hich
the compass of his craft becomes invested, the companion in past or
unknown future perils, his trusty guide over the wide waste of waters and
through the night's long blackness.

Having so much iron on board, and so near this wondrous delicate needle,
I determined to have the boat "swung" at Greenhithe, where the slack tide
allows the largest vessels conveniently to adjust their compasses. This
operation consumed a whole day, and a day sufficed for the Russian
steamer alongside; but then the time was well bestowed,--it was as
important to me to steer the Rob Roy straight as it could be to any
Muscovite that he should sail rightly in his ship of unpronounceable
name. {10}

While the compass was thus made perfect for use at one end of the boat,
her anchors occupied my attention at the other.

It was necessary to carry an anchor heavy enough to hold well in strong
tides, in bad weather, and through the long nights, so that I could sleep
then without anxiety. On the other hand, the anchor must be also light
enough to be weighed and stowed by one man, and this too in that precious
twenty seconds of time, when in weighing anchor, the boat, already loosed
from the ground but not yet got hold of by the sails, is swept bodily
away by the tide, and faces look cross from yachts around, being sure you
will collide, as a lubber is bound to do.

After considering the matter of anchors a long time, and poising too the
various opinions of numerous advisers, the Rob Roy was fitted with a
50-lb. galvanized Trotman anchor and 30 fathoms of chain, and also with a
20-lb. Trotman and a hemp cable.

The operation of anchoring in a new place and that of weighing anchor are
certainly among the most testing and risky in a voyage like this, where
the circumstances are quite new on each occasion, and where all has to be
done by one man.

You sail into a port where in less than a minute you must apprehend by
one panoramic glance the positions of twenty vessels, the run of the
tide, and set of the wind, and depth of the water; and this not only as
these are then existing, but in imagination, how they will be six hours
hence, when the wind has veered, the tide has changed, and the vessels
have swung round, or will need room to move away, or new ones will have
arrived.

These being the _data_, you have instantly to fix on a spot where there
will be water enough to float your craft all night, and yet not so deep
as to give extra work ne