near to see it, many another will thus go down," said Mr Alder, who was
standing near me. "It should teach us sailors to be ready to go up to
God at a moment's call; ay, and landsmen too, for who knows who may next
be called."

I often after that thought of Mr Alder's words.

The storm lasted six days. After that we got light winds, and soon
crossed what sailors call the line. Not that there is any line or mark
on the earth or sea; but as the world is round, and turns round and
round the sun, as an orange with a stick through it might be made to
turn round a candle, it is that part which is nearest the sun. The sun
at noon, in that part, all round the world, is overhead, and so it is
just the hottest part of the world. It was hot, indeed. The pitch
bubbled out of the seams in the decks, one calm day, and we could have
fried a beefsteak, if we had had one, on any iron plates on the deck. I
was glad when, after running for a thousand miles or so, we got cooler
weather, though the sun was still hot enough at noon. Our ship was very
well found, the men said, and we had no lack of food--salt beef, and
peas, and rice, and flour, and sometimes suet and raisins for puddings.
They said we were much better off than many ship's companies; we had
enough of good food, and our officers were just, and did not overwork
us.

I heard tales of what happens on board some ships, where the food is bad
and scanty; the men are worked well-nigh to death, often struck by the
master and the mates, and treated like dogs. I was thankful that I
hadn't gone to sea in one of those ships.

At last I found we were going round Cape Horn, which is the south point
of America. We had a fair wind, and not much of it; but a gale had been
blowing somewhere, for there was a swell, such as I had never thought to
see. The water was just like smooth up-and-down chalk downs, only as
regular as furrows in a field. The big ship just seemed nothing among
them, as she now sunk down in the hollow, and then rose to the top of
the smooth hill of water. To our right was seen Cape Horn itself; it is
a high head of land, sticking out into the sea, all by itself. Very few
people have ever been on shore there, and no one lives there, as there
is no ground to grow anything, and the climate is cold and bleak. You
know that the two ends of the earth, or poles, as they are called, the
north and south, are very cold; ice and snow all the year round, and
Cape Horn