I knew now that I had put a world behind me, and that I was opening out another world ahead. I had passed the haunts of savages. Great piles of granite mountains of bleak and lifeless aspect were now astern ;

I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else.

I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895, was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve-o’clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A

I grasped her gunwale and held on as she turned bottom up, for I suddenly remembered that I could not swim.

...as the day wore on I watched the birds all flying in one direction, and said, "Land lies there.

Now, it it well known that one cannot step on a tack without saying something about it.