With this weather and light unsteady winds we advanced but 2 1/2 degrees in twelve days; at the end of which time we were relieved by the south-east tradewind which we fell in with on the 6th at noon in latitude 1 degree 21 minutes north and longitude 20 degrees 42 minutes west.

Thursday 7.

The next afternoon we crossed the equinoctial line in longitude 21 degrees 50 minutes west.  The weather became fine and the south-east tradewind was fresh and steady, with which we kept a point free from the wind and got to the southward at a good rate.

The weather continuing dry we put some of our bread in casks, properly prepared for its reception, to preserve it from vermin:  this experiment we afterwards found answered exceedingly well.

Saturday 16.

On the 16th at daylight we saw a sail to the southward.  The next day we came up with her and found her to be the British Queen, Simon Paul, master, from London, bound to the Cape of Good Hope on the whale-fishery.  She sailed from Falmouth the 5th of December, eighteen days before I left Spithead.  By this ship I wrote to England.  At sunset she was almost out of sight astern.

Monday 18.

In the course of this day’s run the variation changed from west to east.  According to our observations the true and magnetic meridians coincided in latitude 20 degrees 0 minutes south and longitude 31 degrees 15 minutes west.  At noon we were in latitude 20 degrees 44 minutes south and longitude 31 degrees 23 minutes west.  In our advances towards the south the wind had gradually veered round to the east and was at this time at east-north-east.  The weather after crossing the Line had been fine and clear, but the air so sultry as to occasion great faintness, the quicksilver in the thermometer in the daytime standing at between 81 and 83 degrees, and one time at 85 degrees.  In our passage through the northern tropic the air was temperate, the sun having then high south declination and the weather being generally fine till we lost the north-east tradewind; but such a thick haze surrounded the horizon that no object could be seen except at a very small distance.  The haze commonly cleared away at sunset and gathered again at sunrise.  Between the north-east and south-east tradewinds the calms and rains, if of long continuance, are very liable to produce sickness unless great attention is paid to keeping the ship clean and wholesome by giving all the air possible, drying between decks with fires, and drying and airing the people’s clothes and bedding.  Besides these precautions we frequently wetted with vinegar, and every evening the pumps were used as ventilators.  With these endeavours to secure health we passed the low latitudes without a single complaint.

The currents we met with were by no means regular, nor have I ever found them so in the middle of the ocean.  However from the channel to the southward as far as Madeira there is generally a current setting to the south-south-east.