ALABAMA CROSSES THE BAY OF BENGAL--THE PILGRIMS TO MECCA AND THE BLACK
GIANTS--BURNING OF THE EMMA JANE--THE TOWN OF AUJENGA, AND THE
HINDOOS--THE GREAT DESERTS OF CENTRAL ASIA, AND THE COTTON CROP OF
HINDOSTAN--ALABAMA CROSSES THE ARABIAN SEA--THE ANIMALCULAE OF THE SEA--THE
COMORO ISLANDS--JOHANNA AND ITS ARAB POPULATION--THE YANKEE WHALERS AT
JOHANNA--ALABAMA PASSES THROUGH THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL, AND ARRIVES AT THE
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
On the afternoon after leaving the Strait of Malacca, we overhauled
another American ship under neutral colors--the Bremen ship _Ottone_. The
transfer had been made at Bremen, in the previous May; the papers were
genuine, and the master and crew all Dutchmen, there being no Yankee on
board. The change of property, in this case, having every appearance of
being _bona fide_, I permitted the ship to pass on her voyage, which was
to Rangoon for rice. For the next few days we coasted the island of
Sumatra--taking a final leave of the North end of that island on the last
day of the year 1863. A court-martial had been in session several days,
settling accounts with the runaways at Singapore, whom we had arrested and
brought back. Having sentenced the prisoners, and gotten through with its
labors, it was dissolved on this last day of the old year, that we might
turn over a new leaf.
Clearing the Sumatra coast, we stretched across to the Bay of Bengal,
toward Ceylon, overhauling a number of neutral ships by the way. Among
others, we boarded a large English ship, which had a novel lot of
passengers on board. She was from Singapore, bound for Jiddah on the Red
Sea, and was filled with the faithful followers of Mohammed, on a
pilgrimage to Mecca--Jiddah being the nearest seaport to that renowned
shrine. My boarding-officer was greeted with great cordiality by these
devotees, who exchanged salaams with him, in the most reverential manner,
and entered into conversation with him. They wanted to know, they said,
about those black giants we had on board the _Alabama_, and whether we fed
them on live Yankees, as they had heard. The boarding-officer, who was a
bit of a wag, told them that we had made the experiment, but that the
Yankee skippers were so lean and tough, that the giants refused to eat
them. Whereupon there was a general grunt, and as near an approach to a
smile as a Mohammedan ever makes. They then said that they "had heard that
we were in favor of a plurality of wives." They had heard of Brigham Young
and Salt Lake. The officer said, "Yes, we had a few; three or four dozen a
piece." They now insisted upon his smoking with them, and plied him with
other questions, to which they received equally satisfactory answers; and
when he got up to depart, they crowded around him at the gangway, and
salaamed him over the side, more reverentially than ever. I have no doubt
that when these passengers arrived at Mecca, and discussed learnedly the
American war, half the pilgrims at that revered shrine became good
Confederates.
