Two hundred miles a day was all the _Bertha Clay_ was traveling. Her smoke funnel was white with salt from the waves of the sea dashing against it. Some of the officers gathered in the little saloon every evening, when the hours were whiled away until bedtime by indoor amusements.
Sea birds of the Southland are different from those that accompany ships above the equator. No traveler who has the noble albatross as a companion can refrain from devoting hours and hours of time during a voyage to watching and admiring the smooth, graceful movements of this large bird. Sometimes as many as a hundred of these handsome soarers may be seen encircling the ship for as long as an hour at a time, seldom flapping their wings. In far southern waters the albatross generally joins an outgoing vessel from 200 to 400 miles from shore, and is not seen when a ship is the same distance from land at the other side of the ocean, although companions for weeks before. Its color is generally gray and white, but some are snow white, and occasionally brown-colored ones are seen with the others. These birds are as large as a swan, some measuring twelve feet from wingtip to wingtip. But many a sailor has lost his life when falling from a vessel in parts of the sea inhabited by the albatross. The great bird will pounce on anything it sees in the water, and, being so strong, the beak will penetrate the skull of a person at the first attack. Navigators say that it will not live during transit across the equator. The mollemoke is another companion sailors have with them when traveling south of the equator. This bird, while not so large, resembles the larger specie both in poise and color, and also mingles with the albatross during a voyage. Feeding on garbage thrown from the ship seemed to be the chief attraction to the fowl. A very pretty sea bird seen in far southern waters is the Cape pigeon. The pigeon is as large as a sea-gull, but in color is like the guinea fowl--spotted white and black--but of much brighter color. The snowbird is another companion that follows a ship in the southern seas, but only in sections where the weather has become chilly. The petrel is also found in these parts, and still another, a small, dark colored bird, no larger than a swallow, appears in large numbers at intervals. Sailors call these Mother Carey's chickens. All these fowl are one's unfettered companions while traveling through watery Southland, save an occasional whale. Sea-gulls do not appear.