PORTER’S JOURNAL, 
24 # 
tearing to pieces the large fish they frequently take. One ran 
Hear the ship with a large red fish, of the snapper kind, in his 
mouth; this fish was still alive, and made considerable struggle; 
the seal reared himself out of the water as far as his breast; then 
throwing his head around on one shoulder, appeared to rally all 
his strength, and jerking it with great violence to the other, 
throwing the fish at a great distance from him, tearing off 
with the jerk a mouthful, which he greedily swallowed, and, by 
repeating this action, in a few minutes devoured the whole fish, 
which,, from its size, I should suppose weighed at least ten 
pounds : and it was in vain that the man-of-war hawks, boobies, 
pelicans, and other birds which hovered over him, endeavoured 
to seize on his prey ; his activity baffled all their attempts, and 
prevented them even from picking up the scraps which frequent¬ 
ly flew off from the fish as he threw it from him. 
After getting clear of the sound, I stood out of the bay, and at 
12 o’clock at night was off the south head of Albemarle; there 
I continued beating to get to windward until the 29th, without 
gaining much ground, on account of the prevalence of a rapid 
current setting to the westward. At length, however, the wind 
hauled to the southward, and enabled us to make Charles’ island 
on the 31st, where I sent my boat on shore, with a letter for lieu¬ 
tenant Downes, similar to that left at James’ island. On her 
return, I was informed that every thing remained as I had left it, 
there being no appearance of strangers having been there since 
my departure. We had had several showers of rain while in the 
neighbourhood of the isle, and, from the heavy clouds hanging 
over it, I had hoped to obtain there a supply, and gave directions 
that our former watering-places should be examined, but was ini- 
formed that they were entirely dried up, not a drop of water re¬ 
maining in the places where we had formerly obtained it. I now 
made sail for Chatham island, running along to windward of 
Barrington island, which appears bold and free from danger. 
Towards sunset, the man on the look-out cried out, a sail to the 
J\ r . W.! All sail was made in chace, but in a short time we dis¬ 
covered from the mast-head, by our glasses, that it was one of 
two rocks that lie off the north end of Porter’s island, which we 
