94 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



with extraordinary speed, making as many as eleven 

 knots an hour, it was not astonishing- that we caught 

 sight of Madeira about three o'clock the following after- 

 noon. We passed within a distance of four (German) 

 miles and even then it was hardly possible for us to dis- 

 tinguish anything but a bare outline of the island, which 

 appeared east of us; the northern part of the island lost 

 itself in the blue fog of the evening, which covered the 

 horizon as usual and which enveloped everything, thus 

 depriving us of a good view. The sun fortunately broke 

 through for a few minutes, as late as seven o 'clock in the 

 evening, when we caught sight of the high, rocky coast, 

 which appeared as steep as a wall in the reddish light 

 of the setting sun. Madeira is built upon this wall and 

 rises about 2,500 feet in conic sections. It was a beauti- 

 ful sight, when the top of this island mountain glittered 

 above the clouds in the slowly disappearing coloring of 

 the evening, while the lower clouds seemed to separate 

 the peak from its body. The approaching darkness made 

 it impossible to see anything more until about eight 

 o'clock, when the moon had gained strength enough to 

 draw fantastic sketches of Madeira upon the dark clouds 

 of the night. The monsoon filled our sails and having 

 the larboard sails up on either side, we went along at 

 rapid speed. The sea went high, but the whitecaps which 

 it threw up did not cause phosphorescent light, though 

 they surrounded the ship like a mighty girdle; only now 

 and then appeared a single spark. 



When I awoke the next morning, Friday, July 4th, I 

 went on deck, but Madeira had already disappeared from 

 our horizon and the ship went with full sails into the im- 

 mense desert of water, which had often been the theme 

 of my childhood dreams and the subject for fruitful med- 

 itations of later years. For sixty-two days I saw around 

 me nothing but sky and water, clouds and waves; no rest- 

 ing place for the searching eye but, maybe, a lonely sail 

 at great distance; the tired wings of a rare bird or the 

 dumb inhabitants of that unreliable but beautiful, that 

 terrible and yet so charming, that restless, haunted and 



