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- CHAPTER I.
Foot In Stirrup
We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor
swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the
breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out
spreads the canvas—alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many
a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea
with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.
But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?
We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from
the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island,
where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had stepped
ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for
the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.
And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there
met.
Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the
Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or
sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.
But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the
sea-gull, straight to her nest. For, owing to the prevalence of the
trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai
are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so.
First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the
south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for
the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast,
toward the Line.
This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a
weary one it was. Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous;
thank fate, never since.
But bravo! in two weeks’ time, an event. Out of the gray of the
morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of
the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft,
and creamy breakers frothing round its base.—We turned aside, and, at
length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero. With a glass, we spied two
or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and
presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. Well
knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three
noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to
comply with their invitation to land. Though, haply, he may have erred
in not sending a boat off with his card.
A few days more and we “took the trades.” Like favors snappishly
conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp
squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat
old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.
In good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few
leagues west of the Gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing
across the Line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. For
some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in
Peru, run in veins through the ocean. So, day after day, daily; and
week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal
intersection of the self-same Line; till we were almost ready to swear
that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary
locality.
At length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way
straight along the very Line itself. Westward sailing; peering right,
and peering left, but seeing naught.
It was during this weary time, that I experienced the first symptoms of
that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to
the adventures herein recounted.
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