Page:Memoirs James Hardy Vaux.djvu/228

205 successive banyan (or starvation) days would have been our dismal portion. On our arrival in England our account of time after this alteration, corresponded exactly with the almanack for the year.

On the 15th of March, we rounded Cape Horn, passing within five miles of that inhospitable shore. This point of the American continent, is situated in fifty-six degrees of south latitude, and had we passed it in the winter season, instead of the autumn, the cold would have been hardly bearable; as it was, it had the effect of destroying almost every natural production of New South Wales, with some very fine specimens of which our ship was at first literally crowded, so as to resemble Noah's Ark. There were kangaroos, black swans, a noble emu, and cockatoos, parrots, and smaller birds without number; all of which, except one cockatoo, which was carefully nursed by its mistress, and half a dozen swans, fell victims to the severity of the weather. The latter birds, indeed, being natives of Van Diemen's Land, which is a colder climate than Port Jackson, were of a hardy nature, and survived our long and tedious voyage. On their arrival in England, they were sent by Captain King as a present to the Royal Menagerie in Kew-gardens.

In our passage round Cape Horn, we had frequent storms of snow; a native of New Zealand, who had been for some time on board the Buffalo, and was a very active intelligent fellow, expressed