Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky overhead, the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of existence.  The deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies tranced; almost viewless as the air.

But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed collapsed into a vague ellipsis.  And alike, the Chamois seemed drifting in the atmosphere as in the sea.  Every thing was fused into the calm:  sky, air, water, and all.  Not a fish was to be seen.  The silence was that of a vacuum.  No vitality lurked in the air.  And this inert blending and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in conception.

This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few cat’s-paws of wind varied the scene.  They were faint as the breath of one dying.

At times the heat was intense.  The heavens, at midday, glowing like an ignited coal mine.  Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim; the brain dizzy.

To our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm, brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun.  At last, Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed.  To this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought.  It was now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling all desire for more.

Nor was this all.  The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and there, cracking and splintering.  But though we kept it moistened with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to spring to our feet.  Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we then bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water.

On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells now overtaking us.  Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging, some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves.  For as a pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides, a sea-gale operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the brine; making ringed mountain billows, interminably expanding, instead of ripples.

The great September waves breaking at the base of the Neversink Highlands, far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings.  And full often, they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never heard of from the day she left port.  Every wave in my eyes seems a soul.

As there was no steering to be done, Jarl and I sheltered ourselves as well as we could under the awning.  And for the first two days, one at a time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath, clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for prowling sharks.  A foot or two below the surface, the water felt cool and refreshing.