There were also plenty of albatrosses. Indeed, I have observed a much greater quantity of birds upon the wing in gales than in moderate weather, owing perhaps to the tossing of the waves, which must render swimming very uneasy. They must be more often seen flying than when they sit upon the water.
The ship has been observed to go much better since her shaking in the last gale of wind; the seamen say that it is a general observation that ships go better for being, as they say, loosened in their joints, so much so that in a chase it is often customary to knock down stanchions, etc., to make the ship as loose as possible.
10th. Seals plentiful to-day, also a kind of bird, different from any we have before seen. It was black, and a little larger than a pigeon, plump like it, and easily known by its flapping its wings quickly as it flies, contrary to the custom of sea-birds in general. This evening a shoal of porpoises of a new species swam by the ship; they are spotted with large dabs of white, with white under the belly: in other respects, as swimming, etc., they are like common porpoises, only they leap rather more nimbly, sometimes lifting their whole bodies out of the water.
11th. This morning at daybreak we saw the land of Terra del Fuego. By eight o'clock we were well in with it. Its appearance was not nearly so barren as the writer of Lord Anson's voyage has represented it. We stood along shore, about two leagues off, and could see trees distinctly through our glasses. We observed several smokes, made probably by the natives as a signal to us.
The hills seemed to be high, and on them were many patches of snow, but the sea-coast appeared fertile, the trees especially being of a bright verdure, except in places exposed to the south-west wind, which were distinguishable by their brown appearance. The shore itself was sometimes beach and sometimes rock.
12th. We took Beroe incrassata, Medusa limpidissima, plicata and obliquata, Alcyonium anguillare (probably the thing that Shelvocke mentions in his Voyage Round the
