8 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



lost his temper for the moment at this bit of pleasantry on my part, and 

 devoured with even greater avidity the plate of porridge which was all that 

 remained from the third breakfast which had been successively cooked 

 and washed overboard from the galley on that eventful morning. 



After the first week the wind subsided, the temperature grew more 

 congenial, and the sea calmed, so that the journey was henceforth a 

 pleasant one, save for a two days' "pampero" off the coast of Brazil, when 

 we were compelled to slow down with just speed enough on to keep 

 under steerage way. 



Our route lay direct from New York to the river Plate, and owing to 

 the bad weather we were twenty-six days in making the trip from New 

 York to Montevideo, which otherwise would have been accomplished in 

 twenty-three days. Aside from these delays from rough weather, the voy- 

 age, while full of interest to myself from the novelty of never having been 

 on a long sea journey, differed little, as I have already remarked, from 

 other similar voyages. The sail through the tropics was not only interest- 

 ing, but delightfully pleasant. I did not experience that discomfort from 

 the heat that I had anticipated, though the inconveniences from this source 

 were certainly more considerable on this than on any of my five sub- 

 sequent voyages. This was doubtless due to the interior arrangements 

 of the ship. For days we steamed through the bright green waters of the 

 tropics, apparently on the borders of the Sargasso Sea. As I watched 

 the brown masses of seaweed, Sargassum bacciferum, which lay on the 

 surface, or was attracted by the peculiar beauty of the brilliant green of a 

 bit of the same plant as it appeared floating a few feet or fathoms below, 

 I could not but recall the renewed hope and encouragement its presence 

 here had aroused in the hearts and minds of that Genoese navigator and 

 his band of mariners who four hundred years before had embarked from 

 a little Spanish port to sail these very seas in the successful- quest of a new 

 world, nor could I refrain from speculating as to whether the indomitable 

 will of Columbus might not have been shaken and he persuaded to 

 port his helm and retrace his course, if he had not mistakenly interpreted 

 the presence of this plant as indicative of a not far distant coast. Who 

 shall say how long America might have remained undiscovered, or what 

 indirect influence this little plant has had on modern civilization, through 

 the impetus given to the study of navigation and colonization by the dis- 

 covery of the western hemisphere. Securing a bit of strong wire I con- 



