"Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave,
The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave."
FALCONER.
On the twenty-ninth of October, the anchors were loosened from their
muddy beds; a light land wind fanned us out of the harbor, and with a
white silver moon, we began our dreary march towards Cape Horn.
The following night the ship was dashing over the seas eleven miles the
hour. The bell had just struck eight, watch set, and the topmen came
dancing gaily down the rigging, here and there one, with a pea jacket
snugly tied up and held by the teeth, preparatory to a four hours'
snooze in the hammocks, when a moment after the cry, "Look out,
Bill!--Overboard!--Man overboard!" was cried from the main rigging, and
amid the bustle that ensued, the voice of the poor drowning wretch was
heard in broken exclamations of agony, as the frigate swept swiftly by.
Down went the helm, and sails were taken in as she came up to the wind,
but by the strangest fatality, both life buoys were with difficulty cast
adrift, and even then the blue lights did not ignite. A boat was soon
lowered, and sent in the vessel's wake. An hour passed in the search,
without hearing or seeing ought but the rude winds and breaking waves;
and this is the last ever known of poor Bill de Conick.
He struck the channels from a fall of twenty feet up the rigging, and
was probably either encumbered by heavy clothing, or too much injured to
be able to reach the buoys.
Friday, too, the day of all others in our superstitious calendar for
those "who go down to the sea in ships:" even amid a large crew, where
many, if not all, are utterly reckless of life, an incident of this
nature sheds a momentary gloom around, and serves to make many reflect,
that the same unlucky accident might have wrapped any other in the same
chilling shroud. There are few more painful sights in the world than to
behold the imploring looks, with outstretched hands, of a fellow being,
--"When peril has numbed the sense and will,
Though the hand and the foot may struggle still--"
silently invoking help, when all human aid is unavailing--before the
angry waves press him below the surface, to a sailor's grave. Aye, there
can be no more dreadful scenes to make the strong man shudder than
these. Yet it seems a wise ordination in our natures, that the sharp
remembrance of these painful incidents is so rapidly dispelled. This
very characteristic of the sailor, his heedless indifference to the
future, in a great degree makes up his measure of contentment in all the
toils and dangers that beset his course, unconscious that time,
"Like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave."
A fortnight flew quickly by, the good ship going at as lively a pace. We
passed the wide mouth of La Plata, buttoned our jackets, and slept under
blankets. As the weather became colder, mammy Carey and her broods, with
goneys, albatrosses, boobies and cape pigeons, swarmed around the wake,
to pick up the stray crumbs. Divers hooks and lines were thrown out to
entice them aboard, but for a long interval all efforts proved
fruitless, until one morning, an albatross abstractedly swallowed the
bait, and much to his surprise was pulled on board, like to a boy's
kite. He measured eleven feet four inches, with enormous quills and
feathers, and such a bed of down the monster had concealed about his
oily person, was never known nearer than an eider duck. He had large,
fierce, black eyes, too, with a beak sharp, and hard enough to have
nipped a silver dollar into bits. Whales favored us occasionally with an
inspection--rolled their round snouts out of water--tossed a few tons of
foam in the air--threw up their enormous flukes--struck the waves one
splashing blow, and then went down to examine the soundings. Thus we
sailed along the dull shores of Patagonia, with the long taper top
gallant masts replaced by stumps to stand up more obstinately against
the furious tempests of the "still vexed Bermoothes" of Cape Horn, the
bugbear of all landsmen, and the place of all others, where more yarns
are spun, wove, and wondered at, than from China to Peru. He was a bold
sailor any way, who first doubled the Cape, whatever others may be who
follow. At last came our turn, and on the afternoon of the sixteenth day
from Rio, the clouds lifting, we saw the dark, jagged, rugged bluffs and
steeps of Staten and Terra del Fuego. The next morning we rounded Cape
St. John, and were received by the long swelling waves of the sister
ocean. If the great Balboa when standing on the mountains of Panama,
regarding the placid waves of the equatorial ocean, could have known the
tempestuous gales and giant seas of the polar regions, sporting around
this snowy cape, he might possibly have been less overjoyed at his grand
discovery. Our pleasant weather and smooth seas clung to us, to the
last, and, as if loth to leave, gave one unclouded view of Staten Land,
like a casting in bronze, with the bleak, snow-capped heights, tinged
by the rising sun. An hour after the bright sky was veiled by mist, the
rising gale, from the west, brought hail and chilling rain. We lost
sight of land, reefed the sails close down, and then bid defiance to the
storm. Nothing venture nothing gain, is as true with ships' rigging, as
thimble rigging, and we staked all our hopes on a rapid passage. Sorry
work we made of it. The very birds were obliged to trim their pinions
with great nicety in beating to windward--even then a terrible gust
ruffled their plumes, and away they were driven, eddying, and screaming,
to leeward. Still we strove the tempests to disarm, by stout hearts, and
tough canvas, with partial success, too, for even with adverse winds, we
managed to get to the southward, besides making something in the voyage;
blessed, also, by a cool, bracing atmosphere, and day and twilight the
whole twenty-four hours. Though the sun in tracking his bright career in
either hemisphere is supposed to tinge the land and sea beneath his
blaze, with what is generally called summer, yet an exception to the
rule exists in vicinity of Cape Horn. The days, it is true, are longer;
in fact the night is day, but the sun diffuses no pleasant, genial
warmth, and is only seen peering out from behind the clouds, with a
careworn, desolate, blurred face, as if he was ashamed of his company,
and had marched entirely out of his beat.
