But even this flower of promise was nipped in the bud; and the captain showed his experience of the ways of passengers when he prognosticated that it would share the fate of any other nine days’ wonder.
Before its extinction, however, this unhappy organ fanned into a flame the smouldering embers of cliqueism, which had originated with dancing.
Except during the prevalence of the trade-winds, our “runs” varied very considerably. These particular winds, however, brought contentment to all; they are uniformly cool and steady by day and night; every stitch of canvas is set, and the ship heels over to a certain angle and there remains for days together, so steady, indeed, that on a specially inclined table one could with comfort indulge in billiards.
The officers and crew have a comparatively easy time of it as long as these winds last, being exempt from all necessity of furling, reefing, or bracing of yards—while the enjoyment extends even to the dumb portion of the “live stock,” the cows in the long-boat, the sheep in their pens, and the poultry—everywhere.
To the uninitiated it appeared strange that we should, when outward bound, have to proceed so far south in order to round the Cape, while on the homeward journey we could hug it so closely as to see the low-lying coast; but the phenomenon was easily to be accounted for by the prevalence of certain winds and oceanic currents.
The history of the art of navigation, from the mariner’s compass of the fifteenth century, when Columbus discovered its variations, down to the perfect instruments of the present day, has always seemed to me highly interesting. Even in the sailing days the captains practised it with wonderful accuracy. Far out in mid-ocean, we were bearing right on an island laid down in the chart, and I asked the captain whether he intended altering the ship’s course. “Not at all,” he replied; “we shall sail right over it.” We did so. An early navigator probably saw a dead whale there, which he duly entered on the chart. And unquestionably as logarithms and modern instruments have simplified matters, it is even now not quite so easy as it appears.
We had now entered colder latitudes, where we were glad to put away the easy-chairs and fold up the awning, and in lieu thereof pace the decks in a vigorous manner enveloped in warm clothing. But we were not unprepared for the change, which came on gradually; and, even in its extremes, did not approach that which was once experienced by a Bishop of Newfoundland, who had to visit a small island in his diocese that lay right in the Gulf Stream. He left his main charge, so he told me, enveloped in furs, but the moment his steam yacht crossed the line of demarcation—perceptible by the change of colour in the water—he had to exchange them for the thinnest garments he could muster. The exact readings of the thermometer plunged in on either side the line, as he told them to me, I no longer remember; but I do recollect being struck by the great difference—so great, indeed, that, had the information not come from such a source, I should have been incredulous. Great as are the irregularities in the weather that one experiences during a sea voyage, they vanish when compared with the caprices of the true British climate. And yet we take a kind of gloomy national pride in it; and I have known homeward-bound Englishmen quite looking forward to a “Channel fog” from the moment they left Bombay. A juster appreciation of its merits is shown by our Yankee cousins, one of whom said of our atmosphere: “No climate, not even weather; nothing but samples”; while another is responsible for the following excellent parody of a well-known rhyme:
“Dirty days hath September, April, June, and November;
From January to May, the rain it raineth every day;
From May until July, there’s not a dry cloud in the sky;