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Updated: May 3, 2025
A young Savage as captain, a tame seal as boatswain, and a flock of gannets as sailors, certainly made up as curious a set of adventurers as ever floated upon the wide ocean." I was not the least remarkable of the strange group, for I had nothing on but a pair of duck trousers, patched in several places; and my hair, which had grown very long, hung in black wavy masses to my shoulders.
On leaving one was swung out again in the same fashion, and dangled over the tumbling boat until caught and pulled in by the oarsmen. Another day we rowed out nine miles in an Irish craft to visit the Skerry Islands, famous for the old Beehive Monastery, and the countless nests of gannets and other large sea-birds.
Max, Morton, Arthur, and myself, could not quite span it, taking hold of hands, and Johnny had to join the ring, to make it complete. For several hours we continued our journey pretty steadily, encountering no living thing, except tern, gannets, and other sea-birds, and one troop of gaudy little paroquets, glittering in green, and orange, and crimson.
Gannets are passing up and down above the sound, swooping at times after a mackerel, and further off I can see the whole fleet of hookers coming out from Kilronan for a night's fishing in the deep water to the west. As I lie here hour after hour, I seem to enter into the wild pastimes of the cliff, and to become a companion of the cormorants and crows.
Strolled on the island towards sunset, with the gannets for companions, the surf for music, and the heavy sand for a promenade. The weather cleared at nightfall, with the breeze fresh from the N.N.E. Some of the men are getting tired of their hard service; the chief boatswain's-mate having applied to return to England in the barque. Refused him permission, of course.
Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles.
Here is a dense shoal of fish, moving slowly along near the surface. To catch some is quite easy. The Dolphin, or Shark, or other large fish-hunter, merely has to rush into their ranks with wide-open mouth. Hordes of Dog-fish feast on the edges of the shoal. And Gannets, Cormorants, Gulls and other sea-birds can take their fill with ease.
Overhead there was a sort of sea-rookery, the trees being tenanted by numerous gannets, frigate birds, and terns the first gazing with a stupid yet angry air; the last one beautiful little snow-white species in particular hovering only a few feet above the sketchers' heads, while their large black eyes scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to connoisseurs.
We had never met with any kind of animals, except our old friends the seals, who kept near the sea. Of birds, the gannets were generally the sole frequenters of the island; but we had seen, at rare intervals, birds of a totally different character, some of which I had shot.
Of birds, there are ducks, geese, cranes, ptarmigan, grouse, plovers, partridges, sand-larks, shear-waters, gannets, gulls, mollemokes, dovekies, and a score of other species. We personally know that the flesh of bears, reindeer, and some of the other animals, is most excellent: we have partaken of them with hearty relish.
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