July.] 



STEER FOR THE CAPE VERD ISLANDS. 



255 



current. I felt that there was a chord in my own bosom that vibrated 

 in unison with theirs. 



Among my new recruits was a very interesting young man, named 

 William Ogden, whose age was a few months short of one-and-twenty. 

 He shipped only the day before we sailed, and under circumstances, 

 as I afterward learned, somewhat peculiar. He was a son of the late 

 Benjamin Ogden, surgeon-dentist, and brother of the present Doctor 

 Benjamin Ogden of the city of New- York. His amiable qualities soon 

 gained and secured him the good-will of every man on board ; and I 

 became imperceptibly so strongly attached to him that he seemed to 

 me like a brother. But as I shall frequently have occasion to speak 

 of him in the course of this voyage, I shall now leave him for the 

 present, and attend to the tracing of our course from Sandy Hook light- 

 house to the Cape Verd Islands. 



We stretched far to the east, along the parallels of 37° and 30° north 

 latitude, with variable winds and changeable weather, for more than a 

 week, without the occurrence of any thing worthy of record. Our 

 object was to make the Cape Verd Islands by the most direct course 

 the winds and weather would admit of, as we were there to procure 

 salt and other necessaries for the voyage. 



July 4th. — On Friday, the 4th of July, we were in latitude 36° 0' 

 north, long. 47° 30' west. This being the anniversary of our national 

 independence, we celebrated it in the usual nautical style, by displaying 

 our stars and stripes, firing a federal salute, and making a few tempe- 

 rate libations to the goddess of Liberty. On the following day I com- 

 pleted the thirty-third year of my age. 



July 16th. — On Wednesday, the 16th, we took the north-east 

 trade-winds in latitude 28° 30' N., long. 31° 0' W., which continued 

 from north-east to east, attended with fair weather, for several days. 

 We crossed the tropic of Cancer on the 18th, in long. 29° 0' W. 



July 2dth. — On Sunday, the 20th, being in latitude 20° N., the 

 sun was vertical at twelve, M., the declination and our latitude dif- 

 fering but two miles. At this time, in taking an observation, the sun 

 nearly swept the horizon at all points of the compass, and no perpen- 

 dicular object produced a shadow. The thermometer at this time 

 stood at 89°, and the temperature of the water was 80°. 



It has been justly observed that " a vertical sun is as much a miracle 

 to an extra-tropical inhabitant, as snow and ice to an inter-tropical one." 

 It is certainly a wonderful sight, and yet it has become so familiar to 

 mariners that they seldom notice it at all, and scarcely ever in their 

 journals. To be surrounded by solar beams, descending perpendicu- 

 larly upon your head — to be enveloped in a shroud of sunshine, clothed 

 in a mantle of light, without a shadow or a visible sun until you change 

 your position — is a phenomenon of much sublimity to a philosophic 

 observer. 



" Your form no darkling shadow throws 

 Upon the vessel's deck." 



July 22d. — On Tuesday, the 22d, at one, P. M., we passed 

 close along the north side of the island of St. Antonio, the most 



