were a magnet which resistlessly attracted her iron hull. I believe
that if Captain Scruggs and the second mate could have laid hands on
the French skipper, they would have strangled him. At supper, whither
we repaired after the excitement, the captain delivered the following
address: “If you see an English, or a Dutch, or a German, or a Danish,
or a Norwegian, or an American vessel near you, don’t be afraid, for
he’s all right. But if it’s a Frenchman or an Eyetalian, get behind the
horizon just as soon as you can, for nobody can tell what he’s goin’ to
do.”
During the night sail was made, the wind having dropped to force 7, and
this morning broke fine, clear, and cold, and showed us the frog-eater
to windward. Will it be credited that no sooner did he catch sight of
us than he started down the wind toward us? At least, so it looked; but
he had only squared away for Cape St. John, at the other end of the
island, having evidently given up all hope of the Le Maire Straits.
We were presented with a beautiful view of the middle part of Staten
Land this morning at eleven o’clock. It differs from the western end
in that the snows, instead of being confined to the upper half of
the mountains, appeared to reach down to the sea itself. How silent
and cold the hills looked with the sun striking the sharp peaks and
throwing its purple shadows across the great snow-fields between! So
dazzling were the mountains that, had we not known them to be land, we
would have supposed that they were icebergs. It is singular that such a
scene is not one of desolation, but of immutable repose, and seems to
partake of that calm, fascinating peace and quiet which so irresistibly
attracts explorers to the Polar seas. It was a vista of enchantment,
and it was difficult to believe that in the region of Cape Horn there
existed scenes of such surpassing loveliness.
It was the captain’s intention to try the straits once more this
afternoon; but, alas! the implacable westerly winds began to lash out
again; and it is now, 3.30 +P.M.+, blowing as hard as ever,
the sky is covered with heavy snow-clouds, and everything is gloomy
and dreary once more. We now have to light the lamps below to read by
soon after two o’clock; this is the third day of westerly gales, and
goodness knows how long they may have been blowing before we got down
here; these are the winds which keep ships off Cape Horn for a month at
a time. One of the most arduous and protracted passages of the Horn was
that of Lord Anson on his famous voyage in 1740-41, when he was three
months in doubling the stormy Cape; while in modern times the cases
of the British ships “Natuna” and “The Hahnemann” offer examples of
what the weather can do down here. They each made passages within the
last year of about two hundred and thirty days from Great Britain to
San Francisco. The “Natuna” had a particularly hard passage; she made
four distinct attempts to round the Horn, but was driven back so far
each time that Captain Fretwurst decided to square away for the Good
Hope passage, which he did, running down the eighty-five degrees of
longitude which separate the capes in nineteen days. The cargo was a
miserable one, cement and creosote, and while off the Horn some of the
casks containing the latter were stove, and the drinking-water became
tainted with the disagreeable stuff. To the eastward of Good Hope the
parrels of several of the yards carried away in a gale of wind, and the
captain had to lash them with chains and wire, while he ran away over
into 130° west before hauling up to the northward. The other vessel,
“The Hahnemann,” had just as hard a passage, though she stuck to Cape
Horn, and her captain died during the voyage. About eighty-five guineas
premium had been paid on both vessels.
A curious phase of the weather to the northward and eastward of the
Horn is that a westerly gale generally doesn’t blow steadily for more
than twelve hours, when it will clear up for a while and then begin
again; while fine, clear nights often succeed the most villanous
weather during the daytime.
This morning we sent down the three sky-sail-yards and secured them on
top of the forward house; this is the practice of some ship masters,
while others never do so; but to strike them must certainly greatly
relieve the strain on the backstays, for each sky-sail-yard, including
sail and gear, weighs about seven hundred pounds, and the leverage
of a ton one hundred and sixty feet from the fulcrum must be very
considerable. Latitude, 54° 20′ south; longitude, 64° 20′ west.