Having doubled the island of Ceylon, and hauled up on the coast of
Malabar, we captured on the 14th of January, the _Emma Jane_, of Bath,
Maine, from Bombay, bound to Amherst. Having removed from her such
articles of provisions as we required, and transferred her crew to the
_Alabama_, we burned her. She was in ballast, seeking a cargo, and there
was, therefore, no claim of neutral property. The master had his wife on
board. Being not a great distance from the land, we ran in for the purpose
of discharging our prisoners; and descried the Ghaut mountains the next
day. Coasting along a short distance to the eastward, we made the small
Hindoo-Portuguese town of Anjenga, where we came to anchor at about four
P. M. The town lies on the open coast, having a roadstead, but no harbor.
We ran in and anchored without a pilot. We were soon surrounded by native
boats--large canoes capable of carrying considerable burdens--filled with
Portuguese and Hindoos, and a mixture of both. Though the dominion of
Portugal, on the Malabar coast, has long since departed, there are many
mementos of that once enterprising people still to be found. Her churches
and fortifications are still standing, the blood of her people is still
left--in most cases mixed--and her language, somewhat corrupted, is still
spoken. There was no Englishman at Anjenga--the resident magistrate being
a Portuguese. He sent his son off to visit us, and make arrangements for
landing our prisoners. Later in the afternoon, I sent a lieutenant to call
on him. The boat being delayed until some time in the night, and a firing
of musketry being heard, I feared that my lieutenant had gotten into some
difficulty with the natives, and dispatched Kell, with an armed boat to
his assistance. It proved to be a false alarm. It was a feast day, the
magistrate had gone to church,--which caused the delay of the officer--and
the firing was a _feu de joie_.
The next morning we sent the prisoners on shore. They were to proceed by
inland navigation--parallel with the coast, through a series of lagoons
and canals--to Cochin, a sea-port town about sixty miles distant, where
they would find Englishmen and English shipping. I was to provision them,
and the Resident Magistrate would send them forward free of expense. The
prisoners landed in presence of half the town, who had flocked down to the
beach to see the sight. As our boats approached the shore, on which there
was quite a surf breaking, a number of native boats came out to receive
and land the prisoners. These boats were managed with great dexterity, and
passed in and out through the roaring surf, without the least accident.
This matter of business accomplished, the natives came off to visit us, in
considerable numbers, both men and women. They were a fine, well-formed,
rather athletic people, nearly as black as the negro, but with straight
hair and prominent features. Very few of them wore any other dress than a
cloth about the loins. They were sprightly and chatty, and ran about the
decks as pleased as children, inspecting the guns, and other novelties.
Some of the young women had very regular and pleasing features. The best
description I can give of them is to request the reader to imagine some
belle of his acquaintance to be divested of those garments which would be
useless to her in Anjenga--latitude 8 deg.--and instead of charming him
with the lily and the rose, to be shining in lustrous jet.
Having received on board some fresh provisions for the crew, and gotten
rid of our lady and gentlemen visitors, we got under way and stood out to
sea, and were still in sight of the Ghaut Mountains when the sun went
down. These mountains will be lost to our view to-morrow; but before they
disappear, I have a word to say concerning them, and the fertile country
of Hindostan, in which they are situated; for nature elaborates here one
of her most beautiful and useful of meteorological problems. British India
is the most formidable competitor of the Confederate States for the
production of cotton, for the supply of the spindles and looms of the
world. The problem to which I wish to call the reader's attention may be
stated thus:--_The Great Deserts of Central Africa produce the cotton crop
of Hindostan._ I have before had frequent occasion to speak of the
monsoons of the East--those periodical winds that blow for one half of the
year from one point of the compass, and then change, and blow the other
half of the year from the opposite point. It is these monsoons that work
out the problem we have in hand; and it is the Great Deserts alluded to
that produce the monsoons.
On the succeeding page will be found a diagram, which will assist us in
the conception of this beautiful operation of nature. It consists of an
outline sketch of so much of Asia and the Indian Ocean as are material to
our purpose. The Great Deserts, the Himalayas and the Ghauts, are marked
on the sketch. Let the dotted line at the bottom of the sketch represent
the equator, and the arrows the direction of the winds. Hindostan being in
the northern tropic, the north-east monsoon or trade-wind, represented by
the arrow A, would prevail there all the year round, but for the local
causes of which I am about to speak. The reader will observe that this
wind, coming from a high northern latitude, passes almost entirely over
_land_ before it reaches Hindostan. It is, therefore, a dry wind. It is
rendered even more dry, by its passage over the Himalaya range of
mountains which wring from it what little moisture it may have
evaporated from the lakes and rivers over which it has passed. When it
reaches the extensive plains between the Himalayas and Ghauts, which are
the great cotton region of Hindostan, it has not a drop of water with
which to nourish vegetation; and if it were to prevail all the year round,
those plains would speedily become parched and waste deserts.
