Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/155

 with an Eaterly wind; when, from the general bad tate of my ails, I ordered the top-ails to be furled, and lay to under tay-ails. On the twenty-econd of December the weather became moderate, with ettled North Eaterly winds and frequent howers, which continued without any variation to the end of this year. I hall not, however, omit to mention that, after the example of my firt commander and patron Captain Cooke, I did not uffer our Chritmas, the grand fetival of the Chritian world, to pas by without a incere, though imperfect celebration of it.

We had now an alternate ucceion of calms and light winds, which blew from the North Wet quarter, and at times thunder and lightening. We proceeded down the coat under top-ails during the day, and lay to at night. When we aw any pouting fih, we tood off and on to acertain their clas, but of thee there were very few, which proved to be hump-back and fin-back whale, black-fih and porpoies, but there were great numbers of albicores, bonnettas, dolphins and turtle, and of the two latter we caught as many as were neceary for our conumption.

On the thirty-firt of December our Latitude was 14° 53′ and we had paed over the ground where we had reaon to expect the greatet ucces in fihing, but had been driven off by