I had been reading in Shelvocke's 'Voyages', a day or two before, that, while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet. 'Suppose,' said I, 'you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.'

Today we caught no glimpse of land; but a few gulls and albatrosses from Cape Frio warned us that we were near it, and afforded us some little amusement.