N., the sun's declination was 16-1/4 deg.
N., his centre being only one degree from our zenith: shadows we had none.

On that day we saw St.Antonio, the north-westernmost of the Cape de Verde Islands, the summit of which is about seven thousand feet above the sea.
On the next day I well remember going on deck with a certain flutter of spirits, to see, for the first time in my life, the sun to the northward, and moving through the heavens from right to left, instead of from left to right.

No one doubts that the earth is round; yet these conspicuous and actual proofs of its rotundity always amuse the fancy, and frequently interest the judgment, almost as much as if they were unexpected.

The gradual rise, night after night, of new stars and new constellations, belongs to a still higher order of curiosity; for it not merely places well-known objects in strange positions, but brings totally new subjects of contemplation before our eyes, and leads us to feel, perhaps more strongly than upon any other occasion, the full gratification which novelty on the grandest scale is capable of producing.

I shall never forget the impatience with which I have often watched the approach of darkness after a long day's run to the south, knowing that, in a few moments, I was to discover celestial phenomena heretofore concealed from my view.
After slanting through the north-east Trade-wind, we reached that well-known but troublesome stage in the voyage, so difficult to get over, called the Variables.