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Updated: May 4, 2025
In the evening we made the Chigumokiré, a nice rivulet, where we slept, and the next morning we proceeded to Kangené, whose village is situated on a mass of mountains, and to reach which we made more southing than we wished. Our appearance on the ascent of the hill caused alarm, and we were desired to wait till our spokesman had explained the unusual phenomenon of a white man.
When we were at sea, he kept a running account, in his head, of the ship's way, the number of knots and the courses; and, if the courses did not vary much during the twenty-four hours, by taking the whole progress and allowing so many eights southing or northing, to so many easting or westing, he would make up his reckoning just before the captain took the sun at noon, and often came very near the mark.
But if they had, and the reader was a green one, he would just about begin to know the ropes and find his sea legs by the time that our Victoria had run her southing down to within another day's sail of the foul-weather zone in the roaring forties round the Horn, which seamen call 'Old Stiff. Sails are shifted again, and the best new suit is bent; for the coming gales have a clear sweep from the Antarctic to the stormiest coast of all America, and the enormous, grey-backed Cape Horners are the biggest seas in the world.
But the scenery was still that of winter, except in the absence of ice and snow. We had not made much southing, but we expected to find the western side of Sweden much warmer than the eastern. The highest part of the canal, more than 300 feet above the sea, was now passed, however, and as we descended the long barren hills towards the Wener Lake I found a few early wild flowers in the woods.
We continued our course, steering W. till the evening of the 8th, when the variation of the compass, by several azimuths, was 12' W., and by the amplitude 5' W. At noon, on the 9th, our latitude, by observation, was 9° 46' S., longitude 232° 7' W. For the last two days we had steered due W., yet, by observation, we made sixteen miles southing, six miles from noon on the 6th to noon on the 7th, and ten miles from noon on the 7th to noon on the 8th, by which it appeared that there was a current setting to the southward.
Rat, ever observant of all winged movement, saw that it was taking daily a southing tendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he thought he could make out, passing in the darkness overhead, the beat and quiver of impatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call. Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others.
The motor-engine had broken down and we were entirely dependent on the sails. We managed to make a little southing during the next day, but noon found us 108 miles from the island. That night we lay off the ice in a gale, hove to, and morning found the schooner iced up.
I made what southing I could; but, all that time, we were beset by it. Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, "O! Captain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!"
As we pushed on westwards, we found that the river makes a little southing, and some reaches were deeper than any near the sea; but when we had ascended about 140 miles by the river's course from the sea, soft tufa rocks began to appear; ten miles beyond, the river became more narrow and rocky, and when, according to our measurement, we had ascended 156 miles, our further progress was arrested.
"To-morrow morning we shall be able to get some more sail on her," the master said, "and I hope by the next morning the squall will be over, for we shall then have made our southing, and the wind will be right in our teeth when we turn her head west. There is no saying which way it will come when the squall dies out. What do you think, Johnson?"
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