230 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



nonchalance that made them almost seem like legiti- 

 mate acts of commerce. 



Still, steadily, persistently, the opening up of the 

 highways of Ocean crept on. The science of navi- 

 gation did not keep pace with the enterprise of the 

 adventurers, but considerable knowledge of prevalent 

 winds and currents was obtained coincidently with 

 much local acquaintance with the various coasts. It 

 may fairly well be doubted whether the astronomical 

 calculations were made with anything like the same 

 exactness as they were by the old Arab naJchodds or 

 shipmasters; but what the English, Dutch, Spanish, 

 or Portuguese mariners lacked in accuracy, they made 

 up for in enterprise and energy. But, even with 

 them, " hurry " was a word that had no place in the 

 nautical vocabulary. Having crawled into a region 

 of winds or currents favourable for their destination, 

 they allowed their vessels to drift or jog along in 

 sublime disregard of the passing of the days ; for they 

 had no worrying owners pursuing them with tele- 

 graphic instructions, no fears of losing freight, no 

 trouble of any kind with those left behind, they had 

 enough to bother them in the scurvy and the keeping 

 of unruly but sorely-suffering crews in order. All 

 the while, though, progress was being made in the 

 science of navigation, however slow, and charts of 

 the oceans were being laboriously compiled and con- 

 tinually added to by the mariners who had cultivated 

 the art of cartography. If we remember, as we should 

 do, what the accommodation was like in those vessels, 

 how crude were all the appliances for the prosecution 

 of so delicate a work as marine surveying is, and how 

 entirely absent was any form of comfort, we must look 



