THE NORTH STAR RE-APPEARS.
We soon found by the signs above us that we were entering the northern hemisphere. One evening we saw, just above the horizon, two stars of “The Dipper.” It was several nights before the North Star came up the watery hill. The poet Spenser probably had never sailed in these latitudes when he wrote of the North Star as never being below the horizon:—
“By this, the Northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that on the wide deepe wandering arre.”[61]
But at last it came up, dripping wet, and inspired in us the hope of soon watching it from our windows at home.
DISCOMFORTS AT SEA.
While it is true that as much was combined as could be wished for to render this voyage agreeable, those who have been at sea will not believe that we were free from the ordinary discomforts or annoyances of sea-life. For the satisfaction of those who have suffered in sailing vessels it will be well for me to show our dark side of sea-life in some of its principal annoyances; doing this, however, for the sake of the truth, that the voyage may not appear to have been out of the ordinary experience of those who go down to the sea.