running smoothly; so he hopped down on deck, sprang up on the
main-hatch, and in thirty seconds so great was the distraction that
the men didn’t know whether they were hauling on the main-buntlines
or the jib-downhaul. The skipper commenced in what was for him a mild
exhortation to “Pull away lively, now; pull away there.” But the men
were thoroughly drenched by this time, and the teeth of the weaker were
beginning to chatter; for of what use are oil-skins to a man in two or
three feet of water, when he is constantly tripping on the slippery
deck and flying headlong as the ship rolls? By and by the skipper began
to swear, and then it was all up with everything; five minutes later he
was in a whirling cyclonic passion. He fairly jigged upon the hatch in
his frenzy, and thumped his chest with his right fist as he clung with
his left to the lee lower maintop-sail-sheet, still urging the men to
“pull away.” At length his temper so flew away with him that he seemed
to strangle, and the last sentence we heard was, “Catch hold of any
d---- thing and haul on it.”
In spite of him, however, both main-sail and foresail were hauled up
in an hour and a half, the ship being then under lower topsails and
spencer, and the captain announced his intention of wearing round
after dinner, adding, “You could see Cape Horn now if it wasn’t for the
snow.”
All this time the wind had been increasing, and by the time that dinner
was over it had risen to a full gale. “Land on the lee beam,” sung
out the lynx-eyed mate at one o’clock. We looked; and there, down to
leeward, we perceived the most famous promontory in the world, the
terrible Cape Horn itself, smothered in gloom, rising dimly out of the
sea about fifteen miles away. “Brail up that spencer and stand by to
wear ship.” “Ay, ay, sir,” cheerfully, for a hot meal had put life into
the men. And now there followed a spectacle that it will be impossible
ever to forget. The wind was roaring from the southwest a violent gale,
accompanied with tremendous squalls blowing with inconceivable fury,
swallowing us up in blinding snow. The ocean had assumed a terrible
appearance, white as a snow-drift to windward; while at intervals we
could see the breaking crest of some immense sea, towering high above
the rest in his grand and stately progress. The helm was then put hard
up, the main- and cross-jack-yards were squared, and we fell away dead
before the wind.
For the next fifteen minutes a scene was enacted that absolutely defied
a description worthy of it. The huge, shaggy seas came rushing along
astern, full sixty feet from crest to trough; and when close by, if
you wanted to follow their progress, you had to throw your head back
as though looking up at a mountain peak, while they shook their white
manes like wild horses, and it seemed as if they must crash over the
stern. But no, the ship rode them superbly, and when she reached
the crest of one, and we looked deep down into that dark-green,
foam-streaked valley astern, we caught our breath as the billows ran
under us and fell thundering upon the main-deck forward. The sight of
the great ship with nothing set but the three lower topsails, flying
before the gale, almost choked you with emotion. It was grand, it was
fearfully sublime. It was the apotheosis of the power and majesty of
God.
[Illustration: A fifty-foot Cape Horn gray-beard]
An albatross, too, in a storm is a wonderful sight. No matter how
furious the gale, no matter how fierce the terrific, hurricane squalls
of Cape Horn, the great bird soars up against the blast grim and
serene. Then wheeling, he comes sweeping down on the wings of the gale
at a speed so tremendous that it cannot be less than eighty or even
ninety miles an hour, when, describing a low but immense circle, with
the tip of his lee wing just brushing the tops of the giant seas, he
again takes his flight upward against the storm. No living creature
conveys the idea of boundless freedom so perfectly as the King of
Space, the Wandering Albatross.
By two o’clock in the afternoon we had the relieving tackles on the
tiller, and when darkness came after a sickly, pallid sunset, it found
us hove to in a mountainous sea, with the same angry squalls yelling in
savage, ruthless glee over this desert ocean. Latitude. 56° 12′ south;
longitude, 67° 24′ west.
+July 17+
Last night the gale diminished somewhat; but at eleven o’clock the
chain topping-lift of the spencer-gaff carried away, and we had to rig
a makeshift with a tackle until to-day.
