I had been off that cape once in July,
which was, of course, midwinter there. The stout ship I then commanded
encountered only fierce hurricanes, and she bore them ill. I wished
for no winter gales now. It was not that I feared them more, being in
the _Spray_ instead of a large ship, but that I preferred fine weather
in any case. It is true that one may encounter heavy gales off the
Cape of Good Hope at any season of the year, but in the summer they
are less frequent and do not continue so long. And so with time enough
before me to admit of a run ashore on the islands en route, I shaped
the course now for Keeling Cocos, atoll islands, distant twenty-seven
hundred miles. Taking a departure from Booby Island, which the sloop
passed early in the day, I decided to sight Timor on the way, an
island of high mountains.
Booby Island I had seen before, but only once, however, and that was
when in the steamship _Soushay_, on which I was "hove-down" in a
fever. When she steamed along this way I was well enough to crawl on
deck to look at Booby Island. Had I died for it, I would have seen
that island. In those days passing ships landed stores in a cave on
the island for shipwrecked and distressed wayfarers. Captain Airy of
the _Soushay_, a good man, sent a boat to the cave with his
contribution to the general store. The stores were landed in safety,
and the boat, returning, brought back from the improvised post-office
there a dozen or more letters, most of them left by whalemen, with the
request that the first homeward-bound ship would carry them along and
see to their mailing, which had been the custom of this strange postal
service for many years.
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