ll worse; then the calms are never to be over; or the lying trades,
as they call them, have got capsized, and blow from the west instead
of the east! After the line has been crossed, and the south-east wind
is met with, the weather soon becomes what these ingenious fellows
call too temperate, then it grows too cold again; and next off the
Cape the latitude is too stormy. In this alone they have some reason;
and I have often regretted that, by a royal ordinance of the King of
Portugal, the name of this mighty promontory was changed from Cabo de
Tormentos, the headland of storms, to its present spoony title. In
short, this grand voyage is merely a peristrephic panorama of
miseries, which if they survive, say they, it will be happy for
them.--Happy! Not a whit. It is out of their nature to be happy. To
find fault, to fling away the good the gods provide them, and to
aggravate the pain of every real wound by the impatience of idle
complaints, is their diseased joy. "Evil, be thou my good!" they might
well exclaim; for, instead of heightening the pleasures of life by
full participation, or subduing its inevitable evils, or, at all
events, softening their asperity by enduring with fortitude and
cheerfulness what cannot be helped, these self-tormentors reject what
is substantially pleasing, and cling with habitual but morbid relish
to whatever is disagreeable.

As we glided along, through the Trade-winds, towards the neck of sea
which divides Africa from South America, the symptoms of a change in
climate became daily more manifest. Every skylight and stern window
was thrown wide open, and every cabin scuttle driven out, that a free
draught of air might sweep through the ship all night long. In the
day-time, the pitch in the seams of the upper-deck began to melt, and,
by sticking to the soles of our shoes, plastered the planks, to the
great discomfiture of the captain of the after-guard. The tar, oozing
from the cordage aloft, dropped on our heads, speckled the snow white
boat covers, and obliged us to spread the hammock-cloths, to prevent
the bedding being ruined by the spots. On the larboard or eastern side
of the ship, which, of course, is always presented to the sun when
crossing the Trades on the outward-bound voyage, the pitch and rosin
with which the seams had been payed ran down in little streams across
the lines of paint. To prevent, as far as we could, some of these
annoyances, we spread the awnings over the decks, an