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Besides this I needed a sextant, some scientific instruments, and books. To procure all this, I made several anxious journeys to London and Paris, which, auspiciously for me, a mist just then overshadowed.
Of this latter fact I soon had most satisfactory evidence, for, without having recourse at all to my sextant, I was enabled, in that atmosphere of crystalline clearness, to see with the naked eye that we were steadily raising them, an hour's sailing having brought the bulwark rail of both craft flush with the horizon at my point of observation.
One fine morning, as they were paddling cheerfully along in the neighbourhood of Cape Jones, it struck Mr Stanley that he might prove the correctness of his sextant and other instruments before entering upon the country which to most of the party was terra incognita.
"I have my doubts whether they'll ever help ye," he said. "Wish I could. But it 'ud be hard without my eyes. An' I've got no sextant an' no book o' tables. It's too bad." His disappointment seemed keen, and Rainey could not fathom it. Why had both Lund and Carlsen seemed to lay stress on this matter? Why was the doctor relieved and Lund disappointed at his ignorance?
Or, reversing the metaphor, we might liken our present state to that of the hulls of ships submerged in a dim ocean among strange monsters, propelled in a blind manner through space; proud perhaps of accumulating many barnacles as decoration; only recognizing our destination by bumping against the dock-wall; and with no cognizance of the deck and cabins above us, or the spars and sails no thought of the sextant, and the compass, and the captain no perception of the lookout on the mast of the distant horizon.
He returned to the Salopian Coffee-house, opposite to which they had been put down by the Greenwich coach; and taking possession of a box, called for some biscuits and a pint of sherry; and requesting his father to stay there until his return, went out to purchase a sextant, and some other nautical luxuries, which his pay enabled him to procure without trespassing upon the funds supplied by the generosity of his uncle.
Continuing on inland, the men recovered the photographic films, the sextant, my fishing rod, and other odds and ends we had dropped on the trail as far back as Lake Elson. Tom and Duncan praised George unstintingly for the unvarying accuracy with which he located the things.
The Captain instructed him in steering, and even promised to show him the use of the sextant and how to take an observation in the fake short and easy coasting style of navigation. Furthermore, he showed him how to read the log and the manner of keeping the dead reckoning.
And he's got my watch and chain, and my sextant and some other things as well." The four men mere casual acquaintances of a few weeks' standing gave a sympathetic murmur, and then one of them in a deep, rumbling kind of voice, and without even looking at Barry, inquired if he could "do with a change of togs?" "Much obliged to you, Mr. Watson," replied the young man, "but I'll be all right now.
It was impossible to restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost, including the colored glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many parts still recoverable, were so battered and broken as to be entirely useless. For several days afterward, we now and then came across bits of the quadrant or sextant; but it was only to mourn over their fate.
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