The _Bussorah Merchant_ was now ready for sea. Mr Thudicumb was first
mate, as he had been on the previous voyage; Dick Tarbox was boatswain;
young Oliver Farwell was cabin-boy. Merlin, too, who indeed never left
the ship, was on board, and welcomed my sister and me, whom he
recognised the moment we appeared with signs of the greatest
satisfaction. The ship was bound out to the coast of China and Japan,
with a prospect of visiting several other interesting places before she
returned home. I was delighted with the thoughts of all I should see,
and was very glad to find on board several books descriptive of those
regions. The ship came to an anchor at Gravesend, where several
passengers joined her. Among them was a gentleman with very broad
shoulders, a broad forehead, and light curling hair covered by a very
broad-brimmed white hat. His eyes were blue and remarkably keen; he had
a nose somewhat turned up; and a firm mouth, with a pleasing smile,
showing a set of strong white teeth. He brought with him a number of
cases and boxes; among them gun-cases, and fishing-rods, and cases which
looked as if they enclosed instruments, with numerous other articles not
usually carried by travellers. His business-like, quiet manner showed
that he was well accustomed to move about the world. Who he could be I
could not tell. Soon after he came on board he called Oliver Farwell to
help him arrange his cabin; but as Oliver had other duties to attend to,
I offered my services.
"Yes, my lad, I shall be very much obliged to you," said the gentleman.
"I should have liked to have got these things on board before the ship
left the docks; but there was no time for that; and it is important that
they should be secured before we get into a tumbling sea, from which
they may receive damage."
I observed that Mr Nicholas Hooker was painted on all the cases, and of
course concluded that such was the name of the gentleman. He had a
number of screws with which he fastened some of the articles to the
bulkheads, and lashed others in a seamanlike fashion. There were charts
and telescopes; indeed, from the various articles he had with him, I
fancied that perhaps the gentleman was a naval officer. Still, as I did
not see R.N. at the end of his name, I thought again that he could not
be so.
At length Mr Hooker, having unpacked his books, various instruments,
and other articles, begged that the cases might be stowed away below.
His directions were promptly obeyed, and having surveyed his cabin, he
seemed satisfied that all was in perfect order.
"Now, young gentleman," he said, with a pleasant smile which won my
confidence, "I daresay you would like to know what all these things are
for. Some are for taking the latitude and longitude, ascertaining the
exact position of places on the earth's surface. Others are for
measuring the height of mountains, some the temperature of the air and
water, and so on. Then I have cases for creatures which move in the
water or fly in the air, which walk or crawl on the earth or burrow
beneath it; and I have the means of shooting them or trapping them.
Those I can, I hope to preserve alive; and if not, to be able to exhibit
to my scientific friends, when I return home, the forms of some perfect,
the skins of others, and the skeletons of others. And now, having told
you thus much, I must leave you to guess what I profess myself to be.
One thing I can tell you, I know very, very little compared to what
there is to be known. I hope to gain more knowledge but I am very well
aware that, gain all I can, I can but add a very small portion to what
is already known, and a still smaller compared to what is to be
ascertained. Here comes the captain. We are old friends, and that
induced me to select this ship for my voyage. Are you his son?"
"No, sir," I answered; "but he is a very kind friend of mine; and were
it not for him, I know not what would have become of me and my sister."
The _Bussorah Merchant_ had a fine passage down Channel, and taking her
departure from the Land's End, stood across the Bay of Biscay. Four
days afterwards the captain told us that we were in the latitude of Cape
Finisterre, but no land was to be seen. Another eight days, with the
wind abeam, carried us into the neighbourhood of the island of Madeira.
"Would not it be as well to have a look at it, sir," I said, "and then
we shall better know where we are."
The captain smiled. "That is not at all necessary," he answered. "By
the observations we are able to take with the perfect instruments we
possess, we are able at all times to ascertain our exact position on the
ocean; and we might thus sail round either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good
Hope to New South Wales without once sighting land till we were about to
enter Port Jackson."
"It is very wonderful," I said. "What puzzles me is how you can find
the longitude. I know you get the latitude by seeing how high the sun
is above the horizon at noon, and then with the aid of the nautical
almanac you can easily work out the calculation."
"With the aid of the chronometer we can as easily ascertain the
longitude, though the calculation is a little longer," answered Captain
Davenport. "I can explain it to you more easily. The chronometer shows
us the exact time at Greenwich. We know by our nautical almanac that,
at a certain hour on a certain day, the sun will have attained at
Greenwich a certain altitude. When on that day and that hour we find
that the sun is so many minutes behind hand in attaining that altitude,
we know we must be a certain distance further to the west, as, the world
turning from west to east, the more westerly a place is the longer it
will be before the sun appears there. If, on the contrary, we find the
sun has gained a fixed altitude some time before it would have gained
that altitude at Greenwich, we know that we must be to the east of
Greenwich, or have met the sun sooner than the people at Greenwich have
done. Thus, the further we sail east day after day, the sooner we see
the sun; while the further we sail west, the longer the time which
passes before he shines upon us."
"I think I have an idea about it now, sir," I exclaimed; "and I should
be very much obliged if you will show me how to take an observation and
to make use of the books, as well as to work out the calculations. Why,
may I ask, do you cry Stop, sir, to the second officer or to Mr
Thudicumb, who are watching the chronometer while you are taking an
observation?"
"That they may mark the exact moment shown on the chronometer, while I
mark the sun's elevation as shown on the index of the sextant."
"But then you take observations at night sometimes, sir, looking at the
moon or the stars?"
"We do that to discover the distance which one star appears from another
at a certain hour, or their elevation above the horizon. The object is
the same as that for which we take an observation of the sun, though the
calculation is rather more intricate."
After this I set to work, and whenever the captain and his mates took an
observation, I took one also, although I was, I must own, at first very
far from correct. Sometimes my observation was imperfect; at other
times I made mistakes in the calculation.
At length the ship, which had been favoured with a breeze more or less
strong ever since she left England, was becalmed. Sometimes she got a
little wind which lasted for an hour or two, and then died away; then
light airs came, first from one quarter, then from another, and the crew
were constantly employed in bracing up, or squaring away the yards.
"It is always like this in these Horse Latitudes," said the boatswain as
he walked the forecastle, where I had gone to have a talk with him.
"Why do you call them `Horse Latitudes?'" I asked, as I listened to his
remarks.
"Why, I have heard say that they were so called by the Yankees, or the
people of _New_ England, before they were separated from Old England.
They used to send out deckloads of horses to the West Indies, and they
were very often kept becalmed so long in these latitudes that their
water grew scarce, and to save the lives of some of the horses they were
obliged to throw the others overboard; so that is how this part of the
ocean came to be called the `Horse Latitudes.'"