Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/396

 very low; of the live-stock very little remains, and there appears small chance of getting on more quickly with the voyage.

9th.—Another calm: are we ever to arrive at the Cape? The water is nearly expended; of the live-stock alone remain three sheep, two pigs, four fowls, and one goose. The captain talks of watering the vessel at Tristan d'Acunha. The stock is in a melancholy condition, and the solitary lean goose has fallen a victim to the rapacious jaws of nineteen hungry cadets.

14th.—A heavy sea; shipping water in large quantities, rolling and pitching heavily; a sharp wind and strong breeze. On the high foaming waves astern, the spray bows, as they call them, are most remarkably beautiful,—like small rainbows on the waves, four or five sometimes visible at the same time; I watched them with great pleasure from the stern-windows.

15th.—The sea calmer; eight albatross and numerous small birds astern; in the evening they collected close to the vessel, following it, and picking the bait off the hooks thrown out to catch them.

16th.—Three albatross caught: the smaller one measured nine feet from tip to tip of its wings. A gentleman had the kindness to prepare it for me with arsenical soap, and I brought it to England.

26th.—Anchored at 10 in Table Bay, after a voyage of seventy-eight days from Portsmouth, and eighty-nine from the Docks.

My arrival was unexpected, and therefore, I trust, only the more welcome.