It may have been fancy, but the gales at the Cape of Good Hope
impressed me differently from those at Cape Horn. The latter place, and
the associations with it, make one feel that there is more of a sub
base in its winds and waters. There, two oceans form and go apart to
either side of a continent; you are near the polar regions, the realms
of snow and ice. You expect every manifestation of sublimity, but not
of caprice; the awful forms of nature, grandeur with stillness; or,
when storms are summoned, there is a heavy tread in their battalions.
Off the Cape of Good Hope we had the impression that the wind was as
fierce, its rate of motion perhaps greater, but we could not tremble
before it as we did at Cape Horn. Two gales off the Cape of Good Hope
gave us good specimens of the violent weather in that region. The sun
was nearly out on each of the two days, but the wind, though not as
fitful as in a typhoon, was as violent as in a typhoon gale in the
China Seas. A British ship as large as ours was near us the whole of
one day, so that we saw by the way in which the gale was serving her,
how we probably appeared to our neighbor. At one time she seemed to be
moored on a mountain top; in a few moments she was lost to sight, but
this of course was owing as much to our depression and elevation as to
hers. There was so much regularity in our motion that it awakened no
fear. My daughters were captivated by the wildness of the scenery, but
the roll of the ship was so great that it was not easy to keep upright;
so the captain had pillows brought on deck, and by passing ropes around
the passengers, and making them fast, the pillows and they were secure
against the lee and the weather roll, and for a short time they kept
their lookout. That the scene was less terrific than corresponding
tempests at Cape Horn was owing in part to our having more experience
on reaching the eastern continent, but mostly, as it seemed to me, to
the more awful grandeur of the Cape Horn region.