But now, with a good stock of books on
board, I fell to reading day and night, leaving this pleasant
occupation merely to trim sails or tack, or to lie down and rest,
while the _Spray_ nibbled at the miles. I tried to compare my state
with that of old circumnavigators, who sailed exactly over the route
which I took from Cape Verde Islands or farther back to this point and
beyond, but there was no comparison so far as I had got. Their
hardships and romantic escapes--those of them who escaped death and
worse sufferings--did not enter into my experience, sailing all alone
around the world. For me is left to tell only of pleasant experiences,
till finally my adventures are prosy and tame.
I had just finished reading some of the most interesting of the old
voyages in woe-begone ships, and was already near Port Macquarie, on
my own cruise, when I made out, May 13, a modern dandy craft in
distress, anchored on the coast. Standing in for her, I found that she
was the cutter-yacht _Akbar_ [Footnote: _Akbar_ was not her registered
name, which need not be told], which had sailed from Watson's Bay
about three days ahead of the _Spray_, and that she had run at once
into trouble. No wonder she did so. It was a case of babes in the wood
or butterflies at sea. Her owner, on his maiden voyage, was all duck
trousers; the captain, distinguished for the enormous yachtsman's cap
he wore, was a Murrumbidgee [Footnote: The Murrumbidgee is a small
river winding among the mountains of Australia, and would be the last
place in which to look for a whale.
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