As one of the poorest of American
sailors, I was proud of the little achievement alone on the sloop,
even by chance though it may have been.
I was _en rapport_ now with my surroundings, and was carried on a vast
stream where I felt the buoyancy of His hand who made all the worlds.
I realized the mathematical truth of their motions, so well known that
astronomers compile tables of their positions through the years and
the days, and the minutes of a day, with such precision that one
coming along over the sea even five years later may, by their aid,
find the standard time of any given meridian on the earth.
To find local time is a simpler matter. The difference between local
and standard time is longitude expressed in time--four minutes, we all
know, representing one degree. This, briefly, is the principle on
which longitude is found independent of chronometers. The work of the
lunarian, though seldom practised in these days of chronometers, is
beautifully edifying, and there is nothing in the realm of navigation
that lifts one's heart up more in adoration.
CHAPTER XII
Seventy-two days without a port--Whales and birds--A peep into the
_Spray's_ galley--Flying-fish for breakfast--A welcome at Apia--A
visit from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson--At Vailima--Samoan
hospitality--Arrested for fast riding--An amusing
merry-go-round--Teachers and pupils of Papauta College--At the mercy
of sea-nymphs.
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