Читать книгу A Book for the Hammock онлайн

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It is not very long ago (1886) that the people on board a ship which was then off the Horn, running before a small westerly gale, noticed an immense albatross following in the vessel’s wake. This bird clung so obstinately to the skirts of the running ship that its identity became, in a day or two, a distinguishable thing amongst the other sea-fowl of a like kind that pursued the vessel. One day, as this huge bird was hovering at a short elevation above the taffrail, it was noticed that an object about the size of a dollar was suspended from its neck. Glasses were brought to bear, but nothing could be made of the great bird’s embellishment. Thereupon everybody grew eager to catch the creature, and a hook was forthwith baited with a piece of pork and towed astern. Some of the other albatrosses were caught, but the desired one was not to be entrapped. It would sail with a sweep to over the bait that hissed through the water, poise itself on a magnificent length of tremulous pinion, whilst its eyes, glowing like Cairngorm stones, inspected the greasy dainty, and then, with a scream that might have passed very well for an expression of scorn, slide away athwart the path of the wind, and fall to its old gyrations, narrowing down at last into steady pursuit.