Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/20

 4 wings, whichever naturalists please to call them. Most of them are of a silver grey; a few of yellow or gold colour. We are supposed to be now about the tropic. Thermometer 80°. Water miserably bad; even filtering fails to improve it, as one of our passengers, who happens to have a good filtering machine, assures me. The only way to swallow it without disgust is in negus, with plenty of lemon juice.

Saw a pilot fish, which is about the size of a mackerel, with stripes on his side like those of a zebra. I am told that he generally accompanies the shark; the latter, however, did not appear, but towards evening a large shoal of porpoises surrounded the vessel, apparently more for sport than prey, their gambols being of the most comic kind. This night the captain took an observation of the north star; the sky too cloudy to be very accurate. Thermometer 80°. This degree of heat produces in me great languor by day and restlessness by night. Lat. at noon, 18°, 16'. We hope to see Antonio, one of the Cape Verd Islands, to-morrow. The anxiety with which we look for the smallest island is inconceivable to those who have not been exposed for many days to the monotony of time passed on the ocean.

Sunday, 18th.—I officiated as usual for a congregation of about thirty-six persons, apparently interested and attentive to the services of the day. Thermometer 80°, at 2 This day, for the first time, we saw a shark gliding slowly along, with its fin just above the water's surface, and in his wake followed a great train of what the sailors call Portuguese men of war, and a long shoal of flying fish and bonetas, so that we had something to look at. We are disappointed in our hope of seeing the land of St. Antonio, the weather proving hazy, and there being every indication of our losing the N.E. trade wind, and falling in with the S.W. wind, which prevails about the Cape Verd Islands. The heat at night, thermometer 82°, is very oppressive, so much so, that I can hardly bear even a sheet over me.