seeing a shoal of flying fish dart out of the water and skim
through the air about a foot above the surface. They were pursued
by dolphins, which feed on them, and one flying-fish in its terror
flew over the ship, struck on the rigging, and fell upon the deck.
Its wings were just fins elongated, and we found that they could
never fly far at a time, and never mounted into the air like birds,
but skimmed along the surface of the sea. Jack and I had it for
dinner, and found it remarkably good.

When we approached Cape Horn, at the southern extremity of America,
the weather became very cold and stormy, and the sailors began to
tell stories about the furious gales and the dangers of that
terrible cape.

"Cape Horn," said one, "is the most horrible headland I ever
doubled. I've sailed round it twice already, and both times the
ship was a'most blow'd out o' the water."

"An' I've been round it once," said another, "an' that time the
sails were split, and the ropes frozen in the blocks, so that they
wouldn't work, and we wos all but lost."

"An' I've been round it five times," cried a third, "an' every time
wos wuss than another, the gales wos so tree-mendous!"

"And I've been round it no times at all," cried Peterkin, with an
impudent wink of his eye, "an' THAT time I wos blow'd inside out!"

Nevertheless, we passed the dreaded cape without much rough
weather, and, in the course of a few weeks afterwards, were sailing