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Dana, Richard Henry

"Two Years Before The Mast"

"
Friday, August 12th. At daylight made the island of Trinidad,
situated in lat. 20 deg. 28' S., long. 29 deg. 08' W. At twelve M., it
bore N. W. 1/2 N., distant twenty-seven miles. It was a beautiful day,
the sea hardly ruffled by the light trades, and the island looking
like a small blue mound rising from a field of glass. Such a fair and
peaceful-looking spot is said to have been, for a long time, the
resort of a band of pirates, who ravaged the tropical seas.
Thursday, August 18th. At three P. M., made the island of Fernando
Naronha, lying in lat. 3 deg. 55' S., long. 32 deg. 35' W.; and
between twelve o'clock Friday night and one o'clock Saturday morning,
crossed the equator, for the fourth time since leaving Boston, in
long. 35 deg. W.; having been twenty-seven days from Staten Land- a
distance, by the courses we had made, of more than four thousand miles.
We were now to the northward of the line, and every day added to our
latitude. The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of South latitude, were
sunk in the horizon, and the north star, the Great Bear, and the
familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens.


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