noon
He had this fixed upon the cabin wall , and every day he put our course upon it so that we could see at a glance how far we were from our destination . It was wonderful how well he could calculate it , for one morning he said that we should see the Cape Verd light that very night , and there it was , sure enough , upon our left front the moment that darkness came . Next day , however , the land was out of sight , and Burns , the mate , explained to me that we should see no more until we came to our port in the Gulf of Biafra . Every day we flew south with a favouring wind , and always at noon the pin upon the chart was moved nearer and nearer to the African coast . I may explain that palm oil was the cargo which we were in search of , and that our own lading consisted of coloured cloths , old muskets , and such other trifles as the English sell to the savages . At last the wind which had followed us so long died away , and for several days we drifted about on a calm and oily sea , under a sun which brought the pitch bubbling out between the planks upon the deck . We turned and turned our sails to catch every wandering puff , until at last we came out of this belt of calm and ran south again with a brisk breeze , the sea all round us being alive with flying fishes .