Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/32

 6 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.

19th.—This day has been marked by a fearful