+July 13+
All last night it blew a fresh breeze and we gradually fell away to
leeward, and at two o’clock this morning the captain decided to abandon
Le Maire and kept off for Cape St. John. When we went on deck after
breakfast (it was too dark to see anything before eight o’clock) we
were startled at the sight. Broadside on, and parallel with our course,
lay the extreme eastern end of Staten Land, distant not more than two
miles, with the tiny, cosy harbor of St. John just abeam. So close to
the land were we that we could easily see the stunted evergreens that
covered the hills up to the snow-line, which is much higher here than
towards the middle of the island, where the breakers seem to fling
their spray upon the fields of snow; while high up on a rugged mountain
side there stood an isolated, lonely pine-tree, bringing to mind those
exquisite lines of Heine:
“Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
im Norden auf kahler Höh’,
ihn schläfert, mit weisser Decke
umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee.
Er träumpt von einer Palme,
die fern im Morgenland
einsam und schweigend trauert
auf brennender Felsenwand.”
Now that we had approached so closely we hoped to get some photographs
of the hills, especially when the sun, bursting from a cloud on the
horizon, threw his horizontal rays upon the distant peaks. But, alas!
they showed up as nothing but a blur upon the finder. St. John,
comparatively speaking, looked like a snug, comfortable little place,
but hardly such a one as a man would voluntarily choose to winter in,
as do a colony of hardy sealers. The harbor seems to be formed by a
neck of land projecting out from the right-hand side of the entrance,
upon the verge of which we perceived the diminutive light-house
which guides the rugged South Shetland seal-catchers into safety. On
the port hand going in, over against the light-house, rises a lofty
cone composed of a single huge crag, standing sentry-like over the
safe harbor within; while roundabout on all sides tower great, dark,
scowling mountains and vast precipices, the harbor being in reality
naught but a cleft in the hills, after the manner of a Scandinavian
fjord. Yet the wild beauty of the place enchants one, and long before
we had lost sight of the little light-house I had acknowledged to my
wife that, after all, the thought of a winter spent in St. John was not
such a very dreadful one, for the fascination of Nature in her grander
forms far outweighs bodily inconveniences; it is safe to say that von
Humboldt in the deep recesses of the Ecuadorian Andes and Hooker in
the awful solitudes of the Himalayas often longed for even the rude
comforts provided in a settlement like St. John.
We looked in vain with the glasses for the little steamer which makes
regular, monthly trips to the Falkland Islands and at times even to
Montevideo; but she was not visible, and was no doubt away on one of
her voyages. A truly turbulent life in one sense this one on the little
vessel, but hardly so dreary as the lives of the seal-fishers who
winter at St. John, which is, I believe, the southernmost permanent
settlement on the globe, and from October to April penetrate deep into
the Southern Ocean in pursuit of their livelihood.
Two strange, natural formations attract the attention far out on Cape
St. John. The first is a mass of gray rock perched upon the very brim
of a vertical cliff, almost overhanging the surf that boils furiously
around it, bearing a striking resemblance to an ancient feudal castle;
and one can see, as it were, the high walls with heavy battlements, and
the lofty crenellated towers of the massive edifice. The second object
is another monolith so closely resembling the Sphinx that one starts on
first catching sight of it, for it seems impossible that mere chance
could produce so accurate a counterpart of the famous Egyptian monument.
Well, we have seen Staten Land almost in its entirety; and if we didn’t
have the satisfaction of passing through the Le Maire Straits, we went
a third of the distance in last Sunday morning; and we have beheld the
cape and settlement of St. John, where the scenery is, if possible,
even grander and more desolate than at the western end. How odd it is,
by the way, if Cape St. Anthony, near the straits, should have been
so called from the temptation that possesses mariners to pass through
instead of going around the island, thereby often incurring great risk!
On issuing into the open sea we fell into a tide-rip caused by the
swift currents meeting at the point of the land, this rip being at
times so heavy as to fill the decks of large ships. A number of
hail-squalls descended upon us here, and as the land at noontime had
grown very dim, at that hour we had what I fear was our last glimpse of
the sorrowful hills of Staten Land.
We found a long swell outside, but not nearly as much as we had
anticipated, though we are as yet under shelter of the land. As for the
wind, it is now almost calm, the hour being three in the afternoon;
but there is nothing set above the topsails on account of frequent
squalls of considerable violence. The men are now so heavily wrapped
up in clothes as to resemble nothing so much as corpulent mummies.
