vesciculosus covered the rocks washed by the river* intermingled
here and there with an ulva, which I had not thè ' means of
determining.
The next day (the 30th of September), we sailed, and sooiv
after we lost sight of land, encountered one of those south-westerly
gales which prevailed at that time, and which placed our ill-found,
high-decked, leaky schooner, in no small danger. Although the
cabin was closed down for four days, the state of the vessel was
such, that neither my baggage nor provisions escaped a soaking.
On the fourth evening, the weather calmed a little, and I made
tegular observations on the temperature of the air and sea, and
on the moisture of the atmosphere (both with De Saussure’s and
Leslie’s hygrometers), during the ten days that remained of our
passage to Madeira. It would not be worth while to compare
so small a number of observations in so limited a track, with those
of Baron de Humboldt, Dr. Davy, and others ; I shall, therefore,
defer doing so, until the remainder of my voyage has furnished
me with a greater extent and variety. Myfellow-passengers were,
a Madeira dandy of the second class, returning from the fashionable
grand tour which was to complete his education, and to
furnish him with matter for conversation and reflection the remainder
of his life ; and which is conveniently, economically, and
rapidly performed, by paying about £5 for a passage by the Portuguese
packet, which returns from Madeira to Lisbon by way of
the Azores, so as to have the opportunity of spending a few hours
in those classic islands, and the few days in Lisbon which precede
the departure of the next packet to Madeira. A Coimbra student,
returning to his native island after seven years absence (or as he
expressed it, after seven years study), with the title and degree of
Doctor of Canon Law, and a splendid diploma, decked with large
seals and green ribbons, and preserved in a long tin box, which
he opened with prodigious form for our inspection, on his first
appearance from the steerage after the storm, arrayed in a cocked
hat and a dressing gown. A countryman of my own, who, having
worked his way: up, by activity and long service, from, before the
mast to the rank of master’s mate in the navy, had been solaced
just after he was thrown out of employ, by a small legacy from an
old aunt, and had been persuaded to give up his intention of
joining Mr, Birkbeck, for the more profitable scheme of collecting
orchil, shooting gullsk, and rabbits, and cultivating potatoes on the
Desertas, the right of which he had purchased for £200 of a
Portuguese marchioness, who wanted to raise, the wind to make
good her engagements as lady patroness, and joint proprietor of a
corps of twenty-two French comedians, with whom I had the
misfortune to sail in a small brig from Havre to Lisbon, and who
would have run the s u p p l y of water rather hard during our long
passage, had not the ladies (one of whom had sailed in the Nile
and seen crocodiles) declared, from the moment of coming on
board, that a coffee-cup fairly filled for each, was quite as much
as they had been in the . habit of using for their daily ablutions.
An American gentleman, of polished manners and most obliging
disposition, a younger son, as I afterwards learned, of one of the
richest merchants of Philadelphia, who, after a three year’s tour
k These gulls are salted and sold to the poorer Portuguese, who boil them in their
soup. The ,pne yl examined, appeared to.be a variety of the larus marirms et ruzvius of
Gmelin, but the head was black (tipped with brown) instead of yellow, and the legs
grey"instead of reddish ; the plumâge of its throat was as white as that of the belly,
which! was however speckled with brownish grey; the under féathers of the tail were
also white and tipped with brownish grey ; the under feathers of the wings were of the
same grey, the upper ; part of the head of a light grey, the back and neck thickly
speckled with greyish brown ; the long feathers of the wings were ‘of the same polour,
the. remiges dark brown ; the short upper feathers of the tail white, speckled with
gréÿish brown ; the longer feathers'greyish brown, irregularly speckled with white : it
measured four feet five inches between the tips of the extended wings, and one foot
eleven inches in length.