The French Call
These Birds Damiers, As Their Black And White Feathers On Their Back
And Wings Are Disposed Like The Squares Of A Draught-Board.
These were
also attended by albatrosses, the largest of all sea-fowl, some of them
extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet from tip to tip.
While
passing the mouth of the Rio. Plata, the sea was covered with prodigious
quantities of large seaweed, which often greatly incommoded us and
deadened our way. On getting farther south we were freed from this
inconvenience; after which we saw abundance of things floating on the
surface of the sea, like white snakes. We took some of these up, but
could not perceive them to have any appearance of life, neither had they
the shape of any kind of animal, being only a long cylinder of a white
jelly-like substance, perhaps the spawn of some large fish.
[Footnote 255: Only 27 deg. S. and 48 deg. 30' W. from Greenwich. - E.]
As we advanced to the southward, the appetites of our people increased
with the cold, which occasioned disputes in the ship. Even at my own
table, Captain Betagh of the marines insisted on a larger allowance in
such coarse terms, that I confined him till he wrote me a submissive
letter, on which I restored him. But this squabble constrained me to
allow an extraordinary meal to the people daily, either of flour or
calavances; which reduced our stock of provisions, and consumed our
wood and water, proving afterwards of great inconvenience.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 706 of 825
Words from 191843 to 192099
of 224764
