Australia had picked up his knowledge from a sheepherder in that far country and knew the southern constellations better than I did. We all know the Southern Cross, or at least have heard of it, and by the way it is not much of a cross, though one of the two large stars pointing toward it, Alpha Centauri, is said to be the nearest to the earth of all the fixed stars. This is also a double star, but a powerful telescope is needed to distinguish the separate bodies.
Canopus, another whopper of the southern heavens, ranks next to the Dog Star, Sirius, and we never tired looking at these magnificent gems of the night as they shone with living fire in the clear deep blue of the tropic heavens. As I gaze from time to time at the constellations, at Cassiopeia's Chair, the Great and Little Bear, the Swan, and the giant Vega, at Orion, Leo, or the Sickle, and The Cutters' Mainsail, I think of those days on the Fuller when we conned them in mute wonder, as sailors have in countless ages gone before, and listened to the names by one more learned than the rest. Altair! Regulus! Aldebaran! Arcturus! Capella! Procyon! Sirius! Spica! Antares! Fomalhaut! Achernar and Adara! what do these names mean to the modern human calling himself educated? Since those days I have spent four years at a university, and have drilled through the technical course in astronomy, given to civil engineers, but I don't recall what was taught about the great stars of the heavens that we learned to know by their first names on that far off voyage. Of the present rank and file, who discuss anything and everything smart folk busy themselves about, how many can identify this company of noble names of the great blazing suns that swing across the heavens?
And black nothingness is also to be found in the heavens, in the Coal Sack, a blank space of the night sky, near the Southern Cross, in the black depth of which no telescope has yet revealed a star.
CHAPTER XXXIII
[APPROACHING HOME]
Once well in the trades we sailed along with great regularity, running up our latitude with the precision of a steamer. While still within the belt of thunder showers I had an experience that cured me of a habit of long standing. I would, whenever possible, if on lookout, strip on the approach of a shower while in mild weather, and enjoy a fresh water bath. I usually pulled off my shirt and trousers, and balling them in a knot would tuck them around the clapper of the great bell on the foremast, this kept them dry, and left me to enjoy the refreshing rain. Of course lookouts were only stood at night. This last time, a beautiful black cloud came down with the wind, we were close hauled under all plain sail, and it did not look like a job that would need me down from my station. Accordingly, I stripped and going to the bowsprit, caught hold of the fore stay and started some gymnastics in anticipation of a real douse from aloft. It was not long in coming, and with the coldness of it, and the look of the white caps lashed up under the cloud as it bore down on the ship, I felt that I had made a mistake. It was hail and not rain that came and while I was dragging my clothes out from under the bell and getting into them, I underwent a pummelling that left me sore from head to foot.
Of course we always went barefoot, except in real cold weather, and on the clean decks of a ship, this has much to recommend it. On the St. Mary's the order to go barefoot was always given when at sea during warm weather, and on the Fuller I found that all hands forward did this as a rule. How beautifully simple it makes things cannot be imagined, except by those who are lucky enough to be able to look back at barefoot boyhood days.
While working up in the trades, we again shifted to better canvas, and also got our cables up and shackled to the anchors, these being sent off the fo'c'sle head and hung under the catheads, the flukes, of course, gripped into the bill boards.