I Forgot That All The Work
(And A Tremendous Work, Too) Had Been Done By The Masterminds Before
Me, The
Astronomers and mathematicians, who had discovered and
elaborated the whole science of navigation and made the tables in
the "Epitome.
" I remembered only the everlasting miracle of it -
that I had listened to the voices of the stars and been told my
place upon the highway of the sea. Charmian did not know, Martin
did not know, Tochigi, the cabin-boy, did not know. But I told
them. I was God's messenger. I stood between them and infinity. I
translated the high celestial speech into terms of their ordinary
understanding. We were heaven-directed, and it was I who could read
the sign-post of the sky! - I! I!
And now, in a cooler moment, I hasten to blab the whole simplicity
of it, to blab on Roscoe and the other navigators and the rest of
the priesthood, all for fear that I may become even as they,
secretive, immodest, and inflated with self-esteem. And I want to
say this now: any young fellow with ordinary gray matter, ordinary
education, and with the slightest trace of the student-mind, can get
the books, and charts, and instruments and teach himself navigation.
Now I must not be misunderstood. Seamanship is an entirely
different matter. It is not learned in a day, nor in many days; it
requires years. Also, navigating by dead reckoning requires long
study and practice. But navigating by observations of the sun,
moon, and stars, thanks to the astronomers and mathematicians, is
child's play. Any average young fellow can teach himself in a week.
And yet again I must not be misunderstood. I do not mean to say
that at the end of a week a young fellow could take charge of a
fifteen-thousand-ton steamer, driving twenty knots an hour through
the brine, racing from land to land, fair weather and foul, clear
sky or cloudy, steering by degrees on the compass card and making
landfalls with most amazing precision. But what I do mean is just
this: the average young fellow I have described can get into a
staunch sail-boat and put out across the ocean, without knowing
anything about navigation, and at the end of the week he will know
enough to know where he is on the chart. He will be able to take a
meridian observation with fair accuracy, and from that observation,
with ten minutes of figuring, work out his latitude and longitude.
And, carrying neither freight nor passengers, being under no press
to reach his destination, he can jog comfortably along, and if at
any time he doubts his own navigation and fears an imminent
landfall, he can heave to all night and proceed in the morning.
Joshua Slocum sailed around the world a few years ago in a thirty-
seven-foot boat all by himself. I shall never forget, in his
narrative of the voyage, where he heartily indorsed the idea of
young men, in similar small boats, making similar voyage.
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