These seas in which the Primauguet was were almost always of the same lapis blue; it was the region of the trade winds and of fine weather without an end.
Sometimes, in our passage from one group of islands to another, we had to cross the Equator, to pass through the motionless immensities and mournful splendours.
And afterwards, when, in one hemisphere or the other, we ran into the life-giving trade wind again, when the awakened Primauguet began once more to gather speed, then one realized better, by contrast, the charm of moving quickly, the charm of being on this great, inclined, quivering thing which seemed to be alive, and which obeyed you, alert and supple, as it sped onwards.
When we sailed eastward in these regions of the trade winds, we sailed close to the wind; and then the Primauguet rushed upon the regular, crisped waves of the tropics for whole days, without ever getting tired, with little joyous flutterings such as sportive fishes might have.
Afterwards, when we returned on our course, with the wind behind us, fully rigged, every inch of our white canvas spread, our progress, rapid as it was, became so easy, so effortless, that we no longer felt that we were moving; we were lifted up as it were in a kind of flight and our movement was like the soaring of a bird.
As far as the sailors were concerned one day was very much like another.
Every morning there was first of all a kind of frenzy of cleaning which began with the réveillé. One saw them, half-awake, jump up and start running to commence as quickly as might be the great diurnal washing. Naked, in their pompomed bonnets, or maybe wearing a "tricot de combat" (a little knitted thing for the neck, not unlike a baby's bib) they set to work to swill the deck. Water spurted from hosepipes; water was flung by hand from buckets. Wasting no time they threw it over legs and over backs until they were all besplashed, all streaming; they overturned everything in order to wash everything; afterwards, scouring the deck, already clean and white, with mops and scrapers to make it cleaner and whiter still.
Sometimes they would be ordered to break off and go aloft to make some alteration in the rigging, to shake out a reef or trim the sails; then they would dress themselves hastily, for decency's sake, before climbing, and quickly carry out the manœuvre ordered, eager to get down again and amuse themselves in the water.
This is the work which makes arms strong and chests round; and the feet, too, from being used to climbing bare, become in some measure prehensile, like those of monkeys.
At about eight o'clock, at the roll of a drum, the washing would be done. Then, while the hot sun was quickly drying all these things which they had made wet, they would begin to furbish; the copper-work, the iron-work, even the ordinary rings were made to shine like mirrors. Each one would address himself to the little pulley, the little object, the toilet of which had been specially entrusted to him and would polish it with solicitude, stepping back every now and then with a critical air to see how it looked, to see whether it did him credit. And, around these great children, was still and always the blue circle, the inexorable blue circle, the resplendent solitude, profound, having no end, where nothing ever changed and nothing ever passed.