the ten
fathom line, and broke into roaring combers, which forbade our nearer
approach to the land.

Evidently, our safest course was away from the shore, and out where the
swelling seas, though grand, were regular, and raced under our little
craft that danced like a mite on the ocean as she drove forward. In
twenty-four hours from the time Paranagua bar was crossed we were up
with Santos Heads, a run of 150 miles.

A squall of wind burst on us through a gulch, as we swept round the
Heads, tearing our sails into shreds, and sending us into Santos under
bare poles.

Chancing then upon an old friend, the mail steamship _Finance_, Capt.
Baker, about to sail for Rio, the end of a friendly line was extended to
us, and we were towed by the stout steamer toward Rio, the next day, as
fast as we could wish to go. My wife and youngest sailor took passage on
the steamer, while Victor remained in the canoe with me, and stood by
with axe in hand, to cut the tow-line, if the case should require
it--and I steered.

"Look out," said Baker, as the steamer began to move ahead, "look out
that I don't snake that canoe out from under you."

"Go on with your mails, Baker," was all I could say, "don't blow up your
ship with my wife and son on board, and I will look out for the packet
on the other end of the rope."

Baker opened her up to thirteen knots, but the _Liberdade_ held on!

The line that we towed with was 1-1/3 inches in diameter, by ninety
fathoms long. This, at times when the steamer surged over seas, leaving
the canoe on the opposite side of a wave astern, would become as taut as
a harp-string. At other times it would slacken and sink limp in a bight,
under the forefoot, but only for a moment, however, when the steamer's
next great plunge ahead would snap it taut again, pulling us along with
a heavy, trembling jerk. Under the circumstances, straight steering was
imperative, for a sheer to port or starboard would have finished the
career of the _Liberdade_, by sending her under the sea. Therefore, the
trick of twenty hours fell to me--the oldest and most experienced
helmsman. But I was all right and not over-fatigued until Baker cast oil
upon the "troubled waters." I soon got tired of that.

Victor was under the canvas covering, with the axe still in hand, ready
to cut the line which was so arranged that he could reach it from
within, and cut instantly, if by mischance the canoe should take a
sheer.

I was afraid that t