ain at school. Some
lunars taken. We are in 36 deg. 55' S. latitude, and the thermometer is at
68 deg..; barometer 30-2.

On the 19_th_ and 20_th_ the mercury in the barometer sunk gradually
from 30 to 29-02, and rose again as before on the 21st. It blew hard;
the thermometer fell to 58 deg., in latitude 42 deg. S. There are many
albatrosses and stormy petrels about the ship.

_22d_.--Latitude 46 deg. 25' S., longitude 52 deg. 40' W. The weather very cold,
though the thermometer is at 56 deg., barometer 29-08; a very heavy swell.
Great numbers of the Cape pigeon about the ship.

_24th_.--Latitude 50 deg. 30'; thermometer 44 deg. morning and evening, 47 deg. at
noon. Seeing two penguins to-day, we supposed some land must be near,
but found no bottom with 100 fathoms line. The cold weather seems to
have a good effect on our invalids. The barometer fell suddenly, and a
strong S.W. wind succeeded, and we were glad to light a fire in the
cabin.

I am sorry we have passed so far out of sight of the Falkland Islands,
Sir John Hawkins's maiden land. The idea of seeing a town left standing
as it was, by all its inhabitants at once, and of the tame animals
becoming wild, had something romantic. It seemed like a realisation of
the Arabian tale of the half-marble prince, and in real interest comes
near the discovery of the lost Greenland settlements. I do not know any
thing that gratifies the imagination, more than the situations and
incidents that by bringing distant periods of time together, places
them, as it were, at once within our own reach. I remember some years
ago spending a whole day with no companion but my guide at Pompeii, and
becoming so intimate with the ancients, their ways, and manners, that I
felt, when I went home to Naples, and its lazaroni, and its English
travellers, as I suppose, that one of the seven sleepers to have done,
who went to purchase bread with money five centuries old. As to the
marble cities of Moorish Africa, when we consider their exposure to the
sirocco, and read Dolomieu's Experiments on the Atmosphere, during the
prevalence of that wind at Malta, we shall find but too probable a
reason for their existence as reported.

_25th_.--Latitude 51 deg. 58' S., longitude 51 deg. W., thermometer 41 deg.. Strong
south-westerly gales and heavy sea. Just as our friends in England are
looking forward to spring, its gay light days and early flowers, we are
sailing towards frozen regions, where avarice