with the latitude of the previous noon corrected by dead reckoning up to that moment proud well i was even with my next miracle i was going to turn in at nine o clock i worked out the problem self instructed and learned what star of the first magnitude would be passing the around half past eight this star proved to be i had never heard finding one s way about of the star before i looked it up on the star map it was one of the stars of the southern cross what thought i have we been sailing with the southern cross in the sky of nights and never known it that we are and i couldn t believe it i went over the problem again and it had the wheel from eight till ten that evening i told her to keep her eyes open and look due south for the southern cross and when the stars came out there shone the southern cross low on the horizon proud no medicine man nor high priest was ever with the prayer wheel i shot and from its worked out our latitude and still i shot the north star too and it agreed with what had been told me bv the southern cross proud why the language of the stars was mine and i listened and heard them telling me my way over the deep proud i was a of miracles i forgot how easily i had taught myself from the printed page i forgot that all the work and a tremendous work too had been done by the master minds before me the and who had discovered and the whole science of and made the tables in the i remembered only the everlasting miracle of it � that i had listened to the voices of the stars and been told my place upon the highway of the sea did not know martin did not know the cabin boy did not know but i told them i was god s messenger i stood between them and i translated the high celestial speech into terms of their ordinary the of the understanding we were heaven directed and it was i who could read the sign post of the sky � i i and now in a cooler moment i hasten to the whole simplicity of it to on and the other and the rest of the all for fear that i may become even as they and with self esteem and i want to say this now any young fellow with ordinary gray matter ordinary education and with the slightest trace of the student mind can get the books and and instruments and teach himself now i must not be misunderstood is an entirely different matter it is not learned in a day nor in many days it requires years also by dead reckoning requires long study and practice but by observations of the sun moon and stars thanks to the and is child s play any average young fellow can teach himself in a week and yet again i must not be misunderstood i do not mean to say that at the end of a week a young fellow could take charge of a fifteen thousand ton steamer driving twenty knots an hour through the racing from land to land fair weather and foul clear sky or cloudy by degrees on the compass card and making with most amazing precision but what i do mean is just this the average young fellow i have described can get into a sail boat and put out across the ocean without knowing anything about and at the end of the week he will know enough to know where he is on the he will be able to take a observation with fair accuracy and from that observation with ten minutes of work out his finding one s way about and and carrying neither freight nor passengers being under no press to reach his destination he can comfortably along and if at any time he doubts his own and fears an imminent he can heave to all night and proceed in the morning sailed around the world a few years our first ago in a thirty seven foot boat all by himself i shall never forget in his narrative of the voyage where he heartily the idea of young men in similar small boats making similar voyage i promptly his idea and so heartily that i took my wife along while it certainly makes a cook s tour look like thirty cents on top of that and on top of the fun and pleasure it is a splendid education for a young man � oh not a mere education in the things of the the of the world outside of lands and and but an education in the world inside an education in one s self a chance to learn one s own self to get on speaking terms with one s soul then there is the training and the of it first naturally the young fellow will learn his and next inevitably he will proceed to press back those and he cannot escape returning from such a voyage a bigger and better man and as for sport it is a king s sport taking one s self around the world doing it with one s own hands depending on no one but one s and at the end back at the starting point contemplating with inner vision the planet rushing through space and saying i did it with my own hands i did it i went clear around that whirling sphere and i can travel alone without any nurse of a sea captain to guide my steps across the seas i may not fly to other stars but of this star i myself am master as i write these lines i lift my eyes and look i am on the beach of on 