[Illustration]
Let us see, now, how this catastrophe is avoided. When the sun is in the
southern hemisphere, that is, during the winter season, the north-east
monsoon prevails in Hindostan. When he is in the northern hemisphere, the
south-west monsoon, which is the rainy monsoon, or crop monsoon, prevails.
This change of monsoons is produced as follows: Soon after the sun crosses
the equator into the northern hemisphere, he begins to pour down his
fierce rays upon Hindostan, and, passing farther and farther to the north,
in the latter part of April, or the beginning of May, he is nearly
perpendicularly over the Great Deserts marked in the sketch. These deserts
are interminable wastes of sand, in which there is not so much as a blade
of grass to be found. They absorb heat very rapidly, and in a short time
become like so many fiery furnaces. The air above them rarefies and
ascends, a comparative vacuum of great extent is formed, and a great
change begins now to take place in the atmospheric phenomena. This vacuum
being in the rear of the arrow A, or the north-east monsoon blowing over
Hindostan, first slackens the force of this wind--drawing it back, as it
were. It becomes weaker and weaker, as the furnaces become hotter and
hotter. Calms ensue, and after a long struggle, the wind is finally turned
back, and the south-west monsoon has set in.
If the reader will cast his eye on the series of arrows, B, C, D, E, and
F, he will see how this gradual change is effected. I say gradual, for it
is not effected _per saltum_, but occupies several weeks. The arrow F
represents the south-east trade-wind, blowing toward the equator. As this
wind nears the equator, it begins to feel the influence of the deserts
spoken of. The calm which I have described as beginning at the arrow A, is
gradually extended to the equator. As the south-east wind approaches that
great circle, it finds nothing to oppose its passage. Pretty soon, it not
only finds nothing to oppose its passage, but something to invite it over;
for the calm begins now to give place to an indraught toward the Great
Deserts. The south-east wind, thus encouraged, changes its course, first
to the north, and then to the north-east, and blows stronger and stronger
as the season advances, and the heat accumulates over the deserts; until
at last the south-east trade-wind of the southern hemisphere has become
the south-west monsoon of the northern hemisphere! This monsoon prevails
from about the 1st of May to the 1st of November, when the sun has again
passed into the southern hemisphere, and withdrawn his heat from the great
deserts. The normal condition of things being thus restored, the
vanquished north-east trade-wind regains its courage, and, chasing back
the south-west monsoon, resumes its sway.
If the reader will again cast his eye upon the sketch, he will see that
the south-west winds which are now blowing over Hindostan, instead of
being dry winds, must be heavily laden with moisture. They have had a
clean sweep from the tropic of Capricorn, with no land intervening between
them and the coast of Hindostan. They have followed the sun in his course,
and under the influence of his perpendicular rays have lapped up the
waters like a thirsty wolf. The evaporation in these seas is enormous. It
has been stated, on the authority of the Secretary of the Geographical
Society of Bombay, that it has been found in the Bay of Bengal to exceed
an inch daily. From having too little water during the winter months in
Hindostan, we are now, in the summer months, in danger of having too much.
The young cotton crop will be drowned out. What is to prevent it? Here we
have another beautiful provision at hand. The reader has observed the
Ghaut Mountains stretching along parallel with the west coast of
Hindostan. These mountains protect the plains from inundation. They have,
therefore, equally important functions to perform with the deserts. The
south-west monsoon blows square across these mountains. As the heavily
laden wind begins to ascend the first slopes, it commences to deposit its
moisture. Incessant rains set in, and immense quantities of water fall
before the winds have passed the mountains. The precipitation has been
known to be as great as twelve or thirteen inches in a single day! The
winds, thus deprived of their excess of water are now in a proper
condition to fertilize, without drowning the immense plains that lie
between the Ghauts and the Himalayas--which, as before remarked, is the
cotton region of India. It is thus that the _Great Deserts of Central Asia
produce the cotton crop of Hindostan_. To the ignorant Tartar who ventures
across the margins of these deserts, all seems dreary, desolate, and
death-like, and he is at a loss to conceive for what purpose they were
created. Clothe these deserts with verdure, and intersperse them with
rivers and mountains, and forthwith the fertile plains of Hindostan would
become a great desert, and its two hundred millions of inhabitants perish.
We captured on board the last prize a batch of Bombay newspapers--large
"dailies," edited with ability, and filled with news from all parts of the
world. It is the press, more than anything else, that indicates the growth
and prosperity of a country. One only needed to look at the long columns
of these immense dailies, filled with advertisements, to realize the fact
that Bombay was a bee-hive, containing its three hundred thousand
inhabitants. We were, indeed, in the midst of a great empire, of which, in
the western world, we read, it is true, but of which we have no just
conception until we visit it. The British empire in India, stretching from
the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca, is a creation which does honor
to our race and language. I had coasted nearly its whole extent, and
everywhere I found evidences of contentment, thrift, and prosperity. A
constant stream of British shipping was passing to and fro, developing its
immense commerce, and pouring its untold millions into the British
exchequer. Powerful and swift steamships bring the home mails to three or
four prominent points along the coast, as Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong
Kong, and from these points other steamers spread it broadcast over the
empire. Railroads are pushed in every direction, there being as many as
three thousand miles in operation, and the navigation of the coast
districts of Hindostan has been carried, by means of a series of lagoons
and canals, from Cape Comorin, hundreds of miles to the northward. These
railroads and canals have opened up new fields of industry, and have been
of especial service in developing that pet idea of England, the production
of cotton.
Up to the breaking out of our war, the cultivation of this valuable staple
in India was a mere experiment. It is now an assured success. Those great
fields lying between the Ghauts and the Himalayas of which we have been
speaking, are being brought into connection with the sea-board, by lines
of easy and cheap transportation. They have been found equal to our
Southern plantations in the production of the article, and labor is a
hundred per cent. cheaper, at least, than with us. Here are all the
elements of cheap production. Our Yankee brethren have talked a good deal
of what they "conquered" in the war, and have been quarrelling ever since
over the fruits of their victory. Here is one of their conquests which no
one can doubt--the transfer of the cotton supply of the world, from these
Southern States to British India. The time is not far distant when Yankee
spindles and looms will be spinning and weaving India cotton for the
supply of their own people.
The moral conquest of India, by the British people, is even more
remarkable and more admirable than its physical conquest. Since their last
Indian war, the whole country, from one end of it to the other, has
settled down in the most profound peace. Nor is this the peace of
despotism, for in comparison with the extent of territory, and the two
hundred millions of people to be governed, the number of troops is
ridiculously small. The conquest is one of arts and civilization, and not
of arms. The railroad, the canal, the ship, the printing press, and above
all, a paternal and beneficent government, have worked out the wonderful
problem of the submission of teeming millions to the few. It is the
conquest of race and of intellect. The docile Hindoo, not devoid of
letters himself, has realized the fact that a superior people has come to
settle in his country, to still domestic broils, strip former despots of
their ill-gotten and much-abused power, and to rule him with humanity and
justice. The torch of civilization has shone in dark places, dispelled
many prejudices, and brought to light and broken up many hideous
practices. Schools and colleges have sprung up everywhere, and the natural
taste of the native population for letters has been cultivated. In the
very newspapers which we are reviewing are to be found long dissertations
and criticisms, by Hindoo scholars, on various matters of morals, science,
and literature.
A government whose foundations are thus laid will be durable. In
Australia, New Zealand, and other colonies, where the white population, in
the course of a few years, will greatly preponderate over the native, mere
adolescence will bring about independence. But India will never become
adolescent in this sense. She will remain indefinitely a prosperous ward
in chancery--the guardian and the ward living amicably together, and each
sharing the prosperity of the other.
On the day after leaving the Malabar coast, we spoke a Portuguese bark,
from Rio Janeiro bound to Goa, a short distance to the northward of us.
