I Have Forgotten To Mention That The Seventy-Horse-Power Gasolene
Engine, As Usual, Was Not Working, And That We Could Depend Upon
Wind Alone.
Neither was the launch engine working.
And while I am
about it, I may as well confess that the five-horse-power, which ran
the lights, fans, and pumps, was also on the sick-list. A striking
title for a book haunts me, waking and sleeping. I should like to
write that book some day and to call it "Around the World with Three
Gasolene Engines and a Wife." But I am afraid I shall not write it,
for fear of hurting the feelings of some of the young gentlemen of
San Francisco, Honolulu, and Hilo, who learned their trades at the
expense of the Snark's engines.
It looked easy on paper. Here was Hilo and there was our objective,
128 degrees west longitude. With the northeast trade blowing we
could travel a straight line between the two points, and even slack
our sheets off a goodly bit. But one of the chief troubles with the
trades is that one never knows just where he will pick them up and
just in what direction they will be blowing. We picked up the
northeast trade right outside of Hilo harbour, but the miserable
breeze was away around into the east. Then there was the north
equatorial current setting westward like a mighty river.
Furthermore, a small boat, by the wind and bucking into a big
headsea, does not work to advantage.
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