My quiet room-mate went with us no farther. He was disheartened by
the length of the voyage, and perhaps thought Brazil presented quite
as many advantages as California. His place was filled by a young,
red-haired Scotchman, who had formerly lived in Edinburgh, and sat on
the knee of Sir Walter. He had been on one or two whaling voyages,
and had evidently seen the world. He played on the guitar--sang a
variety of songs, some of which were of a very doubtful character--was
an expert boxer--had something of a turn for poetry and light
literature--and, in spite of his unsettled, wandering life, still
possessed, to an unusual degree, that sort of native refinement that
makes one tender of the feelings and weaknesses of others. He seemed,
however, to value these various accomplishments only as passports to
the favour of the other sex. His successes in that line had been very
numerous, according to his own showing, and had confirmed him in the
belief that there was no such thing as virtue in the world.
On leaving port, we plunged at once into the region of storms. The
tropic of Capricorn seemed an actual wall of separation, dividing two
distinct climates as smoothly and evenly as it does the zones upon
the map. On one side, all was bright and serene; on the other, cloudy
and tempestuous. Off the mouth of the La Platte, the mariner is sure
to encounter heavy seas, as if there floated down that magnificent
river, from its mountain birthplace, nothing but miniature Andes to
encumber the smooth surface of the deep. Day after day we climbed up
and down these hills, as slowly and painfully as a man walking over
a ploughed field. We gained, seemingly, not a foot; and I sometimes
thought we were to remain there forever seesawing the same dull wave.
Every morning we found ourselves apparently just where we were the
night before; the same ill-looking wave on our quarter, the same dirty
cloud over head. Drive as hard as we could, there was no getting away
from them; they still, like the headless horseman, preserved the same
relative position.
But the ocean was no longer a solitude; the space around the ship
resembled rather an immense barnyard thronged with a greater variety
of poultry than is often seen, even in the enclosures of the most
successful fancier. There were little bevies of Mother Cary's
Chickens--flocks of Cape pigeons, gonies, hagletts, and mollymocks;
and, largest and noblest of all, the solitary albatross. They followed
us for miles, floating on the water till almost out of sight, then
regaining their position by a hasty flight. We fished for them with
great success, using for bait a bit of pork attached to a stout hook,
which, being suffered to float on a piece of board, far behind the
ship, was eagerly swallowed by these greedy scavengers.
The largest albatross measured nearly twelve feet across his wings,
though his body was no larger than a goose. Their powers of flight
are unrivalled. I used to watch them for hours together, circling
with prying eyes round the ship, now rising, now falling, now coming
up heavily against the wind, then suddenly shooting away before it,
like a kite that has broken its string; and all, apparently, without
any more exertion than is visible in the flight of a thistle down,
their "sail broad vans" remaining constantly motionless, with the
exception, now and then, of a single, almost imperceptible flap, as
they varied their course to one side or the other.
When drawn on board, and placed upon the deck, the albatross lost
at once all this poetry of motion, and became an awkward, ungainly
bird, unable to rise into the air, and in constant danger of tumbling
forward on to its ugly nose. I was rather disappointed by the
indifference of our sailors on this interesting subject. They viewed
the death of their patron bird with as little concern as if it had
been a turkey; they had no superstitious fears about ill-luck thence
arising; and, indeed, I am sorry to say, were as little given to
superstition of any kind as the stoutest enlightener of the masses
could desire.
Some of the smaller birds were also killed for food; but their
feathers were so disproportioned to the flesh, that they were not
worth the trouble of picking. A far more abundant and grateful repast
was furnished by a porpoise, that was harpooned as he frolicked past
the bows. No sooner was the approach of these playful creatures
discovered, than the inspiriting cry of "porpoise," "porpoise,"
was echoed through the ship, and all hands were instantly on the
alert. They generally made their first appearance on our quarter;
and speedily overtaking us, rolled, in broken files, and with many
an awkward bound and splash, directly under the bowsprit. A harpoon
was always kept in readiness for such an emergency, and the second
mate, who was an old hand at the business, taking his station on the
martingal, waited a favourable opportunity to hurl his weapon into the
back of one of the plunging monsters. This was the first time he had
succeeded, and now twenty or thirty of the passengers, bowsing away on
the rope to the tune of Uncle Ned, soon landed our game on deck. He
weighed several hundred pounds, and the flesh, which was remarkably
sweet, closely resembling beef, furnished an excellent dinner for all
on board.
The sight of a strange sail in these lonely seas aroused our most
eager speculation. She was bound in the same direction as ourselves,
and we had no difficulty in conjecturing that she was seeking the
same golden gate. She proved to be the ship Sweden; had left port
three weeks after us, and partly by not stopping at any port, and
partly by her superior sailing, had gained so decided an advantage.
