"Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled,
To furnish and accommodate a world,
To give the pole the produce of the sun,
And knit unsocial climates into one."
"The luxuries of seas and woods,
The airy joys of social solitude,
Famed each rude wanderer."
Scenes: The shores of South America. The lonely isles of the Pacific,
Antarctic Ocean, and Antarctic ice.
If my young reader took an ordinary sized map or chart of the world he
could follow with eye or finger the route, _en voyage_, taken by our
wanderers for the next few months, till we find them amid the lovely
scenery briefly depicted above. Southwards along the eastern shore of
South America, but keeping well to sea, and only seeing the wild
romantic coast, now and then lying like a blue-grey storm-cloud on the
horizon, sailed the _Gloaming Star_. Leaving the Falkland Islands on
the port beam, they passed the Straits of Magellan, not venturing in
them now; and reaching farther southward, after encountering a terrific
gale of wind which tried the timbers of the bonny barque and the mettle
of her gallant tars, after having narrowly escaped being crushed during
a dismal fog by heavy ice, they succeeded in weathering the Cape, and
stretched away north now, once more along a wild coast--its mountains
towering to the moon--and after many, many dreary weeks at sea, they
landed at the wonderful isle of Juan Fernandez, celebrated, as all know,
for having been the prison isle of Alexander Selkirk, the hero of that
best of boys' books--"Robinson Crusoe."
The hut was still there, and many another curious memento of the sailor
hermit, and strange thoughts passed through the wanderers' minds as they
walked on the very beach where, according to Defoe, his hero had seen
the footstep in the sands.
North and west they went now, and in a few weeks fell in with the
trade-winds, although they were not of too great force to prevent
stunsails being carried alow and aloft.
Bounding over that lovely sea, the _Gloaming Star_ looked like some
beautiful sea-bird.
Whatever might come of it, our heroes were determined to see something
of the Sandwich Islands. But there was danger in their doing so. For
but few white men ever ventured there in those days.