Letters from High Latitudes by Lord Dufferin
page 255 of 305 (83%)
page 255 of 305 (83%)
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was only the discrepancy of a mile between us. We had
got the altitude; the sun might go to bed for good and all now, we did not care,--we knew our position to an inch. There had been an error of something like forty miles in our dead reckoning, in consequence--as I afterwards found--of a current that sets to the northward, along the west coast of Norway, with a velocity varying from one to three miles an hour. The island upon which we had so nearly run WAS Roost. We were still nearly 200 miles from our port. "Turn the hands up! Make sail!" and away we went again in the same course as before, at the rate of ten knots an hour. "The girls at home have got hold of the tow-rope, I think, my Lord," said Mr. Wyse, as we bounded along over the thundering seas. [Figure: fig-p192.gif] By three o'clock next day we were up with Vigten, and now a very nasty piece of navigation began. In order to make the northern entrance of the Throndhjem Fiord, you have first to find your way into what is called the Froh Havet,--a kind of oblong basin about sixteen miles long, formed by a ledge of low rocks running parallel with the mainland, at a distance of ten miles to seaward. Though the space between this outer boundary and the coast is so wide, in consequence of the network of sunken rocks which stuffs it up, the passage by which a vessel can enter is very narrow, and the only landmark to enable |
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