oiled beauty, at times
blowing provokingly steady, then we went reeling over the seas, with
piercingly blue skies above us, and all reconcileable elements to our
journeyings, excepting the breeze ever blowing so pertinaciously in the
wrong direction; at others we managed to cheat Eolus out of a puff, and
steal a march upon him, right into his breezy eyes, but then again he
gave a wink, distended his huge cheeks, and blew us far away to leeward.
It was truly trying to the nerves to be crying patience continually,
when there was no appeal--we could not exclaim with Dryden:

"The passage yet was good; the wind 'tis true
Was somewhat high; but that was nothing new,
No more than usual equinoxes blew."

There was naught new nor usual about it, wind and weather were a mass of
inconsistency; a few more revolutions of the sun, and we should have
found ourselves stranded in the Dahomey territory, or other equally
delightful regions, bordering on the Bight of Benin, in Africa; even the
good old captain of marines began to look worried and anxious, paid
nightly visits to the sailing master, and with the most earnest and
imploring tone, would ask--"Well, Master! how _does_ she head?" as if he
reposed full trust in his sagacity, and for God's sake to ease his mind,
and let him hear the worst at once. Surgeons, pursers and secretaries,
went off their feed, and from being rather over sanguine at times, burst
forth with lamentable wailings in the poignancy of their despair. The
captain of the ship, too, reviled creation generally, and was rather
snappish with officers of the watches; hinting that the yards were not
trimmed, ship steered properly, and other legal animadversions. Then the
lieutenants, kind souls, abused the master, taxing him with manifold
crimes and delinquencies for bringing adverse breezes, did those
sagacious creatures, and at other times becoming jocose, would advise
him to kick the chronometers several times around the mast to accelerate
or diminish their rates, and talked loudly of requesting the Commodore
to follow the first bark we might encounter, to the end that we should
get safely into port--in fact, we were all, morally speaking, in a state
of gangrene; morbid, morose and our circumstances getting more desperate
hourly; but the longest night, except in the winter season off Cape
Horn, has its dawning: the wind veered fair, whitening the ruffled water
to windward, the noble frigate recover