Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/47

 get up again. Ten minutes later, I saw twenty of them alight on the water, apparently fight over something thrown from the ship, and then get up again. The sailors once caught an albatross, and concluded to take it to the zoölogical garden at Sydney, but it became seasick, and was such a nuisance that they knocked it in the head and threw it overboard. A passenger once jumped from the "Sonoma," with a view of committing suicide. A number of albatross were following the ship and they picked the man's eyes out before a boat could reach him. Although very beautiful and graceful, the bird is said to be a disgusting vulture. Where or how it lives no one seems to know; but it is certain that it will follow a ship night and day from Wellington to Cape Horn, a trip of three weeks. It is not seen when land is in sight; it seems to sail about the lonely ocean as easily as a zephyr, and the stronger the headwind, the easier it sails against it There is a peculiar character on board at whom everyone laughs. For awhile I feared he might be a fool American, but he turned out to be a New Zealand school teacher. He wears a tall hat and clerical clothes, and everyone supposed for a time that he was a missionary. One day he went after his music, and began singing in the ladies' parlor. He cannot sing, and cannot play the piano, although he attempts both. A crowd soon gathered, and vigorously applauded when he concluded "The Lost Chord." The howling of a dog, accompanied by a child banging on a piano, would not have been worse, and it was so ridiculous that the man was asked to sing again. He readily consented, and attempted a tenor aria from "The Messiah." The