparaiso. The largest albatross caught, 

 measured seven feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the 

 other. 



On the 1 8th, the latitude was 50° 28' S., and the longitude 

 79° 53' 15" W., and we all indulged in the hope that we had 

 passed all the perils and tedium of the Cape ; for the long, 

 deep blue swell, which distinguishes the Pacific from the At- 

 lantic, was now remarked by every body ; but we had not yet 

 passed "where Chiloe's tempests sweep," and were therefore 

 disappointed. On the 19th the barometer sunk to 28.75 inches, 

 and we soon after had a fresh gale, that rendered it prudent to 



* Frezier : Voyage to the South Sea. London. 1717. 



