Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
Three months have passed three long months of tossing waters and ever-present winds. The Harpoon, shaping her course for Norfolk, in the United States, had made but a poor passage of it. She got into the south-east trades, and all went well till they made St. Paul's Rocks, where they were detained by the doldrums and variable winds.
The ship had nearly all her canvas spread, so as to take advantage of the first puff of air which came to waft us beyond the Doldrums towards the region of the south-east trades, then beginning to blow just below the calm belt; consequently, it took all hands some time to clew up and furl all the light upper sails, and squall after squall burst over us ere we could reduce the ship to her proper fighting trim of reefed topsails and courses, our outer jib getting torn to shreds before it could be handed.
Dancing has stood still since the dancers have gyrated frantically in order to prove their mechanical dexterity, and drama is in the doldrums because the players, with the assistance of the press, have induced the public to regard their performance as more important than the work which it is their duty to represent. The last statement is becoming inaccurate.
On and on, unhasting but unresting, we stolidly jogged, by great good fortune slipping across the "doldrums" that hateful belt of calms about the line so much detested by all sailor-men without losing the south-east wind. Not one day of calm delayed us, the north-east trades meeting us like a friend sent to extend a welcoming hand and lend us his assistance on our homeward way.
The first of the north-east trades will give a fair idea of your latitude being about the edge of the tropics somewhere, or say from 20deg. to 25deg. N., whether you have sighted any of the islands or not. Then away you go before the wind down towards the Equator, the approach to which is notified by the loss of the trade and the dirty, changeable weather of the "doldrums."
The helm was put up, and we resumed our course for Demarara. Steering to the southward, we reached that narrow belt of the Atlantic, called "the doldrums," which lies between the variable and the trade winds. This tract is from two to three degrees in width, and is usually fallen in with soon after crossing the thirtieth degree of latitude.
The redwood trade is in the doldrums and will remain in them to a greater or less degree until the principal redwood centres secure a rail outlet to the markets of the country.
"Thinkest to don thy master's wit with his livery?" snapped the poetaster. "'Tis a chain for a man, too heavy for thy wearing." The boy stretched his arms again. "'Master' no more than in reason," quoth he. "I also am a gentleman. Heigho! The sun shineth hotter here than in the doldrums!" "Well, go thy ways for a sprightly crack!" said the citizen, preparing to go his.
We entered the "doldrums" last night variable winds, bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and drunken motion to the ship a condition of things findable in other regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always. The globe-girdling belt called the doldrums is 20 degrees wide, and the thread called the equator lies along the middle of it. Sept. 4.
"A little pep, here, boy," he whispered to Gurney, "and we'll snare him yet." Joey came back from his study of the map. "I'd have the nor'west trades clear to the Line," he remarked to his father. "After that I'd be liable to bang round for a couple of weeks in the doldrums, but in spite of that did you say I couldn't do it in six months, Mr. Ricks?" "That's what I said, Joey."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking