"The J. L., eleven days from New-York, bound to New-Orleans."
"Ay, ay--any news?"
"No, nothing particular."
We again moved on in silence; sailing in company, but not always in
sight of each other, during the remainder of the night.
A delightful prospect met our eyes, on coming on deck the morning after
making the Hole in the Wall. The sea was crowded with vessels, bearing
upon its silvery bosom a floating city. By some fortuitous
circumstance, a fleet of vessels, bearing the flags of various nations,
had arrived in the Bahama channel at the same time, and now, were
amicably sailing in company, borne by the same waves--wafted by the same
breeze, and standing toward the same point. Our New-York friend, for
whom, on casting our eyes over the lively scene we first searched, we
discovered nearly two leagues from us to the windward, stretching boldly
across the most dangerous part of the Bahama Banks, instead of taking,
with the rest of the fleet, the farther but less hazardous course down
the "Channel"--if a few inches more of water than the Banks are
elsewhere covered with, may with propriety be thus denominated.
A little to the south of us, rocking upon the scarcely rising billows,
was a rough clumsy looking craft, with one low, black mast, and
amputated bowsprit, about four feet in length, sustaining a jib of no
particular hue or dimensions. Hoisted upon the mast, was extended a dark
red painted mainsail, blackened by the smoke, which, issuing from a
black wooden chimney amidships, curled gracefully upward and floated
away on the breeze in thin blue clouds. A little triangular bit of red
bunting fluttered at her mast head; and, towed by a long line at her
stern, a little green whale-boat skipped and danced merrily over the
waves. Standing, or rather reclining at the helm--for men learn
strangely indolent postures in the warm south--with a segar between his
lips, and his eye fixed earnestly upon the J. L., was a black-whiskered
fellow, whose head was enveloped in a tri-coloured, conical cap,
terminated by a tassel, which dangled over his left ear. A blue flannel
shirt, and white flowing trowsers, with which his body and limbs were
covered, were secured to his person by a red sash tied around the waist,
instead of suspenders. Two others similarly dressed, and as bountifully
bewhiskered, leaned listlessly over the side gazing at our ship, as she
dashed proudly past their rude bark. A negro, whose charms would have
been unquestionable in Congo, was stretched, apparently asleep, along
the main-boom, which one moment swung with him over the water, and the
next suspended him over his chimney, whose azure incense ascended from
his own altar, to this ebony deity, in clouds of grateful odour.
"What craft do you call that?" inquired one of the passengers of the
captain.
"What? It's a wrecker's lugger.--Watch him now!"
At the moment he spoke, the lugger dropped astern of us, came to a few
points--hauled close on the wind, and then gathering headway, bounded
off with the speed of the wind in the direction of the New-York packet
ship, which the wrecker's quicker and more practised eye had detected
displaying signals of distress. Turning our glasses in the direction of
the ship, we could see that she had grounded on the bank, thereby
affording very ample illustration of the truth of the proverb, "The more
haste the less speed."
About the middle of the forenoon the wind died away, and left us
becalmed within half a mile of a brig loaded with lumber. The remaining
vessels of the fleet were fast dispersing over the sea--this Yankee
"fruiterer" being the only one sailing within a league of us.
These lumber vessels, which are usually loaded with shingles, masts,
spars, and boards, have been long the floating mines of Maine. But as
her forests disappear, which are the veins from whence she draws the
ore, her sons will have to plough the earth instead of the ocean. Then,
and not till then, will Maine take a high rank as an agricultural state.
The majority of men who sail in these lumber vessels are both farmers
and sailors; who cultivate their farms at one season, fell its timber
and sail away with it in the shape of boards and shingles to a West
India mart at another. Jonathan is the only man who knows how to carry
on two trades at one time, and carry them on successfully.
For their lumber, which they more frequently _barter_ away than sell,
they generally obtain a return cargo of molasses, which is converted by
our "sober and moral" fellow-countrymen into liquid gunpowder, in the
vats of those numerous distilleries, which, like guide-posts to the
regions of death, line the sea skirts of New-England!
The smooth bottom, above which we were suspended, through the deceptive
transparency of the water, appeared, though eighteen feet beneath us,
within reach of the oar. But there were many objects floating by upon
the surface, which afforded us more interest than all beneath it.
Among these was the little nautilus which, gaily dancing over the waves,
like a Lilliputian mariner,
"Spreads his thin oar and courts the rising gale."
This beautiful animal sailed past us in fleets wafted by a breeze
gentler than an infant's breathing. We endeavoured to secure one of them
more beautiful than its fellows, but like a sensitive plant it instantly
shrunk at the touch, and sunk beneath the surface; appearing beneath the
water, like a little, animated globule tinged with the most delicate
colours. This singular animal is termed by the sailors, "The Portuguee'
man-o'-war," from what imaginary resemblance to the war vessels of His
Most Christian Majesty I am at a loss to determine; unless we resort for
a solution of the mystery to a jack-tar, whom I questioned upon the
subject--
"It's cause as how they takes in all sail, or goes _chuck_ to bottom,
when it 'gins to blow a spankin' breeze,"--truly a fine compliment to
the navarchy of Portugal!
This animal is a genus of the mollusca tribe, which glitters in the
night on the crest of every bursting wave. In the tropical seas it is
found riding over the gently ruffled billows in great numbers, with its
crystalline sail expanded to the light breeze--barks delicate and tiny
enough for fairy "Queen Mab." Termed by naturalists _pharsalia_, from
its habit of inflating its transparent sail, this splendid animal is
often confounded with the _nautilus pompilius_, a genus of marine
animals of an entirely distinct species, and of a much ruder
appearance, whose dead shells are found floating every where in the
tropical seas, while the living animal is found swimming upon the ocean
in every latitude.
Dr. Coates, in describing the Portuguese man-of-war (pharsalia) says,
that "it is an oblong animated sack of air, elongated at one extremity
into a conical neck, and surmounted by a membraneous expansion running
nearly the whole length of the body, and rising above into a
semi-circular sail, which can be expanded or contracted to a
considerable extent at the pleasure of the animal. From beneath the body
are suspended from ten to fifty, or more little tubes, from half an inch
to an inch in length, open at their lower extremity, and formed like the
flower of the blue bottle. These I cannot but consider as proper
stomachs, from the centre of which depends a little cord, never
exceeding the fourth of an inch in thickness, and often forty times as
long as the body.
"The group of stomachs is less transparent, and although the hue is the
same as that of the back, they are on this account incomparably less
elegant. By their weight and form they fill the double office of a keel
and ballast, while the cord-like appendage, which floats out for yards
behind, is called by seamen "the cable." With this organ, which is
supposed by naturalists, from the extreme pain felt, when brought in
contact with the back of the hand, to secrete a poisonous or acrid
fluid, the animal secures his prey." But in the opinion of Dr. C.
naturalists in deciding upon this mere hypothesis have concluded too
hastily. He says that the secret will be better explained by a more
careful examination of the organ itself. "The cord is composed of a
narrow layer of contractile fibres, scarcely visible when relaxed, on
account of its transparency. If the animal be large, this layer of
fibres will sometimes extend itself to the length of four or five yards.
A spiral line of blue, bead-like bodies, less than the head of a pin,
revolves around the cable from end to end, and under the microscope
these beads appear covered with minute prickles so hard and sharp that
they will readily enter the substance of wood, adhering with such
pertinacity that the cord can rarely be detached without breaking.
"It is to these prickles that the man-of-war owes its power of
destroying animals much its superior in strength and activity. When any
thing becomes impaled upon the cords, the contractile fibres are called
into action, and rapidly shrink from many feet in length to less than
the same number of inches, bringing the prey within reach of the little
tubes, by one of which it is immediately swallowed.
"Its size varies from half an inch to six inches in length. When it is
in motion the sail is accommodated to the force of the breeze, and the
elongated neck is curved upward, giving to the animal a form strongly
resembling the little glass swans which we sometimes see swimming in
goblets.
"It is not the form, however, which constitutes the chief beauty of this
little navigator. The lower part of the body and the neck are devoid of
all colours except a faint iridescence in reflected lights, and they are
so perfectly transparent that the finest print is not obscured when
viewed through them. The back becomes gradually tinged as we ascend,
with the finest and most delicate hues that can be imagined; the base of
the sail equals the purest sky in depth and beauty of tint; the summit
is of the most splendid red, and the central part is shaded by the
gradual intermixture of these colours through all the intermediate
grades of purple. Drawn as it were upon a ground-work of mist, the tints
have an aerial softness far beyond the reach of art."