This was the only Portuguese we met in these seas, of which they were, at
one period of their history, entire masters. Vasco de Gama had made the
seas classic by his adventures, and his countrymen, following in his
track, had studded the coast with towns, of which Goa was one of the most
ancient and important. As between the Hindoo and the Portuguese, the
latter would probably long have maintained his ascendency, but there came
along that superior race--that white race which has never submitted to any
admixture of its blood--of which we have just been speaking, and nature,
with her unvarying laws, had done the rest. The Portuguese gave place to
the Englishman, as naturally as the African, and afterward the Hindoo, had
given place to the Portuguese.
Passing through the chain of islands which extends parallel with the
Malabar coast for some distance, we stretched across the Arabian Sea in
the direction of the east coast of Africa. We were now in the height of
the season of the north-east monsoon, which was a fair wind for us, and
the weather was as delightful as I have ever experienced it in any part of
the globe--not even excepting our own Gulf of Mexico, and coasts of
Alabama, and Florida, in the summer season. For twelve successive days, we
did not have occasion to lower a studding sail, day or night! We had a
constant series of clear skies, and gentle breezes. The nights were
serene, and transparent, and the sunsets were magnificent beyond
description. The trade wind is, _par excellence_, the wind of beautiful
sunsets. Bright, gauzy clouds, float along lazily before it, and
sometimes the most charming cumuli are piled up on the western horizon
while the sun is going down. Stately cathedrals, with their domes and
spires complete, may be traced by the eye of fancy, and the most gorgeous
of golden, violet, orange, purple, green, and other hues, light up now a
colonnade, now a dome, and now a spire of the aerial edifice. And then
came on the twilight, with its gray and purple blended, and with the
twilight, the sounds of merriment on board the _Alabama_--for we had found
a successor for Michael Mahoney, the Irish fiddler, and the usual evening
dances were being held. We had been now some time at sea, since leaving
Singapore; the "jail had been delivered," the proper punishments
administered, and Jack, having forgotten both his offences, and their
punishment, had again become a "good boy," and was as full of fun as ever.
We had some fine fishing while passing through the Arabian Sea. The
dolphin came around us in schools, and a number of them were struck with
the "grains," and caught with lines--the bait being a piece of red flannel
rag. And some of the seamen resorted to an ingenious device for entrapping
the flying fish by night. A net being spread, with out-riggers, under the
bow of the ship, and a light being held just above it, the fish, as they
would rise in coveys--being flushed from time to time by the noise of the
ship through the water--would rush at the light, and striking against the
bow of the ship, tumble into the net beneath. Bartelli, on several
mornings, spread my breakfast-table with them.
On the 29th of January, we observed in latitude 2 deg. 43' north, and
longitude 51 deg. east; and on the following evening passed through a
remarkable patch of the sea. At about eight P. M., there being no moon,
but the sky being clear, and the stars shining brightly, we suddenly
passed from the deep blue water in which we had been sailing, into a patch
of water so white that it startled me; so much did it appear like a shoal.
To look over the ship's side, one would have sworn that she was in no more
than five or six fathoms of water. The officer of the deck became
evidently alarmed, and reported the fact to me, though I myself had
observed it. There was no shoal laid down, within several hundred miles of
our position, on the chart, and yet here was so manifestly one, that I
shortened sail--we were running seven or eight knots per hour at the time,
with a fresh breeze--hove the ship to, and got a cast of the deep-sea
lead. The line ran out, and out, until a hundred fathoms had been taken by
the lead, and still we found no bottom. We now checked the line, and
hauling in the lead, made sail again. My fears thus quieted, I observed
the phenomenon more at leisure. The patch was extensive. We were several
hours in running through it. Around the horizon there was a subdued glare,
or flush, as though there were a distant illumination going on, whilst
overhead there was a lurid, dark sky, in which the stars paled. The whole
face of nature seemed changed, and with but little stretch of the
imagination, the _Alabama_ might have been conceived to be a phantom ship,
lighted up by the sickly and unearthly glare of a phantom sea, and gliding
on under the pale stars one knew not whither.
