ST. HELENA 105 



who wanted to be master. Columbus' expedition was an 

 instance of this : if Columbus had been alone, he would have 

 discovered America long before — in fact, he added, America 

 would have discovered itself. The Spray he had built 

 himself ; there was not a nail in her he had not driven, and 

 she took thirteen months to build. When he determined 

 to make the voyage alone, he put all hardships behind him, 

 and having been twenty-five years a snip -master knew 

 pretty well what he undertook. Up to the present he had 

 not regretted having done so ; not even when in a violent 

 storm off Cape Horn (in which three vessels were lost — one 

 the City of Philadelphia) did he regret his undertaking. His 

 boat had lived through it ; in fact, being so light she would 

 live through a storm that many another vessel would not 

 survive, for she sat like a duck on the water. He had never 

 felt any extra fatigue — never once felt over-worked. The 

 course he came was by deliberation, not by chance ; he 

 pricked off on his chart the course he meant to take, and he 

 followed it. His chronometer was a watch which went 

 all right when he did not neglect to wind it. Everything 

 was done by dead reckoning. The biggest run the Spray 

 made was 1,200 miles in eight days in a gale. He spoke 

 two vessels, one the Java. The Captain of this vessel 

 asked him how long it had been calm. He replied, " I 

 don't know ; I haven't been here long." " How long are you 

 out ? " was the next query. " Eight days from Boston." 

 He went below, says Captain Slocum, to fetch his mate to 

 hear this " Yankee Skipper " tell fish-stories ! The Cap- 

 tain humorously described some of his experiences with the 

 native pirates in the Straits of Magellan, a place where the 

 wind is so strong that not a vestige of moss can grow on 

 the rocks — strong enough at times to " blow the hair off 

 a dog's back," he aptly termed it. "/ left my hat there," 

 remarked the Captain reflectively, as he felt the bald spot 

 on the top of his head ! At Gibraltar he was very cordially 

 received, and was shown through the fortifications. " These 

 works are," he adds, " said to be worthy of the Russians ; 

 I say they are worthy of John Bull alone ! " he also paid 

 a visit to Juan Fernandez, the uninhabited island on which 

 Alexander Selkirk, better known as Robinson Crusoe, 

 spent four and a half years. He went to the look-out 



