The boobies continued around us, but were less numerous than a week or ten days earlier.  If they had any trouble with their reckoning, I did not ascertain it.  A day later we saw three “fur seal” playing happily in the water.  We hailed the first and asked his longitude, but he made no reply.  I never knew before that the seal ventured so far from land.  Yet his movements are as carefully governed as those of the sea-birds, and though many days in the open water he never forgets the direct course to his favorite haunts.  How marvelous the instinct that guides with unerring certainty over the trackless waters!

A few ducks made their appearance and manifested a feeling of nostalgia.  Mother Carey’s chickens, little birds resembling swallows, began to flit around us, skimming closely along the waves.  There is a fiction among the sailors that nobody ever saw one of these birds alight or found its nest.  Whoever harms one is certain to bring misfortune upon himself and possibly his companions.  A prudent traveler would be careful not to offend this or any other nautical superstition.  In case of subsequent danger the sailors might remember his misdeed and leave him to make his own rescue.

Nearing the Asiatic coast we saw many whales.  One afternoon, about cigar time, a huge fellow appeared half a mile distant.  His blowing sounded like the exhaust of a western steamboat, and sent up a respectable fountain of spray.  Covert pronounced him a high pressure affair, with horizontal engines and carrying ninety pounds to the inch.

After sporting awhile in the misty distance, the whale came near us.  It was almost calm and we could see him without glasses.  He rose and disappeared at intervals of a minute, and as he moved along he rippled the surface like a subsoil plough on a gigantic scale.  After ten or twelve small dives, he threw his tail in air and went down for ten minutes or more.  When he reappeared he was two or three hundred yards from his diving place.

Once he disappeared in this way and came up within ten feet of our bows.  Had he risen beneath us the shock would have been severe for both ship and whale.  After this manoeuvre he went leisurely around us, keeping about a hundred yards away.

“He is working his engines on the slow bell,” said our engineer, “and keeps his helm hard-a-port.”

We brought out our rifles to try this new game, though the practice was as much a trial of skill as the traditional ‘barn at ten paces.’  Several shots were fired, but I did not see any thing drop.  The sport was amusing to all concerned; at any rate the whale didn’t seem to mind it, and we were delighted at the fun.  When his survey was finished he braced his helm to starboard, opened his throttle valves and went away to windward.