They have to waddle instead of walk, and many of them have tied pieces
of gunny sacks over their rubber boots. This, singularly enough, is
a wonderful protection against cold; and they assert that if nothing
else is handy, by simply pulling a pair of heavy socks over their boots
their feet do not grow numb. It is strange that it should be so cold
with the mercury no lower than 36°; yet here are stout, hardy men who
have to knock off work sometimes to beat some life into themselves when
the mate isn’t looking. My own clothes now weigh twenty-two pounds, or
seventeen without the boots; this includes three suits of underwear
and a sheepskin coat with the wool on, just as it came from the flank
of the animal. Every one knows how the spectators rattle and shake
at a football game in spite of thick wraps when the thermometer is no
lower than 50°; how much more penetrating it must be here, then, when
the mercury is nearly twenty degrees lower, and when the atmosphere is
charged with that bitterness peculiar to the air at sea in the higher
latitudes!
It cannot be said that we have done particularly well so far on this
voyage, for we have been nine weeks at sea this day and have only just
pushed out into the Southern Ocean. I wonder how long it will be before
we can point our jib-boom for the north star again? Latitude, 54° 50′
south; longitude, 63° 36′ west.
+July 14+
Last night was an almost perfect one, with moonlight nearly as bright
as sunshine and the sky absolutely free from clouds. About the hour
of sunset we witnessed what, for spectacular effects, was perhaps the
finest scenery that we have had yet. At four o’clock all the mists,
etc., that sailors call muck had disappeared, disclosing in its entire
length of fifty miles the south side of Staten Land. This consists
altogether of jagged rocks and fierce, angry peaks shooting up three
thousand feet above the sea. The eastern or St. John end of the island
was wrapped in gloom and shadow, while the rest of the land swept
superbly down toward the west, stretching away in ridges of wonderfully
fantastic beauty, the peaks near the straits soaring up grandly against
a rich crimson glare where the sun had sunk behind a rift in the
clouds. Gradually, however, the light was diffused over the entire
western heavens, changing from soft golden tints to royal purples and
scarlets, which spread over the glorious mountains a cloud-mantle
almost supernatural in its marvellous hues. Imperceptibly, however, the
bright colors began to wane and grow dull, shapes of dun vapor seemed
to rise from the land, and at length darkness fell upon the deep and
the mountains receded till engulfed in the blackness of night.
The scene on deck at 8.30 was also one long to be cherished, with the
joyous, rosy light of advancing day in the northeast, the full moon
slowly falling, a huge golden ball, behind the western horizon, and the
tall, violet pyramid of the Bell Mountain on Tierra del Fuego rising
out of the sea fair and soft, far away in the northwest. Ah, no one
knows what the real beauties of the sea are until he has made at least
one deep-water voyage in a sailing ship! The flying glimpse of the
Atlantic that one catches from the deck of a steamer or the experiences
of a midwinter voyage to the Mediterranean in a North German Lloyder
gives one no true idea of what ocean life really is. No; to comprehend
the sea in all of its splendid phases one must live on it for months at
a time; for not till then can one fully appreciate that “They that go
down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see
the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.”
Up to eleven o’clock this morning the weather was perfect and we
carried the top-gallant-sails without trouble; we were heading our
course southwest, and the sun looked down from a cloudless sky. As we
went below at that hour we noticed a small bank dead ahead, but so
insignificant that I didn’t think anything more about it until half an
hour later, when, buried in the ice with Nansen, we became aware that
it was growing very dark. The next second the ship heeled far over, and
some one at the same instant cast off the spanker-halliards, the iron
mast-hoops jingling noisily as the sail ran down. Of course we were
on deck in another moment, and found that the wind had whipped around
seven points and that a heavy squall had struck the ship aback; the
great sails were swelled out inboard against the masts and backstays,
while snow and sleet hurtled through the air in cutting blasts.
