Why that problem must now be "blinked," as a future if not an insoluble
question, at any rate just as easy to solve a month hence as it is now.

For a long time the wind was favourable, and precisely as strong as was
desirable, and the formidable looking Cape Antifer, which at mid-day
seemed only a dark blue stripe on the distant horizon, gradually neared
us till we could see the foam eddying round its weather-wasted base.
Then came the steep high wall of flint cliff with shingle debris at its
foot, but no one approach from top to bottom, if any bad thing
happened,--no, not for miles.

This was a time of alternate hope and fear, as the wind gradually lulled
away to nothing, and fog arose in the hot sun; the waves were tossing the
Rob Roy up and down, and flapping the sails in an angry petulant way,
very distressing if you are sleepy. For four hours this hapless state of
things continued, yet we were already within five miles of Cape de la
Heve, and, once round that, on the other side was Havre. How tantalizing
to be so near, and yet still out of reach! If this calm ends in a west
wind, we may be driven back anywhere by that and the tide. If it ends in
a thunderstorm we shall have to put off to sea at once.

See there the lighthouses up aloft on the crag--two of them are lighted.
Soon it will be dark around, and we shall at this rate have to enter
Havre by night. All this time we were close to the cliffs, but the
sounding-lead showed plenty of water, and when the anchor was thrown out
the cable did not pull at all; we were not drifting but only rocked by
the incessant tumble and dash of the sea, which, though of all things
glorious when careering in the breeze, is of all most tiresome when
rolling in a calm.

At this time I felt lonely, exceedingly lonely and helpless, also sleepy,
feverish, discontented, and miserable. The lonely feeling came only
twice more in the voyage; the other bad feelings never again.

Now, there are one or two sensations which after experience at sea seldom
deceive you as to what they prognosticate, though it is impossible to
give reasons for their hold upon the mind. One is the feeling, "I am
drifting," another, "The water is shoaling," and the third, "Here comes a
breeze." Each of these may be felt and recognised even with your eyes
shut. It does not come in through one sense or another, but it seems to
grasp the whole system; and it is a very great convenience to have this
facul