The end of the day is the time to gaze at the kingly face of the Westerly Weather, who is the arbiter of ships' destinies.
The sky of the westerly weather is full of flying clouds, of great big white clouds coming thicker and thicker till they seem to stand welded into a solid canopy, upon whose gray face the lower wrack of the gale, thin, black and angry-looking, flies past with vertiginous speed.
But the wind was light, the Pyrenees' bottom was foul, and she could not beat up against the strong
westerly current.
Every summer she would fear lest the well should give out, every winter lest the pipes should freeze; every
westerly gale might blow the wych-elm down and bring the end of all things, and so she could not read or talk during a
westerly gale.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most
westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers.
This passed, the frigate took a more decided
westerly direction, and scoured the central waters of the Pacific.
Westerly winds had prevailed during the spring and the early part of the summer, and been succeeded by fresh breezes from the northwest.
The business-like air with which two of them will join hands and proceed due east at a break-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring for them to follow her in a
westerly direction, is most amusing--except, perhaps, for the big sister.
Though it was no good point of sailing for the Covenant, she tore through the seas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by the
westerly swell.
A hasty survey of the interior revealed no ammunition; but in one corner was a box in which were packed the Swede's personal belongings that he had sent along by his headman to this
westerly camp.
At the southern base of this mountain a river rose and ran in a
westerly direction, finally turning south and emptying into the Sojar Az some forty miles northeast of Thuria.
We then set sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar; but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow with much greater violence, and more
westerly than usual, continuing so for twenty days together: during which time, we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2nd of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm, whereat I was not a little rejoiced.