en sea and was sailing twelve knots an hour, but the
albatross did not tire. Nay, he made circles of miles round the vessel
at a considerable height. On board the ship the watch was changed time
after time, for man must rest and sleep, but the albatross needed
neither sleep nor rest. He had no one to whom he could entrust the
management of his wings while he slept at night. He kept awake for a
week without showing any signs of weariness. He flew on and on,
sometimes disappearing astern, and an hour later appearing again and
sweeping down on the vessel from the front. That it was the same
albatross was proved by the mark painted on the breast. Only on the
seventh day did he leave the ship, dissatisfied with the fare set before
him. He was then hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.

Just think of all the wonderful and remarkable sights he must witness on
his airy course! He sees everything that takes place on the decks of
large sailing vessels, and the smoke rising out of the steamers'
funnels. He marks the clumsy movements of the twenty-feet-long
sea-elephants on the gravel shore of the islands of South Georgia, east
of Cape Horn, and sees the black or grey backs of whales rolling on the
surface of the water.

Perhaps he has some time wandered away northwards over the Atlantic and
seen whalers attack the blue whale--the largest animal now living in the
world, for it often attains to a length of 90 feet. At the present day
whalers use strongly built, swift, and easily handled steam-launches,
and shoot the harpoon out from the bow with a pivoted gun. In the head
of the harpoon is a pointed shell which explodes in the body of the
whale, dealing a mortal wound, and at the butt end a thick rope is
secured. The vessel follows the whale until it is dead. Then it is
hauled up with a steam winch and towed to a whaling station in some bay
on the coast, where it is flitched. Then the oil is boiled out, poured
into casks, and sent to market.

Much more picturesque and more dangerous was the whaling witnessed in
northern seas by the forefathers of the albatross, for man has been for
a thousand years the worst enemy of the whale, and some species are
almost exterminated. Then the whalers did not use a gun, but threw the
harpoon by hand. Every vessel had several keelless whale-boats, pointed
at both bow and stern, so that they could be rowed forwards or
backwards. When a whale was seen in the distance the boats set out,
each boa