We raced with her two days in succession, but, as the wind freshened,
she slowly crept ahead, and our captain gave orders to put on more
sail. The Sweden followed our example, and both vessels, crowded with
all the canvass they could bear, staggered, like a drunken man with
a barrel of whisky on his shoulders, heavily, along their uneven
path, showing many feet of their bright and dripping copper at every
spring. Suddenly the Sweden carried away her foresail, and we began to
recover the ground we had lost. But it was set again with provoking
rapidity, and, ere long, we were compelled to abandon the contest.
Before parting company, however, we endeavoured to find out if her
commander intended to go through the Straits of Magellan, as there was
a great diversity of opinion on board our ship as to the expediency
of attempting the passage. A board was put up in the rigging with the
question printed on it in large letters; but though, as we afterwards
learned, they saw the board, they could not make out the inscription,
and our captain, in his perplexity, finally referred the matter to
the passengers. The majority, knowing nothing of the difficulties of
the undertaking, and naturally desirous to shorten the voyage as much
as possible, were in favour of going through the Straits; but we were
fortunately prevented from making the trial by adverse winds that
drove us wide of the mark, and compelled us to take the longer, but
far safer passage round the Horn.
About the middle of May we arrived off the coast of Patagonia, and
soon after made Staten Island. In these inhospitable latitudes, we
found the serenest weather since leaving Rio; the sea, though heaving
in lazy swells, was almost as smooth as a looking-glass. It was
evident that our coming was unexpected, and that the fierce brood of
storms that infest that region had left home on some distant marauding
expedition. We were so near the coast that we could easily distinguish
the helmets of glittering snow worn by the hills drawn up in solid
phalanx near the shore; but we were unable to catch a glimpse of that
race of giants that had so imposed upon our childish fancy.
Passing Terra del Fuego, and the little island of Cape Horn, at too
great a distance to obtain a view of those famous headlands, we held
steadily on our course into still higher latitudes; till, having
gained a sufficient elevation to avoid all danger of being blown back
into the Atlantic, the ship's head was, at last, turned towards the
west; and on the morning of the twenty-second of May we waked up in
the Pacific, with something of the feeling of those early navigators
when they first burst through into this unknown sea.
The sun off Cape Horn is a very sleepy fellow, with none of that
inconvenient propensity to early rising that elsewhere interferes so
much with our arrangements; he rose about eight, attained a meridian
altitude of some twelve degrees, and retired at four. The weather
was now cold and squally. Spirts of rain or sleet, or what was still
worse, the tops of the waves driven in upon us by the winds, made it
almost as hard to remain upon deck as if it had been swept by the fire
of a battery. The ship seemed almost entirely deserted; a few of the
more resolute sort, their heads drawn into their shoulders, purple
with cold, and half blinded by the spray, still clung to the rigging,
and stared stupidly, with puckered mouth and eyebrows, out into the
immeasurable gloom. The rest had retired, like bats and owls, or a
somnolescent bear, into the most out-of-the-way places they could
find; and it was about as safe and agreeable an operation to disturb
one of them as to stir up the abstracted, meditative gentleman last
mentioned from his hollow tree.
Slinking away to my berth, I wrapped myself in great-coats and
blankets, and strove, by the aid of a feeble lantern and an
entertaining book, to conjure up more pleasing associations; but the
result was a wretched failure. My narrow stateroom, six feet by four,
contained, within its dark green walls, as much that was gloomy and
repulsive as the wet, slippery deck, and melancholy ocean--everything
had the feeling of a "cold, damp, uncomfortable body."
Cooking, in such weather, was well nigh impossible, but fortunately we
had no appetite. We were put on an allowance of water, three quarts
a day; but then we could not have drunk half of it if we had tried.
Everybody, however, was out of sorts; and the dismal weather, the
wretched fare, and the unjustifiable length of the voyage, afforded
sufficient matter, if not cause, for grumbling. In such a state of
mind it is anything but agreeable to be left behind by more successful
rivals. A handsome, gaily-painted ship came up with us one of these
days, and the usual question was propounded, how long she had been
out. "Sixty-one days," was the ready and self-satisfied answer; "how
long have you?" "One hundred and four," very slowly and reluctantly.
We heard the passengers on the Loo Choo repeat the number with jeering
triumph, as she forged ahead, flinging up her heels, and showing her
bright yellow bottom in a very insulting manner. I hurled after them a
wish not of the most amiable character, and looked to see them go down
together; but they held on their course, rejoicing in the successful
flam they had put upon us. The first question we asked, on arriving at
San Francisco, was about the ships we had spoken on the way; and it
gave us no little gratification to learn that the Loo Choo had not yet
come into port. At the time of our meeting, she had really been out
eighty-one days, and her whole passage was even longer than our own.
We then knew nothing of all this, however, and it would be hard to
find a more discontented, distracted set of beings than was on
board the Leucothea after the Loo Choo was fairly out of sight. A
merry party got together round the windlass for the express purpose
of cursing the ship and all concerned in her, the day in which they
ever heard there was such a place as N----, and themselves, most
of all, for having taken passage in what their prompter called
such a lubberly, blubber-hunting craft. They were unfortunately
interrupted, however, in their well meant design, by the cheerful cry
of "porpoise," "porpoise," and hurrying to the bows, we soon had one
of these delicate monsters floundering on deck, which, like a lump of
sugar to a peevish child, put us all, for a time, in good humor.
Early the next morning, before it was light enough to see the ship's
length, a fierce and sudden cry of "put the helm hard down, lower the
boat," pierced every part of the ship, falling on the ears of the
sleeping passengers like their funeral knell. "What's the matter?
is the ship sinking?" cried at once a hundred voices, and a hundred
hearts stood still for the answer. The next moment, "a man overboard"
explained the alarm, and converted the lively apprehensions for our
own safety into a comparatively inert sympathy for another. The
waves were running mountains high, and the boats were all firmly
lashed in their places, so that lowering one was both difficult and
dangerous, yet ten minutes found the man safe in the ship, though so
thoroughly exhausted by the intense cold as to be unable to stand
alone. His escape was almost miraculous; he was stationed just beneath
the bowsprit, trying to harpoon a porpoise, when the ship plunging
heavily, he was swept off by the waves. As he passed along the side,
he uttered the cry that had produced such an excitement, and was thus
the first to announce his own danger. He afterwards contrived to kick
off his boots, and being an excellent swimmer, kept his head above
water till the boat, pulling directly in the wake of the ship, came to
his relief.
The night came on unusually cold and blustering. I was sitting with
Tertium and Captain Bill, in their stateroom, when a faint smell of
fire attracted our attention. As it grew stronger, we became greatly
alarmed, as indeed we well might, for nothing can appear more hideous
to the imagination, than a ship loaded with passengers, on fire of a
dark, stormy, wintry night off Cape Horn. Captain Bill now hastily
descended into the cabin and roused the captain, who was already
asleep, and became almost palsied with fright on hearing the dreadful
tidings.
"Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burn'd."
Before, however, he reached the deck, we had opened the door of the
adjoining stateroom, and discovered the seat of danger. The wife of
one of the seamen, who occupied the room, had incautiously placed a
hot brick between the sheets, to answer the purpose of a warming pan,
and the whole bedding was soon in a light blaze. It was extinguished
without difficulty, and, as I had displayed, through the whole of this
trying occasion, that presence of mind of which I am so justly proud,
I was able to laugh without mercy at my companions for their needless
alarm.
This was the last of Cape Horn. Near the end of May we fell in with
a favourable breeze that bore us, in ten days, farther than we
had sailed in any preceding month, and promised a speedy arrival
at Talcahuano--but, a few hundred miles south of that port, we
encountered a violent head wind, against which we slowly toiled for
nearly a week, and it was not till the 12th of June that we came in
sight of the coast of Chili.
We came to anchor, the same evening, in the little bay, abreast of
the town and a quarter of a mile from the shore. The next morning
we were surrounded by native boats, bringing narrow-necked earthen
vessels full of milk, fine white rolls, and baskets of eggs and
apples; for all which we paid about the same prices as are usual in
our own cities. Going on shore we found ourselves in the dirtiest
little village in the world, except one that I afterwards visited in
Central America, consisting of a few streets of low houses built of
large coarse brick, or rude basket work daubed with clay. Talcahuano,
or Turkeywarner, as it is oddly enough called by sailors, though
hardly known to the civilised world, has long been the favorite resort
of ships engaged in the whale fishery. They generally remain a week
or more in port to recruit and lay in a stock of fresh provisions,
and the town has hence become the very hot bed of vice. As we walked
through the filthy narrow streets, the open doors on each side were
full of women, who kept up an incessant cry of "come in, Californe;"
"Californe, come in;" adding often other allurements of a yet more
unmistakable character.
In the afternoon a large party sat down to dinner in a shambling,
tumbledown edifice called a hotel, and kept by an American. Ascending
a flight of narrow, rickety stairs, we passed through a range of rooms
and galleries presenting the very picture of desolation, till we came
to one a little superior to the rest, and just wide enough for the
long narrow table that by its royal plenty gave the lie to all about
it.
