HISTORY OF 



winds, that with us are so uncertain, pay their 

 stated visits. In some places they are found to 

 blow one way by day, and another by night ; in 

 others, for one half of the year they go in a 

 direction contrary to their former course : but 

 what is more extraordinary still, there are some 

 places where the winds never change, but for 

 ever blow the same way. This is particularly 

 found to obtain between the tropics in the At- 

 lantic and JEthiopic Oceans, as well as in the 

 great Pacific Sea. 



Few things can appear more extraordinary to 

 a person who has never been out of our variable 

 latitudes, than this steady wind, that for ever sits 

 in the sail, sending the vessel forward, and as 

 effectually preventing its return. He who has 

 been taught to consider that nothing in the 

 world is so variable as the winds, must certainly 

 be surprised to find a place where there is no- 

 thing more uniform. With us their inconstancy 

 has become a proverb ; with the natives of those 

 distant climates, they may talk of a friend or a 

 mistress as fixed and unchangeable as the winds, 

 and mean a compliment by- the comparison. 

 When our ships are once arrived into the proper 

 latitudes of the great Pacific Ocean, the mariner 

 forgets the helm, and his skill becomes almost 

 useless : neither storms nor tempests are known 

 to deform the glassy bosom of that immense 

 sheet of waters : a gentle breeze, that for ever 

 blows in the same direction, rests upon the can- 

 vass, and speeds the navigator. In the space of 

 six weeks, ships are thus known to cross an im- 



