266 
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
current off Cape St. Roque 276) began to loom up in his im- 
agination, and to look alarming ; then the dread of falling to lee- 
ward came upon him ; chances and luck seemed to conspire against 
him, and the mere possibility of finding his fine ship back-strapped 
filled the mind of Nickels with evil forebodings, and shook his 
faith in his guide. He doubted the Charts, and committed the 
mistake of the passage. 
578. The Sailing Directions had cautioned the navigator, again 
and again, not to attempt to fan along to the eastward in the equa- 
torial doldrums ; for, by so doing, he would himself engage in a 
fruitless strife with baffling airs, sometimes re-enforced in their 
weakness by westerly currents. But the winds had failed, and so 
too, the smart captain of the Flying Fish evidently thought, had 
the Sailing Directions. They advise the navigator, in all such 
cases, to dash right across this calm streak, stand boldly on, take 
advantage of slants in the wind, and, by this device, make easting 
enough to clear the land. So, forgetting that the Charts are 
founded on the experience of great numbers who had gone before 
him. Nickels, being tempted, turned a deaf ear to the caution, and 
flung away three whole days, and more, of most precious time, 
dallying in the doldrums. 
He spent four days about the parallel of 3° north, and his ship 
left the doldrums, after this waste of time, nearly upon the same 
meridian at which she entered them. 
She was still in 34°, the current keeping her back just as fast 
as she could fan east. After so great a loss, her very clever mas- 
ter, doubting his own judgment, became sensible of his error. 
Leaving the spell-bound calms behind him, where he had under- 
gone such trials, he wrote in his log as follows : " I now regret 
that, after making so fine a run to 5° north, I did not dash on, and 
work my way to windward to the northward of St. Roque, as I 
have experienced little or no westerly set since passing the equa- 
tor, while three or four days have been lost in working to the east- 
ward, between the latitude of 5° and 3° north, against a strong 
westerly set ;" and he might have added, "with little or no Mdnd." 
In three days after this he was clear of St. Roque. Just five 
days before him, the Hazard had passed exactly in the same place, 
and gained two days on the Fish by cutting straight across the 
doldrums, as the Sailing Directions advised him to do. 
