He looked me over carefully, and said, "What an example of
patience!" "Patience is all that is required," I ventured to reply. He
then asked if my vessel had water-tight compartments. I explained that
she was all water-tight and all compartment. "What if she should
strike a rock?" he asked. "Compartments would not save her if she
should hit the rocks lying along her course," said I; adding, "she
must be kept away from the rocks." After a considerable pause Mr.
Stanley asked, "What if a swordfish should pierce her hull with its
sword?" Of course I had thought of that as one of the dangers of the
sea, and also of the chance of being struck by lightning. In the case
of the swordfish, I ventured to say that "the first thing would be to
secure the sword." The colonel invited me to dine with the party on
the following day, that we might go further into this matter, and so I
had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Stanley a second time, but got no more
hints in navigation from the famous explorer.
It sounds odd to hear scholars and statesmen say the world is flat;
but it is a fact that three Boers favored by the opinion of President
Kruger prepared a work to support that contention. While I was at
Durban they came from Pretoria to obtain data from me, and they seemed
annoyed when I told them that they could not prove it by my
experience. With the advice to call up some ghost of the dark ages for
research, I went ashore, and left these three wise men poring over the
_Spray's_ track on a chart of the world, which, however, proved
nothing to them, for it was on Mercator's projection, and behold, it
was "flat.
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