."

Sir Francis Drake, who sailed around the world in the time of Queen
Elizabeth, did not observe this rule of the navigator, and found on
reaching England that he had a day too much. In the Marquesas Islands
the early missionaries who came from the Indies made the mistake of
keeping Sunday on Saturday. Their followers preserve this chronology,
while later converts have the correct one. The result is, there are
two Sabbaths among the Christian inhabitants of the cannibal islands.
The boy who desired two Sundays a week in order to have more resting
time, might be accommodated by becoming a Marquesas colonist.

On the day we crossed this meridian we were three hundred miles from
the nearest Aleutian Islands, and about eight hundred from Kamchatka.

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