46
A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1772.
August.
ships, at considerable distances from any land[1]. I shall venture another reflection on this incident. In the long solitary hours of an uniform navigation, every little circumstance becomes interesting to the passenger; it is therefore not to be wondered at, if a subject so trifling in itself as putting to death a harmless bird, should affect a heart not yet buffeted into insensibility.
Sunday 23.On the 23d, several cetaceous fish, from fifteen to twenty feet long passed the ship, directing their course to the N. and N.W. They were supposed to be grampusses, (delphinus orca). Two days afterTuesday 25. the same kind of fish, and a number of lesser ones of a brownish colour, called skip-jacks, from leaping frequently out of the water, were observed. The wind for several days past had blown from the N.W. and obliged us to take a S.E. course, so that we were now got to the southward of the coast of Guinea. Several of our navigators, who had frequently crossed the Atlantic, looked upon this as a singular circumstance; and indeed it fairly proves, that though nature in the torrid zone commonly produces regular and constant winds, nevertheless it sometimes deviates even there from general- ↑ Captain Cook very obligingly communicated to me a fact which confirms the above assertion. Being on board of a ship between Norway and England, he met with a violent storm, during which a flight of several hundred birds covered the whole rigging of the ship. Among numbers of small birds, he observed several hawks, which lived very luxuriously by preying on those poor defenceless creatures.
rules,
