“Dear Uncle George,—
“Yours of the 9th received. I am glad you’ve concluded to go to sea, but what possesses you to steer for Fernando de Noronha? It’s a Brazilian convict island one hundred miles from the coast, where all the life prisoners are confined, and except the government transports, not a vessel stops at the place for months together. There is absolutely nothing there but a fertile island of about twenty square miles, inhabited only by convicts, soldiers, and a governor.
“The Sea Witch has been chartered to load for Pernambuco, and from there will come back to New York. Now uncle, take my advice and go along. The only way to see the ocean as it really is, is on a sailing vessel, and we shall probably sight this island of yours either going or returning, which ought to satisfy you. You would have a good time as a passenger, but as you’ve always been such a worker, it might not suit you to loaf, and in that case you could ship before the mast. We’ll show you how to make sennit, mouse blocks, overhaul buntlines, tie a reef-point, and do other things you never heard of.
“The brig is repairing at Poillon’s yard. We had a rough passage from Tampico, and the little hooker had a couple of sticks jerked out in a blow off Hatteras.
“If you’re in New York in three weeks it will be time enough. I must run over to South Street now, so good-bye. Love to yourself and Aunt Alice.
“Ralph.”
This epistle I read aloud, and we both laughed over Ralph’s joke about my shipping before the mast, but that part of the letter referring to the sticks being jerked out of the brig made me feel rather dubious. I consoled myself, however, by reflecting that such things probably did not occur often, and after long deliberation decided to go, and wrote Ralph to that effect.
It was the afternoon of July 2 that the tug Charm pulled the brig out from Pier 1, East River, and took her in tow for Sandy Hook. It is a long tow, and the stars were shining when the pilot went over the side, the tug’s hawser was cast off, and we were left to shift for ourselves.
Everyone aboard was so busy that I did not get a chance to say half a dozen words to Ralph that night. He and the mate were roaring out orders; the yards were being hoisted to the accompaniment of the wild sailors’ chant, which begins “From South Street slip to ’Frisco Bay,” and I finally turned in and slept sounder than I had for months, in spite of the racket on deck. Next morning was beautiful, and we were spinning along at a great rate when I came on deck. I felt fine, but somehow couldn’t walk very well. Ralph told me the names of the sails and some of the ropes, and was surprised that I hadn’t been sick.
Before we sailed, I had told him my dream, which he ridiculed until I spoke of the lofty peak, when he became serious.
“There is just such a peak at one end of the island,” he had said. “It is eight hundred feet high, and the observatory at its summit overlooks the island, and the ocean for sixty miles in every direction.”
This was enough for me to know; I was now determined at any cost to get ashore on that island and try and find the scene pictured in my vision, for that such a scene existed I no longer doubted.
Three weeks passed, and we had made good progress since leaving port. I soon found my sea legs, as Ralph expressed it, and often climbed the rigging as far as the tops. I went out on the jibboom and caught bonitas—a deep-sea fish of a steely blue color which preys remorselessly upon the flying-fish; I read; I learned to make nautical knots of various kinds, and actually felt ten years younger than I had in New Orleans. There was nothing to bother or irritate me; no telephones, no whistles blowing, no mail to open, no newspapers to read; in a word, I was in a new world altogether, and began to get so fat that Seth Hawkins, the mate, one day told me that I should have to shake a reef or two out of my clothes by the time I got back to New York.
After a particularly fine day’s run, I said to Ralph, who had just marked it on the chart, “I had no idea that sailing vessels could go fast. As this rate we shall soon be across the Equator. You say we are only 8° North this noon.”
“Don’t crow, uncle, till we’re through the Doldrums,” he replied. I had heard a little about this bugbear, but had a rather vague idea as to what sort of a place it was. I was soon to know, for upon going on deck next morning, I found a dead calm. There was not even enough wind to steer by. The atmosphere was hot and muggy, while great masses of wet-looking clouds were piled up all along the horizon. The sails flapped against the masts and rigging with loud reports each time the brig rolled, and when I saluted Seth Hawkins, he said: “Well, Mr. Spencer, how do you like the Doldrums?”