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A Migration of Thoughts
A short while after returning from India, diUmbria set forth anew in the Emerald Hunter, a fine vessel paid for by profits from his first real trade run to the lands beyond Africa. The ship put out from London with fifty one days of food on board, as well as an assemblage of supplies from lumber to sail cloth. While in London awaiting the completion of the ship, he had visited the public archives in the city as well as researched some volumes at the University of Oxford. In the Norwegian folklore he found some clues. Many tales placed the great beast in the North Sea, just beyond Britain’s wildest isles.…
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The Edges of Africa
Africa hovered behind his eyes, a dream carried through the day. Its massive wildnerness called out to him, luring him with its uncharted mysteries. The Venetian Captain diUmbria had sailed to the wild continent many times of course. From when he was just starting out, south from the Adriatic; in those days he had feared the brutal pirates that roamed the waters around Tunis, Algiers, or Alexandria. When he had braved the Strait of Gibraltar he had soon turned south, like Hanno of old, and pushed his way as far as he dared. Little by little, to Arguin, to Sierra Leone, to Sao Tome- to the Cape itself, over…
est. Venice, 1752