A pig, crispily roasted by some firm yet gentle hand, graced the
upper end, supported, at convenient intervals, by beef, turkeys,
chickens, and pigeon pie; flanked, in their turn, by a small but
delicious species of oysters, potatoes, and string beans, bread and
butter,--the last imported from the States--with a noble array of
pitchers and bottles containing a liberal supply of the cheap wine
of the country--all furnished for the moderate sum of half a dollar.
The reader can but faintly imagine the wholesouled delight with which
our senses, after so long mortification and self-denial, expatiated
over this dainty repast. Yet call it not animal, sensual, that
agreeable titillation, having its principal seat indeed in the palate
and stomach, but thence diffused over the brain and heart, making
the one apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and
delectable shapes,--disposing the other to gentle and kind offices,
and producing, in fine, the most perfect harmony of the whole man.
But a more potent influence was at work to inflame our imaginations.
While we were at sea, that faculty was comparatively quiescent; our
droning, isolated life was by no means favourable to excitement, which
can hardly exist without novelty and frequent contact with others. We
now found both of these in abundance, and the marvellous reports we
heard on every side seemed to acquire a greater degree of credibility
from our near approach to the fountain head. In the inflated language
of our narrators, that portion of Chili was almost exhausted of its
male population. All along the coast they were hastening to the El
Dorado; some in foreign shipping, and others, who could not obtain
a passage, crept along the shore in boats, or set out on a still
more perilous journey by land. Parties had already returned with
sums varying from twenty to two hundred thousand dollars; one woman
in particular was instanced who had dug fifty thousand with her own
hands, and my informant had seen the kegs and boxes that held the
gold. To all these stories we listened with the gravest deliberation,
and having, with a degree of sagacity that did us infinite credit,
rejected one-half as falsehood, we swallowed the remainder without any
further difficulty.
Our little party of three was here converted into a quadrate by the
addition of a fourth member, who had been thus far hesitating between
the mines and San Francisco, but was now determined to try the former.
In honour of this new member we considered it necessary to add
somewhat to our bill of fare for the diggings, and I accordingly went
with him to examine into the merits of some jerked beef, an article
we had heard highly recommended for that purpose. It was in bundles
as big as a flour barrel, and was nearly as tough and unpalatable as
the strips of hide that bound it together; but it contained a deal of
nourishment, there was no doubt about that; and as for troubling our
heads about the quality of our food, while making a hundred dollars
apiece a day, such an extravagance never entered our calculations.
We had brought with us from home an abundant supply of beans, rice,
biscuit, pork, and sugar--cold water we expected to find in the
mines; and on this lenten fare we had no doubt we should be perfectly
content. But this hung beef was peculiarly detestable, and therefore
highly appropriate as an addition to our list of comestibles; the
only thing, in fact, wanting to add the finishing touch to its unique
ugliness. Accordingly we bought the beef, congratulating each other
on our good fortune, carried it with us into the mines, and there
incontinently hung it up on a tree as the only way of getting rid of
so formidable an incumbrance.
Thursday it rained heavily, and the swell that came in from the sea
rendered all communication with the shore extremely difficult. Busby
and Captain Bill attempting, with several others, to come on board,
were caught by a roller that stove their boat against the beach and
drenched them all in salt water, to the serious detriment of their
Old-World hats and chest-wrinkled broadcloth. This being the season
of the winter solstice, we were agreeably disappointed at finding the
sun shining brightly the following morning, which encouraged us to
pass the day on shore. A party even had the hardihood to hire horses
and ride to the city of Concepcion, a distance of ten miles; but they
found the road in a wretched condition, and were horribly scared by
robbers, from whom they escaped only by unparalleled valour, perhaps a
little tempered with discretion.
We met with various delays in obtaining a supply of water, and as it
was not all on board by Saturday night, the crew were set to work the
next morning. They were already dressed to go ashore; and Sunday being
considered a holiday, though anything but a holy day, they at first
declared they would not hoist a cask, but finally pulled off their
coats, and went to work, to the tune of "Bright Canaan, that happy
land!" and the chorus being enthusiastically helped along by some
fifty voices, the casks came in merrily, and the task was finished
in a few hours. In the afternoon I took a long walk into the country
with Busby and Number Four. The flocks of sheep feeding on the hills
and the soft green turf, the absence of which I had noticed at Rio,
reminded us pleasantly of New-England; but the enormous cacti, a foot
in diameter, and the odd little wattled cottages, built in unexpected
situations on the hill sides, at once dispelled the illusion. We put
to sea Monday evening, and will now take leave of Chili in the words
of our gifted poetess:
"Among the fruits to be found there,
Are apples, cabbages, onions, and pear.
The animals is the same with the exception of the mules;
But in this land of freedom, we oughter be thankful no slaveholder
rules."