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.