60 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



ship and a brave man, but a terrible wind for a 

 weakling. This has been the great racing-ground for 

 the clippers in the days when the white-winged fleets 

 dominated the sea. To this vast stretch of gale-swept 

 ocean the eager skipper looked hopefully forward 

 when fretting in the doldrums and irritated beyond 

 measure by catspaws and dead calms with ever-recur- 

 ring deluges of rain. As day succeeded day and the 

 track on the chart showed as a closely set succession 

 of dots, a paltry forty or fifty miles between each, the 

 ardent navigator comforted himself by looking for- 

 ward to the time when, with every square sail set 

 and tested to its limit of endurance, his gallant ship 

 would go flying eastward, spurning the shortened 

 degrees of longitude behind her at the rate of seven 

 or eight a day. 



Ah! it is a noble sea and a noble wind, but in 

 order to take full advantage of it certain things are 

 absolutely necessary. Some of them, such as the sea- 

 worthiness of a ship and the courage of the master 

 to carry on, I have already alluded to. The latter 

 means very much. I have been in a ship running 

 the easting down under very small canvas, and making 

 very bad weather of it, shipping tremendously heavy 

 water over all, and have seen another ship come flying 

 past, going the same way, with every square sail set 

 and scarcely shipping any water at all. She passed 

 us as if we were anchored, much to the disgust of 

 everybody on board, including the man responsible 

 for our loitering. Another condition is that the 

 master shall know just where to strike the happy 

 mean, the useful parallel of latitude between too 

 much wind and too little. It has often happened 



