21-A Lesson in Navigation

sEPTEMBER had passed into October. Dragging October, at last, fmally yielded to November. The conditions on
board the Mayflower grew remorselessly worse and worse. The relieving days shortened. The long weary nights leng­thened. Less and less time could be spent above. More and more time had to be spent in dark confinement below. The stale air below decks became ever more stale. The cramped passengers, even more cramped. They had grown so used to bending their necks in between decks that they wondered if they would ever be able to stand upright again. The dry biscuits had long since been reduced to a mere powder in the barrels — and that a foul breeding ground of weevils. The tough salt meat grew tougher and saltier. The Pilgrims all became sick, heartily sick of the continual heaving of the Mayflower. Will this voyage never end?' Voyage? It was an imprisonment — a nightmare — a dreadful, terrifying, nauseating, endless nightmare — on and on, without respite. Monotonous, wearisome, painful, inexorable . . . And day after day, the endless, unfriendly ocean. Remote and vast. The Pilgrims came to detest their bitter existence.