We have also caught two Sharks, one a female about seven feet long, that had ten young, alive, and able to swim well; one of them was thrown overboard and made off as if well accustomed to take care of himself. Another was cut in two, and the head half swam off out of our sight. The remainder, as well as the parent, were cut in pieces for bait for Dolphins, which are extremely partial to that meat. The weather being calm and pleasant, I felt desirous to have a view of the ship from a distance and Captain Hatch politely took me in the yawl and had it rowed all round the "Delos." This was a sight I had not enjoyed for twenty years, and I was much pleased with it; afterwards having occasion to go out to try the bearings of the current, I again accompanied him, and bathed in the sea, not however without some fears as to Sharks. To try the bearings of the current we took an iron pot fastened to a line of one hundred and twenty fathoms, and made a log-board out of a barrel's head leaded on one side to make it sink perpendicularly on its edge, and tried the velocity of the current with it fixed to a line by the help of a second glass,[1] whilst our iron pot acted as an anchor.
Let me change my theme, and speak of birds awhile. Mother Carey's Chickens (Procellaria) came about us, and I longed to have at least one in my possession. I had watched their evolutions, their gentle patting of the sea when on the wing, with the legs hanging and the web extended, seen them take large and long ranges in search of food, and return for bits of fat thrown overboard for them, I had often looked at different figures given by scientific men; but all this could not diminish for a moment the long-wished for pleasure of possessing one in the flesh. I fired, and dropped the first one that came alongside, and the captain most courteously sent for it with the yawl. I made two drawings of it; it proved to be a female with eggs, numerous, but not larger than grains of fine powder,
- ↑ This sounds involved, but is copied verbatim.
