ometimes two, flew before a gale for a great many
days, with a bone in her mouth, toward the Marquesas, in the west,
which, she made on the forty-third day out, and still kept on sailing.
My time was all taken up those days--not by standing at the helm; no
man, I think, could stand or sit and steer a vessel round the world: I
did better than that; for I sat and read my books, mended my clothes,
or cooked my meals and ate them in peace. I had already found that it
was not good to be alone, and so I made companionship with what there
was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own
insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all
else. Nothing could be easier or more restful than my voyage in the
trade-winds.

I sailed with a free wind day after day, marking the position of my
ship on the chart with considerable precision; but this was done by
intuition, I think, more than by slavish calculations. For one whole
month my vessel held her course true; I had not, the while, so much as
a light in the binnacle. The Southern Cross I saw every night abeam.
The sun every morning came up astern; every evening it went down
ahead. I wished for no other compass to guide me, for these were true.
If I doubted my reckoning after a long time at sea I verified it by
reading the clock aloft made by the Great Architect, and it was right.

There was no denying that the comical side of the strange life
appeared. I awoke, sometimes, to find the sun already shining into my
cabin. I heard water rushing by, with only a thin plank between me and
the depths, and I said, "How is this?" But it was all right; it was my
ship on her course, sailing as no other ship had ever sailed before in
the world. The rushing water along her side told me that she was
sailing at full speed. I knew that no human hand was at the helm; I
knew that all was well with "the hands" forward, and that there was no
mutiny on board.

The phenomena of ocean meteorology were interesting studies even here
in the trade-winds. I observed that about every seven days the wind
freshened and drew several points farther than usual from the
direction of the pole; that is, it went round from east-southeast to
south-southeast, while at the same time a heavy swell rolled up from
the southwest. All this indicated that gales were going on in the
anti-trades. The wind then hauled day after day as it moderated, till
it stood again at the normal point, ea