In yesterday’s log I forgot to mention an incident that happened which
came very nearly being a lamentable accident. After we had worn around,
at about thirty minutes past one, while some of the men were hauling
taut the weather forebrace, we were boarded by an enormous sea that
came whooping over the weather-side. The whole of the starboard watch,
including the second mate, were hauling on the brace when the sea
broke on board and fell directly upon them. I never saw anything like
the scene that followed. The men absolutely disappeared from view. It
was as though they had gone through the deck. Only once before had we
seen so great a volume of water on a ship’s deck, and that was during
our first voyage when we were hove down to the turnbuckles in the North
Atlantic. Yesterday it was, at the very least, two feet deep on the
level, and it filled the galley and carpenter-shop, putting out the
fires in the donkey-boiler, and this through the lee doors. During all
this time we looked in vain for the sight of a human being. Not one
was to be seen on the main-deck, and the water was dashing up twenty
or thirty feet into the air at every heave. Gradually it began to
run off, and now and then a clumsy, yellow bundle loomed up out of a
snarl of ropes, sat up for a second, and then went whizzing away to
leeward. Again a man would gain his feet and clutch frantically at
belaying-pins; but before he could support himself his legs would slide
from under him, and he would be swept into the water-ways like a cork
in a sluice.
When all but a few inches of water had run off, and it was deep only in
the lee scuppers, we perceived a knot of men away aft wedged between
the bitts and the rail not far from the cabin bulkhead, entangled in a
fearful snarl of gear. So tightly were they packed away that at first
it seemed as though there were only two men there; but one by one they
crawled apart till three half-drowned sailors sat wabbling on the deck,
and then we saw that another luckless creature was lying prone in the
scuppers. Slowly and painfully he got his legs under him, and, waiting
for a lurch, with an effort reached his feet. It was Mr. Rarx, one of
the most powerful men on board, and he was gasping for breath. It seems
that they had all been swept aft together, and all were badly used up,
especially Mr. Rarx, who formed the base of the wedge. He says that he
was completely under water for a good deal more than a minute.
We are beginning to regard deep-water sailors as little short of
heroes. Indeed, they seem to me far more valiant than the battalions
of soldiery that are hurled nowadays against little bands of savages.
From 50° to 50° they and the dark cavern in which they live are soaking
wet; they have no time to change their clothes, and no dry garments to
put on if they had, for often, no sooner have the watch below kicked
off their boots, actually filled to the brim with salt-water, than
comes the cry, “All hands reef the maintop-sail,” and when that is
done, “Haul up the main-sail” rings out, and there are two hours gone
from their watch below. There is no such thing as throwing off their
coats or even oil-skins when they turn in; nor would it be advisable
in a leaky forecastle like this, with half an inch of water on the
floor shooting up in their faces. Yet look at these men as they haul
on the braces in a gale of wind, hardly able to keep their feet. Never
a word of complaint at the weather have I heard yet. Calm and unmoved
in the storms of spray and snow, they sing out as heartily as ever,
grin good-naturedly up at the poop where we are standing dry and
comfortable, and face the crest of a sea that rattles against them as
if it were a summer shower. The more we see of forecastle life the more
difficult is it to understand why men ever ship before the mast for a
Cape Horn voyage.
It is pleasant to think that that wretched man Goggins was washing
about in his room, too,--pleasant, because he continues to drive and
haze the men down here when they are striving to do their utmost under
such conditions. When he awoke last night in the middle watch he found
several inches of water on the floor of his room, and he is wondering
where it came from. Indeed, we had a shower-bath ourselves last night,
for part of a sea fell on the poop, ran aft against the wheel-house
when the bows rose and then recoiled into our after-window, which was
open, drenching that portion of our room.
Steam is kept up continuously in the donkey-boiler now, as the men
are getting pretty well used up from exposure and the immense amount
of making and shortening of sail that goes on continuously. Captain
Scruggs believes in taking every single point of advantage in the wind,
and shakes out a reef at the least indication of a lull, each time, of
course, necessitating the mastheading of the yard; though eventually
even he realized that the men were wearing out, and now the donkey does
all the heavy hoisting. Many people think that the engine does all the
trimming of yards, etc., during a voyage, but with the exception of the
passage of the Horn, it is seldom ever in use at sea, and never for
sail-trimming. The chief use to which a donkey is put is in loading and
discharging when in port and heaving in the anchor.
