80 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



"After several hours, the weather cleared sufficiently 

 for us to head in again and at midnight to pick up the 

 light, thus giving us our landfall and departure up the 

 Channel for Plymouth. A fair wind took us to within 

 ten miles of Plymouth, whereupon it began to rain once 

 more. The fog shut down, a gale began to blow from 

 ahead, and we were on the point of heading out to sea as 

 safety had compelled u& to do again and again. 



"The square-sails were taken in, the engine was 

 started; order had been given to tack out away from 

 shore, when, in a momentary lifting of the fog, I sighted 

 the headland two miles west of Plymouth Harbor. We 

 kept on, slowly forging ahead against the storm. Fi- 

 nally, just before dusk we slipped safely inside the break- 

 water where we found the pilot awaiting us. However, 

 even here we had difficulty, for the new cable of the 

 port anchor was so stiff and hard and wet from bad 

 weather that it kinked and could not be let out rapidly 

 enough to fetch the vessel up against the gale. The 

 starboard anchor was let go just in time to avoid danger. 



"For the next two days a terrific wind blew from the 

 south. Had we not been lucky enough to weather the 

 Channel when we did, it would have sent us hurrying 

 back to sea for another week; for a sailing ship depends 

 upon wind and weather for safety as well as for progress 

 from port to port." 



At no time during the remainder of the cruise was the sight of 

 shore more welcome than on the morning of June 8. It had been 

 tantalizing to spend a week of rain and fog almost within sight 

 of land, with only patches of seaweed and their swarms of large 

 crustaceans to prove that our voyage was nearly over. We 

 skirted the coast of Cornwall all day from Lizard Head to Eddy- 

 stone Light outside of Plymouth. The light on the Lizard was 

 a familiar sight to the veterans of former cruises. They had once 

 seen its rays reflected on the clouds at a distance of sixty-two 

 miles. 



The vivid green of the pastures, interrupted here and there by 

 jutting promontories of rock and the dazzling white of light- 

 house towers, made this short sail one of the most beautiful of 

 the entire cruise. Steam-vessels of every nation, fishing-boats 



