Indeed, many officers go so far as to recommend flanking across the south-east Trade with a fore-topmast studding-sail set.

Although, I think, there can be no doubt of the soundness of this advice, I confess that it does require no inconsiderable degree of faith to adopt a course, which, apparently, takes the ship not directly away from her object, but very much out of the straight road.

In this respect, it may be remarked that the scale of navigation on every Indian voyage is so great, and the importance of getting into those parallels where favourable breezes are certain to be met with, of so much more consequence than the gain of mere distance, that two or three hundred miles to the right or left, or even twice that space, is often not to be regarded.
Accordingly, in cutting or flanking across the south-east Trade-wind, the object, it should be remembered, is not to shorten the distance, but to reach those latitudes where strong westerly gales are to be met with, by help of which five hundred or a thousand miles of lost distance are speedily made up, and the rest of the passage secured.
In those regions lying beyond the southern tropic westerly winds prevail during the greater part of the year, exactly as we find on this side of the northern tropic.

In the southern hemisphere, and far from the land, the wind may be said to blow from the westward almost as steadily as the Trades do from the eastward.

The great object, therefore, for an outward-bound ship is to get far enough south to ensure this fair wind.