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"We most distinctly understood from them, that there was no water along the coast, westerly, for ten of their days' journeys; and that inland, there was neither fresh nor salt water, hills or timber, as far as they had ever been; an account which but too well agreed with the opinion I had myself formed, upon ascertaining that the same dreary, barren region I had been traversing so long, still continued at a point where I had ever looked forward to some great and important change taking place in the features of the country, and from which I had hoped I might eventually have accomplished the object for which the expedition was fitted out.
Strange to say, as they had advanced in a westerly direction through Lancaster Sound, the vibrations of the pendulum had increased, whilst now it appeared to have lost all motion, and "we now therefore witnessed for the first time the curious phenomenon of the directive power of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely overcome by the attraction of the ship; so that the needle might now be properly said to point to the north pole of the ship."
On the 25th, in latitude 26° 13' south, and 31° 33' east longitude, we found 1° 22' easterly variation; and on the 27th the variation was 00° 45' westerly; the latitude being 22° 32' south, and the longitude 29° 03' west. I ordered the cables to be hauled up, the tier to be well cleaned, and washed with vinegar. The wind now hauled to the westward, with a moderate breeze and clear weather.
There was a headland to the southward of us beyond which, seeing no land, I supposed that from thence the land trends away more westerly. This headland lies in the latitude of 5 degrees 2 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape Mabo 1290 miles. In the night we lay by for fear of over-shooting this headland. Between which and Cape St.
Tommy replied, he wished it might be summer all the year; when his father desired him to enter that wish in his pocket-book also. The autumn at length arrived, and all the family went into the country to view the harvest. It happened to be one of those days that are free from clouds, and yet a gentle westerly wind kept the air cool and refreshing.
Apparently, the only thing to do was to follow the northerly margin of solid ground, which seemed to trend away in a westerly direction, the direction namely in which Earle wished to travel, and this Dick accordingly did.
Away we went rolling along with a westerly swell and a northerly wind, while many of the fellows in the berth were singing: "There we lay, all the day, in the Bay of Biscay, O;" and others "Rule Britannia," old Gregson not forgetting his standing joke of "Bless the old girl; I wish, while she was about it, that she had ruled them straighter."
Then the magician, with a very wicked look on his face, said: "Before the ceremony there is just one little thing you must do for me, dear son-in-law that is to be. Go outside the town, and near the most westerly tower you will find a team of oxen and a plough awaiting you. Close to them is a pile of three hundred bushels of sesame seed.
They discovered the Cape of Good Hope on the 16th of May, observing the head-land to be considerably high, having two hummocks at the westerly point, a little off the main, and three others a little farther into the sea, yet low-land still between these and the sea.
The heat and coolness of the land, then, is constantly varying, not only with the aspect, but with the steepness of the gradients, and both of these points must be taken into consideration in regulating the quantity of shade required; and the reader will therefore see how impossible it is to give more than a general guide towards the quantity of shade required, and all I can undertake to say is that about twice as much shade is required on a southerly as on a northerly slope, that rather more shade is required on a westerly than on an eastern aspect, and that the last named requires less than a southerly aspect.
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