ng an hour at the wheel. We have made gloves for the men at the wheel
of canvass, lined with dreadnought; and for the people at night,
waistbands of canvass, with dreadnought linings. The snow and hail
squalls are very severe; ice forms in every fold of the sails. This is
hard upon the men, so soon after leaving Rio in the hottest part of the
year.

Yesterday morning, about an hour before sunrise, a bright meteor was
seen in the south-west. It was first taken for the signal lanterns of a
large ship; then the officer of the watch thought it was a blue light,
and we made no doubt of its being Sir T. Hardy in the Creole. It
remained a long time stationary; then it was lost behind the clouds, and
reappeared between them about 10 deg. high, when it disappeared.[93]

[Note 93: Frezier mentions seeing such a meteor in latitude 57 deg. 30'
S., and longitude 69 deg. W., in 1712.]

_April 1st_.--Latitude 57 deg. 46'; the weather much more mild and moderate.
Our young men have caught a number of birds, principally petrels; the P.
Pelagica, or Mother Cary's chicken, is the least; the P. Pintado is
gayest on the water; but the P. Glacialis, or fulmer, is most beautiful
when brought on board: I cannot enough admire the delicate beauty of the
snow-white plumage, unwet and unsoiled, amid the salt waves. The poets
have scandalised both the arctic and antarctic regions as

"A bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and _void
Of ev'ry life_;"

yet, on Capt. Parry's approach to the north pole, he found the solitude
teeming with _life_; and the farther south we have sailed, the more
_life_ we have found on the waters. Yesterday the sea was covered with
albatrosses, and four kinds of petrel: the penguin comes near us; shoals
of porpoises are constantly flitting by, and whales for ever rising to
the surface and blowing alongside of the ship.

With the thermometer not lower than 30 deg., we feel the cold excessive.
Yesterday morning the main rigging was cased in ice; and the ropes were
so frozen after the sleet in the night, that it was difficult to work
them. I never see these things but I think of Thomson's description of
Sir Hugh Willoughby's attempt to discover the northwest passage, when

"He with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm."

I was glad to-day, when the dead-lights were remo