Latitude by observation at noon, 10 degrees 25' S.
For several days now the _Spray_ sailed west on the parallel of 10
degrees 25' S., as true as a hair. If she deviated at all from that,
through the day or night,--and this may have happened,--she was back,
strangely enough, at noon, at the same latitude. But the greatest
science was in reckoning the longitude. My tin clock and only
timepiece had by this time lost its minute-hand, but after I boiled
her she told the hours, and that was near enough on a long stretch.
On the 2d of July the great island of Timor was in view away to the
nor'ard. On the following day I saw Dana Island, not far off, and a
breeze came up from the land at night, fragrant of the spices or what
not of the coast.
On the 11th, with all sail set and with the spinnaker still abroad,
Christmas Island, about noon, came into view one point on the
starboard bow. Before night it was abeam and distant two and a half
miles. The surface of the island appeared evenly rounded from the sea
to a considerable height in the center. In outline it was as smooth as
a fish, and a long ocean swell, rolling up, broke against the sides,
where it lay like a monster asleep, motionless on the sea. It seemed
to have the proportions of a whale, and as the sloop sailed along its
side to the part where the head would be, there was a nostril, even,
which was a blow-hole through a ledge of rock where every wave that
dashed threw up a shaft of water, lifelike and real.
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