A fresh polar wind hurried us on, under shortened sail, toward the
softer "trades" of the tropics, but, veering to the eastward by
midnight, it brought us well in with the land. Then, "Larboard watch,
ahoy! all hands on deck and turn out reefs," was the cry. To weather
Cape St. Thome we must lug on all sail. And we go over the shoals with a
boiling sea and current in our favour. In twenty-four hours from Cape
Frio, we had lowered the Southern Cross three degrees--180 miles.
Sweeping by the cape, the canoe sometimes standing on end, and sometimes
buried in the deep hollow of the sea, we sunk the light on St. Thome
soon out of sight and stood on with flowing sheet. The wind on the
following day settled into regular south-east "trades," and our cedar
canoe skipped briskly along, over friendly seas that were leaping toward
home, doffing their crests onward and forward, but never back, and the
splashing waves against her sides, then rippling along the thin cedar
planks between the crew and eternity, vibrated enchanting music to the
ear, while confidence grew in the bark that was HOMEWARD BOUND.
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