Upon drawing a bucket of this water, it appeared to be full of minute
luminous particles; the particles being instinct with life, and darting,
and playing about in every direction; but upon a deck-lantern being
brought, and held over the bucket, the little animals would all disappear,
and nothing but a bucket full of _grayish_ water would be left. Here was
an area of twenty miles square, in which Nature, who delights in life, was
holding one of her starlight revels, with her myriads upon myriads of
living creatures, each rejoicing in the life given it by its Creator, and
dying almost as soon as born. The sun would rise on the morrow, over a sea
as blue as usual, with only some motes in the pelluced waters glinting
back his rays; and this twenty miles square of life would be no longer
distinguishable from the surrounding waters.
We crossed the equator on the 30th of January. The winds had now become
light, and frequent calms ensued, though the bright weather continued. On
the 9th of February we made the Comoro islands, that lie not a great way
from the coast of Africa, and, getting up steam, ran in, and anchored at
Johanna. This island is the most frequented of the group; ships bound to
and from the East Indies, by the way of the Mozambique channel, frequently
stopping here for refreshments. All these islands are volcanic in origin.
They are of small extent, rise abruptly out of the sea, with deep water
around them, and are mountainous. They are not claimed by any European
nation; nor do any of the chiefs on the neighboring coast of Africa
attempt to exercise jurisdiction over them. They are inhabited by a mixed
race of Arabs, Africans, and East Indians, and each has its separate
government, which is always a government of force, and is frequently
overthrown by revolutions. Johanna, at the time we visited it, was under
the rule of an Arab, who styled himself, the "Sultan Abdallah." From the
circumstance that English ships frequently stop here, most of the
inhabitants who live on the sea-coast speak a little English, and we were
surprised, when we anchored, to find ourselves quite well known. The name
of our ship was familiar to the dusky inhabitants, and they were evidently
much delighted at our arrival. The "Sultan" did not come on board--he was
busy, he said, putting up a sugar-mill--but he sent his Minister of
Foreign Affairs, and Commander-in-Chief of his Army to see me; and with
these, Galt, my paymaster, had no difficulty in contracting for the
regular supply of bullocks and vegetables, to be sent off to us during our
stay.
I had come in solely for the purpose of refreshing my crew, and for this
purpose we remained a week. During this time we became quite friendly with
the Johannese--receiving frequent visits from them, and visiting them at
their houses in return. We were quite surprised at the intelligence and
civilization which characterized them. They nearly all read and write, and
the better classes set up some pretensions to literature. They are
Mohammedans in faith, and I found some of their priests, who were fond of
visiting me, sprightly, well informed, and liberal men, acknowledging both
Moses and Christ to have been prophets, and entertaining a respect for the
Christian religion; doubtless the result of their intercourse with the
English.
I visited the houses of some of my friends with the hope of getting a
glimpse at their domestic life, but was disappointed. They received me
with all cordiality and respect, but the females of their families were
carefully kept out of sight. A female slave would fan me, and hand me my
coffee and sherbet, but that was all. Their slavery appeared to be of a
mitigated form, the slaves being on easy and even familiar terms with
their masters. The houries who fanned me could have been bought for twenty
dollars each. The price of a slave fresh from the coast, is not more than
half that sum.
I gave my sailors a run on shore, but this sort of "liberty" was awful
hard work for Jack. There was no such thing as a glass of grog to be found
in the whole town, and as for a fiddle, and Sal for a partner--all of
which would have been a matter of course in _civilized_ countries--there
were no such luxuries to be thought of. They found it a difficult matter
to get through with the day, and were all down at the beach long before
sunset--the hour appointed for their coming off--waiting for the approach
of the welcome boat. I told Kell to let them go on shore as often as they
pleased, but no one made a second application.