Well, the wind now, at 3 +P.M.+, is at west, force 8, and we
have set a reefed maintop-sail and spencer. We have drifted about
southeast by east true since yesterday, sometimes hove to, sometimes
headreaching through a heavy sea. The elements are somewhat more
placid, and I must not bring this day’s journal to a close without
extolling my wife’s bravery during the foul weather, for her courage
was remarkable. Only those who have been to sea in a sailing ship whose
main-deck is but seven feet above the water can appreciate what a whole
gale of wind means under such circumstances. Latitude, 57° south;
longitude, 65° 45′ west.
+July 18+
Land was reported on the weather-beam this afternoon. We think that it
is Barneveld Island, about thirty miles northeast of Cape Horn, and
it bore, when first sighted, northwest. We didn’t do anything at all
during the last twenty-four hours but seesaw up and down, north and
southeast, with the wind at southwest, and we were surprised by a calm
last night from six until twelve o’clock, with a comparatively high
thermometer,--41° at the latter hour,--so that the skipper looked for a
northerly wind during this morning. But no such luck for us; daylight
saw us under a reefed maintop-sail (we had set the main-top-gallant at
midnight) with a moderate gale from the westward, though the sea was
quite smooth. We have entirely lost the long southwesterly roll, and it
is astonishing how that swell does go down if you are only a little to
the eastward of the Cape. For instance, suppose a vessel to be in 57°
south and 68° west, she is almost certain to have this big heave; but
if in 66° west and the same latitude she will be almost entirely free
from it; at least, this has been our experience.
Great agitation pervaded the ship aft to-day when the discovery was
made that the pumps had not been working properly for twenty-four
hours. In heavy weather the “Higgins” has to be pumped out every two
hours on account of a leak near the rudder-head, although the majority
of wooden sailing vessels have to man the pumps every watch in a
seaway, for they all leak in bad weather. Something was wrong with the
plunger, I believe, and the pumps have been useless for a whole day,
unknown to any one, which in itself seems remarkable, though I must say
that the decks have been so full of water that it has been very hard
to tell whether a stream was coming up from below or not. Therefore
both men and donkey have been alternately pumping without result, and
when the carpenter sounded the well this noon, lo! there were two and a
half feet of water in the vessel, which means nearly twenty thousand
gallons, or about six hundred barrels. By using both sides of the
pumps, however, the engine had them sucking in an hour, doing sixty
revolutions to the minute. There was a violent scene, though, when the
old man learned of the affair, and a still more turbulent half-hour
followed while the plunger was being repaired.
Here, in the bad, wet weather, for it has been raining for forty-eight
hours, this ship is extremely uncomfortable and disagreeable below,
and the most slovenly one that I have ever seen. To begin with, it
is very dark, for the skylights are absurdly small, and boards have
to be secured on their weather-sides to prevent a repetition of the
river Plate incident, so that the gloom of the interior is that of
a hole in the ground. However, this doesn’t count, for we expected
it. The after-cabin is a rather unpleasant spot, by reason of a
so’wester or two, a dripping black oil-skin, several pair of wet
woollen wrist-protectors, a few greasy magazines, a chart or two, and a
couple of camp-chairs all continually sliding about the floor, making
locomotion an extremely hazardous undertaking. But, upon approaching
the forward or dining cabin, a spectacle meets the eye which would
shake the heart of the stoutest landsman. In the forward end, in a
recess, stands the stove, stayed with iron rods; while surrounding it
on three sides is a permanent aggregation of various objectionable
articles, perfectly appalling. The heater is completely smothered at
all times in ancient, wet garments of the skipper’s, almost in a state
of fermentation, suspended on wires, so that the stove can hardly be
seen. At dinner to-day the following disreputable articles of clothing
hung before the fire, dank and mildewed: two pairs of aged trousers,
two waist-coats, three coats, one overcoat, two mufflers, one pair of
knitted gloves, one handkerchief, and two pairs of socks. From these
garments there issued a peculiarly obnoxious, thin steam, through
which a yellow lamp glowed unhealthily.
Below, at the base of the stove, and surrounding it as with a
chevaux-de-frise, were two pairs of rubber boots, ditto leather shoes,
ditto felt slippers for boots, two dishes filled with the cat’s
half-devoured food, no one knows how old, a wash-tub half filled with
soaking sheets, a bucket, and a wooden box nearly full of ashes, upon
which reposed a coffee-pot. And when to all this is added the humidity
of this region, which is so dense that moisture condenses on the walls,
and the fact that the mizzen-mast-coat leaks, covering several square
feet of the floor with water, it will be conceded that the interior of
this vessel is distinctly disreputable. Indeed, we never attempt to sit
and read anywhere else than in our own room. Nor are the dishes what
they should be, and I often find a clot of coagulated soup in the ladle
from yesterday’s repast; this latter is, of course, the fault of the
steward, though the best of servants will grow careless if they are not
watched.
