Her sails are full and straining, every little while she
presses her lee-rail under, she flounders, and bumps, and splashes,
and that is all.
Whenever she begins to gather way, she runs ker-
chug into a big mountain of water and is brought to a standstill.
So, with the Snark, the resultant of her smallness, of the trade
around into the east, and of the strong equatorial current, was a
long sag south. Oh, she did not go quite south. But the easting
she made was distressing. On October 11, she made forty miles
easting; October 12, fifteen miles; October 13, no easting; October
14, thirty miles; October 15, twenty-three miles; October 16, eleven
miles; and on October 17, she actually went to the westward four
miles. Thus, in a week she made one hundred and fifteen miles
easting, which was equivalent to sixteen miles a day. But, between
the longitude of Hilo and 128 degrees west longitude is a difference
of twenty-seven degrees, or, roughly, sixteen hundred miles. At
sixteen miles a day, one hundred days would be required to
accomplish this distance. And even then, our objective, l28 degrees
west longitude, was five degrees north of the Line, while Nuka-hiva,
in the Marquesas, lay nine degrees south of the Line and twelve
degrees to the west!
There remained only one thing to do - to work south out of the trade
and into the variables. It is true that Captain Bruce found no
variables on his traverse, and that he "never could make easting on
either tack." It was the variables or nothing with us, and we
prayed for better luck than he had had. The variables constitute
the belt of ocean lying between the trades and the doldrums, and are
conjectured to be the draughts of heated air which rise in the
doldrums, flow high in the air counter to the trades, and gradually
sink down till they fan the surface of the ocean where they are
found. And they are found where they are found; for they are wedged
between the trades and the doldrums, which same shift their
territory from day to day and month to month.
We found the variables in 11 degrees north latitude, and 11 degrees
north latitude we hugged jealously. To the south lay the doldrums.
To the north lay the northeast trade that refused to blow from the
northeast. The days came and went, and always they found the Snark
somewhere near the eleventh parallel. The variables were truly
variable. A light head-wind would die away and leave us rolling in
a calm for forty-eight hours. Then a light head-wind would spring
up, blow for three hours, and leave us rolling in another calm for
forty-eight hours. Then - hurrah! - the wind would come out of the
west, fresh, beautifully fresh, and send the Snark along, wing and
wing, her wake bubbling, the log-line straight astern.
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