all equipment and boats, and got ready for sea once more. Our cargo of specimens had been shipped home and lengthy reports made on our explorations. We We now had space for new supplies, which were specially prepared in Rio.

E. Keble Chatterton, in his classic tales of sailing ships, points out that it "is difficult nowadays to get hands to sign for a sailing-ship voyage; even for coasting work they prefer to go to sea in a steamor motor-ship." And there lay our greatest difficulty.

Shipping was brisk and sailors were

seas of the South Atlantic, in which we expected to cruise for nearly a year. Why should a sailor work long hours under such conditions when he could choose comfortable steamships bound on short cruises for beautiful ports, with short hours, fresh foodstuffs, and good pay into the bargain? At last, however, we assembled a satisfactory crew and early one morning during the Antarctic winter of 1925 we sailed down Guanabara Bay, out into the Atlantic, and headed southeastward for the waters inhabited by the albatross.

THE ANCIENT MARI-
NER'S BIRD

Down in the South Atlantic, where the wintry winds blow almost a gale from the west and the seas roll mountain high, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Ancient Mariner once roamed.

I hesitate to write about this part of the voyage of the Blossom, for after the Ancient Mariner told about some of his experiences there he was called the world's greatest bore. That pigtailed, tarry seafarer told a perfect stranger, rushing along the streets to a wedding, the "ghastly details of a series of reports on atmospheric phenomena upon the high seas in distant latitudes," and ended his longwinded yarn by relating how "somebody with a bow and arrow went and, without any provocation whatsoever, shot somebody else named Albert Ross!"

We edged the Blossom into the fringe of Antarctic winter and rolled and pitched

We were running down our easting on the thirtieth parallel, with the Antarctic winter bringing the Roaring Forties ten degrees nearer the Equator. Accompanied by tempestuous seas and with the wind rising almost to hurricane force at times, we raced along, making a best day's run of 178 miles. It was racing speed for us, who were well content with any progress at all under sail. We had done better in the North Atlantic on one occasion, but even then we could never imagine ourselves as contenders for such honors as were won by the British speedclipper Cutty Sark's 363 miles in 24 hours,

Lightning with 436.

Across this part of the seas the raging wind was so cold and piercing that we dug out pea-jackets and wind-proofs of every sort. Mist and spray flew high into the air, and the purling, roaring waves washed continually across the slippery decks.

We had talked a great deal about the size of seas in other parts of the ocean, but here we became accustomed to rolling mountains of water 30 and 40 feet high, which boiled relentlessly down upon us from astern. The Blossom climbed each one backward, as they overtook and passed her; up and up she went, until it

and then down into a blue-green valley where but little wind could reach her.

FISHING FOR THE ALBATROSS

One day, as in Coleridge's poem, an albatross crossed our wake and followed, to pick food thrown over from the galley garbage. We had no crossbow aboard with which to shoot it, and even if we used our guns we couldn't bring the ship about and pick it up. So Long John and William baited a large shark-hook with a slab of pork fat and trolled a stout line far astern. Bits of troll bait were cast in the wake of the ship, as she climbed easily up one side of a sea and slid smoothly down the other.

The albatross picked up floating bits with scarcely a pause, as it eased down close to the water, snatching its food with a flick of its powerful hooked bill and slapping the sea with a broad-webbed

foot. The quick recovery of its speed was marvelous; it would leave the reaching comber of a giant wave behind and sweep alongside the plunging Blossom. Men who had never seen an albatross in flight draped themselves over the lazy bench and across the dory strongback to watch the bird beat back and forth on the powerful spread of its 10-foot wings, which always seemed rigid in its gliding flight.

Some of the seamen were distinctly uneasy, swearing we would be trailed by disaster if we killed the bird that made the breeze blow fair. But William, unafraid of the albatross hoodoo, kept at his fishing and eventually had the satisfaction of seeing the big bird take a great mouthful of bait and hook.

A quick jerk fastened the hook in the horn of the bill, and a clarion of triumph awoke even the men asleep below. Soon

the fowl of the Ancient Mariner stood on deck, alive and entirely uninjured, though like its fellows caught during the next few days, it became quite seasick from the motion of the ship! Thus we obtained some of our rarest specimens, but many of the birds which we wanted for our collection would not take the hook, so we planned to pursue these in the whaleboat. In spite of winds and seas, the boat was made ready with well-filled water butt and sealed tins of hard-tack as emergency rations in case she should become separated from the ship; then we bided our time.

One raw, blizzardy day the rare little white-bellied storm petrel was sighted astern. All about it were cape pigeons, cape hens, the whaler's Nelly, or giant petrel, together with an occasional ghost petrel or an albatross.

Cuyler and his men grabbed their shot

from the davits; Long John took the tiller at the cry to lower away.

We had no time to brace the sails into the wind and stop the momentum of the ship; so we chanced it, with the powerful wind whoo-whooing in the rigging. Vanzetti and I paid out the line, and the whaleboat slapped the sea.

For a moment it looked as if the men would be poured into the foaming brine. The davit falls caught and the boat was towed along with the ship and slapped against her side. The painter was hauled taut and the falls were cleared as John yelled; in another instant the whaleboat was free, whirling far astern of the Blossom.

This and succeeding whaleboat cruises resulted in many interesting specimens being shot and brought aboard, but always these excursions occasioned apprehension, for the boat always got away with diffi