Boston was a Sabbath-observing city in those days; but
even Boston could not keep away from the two ships heaving to the tide,
which for the first time in American history were to sail around an
unknown world. All Saturday night and Sunday morning the sailors
scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon
the visitors thronged the decks. By night outfitters and relatives
were still on board. The medals of commemoration were handed round.
Health and good luck and God speed were drunk unto the heel taps.
Songs resounded over the festive board. It was all "mirth and glee"
writes one of the men on {216} board. But by daybreak the ships had
slipped cables. The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced
bounding to meet them. A last dip of land behind; and on Monday,
October 1, 1787, the ships' prows were cleaving the waters of their
fate.
[Illustration: Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_
cruise.]
The course lay from Boston to Cape Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to
the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of
South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence,
without pause, to the west coast of North America.
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