To say, therefore, that the _Liberdade_
averaged a hundred and three miles a day for fifty-three days would be
considerably inside the truth.
This was the voyage made in the boat which cost less than a hundred
dollars outside of our own labour of building. Journals the world over
have spoken not unkindly of the feat; encomiums in seven languages
reached us through the newspapers while we lay moored in Washington.
Should the same good fortune that followed the _Liberdade_ attend this
little literary craft, when finished, it would go safe into many lands.
Without looking, however, to this mark of good fortune, the journal of
the voyage has been as carefully constructed as was the _Liberdade_, and
I trust, as conscientiously, by a hand, alas! that has grasped the
sextant more often than the plane or pen, and for the love of doing.
This apology might have been more appropriately made in the beginning of
the journal, maybe, but it comes to me now, and like many other things
done, right or wrong, but done on the impulse of the moment, I put it
down.
CHAPTER XVI
Ocean Currents--Visit to South Santee--At the Typee
River--Quarantined--South Port and Wilmington, N.
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