“An interesting flyer that we have seen is the frigate bird, also called the man-of-war bird, which appears to me to be a good deal of a pirate, as it makes the most of its living by robbing others. When another bird has caught a fish the frigate bird attacks him, and takes away his prize, catching it in the air as it falls from the victim’s claws. These birds follow the steamer or fly in the air above it, and they seem to go along very easily, although the ship is running at full speed. I am told that, on the previous voyage of this ship, some of the sailors caught two of these birds and marked them by attaching strips of white cloth to their feet. Then the birds were set free, and they followed the steamer four or five days without any apparent fatigue.
“Of course we have seen ‘Mother Carey’s Chickens.’ These tireless little fellows, that never seem to rest, are found in all parts of the world of waters. They have been constantly about us, flying around the ship but never settling upon it, and dipping occasionally into the waters behind us to gather up crumbs or particles of food. The other birds, which are all much larger, would like to deprive them of their sustenance, but they do not have the quickness of the little flyers on the wing. When anything is thrown overboard, they dart as quick as a flash under the noses of the larger and more clumsy birds, and pick up a mouthful or two before the latter can reach them. Then there are whale birds, and cape pigeons, and also the cape dove, which is somewhat larger than the pigeon, and is also known as the ‘fulmar petrel.’
“But the most interesting as well as the largest of all the ocean birds is the albatross. There are two or three kinds of this bird; the largest of them has a spread of wing varying from twelve to fifteen feet, and one has been caught measuring seventeen feet from tip to tip. With outspread wings, his body, as he sails about in the air, looks as large as a barrel, but when stripped of its feathers its size diminishes very much. We offered to pay a good price to the sailors if they would catch an albatross for us, but they declined our proposal to catch one, and when a passenger one day wanted to shoot one which was directly over the steamer, the sailors objected. We finally induced them to compromise the matter by catching an albatross and letting it go unharmed.
“They baited a hook with a piece of pork which was attached to a long line, and then allowed to tow behind the steamer. We were doomed to disappointment, as the albatross, that was then flying with the ship, refused to touch the bait, and it was taken up by a frigate bird. It is said that the albatross is very difficult to catch, as he is exceedingly wary, and constantly on the lookout for tricks. I am told that a live albatross standing on the deck of the ship is a very handsome bird. His back is white, his wings are brown, he has a fine head, carries himself with great dignity, and has a grand eye and countenance. The bird has a pink beak and pretty streaks of a rose color on the cheeks. After death these colors disappear, and are not to be seen in the stuffed specimens such as are found in museums. A good-sized albatross weighs about twenty pounds, though, as before stated, he looks very much larger.
“The wonderful thing about this bird is the way he sustains himself in the air. He sails along above the ship, though she may be steaming fifteen or sixteen miles an hour, but he does it all with very little motion. Three or four times in an hour he may give one or two flaps of his wings, and that is all; the rest is all steady sailing. The outspread wings sustain the bird, and carry him forward at the same time. If any man ever invents a successful flying machine, I think he will do so by studying the movements of the albatross. It is proper to say that this bird is not at all courageous, and often gives up the fish that he catches to the piratical frigate bird. It lives mostly on fish, and is very fond of the carcass of a dead whale, and they tell me that the longer the whale has been dead, the better does the albatross like it.
“The superstition of the sailors about its being bad luck to kill an albatross is not by any means a new one. It is referred to by old writers, and you will find it mentioned in Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner.’
“We have seen a great many flying fish during our voyage, but as we have seen them before, they are not a great curiosity. The flying motion of this fish is more fanciful than real. He does not soar in the air like a bird, but simply leaps from the crest of one wave to the crest of another. He makes a single dash through the air, and that is all. Sometimes, when a ship is in the hollow between two waves and the flying fish is attempting to make his way across, he falls on the deck of the vessel, but he rarely gets more than fifteen or eighteen feet into the air, and therefore does not reach the deck of a big steamer like this.
“Flying fish seem to fly when disturbed by big fishes, or, possibly, by the commotion that a vessel creates in going through the water. There is a good deal of dispute as to how long the flying fish can stay out of water, and the longest time I have heard any one give to it is thirty seconds. Some say that the flying fish can stay in the air only while its wings are wet, but that is a point on which I do not care to give any opinion, for the simple reason that I don’t know.”
Ned and Harry had kept the nautical instruments which they carried over the deserts of Northern Africa, and they amused themselves by taking daily observations and calculating the ship’s position. Sometimes they were wrong, and sometimes they were right, Ned naively remarking that “the wrongs didn’t count.” The first officer of the ship gave them some assistance in their nautical observations, and, altogether, they got along very well.
Our friends made the acquaintance of some of their fellow-passengers and found them very agreeable. The majority were residents of Australia or New Zealand, who had been on visits to England and were now returning home. The youths learned a great deal concerning the country whither they were bound, and the goodly portion of the information they received was of practical value to them. They made copious notes of what they heard, and some of the information that they gleaned will appear later in these pages.