Village books

Then they gave it up and set about their
plans. If you will look at the map you will say that their course could
be easily decided. Albemarle Island (Galapagos group) lies straight
eastward nearly a thousand miles; the islands referred to in the diary as
'some islands' (Revillagigedo Islands) lie, as they think, in some widely
uncertain region northward about one thousand miles and westward one
hundred or one hundred and fifty miles. Acapulco, on the Mexican coast,
lies about north-east something short of one thousand miles. You will
say random rocks in the ocean are not what is wanted; let them strike for
Acapulco and the solid continent. That does look like the rational
course, but one presently guesses from the diaries that the thing would
have been wholly irrational--indeed, suicidal. If the boats struck for
Albemarle they would be in the doldrums all the way; and that means a
watery perdition, with winds which are wholly crazy, and blow from all
points of the compass at once and also perpendicularly.


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