OCTOBER 8th to OCTOBER 13th.--The wind is blowing hard from the
north-east; and the “Chancellor” under low-reefed top-sail and
fore-sail, and labouring against a heavy sea, has been obliged to be
brought ahull. The joists and girders all creak again until one’s teeth
are set on edge. I am the only passenger not remaining below; but I
prefer being on deck notwithstanding the driving rain, fine as dust,
which penetrates to my very skin. We have been driven along in this
fashion for the best part of two days; the “stiffish breeze” has
gradually freshened into “a gale;” the top-gallants have been lowered,
and, as I write, the wind is blowing with a velocity of fifty or sixty
miles an hour. Although the “Chancellor” has many good points, her drift
is considerable, and we have been carried far to the south we can
only guess at our precise position, as the cloudy atmosphere entirely
precludes us from taking the sun’s altitude.
All along throughout this period, my fellow-passengers are totally
ignorant of the extraordinary course that we are taking England lies
to the NORTH-EAST, yet we are sailing directly SOUTH-EAST, and Robert
Curtis owns that he is quite bewildered; he cannot comprehend why the
captain, ever since this north-easterly gale has been blowing, should
persist in allowing the ship to drive to the south, instead of tacking
to the north-west until she gets into better quarters.
I was alone with Curtis to-day upon the poop, and could not help saying
to him “Curtis, is your captain mad?”
“Perhaps, sir, I might be allowed to ask what YOU think upon that
matter,” was his cautious reply.
“Well to say the truth,” I answered, “I can hardly tell; but I confess
there is every now and then a wandering in his eye, and an odd look on
his face that I do not like. Have you ever sailed with him before?”
“No; this is our first voyage together. Again last night I spoke to him
about the route we were taking, but he only said he knew all about it,
and that it was all right.”
“What do Lieutenant Walter and your boatswain think of it all?” I
inquired.
“Think; why they think just the same as I do,” replied the mate; “but
if the captain chooses to take the ship to China we should obey his
orders.”
“But surely,” I exclaimed, “there must be some limit to your obedience!
Suppose the man is actually mad, what then?”
“If he should be mad enough, Mr. Kazallon, to bring the vessel into any
real danger, I shall know what to do.”
With this assurance I am forced to be content. Matters, however, have
taken a different turn to what I bargained for when I took my passage
on board the “Chancellor.” The weather has become worse and worse. As I
have already said, the ship under her large low-reefed top-sail and fore
stay-sail has been brought ahull, that is to say, she copes directly
with the wind, by presenting her broad bows to the sea; and so we go on
still drift, drift, continually to the south.
How southerly our course has been is very apparent; for upon the night
of the 11th we fairly entered upon that portion of the Atlantic which
is known as the Sargassos Sea. An extensive tract of water is this,
enclosed by the warm current of the Gulf Stream, and thickly covered
with the wrack, called by the Spaniards “sargasso,” the abundance of
which so seriously impeded the progress of Columbus’s vessels on his
first voyage across the ocean.
Each morning at daybreak the Atlantic has presented an aspect so
remarkable, that at my solicitation, M. Letourneur and his son have
ventured upon deck to witness the unusual spectacle. The squally gusts
make the metal shrouds vibrate like harp-strings; and unless we were
on our guard to keep our clothes wrapped tightly to us, they would have
been torn off our backs in shreds. The scene presented to our eyes is
one of strangest interest. The sea, carpeted thickly with masses of
prolific fucus, is a vast unbroken plain of vegetation, through which
the vessel makes her way as a plough. Long strips of seaweed caught up
by the wind become entangled in the rigging, and hang between the masts
in festoons of verdure; whilst others, varying from two to three hundred
feet in length, twine themselves up to the very mast-heads, from whence
they float like streaming pendants. For many hours now, the “Chancellor”
has been contending with this formidable accumulation of algae; her
masts are circled with hydrophytes; her rigging is wreathed everywhere
with creepers, fantastic as the untrammelled tendrils of a vine, and as
she works her arduous course, there are times when I can only compare
her to an animated grove of verdure making its mysterious way over some
illimitable prairie.