MARDI



CHAPTER I
Foot In Stirrup


We are off! The courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor
swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the
breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. Out
spreads the canvas--alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with
many a stun' sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow
the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine.

But whence, and whither wend ye, mariners?

We sail from Ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from
the tropic of Capricorn, nor very far westward from Pitcairn's
island, where the mutineers of the Bounty settled. At Ravavai I had
stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a
cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world.

And from Ravavai we sail for the Gallipagos, otherwise called the
Enchanted Islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies
there met.