My time was all taken up those days--not by standing at the helm; no
man, I think, could stand or sit and steer a vessel round the world: I
did better than that; for I sat and read my books, mended my clothes,
or cooked my meals and ate them in peace. I had already found that it
was not good to be alone, and so I made companionship with what there
was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own
insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all
else. Nothing could be easier or more restful than my voyage in the
trade-winds.
I sailed with a free wind day after day, marking the position of my
ship on the chart with considerable precision; but this was done by
intuition, I think, more than by slavish calculations. For one whole
month my vessel held her course true; I had not, the while, so much as
a light in the binnacle. The Southern Cross I saw every night abeam.
The sun every morning came up astern; every evening it went down
ahead. I wished for no other compass to guide me, for these were true.
If I doubted my reckoning after a long time at sea I verified it by
reading the clock aloft made by the Great Architect, and it was right.
There was no denying that the comical side of the strange life
appeared. I awoke, sometimes, to find the sun already shining into my
cabin. I heard water rushing by, with only a thin plank between me and
the depths, and I said, "How is this?" But it was all right; it was my
ship on her course, sailing as no other ship had ever sailed before in
the world.
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