uching simplicity which detained me. A damsel, as innocent as an
angel, came alongside one day, and said she would embark on the
_Spray_ if I would land her at Lisbon. She could cook flying-fish, she
thought, but her forte was dressing _bacalhao_. Her brother Antonio,
who served as interpreter, hinted that, anyhow, he would like to make
the trip. Antonio's heart went out to one John Wilson, and he was
ready to sail for America by way of the two capes to meet his friend.
"Do you know John Wilson of Boston?" he cried. "I knew a John Wilson,"
I said, "but not of Boston." "He had one daughter and one son," said
Antonio, by way of identifying his friend. If this reaches the right
John Wilson, I am told to say that "Antonio of Pico remembers him."

[Illustration: Chart of the _Spray's_ Atlantic voyages from Boston to
Gibraltar, thence to the Strait of Magellan, in 1895, and finally
homeward bound from the Cape of Good Hope in 1898.]

CHAPTER IV

Squally weather in the Azores--High living--Delirious from cheese and
plums--The pilot of the _Pinta_--At Gibraltar--Compliments exchanged
with the British navy--A picnic on the Morocco shore.

I set sail from Horta early on July 24. The southwest wind at the time
was light, but squalls came up with the sun, and I was glad enough to
get reefs in my sails before I had gone a mile. I had hardly set the
mainsail, double-reefed, when a squall of wind down the mountains
struck the sloop with such violence that I thought her mast would go.
However, a quick helm brought her to the wind. As it was, one of the
weather lanyards was carried away and the other was stranded. My tin
basin, caught up by the wind, went flying across a French school-ship
to leeward. It was more or less squally all day, sailing along under
high land; but rounding close under a bluff, I found an opportunity to
mend the lanyards broken in the squall. No sooner had I lowered my
sails when a four-oared boat shot out from some gully in the rocks,
with a customs officer on board, who thought he had come upon a
smuggler. I had some difficulty in making him comprehend the true
case. However, one of his crew, a sailorly chap, who understood how
matters were, while we palavered jumped on board and rove off the new
lanyards I had already prepared, and with a friendly hand helped me
"set up the rigging." This incident gave the turn in my favor. My
story was then clear to all. I have found this the way of the world.
Let