the trade-winds, I set about preparations for hoisting the top-sails.
This was a most arduous task, and my first attempts were complete
failures, owing, in a great degree, to my reprehensible ignorance of
mechanical forces. The first error I made was in applying my apparatus
of blocks and pulleys to a rope which was too weak, so that the very
first heave I made broke it in two, and sent me staggering against the
after-hatch, over which I tripped, and, striking against the main-boom,
tumbled down the companion ladder into the cabin. I was much bruised and
somewhat stunned by this untoward accident. However, I considered it
fortunate that I was not killed. In my next attempt I made sure of not
coming by a similar accident, so I unreeved the tackling and fitted up
larger blocks and ropes. But although the principle on which I acted was
quite correct, the machinery was now so massive and heavy that the mere
friction and stiffness of the thick cordage prevented me from moving it
at all. Afterwards, however, I came to proportion things more correctly;
but I could not avoid reflecting at the time how much better it would
have been had I learned all this from observation and study, instead of
waiting till I was forced to acquire it through the painful and tedious
lessons of experience.

After the tackling was prepared and in good working order, it took me the
greater part of a day to hoist the main-top sail. As I could not steer
and work at this at the same time, I lashed the helm in such a position
that, with a little watching now and then, it kept the schooner in her
proper course. By this means I was enabled also to go about the deck and
down below for things that I wanted, as occasion required; also to cook
and eat my victuals. But I did not dare to trust to this plan during the
three hours of rest that I allowed myself at night, as the wind might
have shifted, in which case I should have been blown far out of my course
ere I awoke. I was, therefore, in the habit of heaving-to during those
three hours; that is, fixing the rudder and the sails in such a position
as that by acting against each other, they would keep the ship
stationary. After my night's rest, therefore, I had only to make
allowance for the lee-way she had made, and so resume my course.

Of course I was to some extent anxious lest another squall should come,
but I made the best provision I could in the circumstances, and concluded
that by letting g