Mexico is coasted about in short order. An island off Vera Cruz comes in chiefly for “extraordinary remarks”; for “in this place the Spanish fleet used to lie, and bring their loading from all parts, until the month of March, from whence they sail to the Havannah, where they always make their fleet to depart for Spain.” And “now we come to the wild coast of Florida, of which take brief account,” says the “Pilot,” because, forsooth, there was then little trade or plunder to be had. Even the mighty Mississippi appears only as the Bay of Spirito Sancto, with, inland, a shadowy “mishisipi.” Steering out by Florida, we discover the Gulf Stream, “an extraordinary strong current, without rippling or whirling, or any other distinction than in the main ocean, always setting to the northward, occasioned by the northeast winds, which there always blow, not altering till you come as far as the Canaries or Salt Islands or thereabouts.” But we turn back toward the “Northern Parts of America,” and the good ports of Baltimore or Boston or New York, and leave John Hawkins and Francis Drake and their mates who, after all, were only seeking gold at as good a bargain in blood or adventure as fortune sent, and were traders no less than the man who owned our “Pilot” and pored over its charts and quaint letterpress while the shores of Africa thundered in the offing or, down by the Spanish Main, his lookout watched sharp for the lurch of a pirate brig. Nor was he less adventurer than they, though he travelled the Western Ocean by roads that were as undeviating, for a good seaman, as those built by Rome, and knew the way of the currents there and the steady sweep of the trades. More than once he had anchored at Prince’s Island for a cargo of sugar and oil, more than once he had weighed and run before the “Turnado” and crept back to his anchorage when the commotion was past. He had traded at Matanzas and Surinam; he knew the trick of the Spaniard at “the Havannah” and Cadiz; and down at Rio he rode fast horses on the beach and steved his hold full of precious woods. He was no scholar, yet could calculate his position at sea by the latest mode of the navigator; he was no linguist, yet could bend Frenchman, or Russian, or the wily Chinese hong to his will. Like the Elizabethans, he loved gold: for that meant home and honor and dry land under foot. And he plunged into seafaring with all the strength in him only to win through to that career ashore when he should own the ships that other men sailed. He showed an unaffected, outspoken piety that would be impossible to the young blood of to-day, and he and his calling are no more. Yet the type persists, the type of all true adventurers old and new: the men who steer for free waters, but first of all are masters of the ship. CHAPTER IX THE CAPTAINS I