Travel Diaries and Journals

We ran through Yarmouth roads and stood for the North with fair and pleasant weather, for all night, when a calm came on and continued for many hours the sea was as smooth as glass. We had numerous of the duck tribe round us, some with their brood of young with them, and so small that they appeared to have only just left the shell, but we were in sight of land and they would doubtless find shelter among the rocks and boulders by the shore, and they were already as cunning as their mothers in diving when anything was thrown at them. We had light breezes and calm all the way, and at times the sea was full of that truly singular animal of the Medusae family commonly called the Jelly fish, they floated along with the tide in a very stately manner with their long arms or feelers hanging down, but when any attempt to capture them was made unless the operation was very dexterous, they took the alarm very soon and quietly receded from the surface, and sunk out of sight. They were of all dimensions from a foot to a few inches in diameter, of beautiful colours and so numerous that the ship almost seemed to float in living jelly.*

As we drew near the mouth of the Tyne river we hove overboard some of our ballast to spare the expense of working it out when in the river, we went over the bar with a fair wind, got out the remainder of the ballast in the usual manner and were

*In the Geological Museum of Dresden there are some fossil Medusae!

Last edit almost 4 years ago by bweb