Sometimes, of course, he may get
splattered with spray or wet to the knees, but he manages to be out
of the way whenever a big graybeard falls on board.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A wonderful event to-day! For five minutes, at noon, the sun was
actually visible. But such a sun!--a pale and cold and sickly orb
that at meridian was only 90 degrees 18 minutes above the horizon.
And within the hour we were taking in sail and lying down to the
snow-gusts of a fresh south-west gale.
WHATEVER YOU DO, MAKE WESTING! MAKE WESTING!--this sailing rule of
the navigators for the Horn has been bitten out of iron. I can
understand why shipmasters, with a favouring slant of wind, have left
sailors, fallen overboard, to drown without heaving-to to lower a
boat. Cape Horn is iron, and it takes masters of iron to win around
from east to west.
And we make easting! This west wind is eternal. I listen
incredulously when Mr. Pike or Mr. Mellaire tells of times when
easterly winds have blown in these latitudes. It is impossible.
Always does the west wind blow, gale upon gale and gales everlasting,
else why the "Great West Wind Drift" printed on the charts! We of
the afterguard are weary of this eternal buffeting.
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