nd I was greatly delighted one day by seeing a shoal of
flying-fish dart out of the water and skim through the air about a foot
above the surface. They were pursued by dolphins, which feed on them;
and one flying-fish, in its terror, flew over the ship, struck on the
rigging, and fell upon the deck. Its wings were just fins elongated;
and we found that they could never fly far at a time, and never mounted
into the air like birds, but skimmed along the surface of the sea. Jack
and I had it for dinner, and found it remarkably good.

When we approached Cape Horn, at the southern extremity of America, the
weather became very cold and stormy, and the sailors began to tell
stories about the furious gales and the dangers of that terrible cape.

"Cape Horn," said one, "is the most horrible headland I ever doubled.
I've sailed round it twice already, and both times the ship was a'most
blow'd out o' the water."

"I've been round it once," said another; "an' that time the sails were
split, and the ropes frozen in the blocks so that they wouldn't work,
and we wos all but lost."

"An' I've been round it five times," cried a third; "an' every time wos
wuss than another, the gales wos so tree-mendous!"

"And I've been round it, no times at all," cried Peterkin with an
impudent wink in his eye, "an' that time I wos blow'd inside out!"

Nevertheless we passed the dreaded cape without much rough weather, and
in the course of a few weeks afterwards were sailing gently, before a
warm tropical breeze, over the Pacific Ocean. Thus we proceeded on our
voyage--sometimes bounding merrily before a fair breeze; at other times
floating calmly on the glassy wave and fishing for the curious
inhabitants of the deep, all of which, although the sailors thought
little of them, were strange, and interesting, and very wonderful to me.

At last we came among the Coral Islands of the Pacific; and I shall
never forget the delight with which I gazed--when we chanced to pass
one--at the pure white, dazzling shores, and the verdant palm-trees,
which looked bright and beautiful in the sunshine. And often did we
three long to be landed on one, imagining that we should certainly find
perfect happiness there! Our wish was granted sooner than we expected.

One night, soon after we entered the tropics, an awful storm burst upon
our ship. The first squall of wind carried away two of our masts, and
left only the foremast standing. Even this, however, was