down sunk the laugher himself.  A death-like stillness prevailed in these high regions, and, to my ear, our voices had a strange, unnatural echo, and I fancied our forms appeared gigantic, whilst the air was piercing cold.  The prospect was altogether very sublime, and filled the mind with awe!  On the one side, the boundless horizon, heaped up with clouds of silvery brightness, contrasted with some of darker hue, enveloping us in their vapour, and, passing rapidly away, gave us only casual glances of the landscape; and, on the other hand, the sterile and cindery peak, with its venerable head, partly capped with clouds, partly revealing great patches of red cinders, or lava, intermingled with the black rock, produced a most extraordinary and dismal effect.  It seemed as though it were still actually burning, to heighten the sublimity of the scene.  The huge albatross appeared here to dread no interloper or enemy; for their young were on the ground completely uncovered, and the old ones were stalking around them.  This bird is the largest of the aquatic tribe; and its plumage is of a most delicate white, excepting the back and the tops of its wings, which are grey:  they lay but one egg, on the ground, where they form a kind of nest, by scraping the earth round it.  After the young one is hatched, it has to remain a year before it can fly; it is entirely white, and covered with a woolly down, which is very beautiful.  As we approached them, they clapped their beaks, with a very quick motion, which made a great noise.  This, and throwing up the contents of the stomach, are the only means of offence and defence they seem to possess.  The old ones, which are valuable on account of their feathers, my companions made dreadful havoc amongst, knocking on the head all they could come up with.  These birds are very helpless on the land, the great length of their wings precluding them from rising up into the air, unless they can get to a steep declivity.  On the level ground they were completely at our mercy, but very little was shewn them; and in a very short space of time the plain was strewn with their bodies, one blow on the head generally killing them instantly.  Five months after, many of the young birds were still sitting on their nests, and had never moved away from them; they remain there for a year before they can fly, and during that long period are fed by the mother.  They had greatly increased in size and beauty since my first visit to them.  The semblance of the young bird, as it sits on the nest, is stately and beautiful.  The white down, which is its first covering, giving place gradually to its natural grey plumage, leaves half the creature covered with down; the other half is a fine compact coat of feathers, composed of white and grey; while the head is of a dazzling, silvery white.  Their size is prodigious, one of them proving a tolerable load.  Upon skinning them, on our return, we found they were covered with a fine white fat, which I was told was excellent for