Then the mate is extremely unclean, so much so that even Mr. Rarx said
a day or two ago that he was the dirtiest man whom he had even seen
in a ship’s cabin. He never washes his face and hands to come to the
table, both of which are streaked with soot, lard oil, and goodness
knows what else. The captain is considerably better in this respect,
but his temper seems to be more uncontrollable than ever, and he shouts
at the steward and Sammie as though they were on the foretop-sail-yard
in a gale of wind. He seems to consider it a personal affront every
time that the men come aft on Saturday nights to buy things from the
slop-chest, which he throws at them with scant ceremony. Last night
“Long John” Pettersen asked him for a pair of No. 10 rubber boots in
his cowed, frightened way. “I ain’t got no tens,” cried the skipper;
“here’s nines; take ’em and get out”; and he cast the boots at John,
who promptly dodged, and they struck the stove with a great, clattering
din.
I will, no doubt, be accused of inhumanity in taking my wife to sea in
such a vessel as this, but we had not the least notion that she would
prove so different from what we supposed her to be, and few persons
would suspect that such things would occur aboard of a ship which
looked so neat and trim in the New York docks. Our previous experience
at sea, we have since discovered, was not of any use to us as a guide
as to what we might expect here. Indeed, in the worst weather off the
Cape of Good Hope the “Mandalore’s” cabin, with its brightly polished
open-grate and shining bird’s-eye maple panelling, would not have
been discreditable to a well-found yacht. Latitude, 56° 14′ south;
longitude, 66° west.
+July 19+
Hail, mighty sun! Welcome, radiant, glorious monarch! We saw the
luminous orb for ten minutes at mid-day, marking an epoch, for events
off Cape Horn date from the last time that the sun was seen. When day
broke this morning, behold! the sky was clear and everything presaged
at least two hours of bright sunshine. No sooner, however, did the orb
show signs of appearing above the horizon than a cloud-bank arose in
the west which proved to be the mother of a procession of squalls which
covered the sky for the rest of the day, bar a few minutes at noon. But
how we did rejoice for even a glimpse of the heavenly body! For days
we had dwelt in darkness and twilight, and when we caught sight of the
golden disk again it was like the face of an old friend. No one who
has not experienced it can imagine what the gloom of Cape Horn is like
even at mid-day. It has doubtless somewhat the effect of the darkness
of the Polar seas, which, it is said, kills more men than frost and
starvation. Practically, throughout the year the heavens in this region
are wrapped up in a pall of cloud so dense and low as to feel like an
increased atmospheric pressure; and unless one’s spirits are as elastic
as rubber the mind must succumb to the dreary influence of this endless
waste of gray ocean. It is oppressive beyond the power of words; and so
great is the solitude that it is difficult to believe that we are still
on the earth and not floating upon the ocean of another planet.
“So lonely ’twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.”
The sun’s altitude at noon was only 8° 42′, so that he was only about
sixteen diameters above the horizon; but notwithstanding, all hands
hailed him with glad pæans, and deep and mournful was the wailing
when he withdrew. At eleven o’clock, while we were reading below,
the skipper called down to know if we didn’t want to see a regular
old-fashioned squall. So up we went, and upon issuing from the
companion-way were almost literally blown over by a heavy gust. The
ship was hove down till the sea flowed over the lee rail thick and
smooth and dark, like the water on the verge of a cataract; the wind
howled and screeched overhead; spray fell in blinding sheets; while
the snow was positively overpowering and almost smothered us when we
looked to windward. The ship for some time had dragged a double-reefed
maintop-sail, and it was every stitch that she could stand. All
through the day we were bombarded by these squalls, and by three in
the afternoon the wind had once more increased to a fresh gale, with a
wicked, breaking sea which frequently broke on the poop itself.
How little, how pitifully little departure we made in the last week!
