Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/199

 When we were in Latitude 24°, a very ingular circumtance happened, which as it pread ome alarm among my people, and awakened their upertitious apprehenions, I hall beg leave to mention. About eight o'clock in the evening an animal roe alongide the hip, and uttered uch hrieks and tones of lamentation o like thoe produced by the female human voice, when expreing the deepet ditres, as to occaion no mall degree of alarm among thoe who firt heard it. Thee cries continued for upwards of three hours, and eemed to increae as the hip ailed from it: I conjectured it to be a female eal that had lot its cub, or a cub that had lot its dam; but I never heard any noie whatever that approached o near thoe ounds which proceed from the organs of utterance in the human pecies. The crew conidered this as another evil omen, and the difficulties of our ituation were ufficient, without the additional inconvenience of thee accidental events, to caue any temporary depreion of thoe pirits which were o neceary to meet the ditrees we might be obliged to encounter.

As we ailed up the coat of Chili and Peru, from the Latitude 38° South, we never had occaion to reef from the trength of the wind; while the barometer, from that