A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
91
1772.
December.
Saturday 5.The stormy weather continued, intermixed with frequent rains and fogs, till the fifth of December[1], when we set the top-gallant sails for the first time, after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, and observed the latitude at noon, in 47° 10′ south. In the afternoon, however, the showers returned, and a western swell announced a wind from that quarter, which actually came on during night, blowing at about S.W. and chilled the air so considerably, that the thermometer sunk from 44° to 38° during the night, and some snow began to fall the next morning. The wind soon encreased to a storm again; so that on the 7thMonday 7. in the afternoon, we had only a single sail set. A variety of birds of the petrel and tern genus, had attended us in greater or lesser numbers ever since we had left the Cape, and the high sea and winds seemed to have no other influence on them, than that of bringing more of them about us. The principal sorts were the Cape-petrel, or pintada (procellaria capensis), and the blue petrel, so called from its having a blueish-grey colour, and a band of blackish feathers across the whole wing. We likewise saw the two before mentioned species of albatrosses[2] from time to time, together with a third, less than the others, which we named the sooty, and our sailors called the
December.
Saturday 5.The stormy weather continued, intermixed with frequent rains and fogs, till the fifth of December[1], when we set the top-gallant sails for the first time, after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, and observed the latitude at noon, in 47° 10′ south. In the afternoon, however, the showers returned, and a western swell announced a wind from that quarter, which actually came on during night, blowing at about S.W. and chilled the air so considerably, that the thermometer sunk from 44° to 38° during the night, and some snow began to fall the next morning. The wind soon encreased to a storm again; so that on the 7thMonday 7. in the afternoon, we had only a single sail set. A variety of birds of the petrel and tern genus, had attended us in greater or lesser numbers ever since we had left the Cape, and the high sea and winds seemed to have no other influence on them, than that of bringing more of them about us. The principal sorts were the Cape-petrel, or pintada (procellaria capensis), and the blue petrel, so called from its having a blueish-grey colour, and a band of blackish feathers across the whole wing. We likewise saw the two before mentioned species of albatrosses[2] from time to time, together with a third, less than the others, which we named the sooty, and our sailors called the
quaker
