The first were the
Alps, as they call them, being as I suppose the French for apes, of which
there are no doubt plenty in those regions; and the other were the
highlands of Corsica, both being as white, in midsummer, as the hair of a
man of fourscore. You see, Sir, we had only to set the two, by compass, to
know, within a league or two, where we were. So we ran till midnight, and
hove-to; and in the morning we took the light to feel for our haven----"
"The brigantine is gybing, again!" cried Ludlow. "He is determined to
shoal his water!"
The master glanced an eye around the horizon and then pointed steadily
towards the north. Ludlow observed the gesture, and, turning his head, he
was at no loss to read its meaning.
Chapter XXI.
"--I am gone, Sir
And, anon, Sir,
I'll be with you again."
Clown in Twelfth Night.
Although it is contrary to the apparent evidence of our senses, there is
no truth more certain than that the course of most gales of wind comes
from the leeward. The effects of a tempest shall be felt, for hours, at a
point that is seemingly near its termination, before they are witnessed at
another, that appears to be nearer its source. Experience has also shown
that a storm is more destructive, at or near its place of actual
commencement, than at that whence it may seem to come. The easterly gales
that so often visit the coasts of the republic, commit their ravages in
the bays of Pennsylvania and Virginia, or along the sounds of the
Carolinas, hours before their existence is known in the states further
east; and the same wind, which is a tempest at Hatteras, becomes softened
to a breeze, near the Penobscot.
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