But I find that I am letting this chapter run to an
unconscionable length, and it does not appear as if we were
getting at the southward very fast either. Truth to tell, our
progress was mighty slow; but we gradually crept across the belt
of calms, and a week after our never-to-be-forgotten haul of
flying-fish we got the first of the south-east trades, and went
away south at a good pace--for us. We made the Island of
Trinidada with its strange conical-topped pillar, the Ninepin
Rock, but did not make a call, as the skipper was beginning to
get fidgety at not seeing any whales, and anxious to get down to
where he felt reasonably certain of falling in with them. Life
had been very monotonous of late, and much as we dreaded still
the prospect of whale-fighting (by "we," of course, I mean the
chaps forward), it began to lose much of its terror for us, so
greatly did we long for a little change. Keeping, as we did, out
of the ordinary track of ships, we hardly ever saw a sail. We had
no recreations; fun was out of the question; and had it not been
for a Bible, a copy of Shakespeare, and a couple of cheap copies
of "David Copperfield" and "Bleak House," all of which were mine,
we should have had no books.
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