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The days came and went, and always they found the Snark somewhere near the eleventh parallel. The variables were truly variable. A light head-wind would die away and leave us rolling in a calm for forty-eight hours. Then a light head-wind would spring up, blow for three hours, and leave us rolling in another calm for forty-eight hours.
A strong head-wind met us in the Channel, and the backers of daylight had almost given up hope; but it dropped in the late afternoon, and by the log we were evidently in for a close finish. Mr. Olstein had set his watch by the ship's chronometer, and consulted it from minute to minute.
While trundling along through the darkness, in the hope of reaching a village or mehana, I observe a rocket shoot skyward in the distance ahead, and surmise that it indicates the whereabout of Adrianople; but it is plainly many a weary mile ahead; the road cannot be ridden by the uncertain light of a cloud-veiled moon, and I have been forging ahead, over rough ways leading through an undulating country, and most of the day against a strong head-wind, since early dawn.
The lower jaws of the tuskers were cut out separately and handed over to Palo, to be cleaned and hung up in his gamal in the shape of a chandelier, as tokens of his rank. Palo is a weather-maker. When we prepared to go home, he promised to smooth the sea, which was running too high for comfort, and to prevent a head-wind.
The circumstances only increased his eagerness. The more he was over-matched, the greater would be the honour of victory, and he steered for the straits, tacking to and fro in the teeth of a strong head-wind. On the morning of the 25th April he was in the narrowest part of the mountain-channel, and learned that the whole Spanish fleet was in the Bay of Gibraltar.
I shipped with them and becoming friends, we set forth on our venture, in health and safety; and sailed with a fair wind, till we came to a city called Madinat-al-Sin; but after we had left it, as we fared on in all cheer and confidence, devising of traffic and travel, behold, there sprang up a violent head-wind and a tempest of rain fell on us and drenched us and our goods.
They returned with some difficulty against the head-wind, and, of course, made a most disheartening report. When the captain returned he was dreadfully angry. Well, as I crept up the side sneakingly, not very well knowing whether I were to enact the hero or the culprit, I concocted a speech that was doomed to share the fate of "the lost inventions."
We had already enjoyed a longer succession of calm days than usually falls to the lot of the travellers in that windy middle island, and it was now quite time for the imprisoned "nor'-wester" to have his turn over the surface of the domain. Accordingly the first day's sail was against a light, ominously warm head-wind, and we only made any way at all by keeping up a complicated system of tacking.
The canoe was, therefore, headed for the open waters; and, after a hard day's paddling for there was a head-wind the voyageurs landed upon a small wooded island, about halfway over the lake, where they encamped for the night, intending next day to cross the remaining part. On awaking next morning, to their great surprise, they saw that the lake was frozen over!
The road is exceptionally good, but an east wind rises with the sun and quickly develops into a stiff breeze that renders riding against it anything but child's play; no rose is to be expected without a thorn, nevertheless it is rather aggravating to have the good road and the howling head-wind happen together, especially in traversing a country where good roads are the exception instead of the rule.
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