CHAPTER I Foot In Stirrup

We are off!  The courses and topsails are set:  the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow:  and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound.  Out spreads the canvas—­alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun’ sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.

But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?

We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn’s island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled.  At Ravavai I had stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.

And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met.

Now, round about those isles, which Dampier once trod, where the Spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the Cachalot, or sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds.

But thither, from Ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull, straight to her nest.  For, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of Ravavai are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so.  First, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main:  then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the Line.

This round-about way did the Arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary one it was.  Never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous; thank fate, never since.

But bravo! in two weeks’ time, an event.  Out of the gray of the morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy breakers frothing round its base.—­We turned aside, and, at length, when day dawned, passed Massafuero.  With a glass, we spied two or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal:  a tattered flag upon a summit beyond.  Well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from Chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land.  Though, haply, he may have erred in not sending a boat off with his card.

A few days more and we “took the trades.”  Like favors snappishly conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward.