I had always been in the habit of standing by the bulwarks, when I had the chance, or sitting curled up in some favorable spot with an unobstructed view, and watching the water and the sky. There was more chance now than usually, and I would stand by the main rigging, or lie in a coil of rope by the heel of the bowsprit, for an hour at a time, and watch the Southern Ocean slip by. I generally had the “Navigators” in my hand, held open by my thumb, but I read very little. It is fine print, and it was much more interesting to watch the trade wind clouds, or to glance at the swaying masthead men, or at the birds which accompanied us. There was usually a frigate-bird or two, or a tropic-bird, although these birds were rare; gannets and boobies and terns and many others. It was my delight to see a frigate-bird rise majestically in great circles, higher and higher, without a motion of his wings or his body that I could detect, until he was a mere speck in the blue. At sight of flying fish rising in flight, perhaps before albacore, or of a gannet or a booby that had been successful in fishing, he begins to drop, at first in circles; when still at a considerable height, he closes his wings, makes his body miraculously small, falls like a stone or a bullet, and comes up before the poor gannet, threatening, the robber that he is! The gannet instantly drops the fish, the frigate dives through the air, and, getting it before it has fallen far, rises to eat. He did not always get his fish by robbery, but caught flying fish at the height of their flight in the air. I never saw one dive into the sea, and the men said they were unable to rise from the water, but must keep on the wing, waking or sleeping, from land to land. {324} I never saw one rob a tropic-bird either, but they used sometimes to threaten the masthead men. One morning I was standing by the rail, Captain Coffin pacing the deck behind me, although it was not his watch. I should not speak of him as Captain, for he was not captain on the Clearchus, although I suppose still captain of the Battles. We had run out of the trades, and we were trying to make an easterly course, but we were not making out very well. We had frequent showers, some of which were almost of the proportions of deluges; and calms and light airs from any point of the compass about a quarter of the time. When the wind did come, it was mostly ahead, and we made little progress. On the night before this morning, I remember, there was a great deal of phosphorescence in the water. The ship was scarcely moving, but the little ripples at her bow glowed brightly; her wake was a luminous road, stretching out far astern, every whirl and eddy a vortex of living light. I saw a shark clearly outlined in greenish light, and a sudden burst of fireworks at a little distance showed where a school of flying fish had been disturbed and driven from the water like the balls of a roman candle.