The result of all the talk was to convert the
affair into a very heroic exploit; and it subsequently figured in the
journals as one of the deeds that illustrate the American name.
From the time we were rid of the proas, the ship got along famously
until we were as far west as about 52 degrees, when the wind came
light from the southward and westward, with thick weather. The captain
had been two or three times caught in here, and he took it into his
head that the currents would prove more favourable, could he stand in
closer to the coast of Madagascar than common. Accordingly, we brought
the ship on a bowline, and headed up well to the northward and
westward. We were a week on this tack, making from fifty to a hundred
miles a day, expecting hourly to see the land. At length we made it,
enormously high mountains, apparently a long distance from us, though,
as we afterwards ascertained, a long distance inland; and we continued
to near it. The captain had a theory of his own about the currents of
this part of the ocean, and, having set one of the peaks by compass,
at the time the land was seen, he soon convinced himself, and
everybody else whom he tried to persuade, Marble excepted, that we
were setting to windward with visible speed. Captain Robbins was a
well-meaning, but somewhat dull man; and, when dull men, become
theorists, they usually make sad work with the practice.
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