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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.
This day we saw the last of the albatrosses, which had been our companions a great part of the time off the Cape. I had been interested in the bird from descriptions which I had read of it, and was not at all disappointed. We caught one or two with a baited hook which we floated astern upon a shingle.
The wind still continued fair and fresh, but the sea was much quieter, and we all felt comparatively comfortable. More sails were set during the afternoon. Some albatrosses and long-tailed tropic birds were seen hovering about us. The moon begins to give a good light now, and we found it very pleasant on deck this evening. Wednesday, January 17th.
At this time we were in the latitude 55° 32' S., longitude 128° 45' W.; some albatrosses and peterels seen. At eight, p.m., the wind veering to N.E., we tacked and stood to E.S.E. 1774 December
Beginning at daybreak, it lasted till after sundown, twelve hours in all; and during it the Iroquois took on board the only solid sea that crossed her rail during my more than two years' service in her. Ancient mariners and albatrosses are naturally mutually suggestive.
I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl. But how had the mystic thing been caught?
We saw some rock weed, and a great number of blue petrels and albatrosses were about the ship. In the afternoon, we passed more rock weed, and saw a number of whales.
Two or three of the lieutenants and ensigns brought up their rifles and proposed shooting at the albatrosses, which, with expanded wings, floated around the ship, now rising high in the air, now darting down on the scrapings of the mess tins which had been thrown overboard. Ensign Holt had just loaded his rifle.
Already they had seized their hatchets to cut away the shrouds from the mainmast, but the next minute the sails were torn away by the tempest, and had flown off like gigantic albatrosses.
Thanks, my fellow-traveller, for a new sense awakened. The albatrosses, which follow us in large numbers, are a source of pleasure. These are not the sacred birds of the Ancient Mariner, but are of the same species. They excel all other birds, I think, in power and gracefulness of flight.
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