THERE is no part of the world of coasts, continents, oceans, seas,
straits, capes, and islands which is not under the sway of a reigning
wind, the sovereign of its typical weather. The wind rules the aspects
of the sky and the action of the sea. But no wind rules unchallenged his
realm of land and water. As with the kingdoms of the earth, there are
regions more turbulent than others. In the middle belt of the earth the
Trade Winds reign supreme, undisputed, like monarchs of long-settled
kingdoms, whose traditional power, checking all undue ambitions, is not
so much an exercise of personal might as the working of long-established
institutions. The intertropical kingdoms of the Trade Winds are
favourable to the ordinary life of a merchantman. The trumpet-call of
strife is seldom borne on their wings to the watchful ears of men on the
decks of ships. The regions ruled by the north-east and south-east Trade
Winds are serene. In a southern-going ship, bound out for a long voyage,
the passage through their dominions is characterized by a relaxation of
strain and vigilance on the part of the seamen. Those citizens of the
ocean feel sheltered under the ægis of an uncontested law, of an
undisputed dynasty. There, indeed, if anywhere on earth, the weather may
be trusted.
Yet not too implicitly. Even in the constitutional realm of Trade Winds,
north and south of the equator, ships are overtaken by strange
disturbances. Still, the easterly winds, and, generally speaking, the
easterly weather all the world over, is characterized by regularity and
persistence.
As a ruler, the East Wind has a remarkable stability; as an invader of
the high latitudes lying under the tumultuous sway of his great brother,
the Wind of the West, he is extremely difficult to dislodge, by the
reason of his cold craftiness and profound duplicity.
The narrow seas around these isles, where British admirals keep watch and
ward upon the marches of the Atlantic Ocean, are subject to the turbulent
sway of the West Wind. Call it north-west or south-west, it is all one—a
different phase of the same character, a changed expression on the same
face. In the orientation of the winds that rule the seas, the north and
south directions are of no importance. There are no North and South
Winds of any account upon this earth. The North and South Winds are but
small princes in the dynasties that make peace and war upon the sea.
They never assert themselves upon a vast stage. They depend upon local
causes—the configuration of coasts, the shapes of straits, the accidents
of bold promontories round which they play their little part. In the
polity of winds, as amongst the tribes of the earth, the real struggle
lies between East and West.