S._Orlando_, advised me from the first to take this route, and I did not regret coming back to it now.
The wind, for a few days after passing Port Stevens, Seal Rocks, and Cape Hawk, was light and dead ahead; but these points are photographed on my memory from the trial of beating round them some months before when bound the other way.

But now, with a good stock of books on board, I fell to reading day and night, leaving this pleasant occupation merely to trim sails or tack, or to lie down and rest, while the _Spray_ nibbled at the miles.

I tried to compare my state with that of old circumnavigators, who sailed exactly over the route which I took from Cape Verde Islands or farther back to this point and beyond, but there was no comparison so far as I had got.

Their hardships and romantic escapes--those of them who escaped death and worse sufferings--did not enter into my experience, sailing all alone around the world.

For me is left to tell only of pleasant experiences, till finally my adventures are prosy and tame.
I had just finished reading some of the most interesting of the old voyages in woe-begone ships, and was already near Port Macquarie, on my own cruise, when I made out, May 13, a modern dandy craft in distress, anchored on the coast.