Read "Driven to Bay, Volume II" by Florence Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Many landsmen may wonder why vessels bound south go so far to the westward, instead of making a direct course through the tropics. It is because the trades are so much stronger on the other side that they adopt the longer route, in order to make a quicker passage.
For the same reason, the _Pandora_, after skirting the coast of Brazil, sailed as far south as fifty-two degrees, that is, six hundred miles to the south of the Cape of Good Hope, where the westerly breezes could be depended on.