BECALMED. 



463 



of his tail and threw him overboard ; what he did I will 

 not mention, lest it should bring discredit upon other 

 parts of these pages which the reader is disposed to 

 think may be true ; but the last we saw of him he 

 seemed to be feeling for his tail. 



In the afternoon of the next day we crossed a strong 

 current setting to northwest, which roared like break- 

 ers ; soundings before one hundred and twenty fathoms ; 

 during the evening there was no bottom, and we sup- £ 

 posed we must have passed Cape Catoche. 



On the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, 

 and twelfth there was the same dead calm, with a sea 

 like glass and intense heat. We were scant of provis- 

 ions^ and alarmed for entire failure of water. The cap- 

 tain was a noble Spaniard, who comforted the passen- 

 gers by repeating every morning that we were enchant- 

 ed, but for several days he had been uneasy and alarmed. 

 He had no chronometer on board. He had been thirty 

 years trading from Havana to different ports in the Gulf 

 of Mexico, and had never used one ; but out of sound- 

 ings, among currents/with nothing but the log, he could 

 not determine his longitude, and was afraid of getting 

 into the Gulf Stream and being carried past Havana. 

 Our chronometer had been nine months in hard use, 

 jolted over severe mountain roads, and, as we suppo- 

 sed, could not be relied upon. Mr. Catherwood made 

 a calculation with an old French table of logarithms 

 which happened to be on board, but with results so dif- 

 ferent from the captain's reckoning that we supposed it 

 could not be correct. At this time our best prospect ; 

 was that of reaching Havana in the midst of the yellow 

 fever season, sailing from there in the worst hurricane 

 month, and a quarantine at Staten Island. 



On the thirteenth of July everything on board was 



