On the 31st August, then, she took her final leave of Paramaribo, and
running some eight or nine miles off the coast in a northerly direction
as a blind, altered her course to east half-south, with the intention of
avoiding the current by which she had on the former occasion been so
baffled, by keeping along the coast in soundings where its strength
would be less felt.
The 4th September found her well past the mouth of the Amazon, bowling
along under all fore-and-aft sails, with bright, clear weather, and a
fresh trade-wind from about east by south. This was about her best point
of sailing, and there being no longer any current against her, her log
showed a run of 175 miles in the twenty-four hours. On the same day a
strange sail was seen, but time and coal were now too valuable to be
risked, and the temptation to chase was resisted. In the evening the
equator was crossed, and the little Sumter bade farewell to the North
Atlantic, and entered on a new sphere of operations.
The 5th September was a day of misfortunes. The weather was thick and
lowering; the wind rapidly increasing; to half a gale, and the little
vessel straining heavily at her anchor. In heaving up, a sudden jerk
broke it short off at the shank, the metal about the broken part proving
to have been very indifferent. She now ran very cautiously and anxiously
towards the light, and into the bay, no pilot being in sight.
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