In all this time hardly an incident occurred to make us even wink,
except, perhaps, the tumble of a topman from aloft, who was picked up
with a fractured spine; and a little sauciness, reproved by our stout
armorer, through the intervention of an iron rod upon the limbs of a
tall negro, thereby breaking his arm in two places. One's bones are
brittle in frosty weather, and young Vulcan was made to submit to severe
personal damages. I must chronicle also the sudden demise of a
venerable sergeant of marines, who departed this life one cold night,
while relieving the guard under the forecastle--the next day he was
consigned to the mighty deep, divested of all his worldly accoutrements,
save a hammock and a couple of round shot, to pull him into eternity. We
had not exchanged nautical salutations since leaving port, and well nigh
believed the ocean was deserted; however, one day there came looming
through the mist and rain, a large ship, with all her flaunting muslin
spread, running before the gale--the distance was too great to make out
her colors, but sufficiently near to cause some of us to wonder when our
bark's prow would be turned in the same direction, and the sheets eased
off for home. Speaking of ships, while at Rio an American vessel of war
arrived, and our sympathies were universally enlisted on learning that
she had been two long months trying to reach Valparaiso, but when off
the Horn, or in fact after having passed it, she experienced tremendous
hurricanes and giant waves, which blew the sails to ribbons, tore away
the boats, shattered the stern frame, and left her altogether in a most
distressing and heart-rending condition, consequently she put back. It
was worthy of remark, however, that she came buoyantly into the harbor,
tricked out in a bran new suit of clothes, and when a number of officers
went on board to survey her pitiable plight, they could find neither
leak nor strain, and very sensibly concluded she was one of the
staunchest and best corvettes in the navy, as indeed she was. John Bull
took back his mails and declared he would never take advantage again of
a crack Yankee sloop-of-war to forward important dispatches by.
Our pleasures were now limited, no one raised his nose above the
taffrail if not compelled; our chief resource was reading, and after
absorbing heaps of ephemeral trash drifting about the decks, we sought
the library and poured over ponderous tomes of physics, history or
travels. Books find their true value a shipboard--cut off from all
amusement of the land, we derive the full benefit by reading, for more
than reading's sake, or for the purpose of killing time in silly
abstraction, and many a stupid author is thoroughly digested, and many
labored narrations of voyages are carefully studied, whose narrators
have "compiled very dull books from very interesting materials," and
they should be grateful to governments for purchasing, and thankful for
indifferent persons to peruse them.
On the advent of Saturday nights, when the wind was blowing cold and
dreary, we sought the lowest depths of the frigate. _Facilis decensus
averni_, in other words, "'tis easy to dive into the cock-pit"--there in
a cozy state-room, we made a jovial little party, conducted on strictly
private principles, for the purpose of seeking medical advice. We
consulted a pot-bellied gentleman, with a small copper kettle on his
head, illumined by a spirit lamp, whilom, termed Doctor Faustus--unlike
the Sangrado practitioners, the Doctor constantly poured out instead of
in. One humorsome fellow, the President of our club, who was rather
stout on his pins, and _caree par la base_, poured forth wit and hot
water by the hour, diversifying both occasionally, by ravishing strains
on the violin, and chanting Virginia melodies, which acted on the heels
of one of our attendants, in a complicated series of jigs, called the
double shuffle.
At last the fates befriended us; a new moon appeared, and the west wind
having apparently blown itself out of breath, a breeze sprang up from
south-east and commenced blowing the sea and ourselves in an opposite
direction; snow fell thick and fast, driving the thermometer below
freezing point, and barometer running rapidly up. As the flakes fell and
adhered to rigging and sails, the entire mass of ropes, spars and
hampers were soon clothed in icy white jackets. The sun broke out for a
moment and converted a showering cloud of snow into a magnificent bow.
Rainbows of sun and moon are beheld by the million, but seldom a novelty
like a _snow-bow_! The ship was hurried along at great speed on the
sixtieth parallel, until reaching the meridian of eighty, when we bore
away to the northward. Congratulating ourselves with the hope that the
clerk of the weather had forgotten to announce our arrival to the court
of winds in the great South Pacific; faint delusion!--off the gusty isle
of Chiloe, we had a hug from a gale, which, however, exhausted itself in
a few hours, and then left us to flounder about on the mountainous backs
of waves as best we might--then there was an interval of rain and
squalls from all quarters, when the breeze again came fair, and on the
second of December, we anchored at Valparaiso, just five weeks from Rio
Janeiro.