avourite with Mr. Staines.
He astonished his fellow-apprentices, as soon as they were fairly on their
way, by producing his quadrant and taking observations at the same time as
did the captain and mates; still more so when he took lunar and star
observations, working them all out by figures instead of from the tables
in the nautical almanac. He found at first some little difficulty in
obtaining accuracy when the vessel was rolling, but he was not long in
overcoming this, and the captain found that he was able to place the
ship's position on the chart quite as correctly as he did himself.

"I would give a lot, Steve," the first mate said, when they had been out a
fortnight, "if I could work things out as you do. I have gone over and
over again to fellows who advertise that they teach navigation, but it is
of no use, I can't make head or tail of all the letters and zigzigs and
things. I have tried and I have tried till my head ached, but the more I
study it the more fogged I get about it. There does not seem to me to be
any sense in the thing, and when I see you sit down and figure away with
all those letters and things, it beats me altogether."

"It is not difficult when you have begun from the beginning," Stephen
said. "Of course, as my father wanted to teach me navigation, he taught me
just the things that led up to the problems that you are talking about, so
that it really was not hard, but if I had to do any other sort of
mathematical questions I should be just as much puzzled as you are. Then
you see, my father explained every step as it came, and as one led to
another, I learnt them without meeting with any one special difficulty;
but I can quite see that it would be very hard for anyone to learn to work
it out without having been coached from the start."

"I shall never try again. I think I could find a port by reckoning and the
sun, but as for the moon and stars I give them up altogether. There are
hundreds of skippers, nay thousands of them, who don't know more than I
do."

This was indeed the case, and the skilful navigators had less advantage
over experienced men who worked by rule of thumb than is now the case, as
the instruments were comparatively rough and the chronometers far less
accurate than at present, and even those most skilful in their use were
well satisfied if at the end of a long voyage they found that they were
within twenty miles of their reckoning.

"It is different work now, lad, to what