With the wind thus in our favour, it was not long before we had lost sight of Cardigan Bay, passed the Scilly Islands, and entered the ocean, the broad Atlantic. We had long passed the Cape Verde Isles, which derive their names from being covered with quantities of _Adansonia_ or baobab trees, whose stems are at times 34 feet in circumference, though they rarely exceed 60 feet in height. These trees so cover the sandy plains of the above-mentioned Islands with their umbrella-shaped tops, that approaching them they present the appearance of one vast field of green verdure. We had long passed them I say before the weather at all changed, then but for a brief space, as we had scarcely crossed the line, before the wind again chopped round to north, and so continued till we reached the Cape of Good Hope, sighting the Table Rock, and the misty cloud hanging above--its tablecloth, as it has been termed--about six a.m. Here we stayed to take in water, of which we were growing scarce, and afterwards proceeded on our course, bringing as it seemed the wind with us, for it speedily veered due south. It was about the middle watch, which was mine, of the second night that, leaning over the side of the ship, I looked into the dark depths of ocean, and above at the splendid blue sky--a blue only to be seen in the southern hemisphere--studded with stars like gems of immense magnitude. I was looking, I repeat, upon these wondrous beauties of nature, and thinking of Katie and the little ones at home, when my reverie, which had been running as smoothly as the ship glided over the billows, was broken by the voice of Tom Grimes, the boatswain, who, coming up, and leaning over the side like myself, said, as he turned a quid in his cheek. "Well, Dick Galbraith, this here's stunning weather, ain't it. _My_ stars--I mean them at home and not those there big moons up yonder with which I've nothing to do--but in all my viages, I've never made such a run as this." "No, indeed," I rejoined; "it seems almost too good to last." "Ah, that's it, my boy--that's it," answered the old boatswain. "That's it; we ain't in sight of Madras _yet_." The stress on the last word made me say, "Do you expect any change, Grimes? Is bad weather brewing?" "Rather," he replied; "and when you have been a sailor as long as I have, and with as grey hair, you'll think so too. Haven't you noticed that the wind has slightly veered?" "No," I said, instinctively putting his words to the test by wetting the palm of my hand and holding it up to the soft night breeze. "Yes, Grimes, you are right," I continued. "It's Sou'-Sou'-West, and was due South but half-an-hour ago." "Yes, it's been varying from South to Sou'-West and Sou'-Sou'-East for the last hour, and may chop round to East or North-East and send a perfect hurricane in our teeth. It's _my_ opinion that that is what it just will do." "Why?" I asked, for old Tom Grimes was an oracle with the crew.