On the morning of the 13th of August a sail was discovered in the
horizon. She rapidly overhauled us, and when sufficiently near, a boat
was sent to obtain, if possible, a supply of water, our own being now
nearly exhausted. The boat returned after several hours, bringing a
cask of water and a number of papers from Valparaiso, from which we
gleaned a variety of interesting items. The Helena left home a month
later than we, but though their voyage had been thus comparatively
short, her passengers were no better contented than our own. They had
just eaten their last pickled salmon; and the mackerel, fresh beef,
and potatoes, which still remained to them, could not efface from
their tender stomachs the recollection of their recent bereavement.
In view of this afflictive dispensation how unreasonable now seemed
our own ungrateful discontent. Henceforth, if any one grumbled, as
some are sure to do under the most favourable conditions, because our
water looked like soapsuds, or because we were forced to dine seven
days in the week on salt beef and pork, he was sure to be cut short
with, "Why!! they are out of pickled salmon on board the Helena!" and
unless he were a peculiarly obstinate and hardened offender, this
rebuke did not need to be repeated.
The next morning the Helena was out of sight, while, far to leeward
appeared another sail driving hard after us towards the same centre
of attraction. We had now been more than six months at sea, and
every day increased our feverish impatience to be at the end of our
voyage. Every change of wind was watched with intense anxiety, and
"How's she head?" was asked, at least, five hundred times a day. But
there was no hurrying the Leucothea; one ship was passing us after
another, but she would choose her own time, and gang her ain gait. We
seemed like one oppressed by a hideous nightmare, who tries to escape
from some threatening danger, but can hardly move a limb. With some,
this impatience finally gave way to settled apathy; they had been at
sea so long, they didn't care whether they ever saw land again or
not;--they wouldn't take the trouble to look at the compass, or even
to ask "how's she head;" to all such matters they were profoundly
indifferent. The weather sympathized with this class rather than the
other; not that it was indifferent, but it was sullen, sombre, and
peculiarly disagreeable, far colder than in the same latitudes in the
Atlantic, and inconstant as man, or woman either.
August 22d we spoke the Memnon, one hundred and fifteen days from New
York, and asked for a supply of water. While they were getting it out
of the hold, her main and mizzen topsails were hove aback, and she
lay almost motionless on the water, yet apparently trembling with
suppressed eagerness. She was by far the finest ship we had seen--a
clipper of a thousand tons;--her tall rakish masts were crowded
with canvass, and her long, low hull, beneath its rounded softness
of outline, seemed, like the "velvet grace" of a tiger, to promise
muscles of prodigious flexibility and power. I could not help feeling
a sensation something like pity, when I heard of her loss several
years after somewhere on the coast of Africa. The cask of water being
now lowered over her side, the Memnon filled her topsails, and went
off like a racehorse, as docile and highspirited; and the Leucothea
went tumbling after.
Sunday, the 26th, was a day of various excitement. Long lines of
pelicans sailed slowly over head, or dropped, with a sudden plash,
into the water;--herds of fin-backs heaved up their huge bulk on
every side, affording us a better view of their vast proportions than
we had obtained during our whole voyage; and several times we heard
them bellow, a sure sign, according to our old whalers, that they
were aware of our presence. By our reckoning, land could not be far
distant; we could even hear the trampling of the surf upon the shore,
and cannon fired, as we conjectured, from the port;--but a dense fog
shrouded every thing from sight. A bottle of wine was promised to the
first discoverer, but there was no need of any such inducement,--men
were already at the masthead trying to get above the fog, and others
had rowed off some distance in a boat, in hopes of seeing through or
under it.
We were at dinner when the startling sound of "Land, ho!" was heard
through the cabin skylight. Going hastily on deck, I turned my eyes
to the larboard bow, and saw, under the partially lifted fog, cliffs
towering apparently higher than Mt. Washington. The next moment,
however, I perceived my error; instead of being, as I supposed, ten or
fifteen miles off, they were not more than four; and, as I made the
discovery, they suddenly shrank down to their proper altitude of only
a few hundred feet. No one in the ship was familiar with the entrance
to the bay; and as by reckoning we were some distance to the north,
the ship was put on the other tack, and soon, to our infinite chagrin,
land again faded from view.
Late in the afternoon, a sail appeared astern, when our mizzen
topsails were hove aback, and we waited for her to come up in hopes
of obtaining the necessary information. As she toiled sluggishly on,
she seemed alive with men; they swarmed black as ants out on the
bowsprit--they clustered like bees in the rigging,--while the matted
heads that looked at us over the bulwarks, seemed almost as thick as a
pile of cocoanuts.
Every ship that we had thus far spoken seemed to have its own
peculiar character. The Memnon was a decided aristocrat, with,
no doubt, noble blood in her veins,--the Sweden was an honest,
hard-working, mechanic,--the Loo Choo, a swelling coxcomb, and the
Helena a substantial tradesman. The character of the Humboldt, our
new acquaintance, was equally unmistakable. She was an out-and-out
vagrant, a beggar born and bred, with an hereditary taint of mendicity
that all great Neptune's ocean could not wash out, and all the
perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten. She was ninety-eight days from
Panama, having left that port about the time we passed Cape Horn,
so that we had gained on her the whole length of South America. She
had on board three hundred and sixty-five passengers, and a more
squalid set of wretches are seldom seen in so small a compass. When
we exchanged the customary salute, they sent up a shout that fairly
drowned our feeble cry; it seemed as if a voice had come from every
plank and timber in the ship.
As the captain of the Humboldt was equally at a loss with our own,
we held slowly on our way, and Monday morning again came in sight of
land, which many asserted to be the same we had seen the day before.
Standing further on, we passed lofty bluffs against which the sea
roared like distant thunder. They were succeeded by a long table-land
terminating in a point white with foam, the whole agreeing with
tolerable accuracy, with the chart. While we were at supper, the water
suddenly shoaled to four and a half fathoms; and huge rollers lifting
the ship like a feather, filled all with instant apprehension lest
she should be dashed the next moment on the sands. There was a sudden
bustle and trampling over head, and in a twinkling our table was
deserted. The helm was jammed hard down, and we once more stood out to
sea.
When we had got to a safe distance, and had time to think a little, it
was concluded that the cause of alarm was after all nothing but the
bar at the mouth of the harbour, and that if we had kept boldly on, we
should have been by that time quietly at anchor opposite the city. It
was too foggy, however, to repeat the experiment that day, and there
was nothing better to do than to come to anchor where we were.
Tuesday was also very foggy; a boat was sent out on an exploring
expedition, and a gun fired at intervals in hopes of receiving an
answering signal. After a long absence the boat returned with the
information that we were really off the bay; and at the same time a
small brig with a long Moorish name, coming up on our quarter, gave
us directions how to steer. After waiting several hours longer for
the turn of the tide, which here runs with extraordinary rapidity,
we hauled up the anchor, and with a fair wind and clear sky, slid
rapidly into the bay, and round the point that forms the harbour of
San Francisco. One ship, and then another, and another, till we could
count no further; chafing there idle and forgotten, like a horse tied
to the paling, while his master courts away the flying hours within.
Dodging skilfully in among them, our sails were lowered one by one;
the anchor was soon imbedded in the lazy mud, and the Leucothea,
wearily swinging round to her moorings, at length rested from her long
travel of two hundred days.