CH A P . HI.
"the Pajfage from Rio de Ja n eiro to the Entrance o f the-
Streig ht o f L e M aire, with a Defcription o f fom e o f
the Inhabitants-of '■ 'Terra del Fuego-
ON the gth of December, we obferved the fea to be co- ^17»»
vered with broad ftreaks of a yellowifh colour, feveral
of them a mile long, and three or four hundred yards wide.: Fnday 9*'
fome of the water thus coloured was taken up, and found to
he full of innumerable atoms pointed at the end,- o f a yellowifh
colour, and none more than a quarter of a line, or the
fortieth part of an inch long: in the microfcope they appeared
to be Fajciculi of fmall fibres interwoven with each
other, not unlike the nidus of fome of the Phyganeas, called
Caddices ; but whether they were animal' o r vegetable fub-
flances, whence they came, or for what they were defigned,
neither Mr. Banks nor Dr. Solander could guefs. The fame
appearance had been obferved before,, when we firfl: difco-
vered the continent of South1 America'.
On the n th we hooked a fhark, and while we were play-- Sunday m.
ing it under the cabbin window; it threw out, and drew in
again feveral times what appeared to be its ftomach.: it
proved to be a female,, and upon being opened fix young
ones were taken out of it ; five of them were alive and fwam
brifkly in a tub o f water, but the fixth appeared to have been,
dead fome time;
Nothing remarkable happened till the 30th, except that Friday 30».
we prepared for the bad weather, which we were fhortly to
expetSl, b j bending a new fuit o f fails ; but on this day we
ran*