Sometimes white petrels would congregate in considerable numbers near the schooner; and sometimes petrels of another species, with brown borders on their wings, would come in sight; now there would be flocks of damiers skimming the water; and now groups of penguins, whose clumsy gait appears so ludicrous on shore; but, as Captain Hull pointed out, when their stumpy wings were employed as fins, they were a match for the most rapid of fish, so that sailors have often mistaken them for bonitos.
High over head, huge albatrosses, their outspread wings measuring ten feet from tip to tip, would soar aloft, thence to swoop down towards the deep, into which they plunged their beaks in search of food. Such incidents and scenes as these were infinite in their variety, and it was accordingly only for minds that were obtuse to the charms of nature that the voyage could be monotonous.
On the day the wind shifted, Mrs. Weldon was walking up and down on the "Pilgrim's" stern, when her attention was attracted by what seemed to her a strange phenomenon. All of a sudden, far as the eye could reach, the sea had assumed a reddish hue, as if it were tinged with blood.
Both Dick and Jack were standing close behind her, and she cried,-
"Look, Dick, look! the sea is all red. Is it a sea-weed that is making the water so strange a colour?
"No," answered Dick, "it is not a weed; it is what the sailors call whales' food; it is formed, I believe, of innumerable myriads of minute crustacea."
"Crustacea they may be," replied Mrs. Weldon, "but they must be so small that they are mere insects. Cousin Benedict no doubt will like to see them."
She called aloud,-
"Benedict! Benedict! come here! we have a sight here to interest you."
The amateur naturalist slowly emerged from his cabin followed by Captain Hull.