On the 15th of February, having received on board a supply of half a dozen
live bullocks, and some fruits and vegetables, we got under way, and again
turned our head to the south-west. The winds were light, but we were much
assisted by the currents; for we were now approaching the Mozambique
Channel, and the south-west current, of which I spoke when we left the
Cape of Good Hope for our run before the "brave west winds," to the
eastward, was hurrying us forward, sometimes at the rate of forty or fifty
miles a day. As we progressed, the wind freshened, and by the time we had
entered the narrowest part of the channel between Madagascar and the
African coast, which lies in about 15 deg. south latitude, we lost the
fine weather and clear skies, which we had brought all the way across the
Arabian Sea. We now took several gales of wind. Rain-squalls were of
frequent occurrence. As we approached the south-west end of Madagascar,
which lies just without the Tropic of Capricorn, we encountered one of the
most sublime storms of thunder and lightning I ever witnessed. It occurred
at night. Black rain-clouds mustered from every quarter of the compass,
and the heavens were soon so densely and darkly overcast, that it was
impossible to see across the ship's deck. Sometimes the most terrific
squalls of wind accompany these storms, and we furled most of the sails,
and awaited in silence the _denouement_. The thunder rolled and crashed,
as if the skies were falling in pieces; and the lightning--sheet
lightning, streaked lightning, forked lightning--kept the firmament almost
constantly ablaze. And the rain! I thought I had seen it rain before, but
for an hour, Madagascar beat the Ghaut Mountains. It came down almost
literally by the bucketfull. Almost a continual stream of lightning ran
down our conductors, and hissed as it leaped into the sea. There was not
much wind, but all the other meteorological elements were there in
perfection. Madagascar is, perhaps, above all other countries, the
bantling and the plaything of the storm, and thunder and lightning. Its
plains, heated to nearly furnace-heat, by a tropical sun, its ranges of
lofty mountains, the currents that sweep along its coasts, and its
proximity to equatorial Africa, all point it out as being in a region
fertile of meteorological phenomena. Cyclones of small diameter are of
frequent occurrence in the Mozambique Channel. They travel usually from
south-east to north-west, or straight across the channel. We took one of
these short gales, which lasted us the greater part of a day.
Leaving the channel, and pursuing our way toward the Cape of Good Hope, we
sounded on the Agulhas Bank on the 7th of March--our latitude being 35 deg.
10', and longitude 24 deg. 08'. This bank is sometimes the scene of
terrible conflicts of the elements in the winter season. Stout ships are
literally swamped here, by the huge, wall-like seas; and the frames of
others so much shaken and loosened in every knee and joint, as to render
them unseaworthy. The cause of these terrible, short, racking seas, is
the meeting of the winds and currents. Whilst the awful, wintry gale is
howling from the west and north-west, the Mozambique, or Agulhas current,
as it is now called, is setting in its teeth, sometimes at the rate of two
or three knots per hour. A struggle ensues between the billows lashed into
fury by the winds, and the angry current which is opposing them. The
ground-swell contributes to the turmoil of the elements, and the stoutest
mariner sometimes stands appalled at the spectacle of seas with nearly
perpendicular walls, battering his ship like so many battering-rams, and
threatening her with instant destruction. Hence the name of the "stormy
cape," applied to the Cape of Good Hope.
Arriving on our old cruising ground off the pitch of the Cape, we held
ourselves here a few days, overhauling the various ships that passed. But
American commerce, which, as the reader has seen, had fled this beaten
track before we left for the East Indies, had not returned to it. The few
ships of the enemy that passed, still gave the Cape a wide berth, and
winged their flight homeward over the by-ways, instead of the highways of
the ocean. We found the coast clear again of the enemy's cruisers. That
huge old coal-box, the _Vanderbilt_, having thought it useless to pursue
us farther, had turned back, and was now probably doing a more profitable
business, by picking up blockade-runners on the American coast. This
operation _paid_--the captain might grow rich upon it. Chasing the
_Alabama_ did not. Finding that it was useless for us to cruise longer off
the Cape, we ran into Cape Town, and came to anchor at half-past four, on
the afternoon of the 20th of March. We had gone to sea from Simon's Town,
on our way to the East Indies, on the 24th of the preceding
September,--our cruise had thus lasted within a day or two of six months.