water two or three times before you get your feet fairly planted on
the shore.'

"Ned and I concluded that we would not make any special effort to get to
Durban, although we had received such a cordial invitation to go there.

"We had a good breeze," continued Harry, "until we got to within four
degrees of the Equator; then the wind died out and left the sea as
smooth as glass, without the least motion upon it anywhere. We seemed to
be running through an enormous plate of glass, polished until it shone
like the most perfect mirror ever made. As we looked down from the rail
into the depths of the sea our faces were reflected, and there seemed to
be a counterfeit presentment of ourselves gazing at us from the depths
below, and, oh, wasn't it hot, blistering, burning hot! The sun poured
down so that the heat pierced our awnings as though no awnings had been
there, and the breeze which the ship created by her motion seemed like
the blast from a furnace. The pitch oozed from the seams of the planking
on the deck, and the deck itself became blistering hot to one's feet.
There was not the least stir of the sails and only the faintest motion
of the ship from side to side. Respiration became difficult, and, as I
looked about, I could see the passengers and sailors yawning and gaping
in the effort to draw in their breath. All the metal about the ship
became hot, especially the brass. If you touched it, it almost seemed to
raise a blister, and the spot with which you touched it was painful for
hours.

"We passed a ship becalmed in the doldrums, as this region is called,
and she looked more like a painted ship upon a painted ocean than any
other craft I ever saw. Her sails were all hanging loose, and so were
all the ropes, and lines, and halyards from one end of the ship to the
other. She was as motionless as if she were tied up to a dock in harbor,
and there was very little sign of life about her anywhere. I asked one
of our officers how long that ship had probably been there and how long
she was liable to stay.

"'That's a question, young man,' he replied, 'that I can't answer very
surely. She may have been there a day or two only, and may stay only a
day or so, and then, again, she may have been there a week or a month;
we can't tell without speaking her, and we are not particularly
interested in her, anyhow.'"

Then he went on to explain that ships have been becalmed at the Equator
for two months and more, lying all the ti