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The calm continued until the boats had made an offing of about a quarter of a mile, when the first faint breathings of the land breeze made themselves felt, then the muffled oars were thankfully laid in, the sails hoisted, and before a steadily strengthening breeze the boats stood off the land upon a diagonal course which not only made the land breeze a fair wind over the larboard quarter, but also carried them toward Nombre while it swept them out toward where the trade-wind was blowing.
I ran in close to the unbroken coast, fringed with rocks awash upon which the crashing trade-wind sea burst white and high. I searched with my glasses for miles, but could see no entrance. I took a compass bearing of Futuna, another of Aniwa, and laid them off on the chart. Where the two bearings crossed was bound to be the position of the Snark.
They greatly bewailed our misfortunes, and told us, that, when they heard of our condition, they put on every pound of steam the vessels would bear, in order to reach us as speedily as possible, fearing that some greater calamity might befall us, that our supply of water might entirely fail, or that the trade-wind might change, and a storm bring the sea over the island.
One little stack of rocks, not thirty feet high, and as many broad, stood almost in the midst of the channel, and in the very northern mouth of it, exposed to the full cut of surf and trade-wind. But the plants on it, even seen through the glasses, told us where we were.
I tried hard to get back from the Solomon Islands so as to revisit it again during the voyage, but we could not get to the eastward, as the trade-wind blew constantly from that quarter.
The trade-wind was evidently making itself felt even in this pastoral retreat, for the two gentlemen appeared to shrink slightly within themselves, and a chill seemed to have passed over the group. The Mayor coughed. The avuncular Woods gazed abstractedly at a large cactus. Even Paul, prepared by previous experience, stopped short. "Colonel Pendleton!
I found that the majority agreed with me in the opinion that we might be on the fringe of, if not actually within, the influence of the trade-wind, but when it came to the question of bearing up and running for the West Indies, the great distance to be traversed seemed to frighten them.
There are thirteen islands in the group, which produce corn, silk, tobacco, sugar, and the wine which was so long known under their name. We caught about here the regular north-east trade-wind; away we went before it as steadily and majestically as a swan glides over his native lake.
The high opinion they entertained of Columbus as a profound astronomer gave weight to his theory, and their alarm subsided. They had now arrived within the influence of the trade-wind, which, following the sun, blows steadily from east to west between the tropics, and sweeps over a few adjoining degrees of the ocean.
Some navigators pass within this group, others keep so far out as barely to make San Antonio; and this, I think, is considered the best route. As the ship proceeds to the southward, the wind draws gradually round from the east to north-east, and eventually to north-north-east, and even to north, at the southern margin of the north-east Trade-wind.
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