CROSSING THE DOLDRUMS. 87 



vapour condenses on reaching the higher and cooler 

 regions of the great altitudes and so produces the equa- 

 torial rains. This belt of calms, however, like the trade 

 winds themselves, varies somewhat, both in extent and 

 position, according to the time of year its most usual 

 position, according to Lieut. Maury, is, however, from 

 about Lat. 5 to 10 N., from whence it shifts at 

 times nearly down to the equator. * 



If, as we have stated, a voyage in a sailing ship is 

 delightful while passing through the trade winds, it is 

 unfortunately very different on reaching " The Dol- 

 drums," for there vessels are often detained for two 

 or three weeks, idly rocking to and fro upon a sea 

 looking like a sheet of glass in an atmosphere as 

 close as that of a stove house, with the thermometer 

 standing at 88 or 90 Fahr. between decks and 

 in the days of the old sailing East Indiamen, when 

 passengers were cooped up for months together on 

 board troopships proceeding to the East via the Cape, 

 the women and children, and other delicate persons, 

 used to suffer severely. It was, as Lieut. Maury 

 expresses it, when alluding to the early Australian 

 emigrant ships, " a frightful graveyard on the way to 

 that golden land, " and probably nowhere is the enormous 

 advantage of steam over sails more apparent than in 

 crossing these calms on board a modern ocean steamer, 

 which now frequently makes runs of nearly 400 miles 

 in the 24 hours. The "Doldrums" seldom extend over 

 more than about 5 or 6 degrees of latitude, that is 

 some 300 or 360 nautical miles, a distance which is 

 easily run by a first-class ocean liner in about 24 



* The Physical Geography of the Sea, by Lieut. Maury, U.S.N., 

 i6th Edit., 1877, p. 77. 



