over these seas alter their courses. For weeks before and after this
season the winds are all unsettled, and it seems as if the elements were
let loose. From the first week in September this became manifest, and
every day brought them face to face with sterner difficulties. Twice
before the captain had been to Australia; and for years he had been in
the China trade; so that he knew these seas well; but he said that he
had never known the equinoctial storms begin so early, and rage with
such violence.

Opposed by such difficulties as these the ship made but a slow passage--
the best routes had not yet been discovered--and it was the middle of
September before they entered the Indian Ocean. The weather then became
suddenly calm, and they drifted along beyond the latitude of the western
extremity of Java, about a hundred miles south of the Straits of Sunda.
Here they began to encounter the China fleet which steers through this
strait, for every day one or more sails were visible.

Here they were borne on helplessly by the ocean currents, which at this
place are numerous and distracted. The streams that flow through the
many isles of the Indian Archipelago, uniting with the greater southern
streams, here meet and blend, causing great difficulties to navigation,
and often baffling even the most experienced seaman. Yet it was not all
left to the currents, for frequently and suddenly the storms came up;
and the weather, ever changeful, kept the sailors constantly on the
alert.

Yet between the storms the calms were frequent, and sometimes long
continued, though of such a sort as required watchfulness. For out of
the midst of dead calms the storm would suddenly rise in its might, and
all the care which experience could suggest was not always able to avert