56 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



handling their frail craft, every kind of weather being 

 encountered there, and that at the very shortest notice. 

 But, then, they were all more or less fatalists, and very 

 apt, when the weather became too bad or the wind 

 was contrary, to furl the big sail and let her drive, 

 feeling that, having done all they could, their fate was 

 in the hands of the gods, and nothing that they could 

 do, would do, would make any difference. It will 

 be remembered that Luke records in his account 

 of Paul's voyage that "we strake sail and so were 

 driven." 



But it is time to get into the open ocean once 

 more. The South Atlantic for the greater part of its 

 area is under the benign sway of the South-East Trades, 

 which, owing to their much greater scope and freedom 

 from hindrances, are steadier in direction and more 

 equable in force by far than their counterpart in the 

 North Atlantic, the North-East Trades. So steady 

 and persistent are these southern winds, that they are 

 often found to continue well to the northward of the 

 equator, and to reduce that variable space so much 

 dreaded by all sailing-ship mariners which lies between 

 the margins of the two Trade Winds to quite a narrow 

 strip. While, however, this latter state of affairs is 

 entirely acceptable to the seafarer who is dependent 

 upon his sails and anxious to get his ship along, it is 

 doubtful whether it is not evil for the world at large, 

 for here more than anywhere else is the great reservoir 

 of the prime necessity of life, rain. Here may daily 

 be seen the lading of clouds from the broad bosom of 

 the ocean, not by the almost invisible and slow process 

 of evaporation which goes on all day and every day, 

 but by the agency of the mysterious waterspout. This 





