nd penguins, which were always attended by
flocks of pintadoes, birds about the size of pigeons. The French call
these birds _damiers_, as their black and white feathers on their back
and wings are disposed like the squares of a draught-board. These were
also attended by albatrosses, the largest of all sea-fowl, some of them
extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet from tip to tip. While
passing the mouth of the Rio. Plata, the sea was covered with prodigious
quantities of large seaweed, which often greatly incommoded us and
deadened our way. On getting farther south we were freed from this
inconvenience; after which we saw abundance of things floating on the
surface of the sea, like white snakes. We took some of these up, but
could not perceive them to have any appearance of life, neither had they
the shape of any kind of animal, being only a long cylinder of a white
jelly-like substance, perhaps the spawn of some large fish.

[Footnote 255: Only 27 deg. S. and 48 deg. 30' W. from Greenwich.--E.]

As we advanced to the southward, the appetites of our people increased
with the cold, which occasioned disputes in the ship. Even at my own
table, Captain Betagh of the marines insisted on a larger allowance in
such coarse terms, that I confined him till he wrote me a submissive
letter, on which I restored him. But this squabble constrained me to
allow an extraordinary meal to the people daily, either of flour or
calavances; which reduced our stock of provisions, and consumed our
wood and water, proving afterwards of great inconvenience. Whales,
grampuses, and other fish of monstrous size, are in such vast numbers on
the coast of Patagonia, that they were often offensive to us, coming so
close to us that it seemed impossible to avoid striking them on every
scud of a sea, and almost stifling us with the stench of their breaths,
when they blew close to windward. Being ignorant of the Greenland
fishery, I cannot pretend to say whether that trade might not be carried
on here; but this I may venture to affirm, that the navigation here is
safer, and I am apt to believe it has a greater chance of being
successful.[256]

[Footnote 256: This southern whale-fishery is now carried on to a
considerable extent.--E.]

On the 19th September, about midnight, perceiving the water all at once
to be discoloured, we sounded, and had 25 fathoms, on which we stood out
from the land, but did not deepen our water in five leagues. This bank