Before reaching these there were days when the sailors
did little else but shift the sails, trying to catch every breeze
that fluttered about them, tacking all the while, with nothing to
distract them but the monotonous albatross. The birds would come up
the seas, venturing within a few yards of the vessel, and float away
again, becoming mere specks on the horizon. Again the specks would
begin to grow larger, and the birds would return easily on moveless
wings.
"When one hears the albatross flies for thousands of miles one
wonders how it could do this without fatigue; but one wonders no
longer when one has seen them fly, for they do not weary themselves
by moving their wings, their wings never move, they float month after
month until the mating instinct begins to stir in them, and then in
couples they float down the seas to the pole. There is nothing so
wonderful as the flight of a bird; and it seemed to me that I never
could weary of watching it. But I did weary of the albatross, and one
night, after praying that I might never see one again, I was awakened
by the pitching of the vessel, by the rattling of ropes, and the
clashing of the blocks against swaying spars.
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