On Tuesday, six days ago, we rounded Cape St. John, and now we are
only a degree farther west! I should think it _was_ hard to make
westing off the Horn. Call it forty miles in a week, for the degrees
of longitude are scarcely thirty-five miles long in this latitude. Six
miles of westing a day! Speaking of the length of degrees, though, it
is remarkable how much farther south of the line the Horn seems (56°
south) than 56° north seems north of it. For instance, the fifty-sixth
northerly parallel passes between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is not
very far north of Hamburg; yet but few persons would suppose that,
roughly speaking, these cities were in the same relative latitude as
the southern extremity of South America.
Last evening, just before dark, a sail was sighted about ten miles
to leeward, and was there still this morning. It was a ship, and we
conjectured that she was the “Dowes” until the glasses showed that she
had a standing spanker-gaff, which made her a foreigner. Perhaps she is
the demon Frenchman; may she approach no nearer.
One of the men at the wheel, Jack Michaels, whispered to me this
morning, “Say, was that land the Diego Ramirez we saw yesterday?”
And when told that we were still east of Cape Horn, the poor fellow
ejaculated, “Oh, my God!” so earnestly and sorrowfully that it spoke
whole volumes for what the men are suffering in the leaky forecastle.
Two men are constantly at the wheel now, and even when the tiller is
lashed and we are hove to, the law compels one man to stand with his
hands on the spokes as though still steering, so as to be ready in case
of accident. Well, it looks as though we were going to have a worse
night than ever for sleeping; last night we got only three hours of
rest. Latitude, 56° 54′ south; longitude, 65° west.
+July 20+
“The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.”
It came on to blow very hard indeed yesterday afternoon at three
o’clock, just as we had finished writing, and at four it became
necessary to haul up the main-sail and foresail, though both were
reefed. When the skipper sung out, “Clew up the main-sail,” I think
that it was blowing harder than we ever saw it at sea. The captain
said that there was more wind the other day in sight of Cape Horn;
but I think that this was only to contradict. Whether or no, it blew
a fearful gale, though the full strength didn’t last more than three
hours, with, for a while, the worst snow and hail that we have had yet.
The ocean seethed; big seas swept the decks fore and aft like cataracts
every five minutes, and the ship, with nothing showing but the lower
topsails, was bowed down before the blasts like a palm-tree in a
hurricane. We thought that we were surely going to lose the main-sail
through the fault of the wretched mate, who is of no use whatever in
bad weather. It is necessary to observe extreme caution in hauling up
any of the courses in a gale of wind, for the tack and sheet must be
eased off just so, in order that both they and the clew-garnets shall
be perfectly taut until the clews are right up to the yard. If not, the
chance of losing the sails is exceedingly good. Well, the miserable
man, in the midst of a tearing puff, let the main-tack get away from
him. Instantly there arose a frightful slatting, and we expected to
see the strong, new canvas whipped into ribbons, while the great,
ninety-foot mainyard buckled and bent almost like a coach-whip. I hope
never to witness such a sight again. The old man’s state while this was
going on must be left to the imagination; and when a sea swept over
the side, carrying almost every man on the clew-garnets and buntlines
into the scuppers, we feared that his reason was going. After a hard
struggle, though, the gaskets were put on the main-sail, and then the
foresail had to come in. Here the mate, very properly, found something
else to do, and Mr. Rarx, calm and perfect master of himself, slacked
away the tack first; and when the weather-side had been hauled up, he
did the same with the sheet, without the least show of exertion; he is
a splendid seaman.
At this moment I stepped into the wheel-house to look at the aneroid,
and found the needle actually jumping back and forth from 29.10 to
29.20, with a quick jerk like the second-hand of a clock. This is
known as “pumping” when observed in a mercurial barometer, and occurs
most frequently during cyclones, the cause being sudden changes in the
velocity, and, consequently, force, of the wind. It is interesting
to note that if a barometer is hung against a wall where the wind
will blow steadily upon it at a rate of about thirty feet per second
the height of the barometer is perceptibly increased. Once before we
observed this pumping of the barometer, which happened on the P. and O.
steamer “Khedive,” in the Bay of Biscay, when the glass stood at 28.64.
This is, of course, a very low reading, but it is often eclipsed during
tropical cyclones; indeed, not long ago the British steamer “Foreland,”
at New York, from Hull, reported the barometer at 28.10 to the eastward
of the Banks during a January passage.