At three P. M., made the island of Fernando
Naronha, lying in lat.
3° 55' S., long. 32° 35' W.; and between
twelve o'clock Friday night and one o'clock Saturday morning,
crossed the equator, for the fourth time since leaving Boston,
in long. 35° W.; having been twenty-seven days from Staten
Land - a distance, by the courses we had made, of more than
four thousand miles.
We were now to the northward of the line, and every day added to
our latitude. The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of South latitude,
were sunk in the horizon, and the north star, the Great Bear,
and the familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in
the heavens.
Next to seeing land, there is no sight which makes one realize
more that he is drawing near home, than to see the same heavens,
under which he was born, shining at night over his head. The
weather was extremely hot, with the usual tropical alternations
of a scorching sun and squalls of rain; yet not a word was said
in complaint of the heat, for we all remembered that only three or
four weeks before we would have given nearly our all to have been
where we now were. We had plenty of water, too, which we caught by
spreading an awning, with shot thrown in to make hollows. These
rain squalls came up in the manner usual between the tropics. - A
clear sky; burning, vertical sun; work going lazily on, and men
about decks with nothing but duck trowsers, checked shirts, and
straw hats; the ship moving as lazily through the water; the man
at the helm resting against the wheel, with his hat drawn over
his eyes; the captain below, taking an afternoon nap; the passenger
leaning over the taffrail, watching a dolphin following slowly in
our wake; the sailmaker mending an old topsail on the lee side of
the quarter-deck; the carpenter working at his bench, in the waist;
the boys making sinnet; the spun-yarn winch whizzing round and round,
and the men walking slowly fore and aft with their yarns.
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