"No, messmate, none of us can understand His mysteries. We see the earth and the sky and sea--the sun and moon rise and set--we feel the wind blow, and the snow and the rain fall. But we cannot comprehend how all this is ordered, though we must acknowledge that it is for our good; and we feel that the power of the Ruler of all is so much greater than we can understand, that it is hope less to attempt it. But I say, messmate, that is no reason why we should not believe that all these things are; but, on the contrary, that God, who creates and cares for the smallest birds, watches over us also." We both acknowledged the truth of Andrew's creed; and let me assure my young friends that a blessed comfort it was to us afterwards, when dangers, such as few have surmounted, surrounded us. We continued standing to the northward; and, as far as we could learn, we were considerably to the eastward of Newfoundland. The change of temperature made us glad of warm clothing; but as yet there was no cold to be complained of. We might have guessed that we were approaching the arctic regions, by the character of the numberless sea-fowl which at times surrounded us. We were now, I believe, in latitude 54 degrees or 55 degrees; but I am uncertain, from the reasons I before stated. Our officers had their guns on deck, and amused themselves by shooting as many of the birds which came in their way as they could; but my messmates called them by the various names of shearwaters, boatswains, kittiwakes, dovekies, Mollymokes or Mollies, gulls, buntings, and many others, whose names I forget. Those the officers did not want were given to the crew, who were in no ways particular as to the nature of the fresh meat they could procure. The shearwaters especially we found very good, particularly when made into pies. For the purpose of enabling us to make crust, a greater quantity of flour than usual was served out. At first our pies had a very oily and fishy taste; but Andrew showed us that this fishy flavour is confined to the fat, the whole of which is under the skin, and chiefly near the thighs. By carefully skinning the birds, they tasted like ordinary land-fowl; and before the officers found out the secret, we had a capital pie every day for dinner.