t, in a direct line with the keel, so that there should be as
little difficulty as possible in kedging her. These anchors were
carried out to sea by a gang of men in the jolly-boat, which was let
down amidships just where we were awash, by a whip and tackle rigged up
between the main and crossjack yards for the purpose.

By the time this was done, from the absence of any shadow cast by the
sun, which was high over our mastheads, it was evidently close on to
noon; so, the skipper brought his sextant and a big chart he had of the
Pacific on deck, spreading the latter over the cuddy skylight, while he
yelled out to the dilapidated Mr Flinders, who was repairing damages
below, to watch the chronometer and mark the hour when he sang out.

Captain Snaggs squinted through the eye-glass of his instrument for a
bit with the sextant raised aloft, as if he were trying to stare old Sol
out of countenance.

"Stop!" he sang out in a voice of thunder. "Stop!"

Then he took another observation, followed by a second stentorian shout
of "Stop!"

A pause ensued, and then he roared below to Mr Flinders, asking him
what he made it, the feeble voice of the first-mate giving him in return
the Greenwich time as certified by the chronometer; when after a longish
calculation and measuring of distances on the chart, with a pair of
compasses and the parallel ruler, Captain Snaggs gave his decision in an
oracular manner, with much wagging of his goatee beard.

"I guess yo're about right this journey, Mister Steenbock," he said,
holding up the chart for the other's inspection. "I kalkelate we're
jest in latitood 0 degrees 32 minutes north, an' longitood 90 degrees 45
minutes west--pretty nigh hyar, ye see, whaar my finger is on this
durned spec, due north'ard of the Galapagos group on the Equator. This
chart o' mine, though, don't give no further perticklers, so I reckon it
must be Abingdon Island, ez ye says, ez thet's the furthest north,
barrin' Culpepper Island, which is marked hyar, I see, to the nor'-west,
an' must be more'n fifty leagues, I guess, away."

"Joost zo," replied Jan Steenbock, mildly complacent at his triumph. "I
vas zink zo, and I zays vat I zink!"

The point being thus satisfactorily settled, the men had their dinner,
which Hiram and I had cooked in the galley while the anchors were being
got out and the skipper was taking his observation of the sun; and then,
after seeing that everything was snug in the caboose, I