water, the instant they had approached sufficiently near to the whale
or grampus. These seas used formerly to abound with whalers, but they
are now much less numerous, the seasons having been bad of late.

To-night the stars were especially brilliant, and we spent some hours
in trying to make out their names. Vega, our polar star for some time
to come, shone conspicuously bright, and the Southern Cross could be
seen to great advantage.

_Wednesday, August 16th_.--We had a fine fair breeze all day, and at 5
p.m. there was a cry from the mast-head of 'Land ahead!' Great
excitement immediately prevailed on board, and Tom and Captain Brown
rushed, for about the twelfth time, to the foretop to see if the
report was true. They were soon able to announce that Cape Frio was
visible on the port bow, about thirty-five miles distant. After even a
fortnight at sea, an indescribable sensation is produced by this cry,
and by the subsequent sight of the land itself. When we came up on
deck this evening, after dinner, we all gazed on the lighthouse on the
still distant shore as if we had never beheld such a thing in our
lives before. The colour and temperature of the water had perceptibly
changed, the former from a beautiful, clear, dark ultramarine to a
muddy green; innumerable small birds, moths, locusts, and grasshoppers
came on board; and, having given special orders that we were to be
called early the next morning, we went to bed in the fond hope that we
should be able to enter Rio harbour at daybreak.

_Thursday, August 17th_.--'L'homme propose; Dieu dispose.' Steam was
up at midnight, but by that time it was blowing half a gale of wind
from the south-west, with such a steep short sea that the screw was
scarcely ever properly immersed, but went racing round and round in