As a matter of fact the thermometer stands at a bearable point whenever there is a breeze and a ripple on the sea, even exactly under the sun.

It is often hotter in cities and on sandy shores in higher latitudes.
The _Spray_ was booming joyously along for home now, making her usual good time, when of a sudden she struck the horse latitudes, and her sail flapped limp in a calm.

I had almost forgotten this calm belt, or had come to regard it as a myth.

I now found it real, however, and difficult to cross.

This was as it should have been, for, after all of the dangers of the sea, the dust-storm on the coast of Africa, the "rain of blood" in Australia, and the war risk when nearing home, a natural experience would have been missing had the calm of the horse latitudes been left out.