Luckily, the top-gallant-sails had been clewed up a quarter of an hour
before; but a large vessel in irons, even under short sail, in bad
weather is a shocking sight. The captain was perfectly self-contained,
however, and executed some rapid and precise manœuvres, no one losing
his head except the mate, who went bellowing around the decks till
brought to by the skipper’s angry commands, “Square that crojjick-yard;
get the spencer brailed up. Call all hands. Stop that noise and single
reef the fore- and maintop-sails.”
Oh, well hast thou earned thy reputation, boisterous and treacherous
Cape! From bright skies and glorious sun-light we came in fifteen
minutes to reefed topsails, sobbing decks, and flying snow, while the
heavens were completely veiled in that puny cloud, which had expanded
as though by the agency of some black art. “Here comes Cape Horn,” said
MacFoy; and looking to windward, we beheld another sinister squall,
dark with snow, bearing swiftly down upon us. A squall with snow in
it can always be detected by its peculiarly black appearance. They
rapidly increased in number and severity, until now, the middle of the
afternoon watch, the wind seems to have settled down for a steady blow
from somewhere between west and south. The glass is very unsteady at
29.25, 5 +P.M.+ The wind has increased to a fresh gale, while
a heavy swell is rolling magnificently up from the southwest. This is
the first time that we have seen this heavy sea, as heretofore it has
been cut off by Cape Horn itself. Every minute it seems to increase,
and within forty-eight hours we will probably be surrounded by the
huge rollers which have made this region so famous. Even now they
are so large and steady that, as far as the apparent rise and fall
is concerned when below, we might almost as well be in perfectly
smooth water. Our experience of heavy seas has been that the largest
of them do not move rapidly, and at the present time the ship mounts
so leisurely to their summits that one cannot detect the motion. When
below, it is only in the tremendous roll of the vessel as she mounts to
the crests that one is conscious of the height of the seas.
From existing indications we are going to make quite a good bit of
easting during the next twenty-four hours, for our course now is
south-southeast, and as there is a strong easterly current running
ceaselessly here, southeast will be nearer the true course. At noon we
were thirteen miles north of Cape Horn, but still considerably to the
eastward of it. Latitude, 55° 46′ south; longitude, 65° 48′ west.
+July 15+
Last evening we prepared for a dirty night, and we got it. As the
captain and I were pacing the poop after supper, the moon then shining
brightly in a clear sky, suddenly, from a bank in the southwest, so low
and thin as to be almost invisible, there appeared a streak of light.
“Wasn’t that a flash of lightning?” asked the captain. “I think it
was,” said I; “it certainly looked like it.” “H’m,” said the skipper.
Closely we watched the southern horizon, and within ten minutes
perceived two more brilliant flashes. A more uncanny effect it would
be difficult to imagine; for, except the insignificant stratum near
the sea-line, no other cloud was visible in the heavens, and the vivid
streaks produced a startling effect in the white moonlight. After a
look at the glass, which stood at 29.15, the captain called the second
mate, who was on watch, and ordered the upper foretop-sail clewed
up and a reef tied in the foresail; the upper mizzentop-sail hasn’t
been set for some time, as it generally comes in when the cross-jack
is hauled up. The wind at the moment was from the west, force 6, a
strong breeze, with that deep swell that seems to be as eternal in the
Southern Ocean as the snows of Mount Everest. Quickly, though strangely
imperceptibly, some small, windy-looking clouds grew and expanded over
the heavens; and from eight last evening until daylight this morning
it was a night of furious squalls, thick snow and hail, and high seas.
Throughout the twelve hours we were under a single-reefed maintop-sail,
ditto foresail and main-sail and the spencer. During the fifteen or
twenty minutes that the squalls lasted the wind blew with terrific
force and shrieked like a thousand steam sirens in the rigging, and
then would follow a light spell, in which we might have carried
everything.
Our first really hard squall came at 9.30, in the mate’s watch. It
was accompanied with a sweeping snow-storm that drove in great drifts
across the decks, the ship standing up like a church against the blasts
and sliding comparatively dry over the big seas that came piling toward
us out of the gloom, invisible till their foaming tops flashed out
of the darkness to windward. It was a grand, wild scene, and as the
heavier puffs went ripping through the shrouds with a peculiar scream,
I thought, as I looked at the driving snow and the darkness and the
raging ocean, that the Dusk of the Gods had come upon us. This squall
lasted fully thirty minutes, and so heavy was the fall of snow that it
took the watch some little time to shovel it overboard.
