ullet is fired. If the
lungs are pierced the whale sends up jets of blood from its
nostrils--"hoisting the red flag," in the language of whalers. Its time
is come; it gives up the struggle, and its death tremors show that
another of the giants of the ocean has bid a last farewell to its
boundless realm.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND

On motionless wings an albatross hovers high above Cape Horn. His sharp
eye takes in everything. Now he sees in the distance smoke from the
funnel of a steamer, and in a couple of minutes he has tacked round the
vessel and decided to follow it on its voyage to the north. To the east
he has the coast of Chile, with its countless reefs and islands and deep
fiords, and above it rises the snow-capped crest of the Andes. As soon
as refuse is thrown overboard, the albatross swoops down like an arrow.
A second before he touches the water he raises his wings, draws back his
head, stretches out his large feet in front with expanded claws, and
then plumps down screaming, into the water. He floats as lightly as a
cork. In a moment he has swallowed all the scraps floating on the
surface, and then, turning to the wind, rises to a giddy height.

The vessel happens to be carrying goods to Santiago, the capital of
Chile, and casts anchor at its port town, Valparaiso. In the background
rises Aconcagua, the highest mountain of America.

Then the albatross steers out to sea to try his luck elsewhere. Seventy
miles from the coast he comes across the notable little island, Juan
Fernandez, and circles round its volcanic cliffs. For him there are no
frightful precipitous ascents and descents; from his height he can see
all he wishes to see. It is otherwise with explorers. Some cliffs are
inaccessible to their feet, as Carl Skottsberg found when he went out to
the island three years ago in a Chilian vessel. He saw the cliffs 3000
feet high, and heard the surf rolling in round the island. It was a
perfect picture of wild desolation. He found it difficult to land in a
small boat. He looked in vain for parrots, monkeys, and tortoises, but
found, instead, that more than half the number of the plants on the
island are such as grow on no other spot on the earth. Among them are
palms, with bright, pale-green trunks, which have been recklessly
destroyed by men to make walking-sticks. Here also are tree-ferns, and
the small, delicate, climbing ferns which gracefully festoon trunks and
boughs. And here also is the last sp