Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/60

1772.
August.

decks when it had unfortunately taken its flight too far, and was spent by its too great elevation above the surface of the sea. In the uniform life which we led between the tropics, where we found weather, wind, and sea, almost constantly favourable and agreeable, the mind catched at every little circumstance that could give the hint to a reflection. When we saw the most beautiful fishes of the sea, the dolphin and bonito, in pursuit of the flying fish, and when these forsook their native element to seek for shelter in air, the application to human nature was obvious. What empire is not like a tumultuous ocean, where the great in all the magnificence and pomp of power, continually persecute and contrive the destruction of the defenceless? Sometimes we saw this picture continued still farther, when the poor fugitives met with another set of enemies in the air, and became the prey of birds^[1], by endeavouring to escape the jaws of fishes.

Saturday 8.

On the 8th we observed the sea to be of a whitish colour, and tried for soundings, but found none with fifty fathoms of line. In the evening we crossed the tropic of cancer. About this time, the captain ordered the ship to be fumigated with gunpowder and vinegar, having taken notice that all our books, and utensils became co-

 

1. Boobies (pelecanus piscator); men-of war birds (p. aquilus); and tropic birds (phaethon æthereus.)

vered