Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

The re-appearance of the stars, and the refreshing coolness of the night air delighted my people. At daylight we made sail, and set the paddles in motion. At noon we had the sun nearly overhead, and the declination being 20° 5´ S. Slim was positive that we were in latitude 28° S. and wondered why the compass would not traverse. The next day we had a vertical sun, as I had predicted, and the weather as warm as I had ever known it at sea, with a fine breeze. No one knew which way we were steering but myself; and Slim's opinion confidently expressed that we were near the equator, and must soon make the continent of Asia, Africa, America, or the Asiatic islands, served to quiet the apprehensions of the men for their own safety, and at the same time to awaken their solicitude for the situation of Mr. Boneto's party, whom they said I had barbarously left to perish by the frosts of a polar winter, on Seaborn's Land. The next day we observed the sun to the south of us, and nearly over head, and the compass began to traverse imperfectly. We had a regular recurrence of day and night, though the latter was very short, which I knew was occasioned by the rays of the sun being obstructed by the rim of the earth, when the external side of the part we were on turned towards the sun. The nights were not dark, when no clouds intervened to obstruct the rays of the sun, reflected from the opposite rim, and from a large luminous body northward, in the internal heavens, which reflected the sun as our moon does, and which I judged to be the second concentric sphere, according to Capt. Symmes. This gave us very pleasant nights, but not quite clear enough to render sailing through untried seas entirely safe.