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- 3819
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- CHAPTER XXXIV.
How They Steered On Their Way
When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at
least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had
abandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been, North
or South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.
But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme Polar
constellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and
southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards the aspect of the
skies near the ocean’s rim, the difference of several degrees in one’s
latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to
surveying the heavens.
If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here
alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in
the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the
country we sought would be found. But for obvious reasons, how long
precisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was
impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing
uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our due westward
progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,—the computation of
the knots run hourly; allowances’ being made for the supposed
deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at
times in this quarter of the Pacific run with very great velocity.
Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the Parki than
in the Chamois. The sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the
number of lives involved. He who is ready to despair in solitary peril,
plucks up a heart in the presence of another. In a plurality of
comrades is much countenance and consolation.
Still, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and
anxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. True, we had now between us
and the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant
little chip. But the Parki required more care and attention; especially
by night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. With impunity, in
our whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas,
similar carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal to all
concerned.
Though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, I was
little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it
was quite another thing. And the apprehensions, nay terrors I felt,
were much augmented by the remissness of both Jarl and Samoa, in
keeping their night-watches. Several times I was seized with a deadly
panic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from
slumber I found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were
life and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a
fixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow.
Were it not, that on board of other vessels, I myself had many a time
dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, I would have been almost at
a loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. But it seemed
as if the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to
prevent the like conduct in all on board our craft.
Samoa’s aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. His large
opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle,
gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. And added to all, was his
giant stature and savage lineaments.
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