ing beverage to my companions, I resolved to
withhold it from them altogether.

So impressed was I with all this, that for a moment, I was almost
tempted to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and
suffer its contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the
hold.

But no, no: What: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of
the precious grape? Haft himself would have haunted me!

Then again, it might come into play medicinally; and Paracelsus
himself stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the
abdomen. So at last, I determined to let it remain where it was:
visiting it occasionally, by myself, for inspection.

But by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your
Otard magazine be exposed to view--then, in the evil hour of wreck,
stave in your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat.

CHAPTER XXXIV
How They Steered On Their Way

When we quitted the Chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at
least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had
abandoned the Arcturion. Though how far we might then have been,
North or South of the Equator, I could not with any certainty divine.

But that we were not removed any considerable distance from the Line,
seemed obvious. For in the starriest night no sign of the extreme
Polar constellations was visible; though often we scanned the
northern and southern horizon in search of them. So far as regards
the aspect of the skies near the ocean's rim, the difference of
several degrees in one's latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a
person long accustomed to surveying the heavens.

If correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time
here alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been
making in the Parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to
sail, ere the country we sought would be found. But for obvious
reasons, how long precisely we might continue to float out of sight
of land, it was impossible to say. Calms, light breezes, and currents
made every thing uncertain. Nor had we any method of estimating our
due westward progress, except by what is called Dead Reckoning,--the
computation of the knots run hourly; allowances' being made for the
supposed deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams;
which at times in this quarter of the Pacific rim with very great
velocity.

Now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the
Parki than