It was enough. It blew, and it rained. Lord, how it blew and rained! first from dead ahead, which caused us to heave to; then, as the vicious circle was completed, from dead aft, so that we "ran" like a wind-driven rag under double reef and storm jib.
It is an easy thing to "run"; the difficulty is to know when to stop. There is always the possibility of being "pooped," which simply means being overtaken by a mountain of water and crushed into the depths out of harm's way for good and all. To the uninitiated it would appear that the faster a ship travels the better chance she has of escaping a following sea. But this is not so. No one has yet succeeded in explaining the phenomenon satisfactorily, but it seems that the wake caused by even a small boat passing down the face of a comber induces it to break prematurely, and if the boat and the comber chance to be travelling at the same speed, the latter breaks aboard, that is all.
It is a chance that all who go down to the sea in ships must take when they "run," and the only way of obviating the disaster is to restrain a very natural desire to "get on with it" while the weather is fair, and heave to in time.
In the case of the dream ship there was no need to do this, as we had reduced canvas to such an extent that she was not doing more than ten knots, and rose to the summit of each breaking comber like a cork. I have yet to see the weather that she could not face without flinching, and I treasure her design beyond price.
After such a bucketing Palmerston was a welcome sight, as welcome as it was unique. It is doubtful if such another gem adorns the earth. Neither atoll nor island, it is a perfect combination of both; a natural necklace of surf-pounded coral strung with six equidistant, verdant islets, the whole enclosing a shallow lagoon slashed with unbelievable colour.
Men in boats
Such was Palmerston as we approached it before a stiff southeast "trade," to be welcomed by a fleet of amazingly fast luggers and their astonished crews.
Who were we?
Where had we sprung from?