ery unwilling to
go, and, notwithstanding the enticements of its mother, moved very slowly
towards her. At last she went gently behind the young bird and pushed it
a little towards the water, but with great tenderness, as much as to say,
'Don't be afraid, darling! I won't hurt you, my pet!' but no sooner did
she get it to the edge of the rock, where it stood looking pensively down
at the sea, than she gave it a sudden and violent push, sending it
headlong down the slope into the water, where its mother left it to
scramble ashore as it best could. We observed many of them employed in
doing this, and we came to the conclusion that this is the way in which
old penguins teach their children to swim.

Scarcely had we finished making our remarks on this, when we were
startled by about a dozen of the old birds hopping in the most clumsy and
ludicrous manner towards the sea. The beach, here, was a sloping rock,
and when they came to it, some of them succeeded in hopping down in
safety, but others lost their balance and rolled and scrambled down the
slope in the most helpless manner. The instant they reached the water,
however, they seemed to be in their proper element. They dived and
bounded out of it and into it again with the utmost agility; and so,
diving and bounding and spluttering, for they could not fly, they went
rapidly out to sea.

On seeing this, Peterkin turned with a grave face to us and said, "It's
my opinion that these birds are all stark, staring mad, and that this is
an enchanted island. I therefore propose that we should either put about
ship and fly in terror from the spot, or land valorously on the island,
and sell our lives as dearly as we can."

"I vote for landing, so pull in, lads," said Jack, giving a stroke with
his oar that made the boat spin. In a few seconds we ran the boat into a
little creek where we made her fast to a projecting piece of coral, and,
running up the beach, entered the ranks of the penguins armed with our
cudgels and our spear. We were greatly surprised to find that, instead
of attacking us or showing signs of fear at our approach, these curious
birds did not move from their places until we laid hands on them, and
merely turned their eyes on us in solemn, stupid wonder as we passed.
There was one old penguin, however, that began to walk slowly toward the
sea, and Peterkin took it into his head that he would try to interrupt
its progress, so he ran between it and the sea a