noon
However , having now gained such a good offing , we hauled our wind , and steered a west-sou ' - west course , as previously mentioned , towards Madeira . Up to this time we had not started a brace , or loosed a sheet , the wind being fair from aft while we were steering to the west , and now well abeam , on our bearing up to the southward on the port tack ; but , we had hardly made a couple of days ' sail in our new direction , running down to the parallel of 45 degrees north , which we crossed in 15 degrees west , before the wind began to come in light puffs . Shortly afterwards , it shifted round to the westward , backing occasionally to the east and south-east and causing us plenty of work in the way of tacking , first to starboard , and then to port again -- the skipper striving all the while to keep all the westing he had made , and preserve a diagonal course for the Line ; although the set of the Gulf Stream , in towards the coast of Portugal , gave us a lot of leeway to add to our dead reckoning . What with the baffling breezes and occasional calms , it took us another four days to get to the southwards of the Azores , passing them much further to the eastwards than Captain Billings had calculated on ; but then a fresh wind sprang up from the north-west , bidding fair to last , which took us down to the thirty-fifth parallel in fine style , the _ Esmeralda _ covering over three hundred miles between the morning of one day and noon the next . All hands now began hoping we were going to make a quick run of it after all , in spite of the tedious delays of the last few days ; but it was a very fallacious hope , as we quickly found out . The favourable north-wester lasted another twelve hours , driving us down our latitudes on the starboard tack , the ship sailing pretty free , with the wind nearly abeam and all her canvas set that could draw , racing through the water like a crack cutter at a regatta ; when , on the evening of our eleventh day out , by which time we had nearly reached the parallel of Madeira , although forty miles or so to the westward of the island , the breeze failed us all of a sudden , just close on to midnight , a dead calm setting in , accompanied by a heavy rolling swell . `` Ah , '' said Jorrocks , who was sharing the first watch with me -- Mr Ohlsen , the second mate , being ill and excused from duty -- `` we 're now in the Hoss Latitudes , Mister Leigh , and may know what we 've got to expect ! ''