OUR FIRST CALLING-PLACE. 97 



fire and force of Carlyle or Macaulay to portray our 

 unnecessary sufferings. 



Like all other earthly ills, however, they came to an 

 end, at least for a time, and I was delighted to note that 

 we were getting to the northward again. In making 

 the outward passage round the Cape, it is necessary to 

 go well south, in order to avoid the great westerly set 

 of the Agulhas current, which for ever sweeps steadily 

 round the southern extremity of the African continent 

 at an average rate of three or four miles an hour. 

 To homeward-bound ships this is a great boon. No 

 matter what the weather may be — a stark calm or a 

 gale of wind right on end in your teeth — that vast, 

 silent river in the sea steadily bears you on at the same 

 rate in the direction of home. It is perfectly true 

 that with a gale blowing across the set of this great 

 current, one of the very ugliest combinations of broken 

 waves is raised ; but who cares for that, when he knows 

 that, as long as the ship holds together, some seventy or 

 eighty miles per day nearer home must be placed to her 

 credit ? In like manner, it is of the deepest comfort to 

 know that, storm or calm, fair or foul, the current of 

 time, unhasting, unresting, bears us on to the goal 

 that we shall surely reach — the haven of unbroken rest. 



Not the least of the minor troubles on board the 

 Cachalot was the uncertainty of our destination ; we 

 never knew where we were going. It may seem a 

 small point, but it is really not so unimportant as a 

 landsman might imagine. On an ordinary passage, 

 certain well-known signs are as easily read by the sea- 

 man as if the ship's position were given out to him every 

 day. Every alteration of the course signifies some point 

 of the journey reached, some well-known track entered 



