The Truth Was Not In Him, Common Honesty Was Not In Him,
And He Was As Far Away From Fair Play And Square-Dealing As He Was
From His Proper Course When He Nearly Wrecked The Snark On The Ring-
Gold Isles.
It was at Suva, in the Fijis, that I discharged my third and last
captain and took up gain the role of amateur navigator.
I had
essayed it once before, under my first captain, who, out of San
Francisco, jumped the Snark so amazingly over the chart that I
really had to find out what was doing. It was fairly easy to find
out, for we had a run of twenty-one hundred miles before us. I knew
nothing of navigation; but, after several hours of reading up and
half an hour's practice with the sextant, I was able to find the
Snark's latitude by meridian observation and her longitude by the
simple method known as "equal altitudes." This is not a correct
method. It is not even a safe method, but my captain was attempting
to navigate by it, and he was the only one on board who should have
been able to tell me that it was a method to be eschewed. I brought
the Snark to Hawaii, but the conditions favoured me. The sun was in
northern declination and nearly overhead. The legitimate
"chronometer-sight" method of ascertaining the longitude I had not
heard of - yes, I had heard of it. My first captain mentioned it
vaguely, but after one or two attempts at practice of it he
mentioned it no more.
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