All through the night we were afflicted with these unwelcome visitors,
variety being afforded by hail, which fell to the size of marrowfat
pease, while along the lee alley-way, as that part of the poop is
called between the cabin-house and the rail, crouched the forms of the
seamen, for they are compelled to stay aft every night now, ready at
an instant’s call, and not coiled away napping under the top-gallant
forecastle. The helmsman, too, was kept busy, for every squall seemed
to take us aback more or less, and the air rang with the voice of the
officer of the watch, “Put your wheel up, there!”
It had never been our lot to witness so dismal a scene as that
disclosed to us at a quarter-past eight this morning. A squall had
just passed over us, and we were at the moment in a sickly calm, with
a high, greasy sea, which broke sluggishly at intervals like frothing
oil; the decks and weather-side of the masts and spars were covered
inch deep with the wet, clammy snow that had just fallen, the canvas
was flapping loudly against the masts in the great heaving rolls, and
that miserable, leaden-hued struggle was passing between the breaking
day and the wan, gibbous moon showing between the ragged clouds, which
casts so wretched and melancholy a light over all objects. A more
oppressive scene it would be impossible to picture, and it was the
moment best suited to him determined upon ending forever his earthly
career; while, as if to increase the desolate aspect, an immense
albatross, nearly white with age, flew circling around the ship,
driving before him the flock of pigeons that hovers continuously near
us.
A rather distressing thought is that we are now well within the limit
of ice, and that every degree farther south renders more probable the
presence of some of these off-spring of the Antarctic Ice-King. This is
offset, however, by the fact that most of the ice is seen more to the
eastward of the Horn, and that it is usually not at all thick during
the winter season. February is the worst month for those huge ice
islands which render navigation in the Southern Ocean so hazardous an
undertaking. Fortunately, at the summer season actual darkness off the
Horn doesn’t last more than a couple of hours.
The temperature has fallen, too, and to-day reached the freezing point
of fresh water, sea-water congealing at about 28°. To our surprise, the
sun showed himself at noon, and though the horizon was bad, we got an
approximately good sight, which showed that the orb was only 11° high,
and that we were a degree south of Cape Horn and fifty miles east of
it. Latitude, 56° 58′ south; longitude, 66° west.
+July 16+
Hove to in a heavy gale, Cape Horn in sight, bearing at noon east by
north distant about fifteen miles! Yesterday afternoon it was very mild
as far as wind was concerned, and I went down on the main-deck and did
a lot of pumping to make up for the days lost through bad weather,
when it was dangerous to try it. From the main-deck the seas looked
infinitely larger than from the poop, the difference in elevation
of six or seven feet making an immense difference in their apparent
height. All through the early part of the night it was fine, and we set
the upper mizzen-top-sail and the spanker. By the way, it is remarkable
that a ship-rigged vessel will steer well with hardly any after-canvas
set. For instance, for some time previously the only sail on the
mizzen was the lower topsail; while forward were a jib, foretop-mast
stay-sail, both topsails, and reefed foresail.
The squalls, too, eased up as the moon rose, and up to 2 +A.M.+
the weather was fine. At midnight, though, a sinister movement was
noticed in the aneroid, the needle rising rapidly from 29. Every one
who knows Cape Horn understands what this signifies with a westerly
breeze,--it means a gale of wind. True to precedent, when we went on
deck after breakfast, the ship being then on the port tack, it was
breezing rapidly. After each squall it blew harder and harder, with
proportionally increasing sea, and the skipper ventured the opinion
that we were going to see a Cape Horn “snorter.” At ten o’clock the
main-sail had to come in, the ship from being driven too hard taking
in large quantities of water, especially from the lee side. So both
watches were called, and it was a spirited scene as the sturdy fellows
stretched along the deck, heedless of the seas that thundered aboard
every few minutes, while they manned the weather main-clew-garnet with
a chorus that rose above the gale. Brave? A more courageous lot of men
than Cape Horn foremast hands do not exist!