Captain Whidden trained on it
the glass, which he shortly handed to Mr. Thomas. "See her go!" the men
cried. It was true. She was running away from us easily. Now she was hull
down. Now we could see only her topgallant-sails. Now she again had
disappeared. But this time we had found, besides her general appearance and
the cut of her sails, which no seaman could mistake, a mark by which any
landsman must recognize her: on her fore-topsail there was a white
lozenge-shaped patch.
At eleven o'clock in the morning, with Prince's Island bearing from north
to west by south, we entered the Straits of Sunda. At noon we were due east
of Prince's Island beach and had sighted the third Point of Java and the
Isle of Cracato.
Fine breezes and a clear sky favored us, and the islands, green and blue
according to their distance, were beautiful to see. Occasionally we had
glimpses of little native craft, or descried villages sleeping amid the
drowsy green of the cocoanut trees. It was a peaceful, beautiful world
that met our eyes as the Island Princess stood through the Straits and up
the east coast of Sumatra; the air was warm and pleasant, and the leaves of
the tufted palms, lacily interwoven, were small in the distance like the
fronds of ferns in our own land.
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