CHAPTER II.

PASSAGE FROM NORFOLK TO RIO DE JANEIRO.

A CULPRIT.—CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS.—DIVINE SERVICE.—A BIRD.—A

GALE.—GRANDEUR OF THE GULF STREAM.—MAN MISSING.—TRACTS ON

BOARD.—WATER-SPOUT.—LIFE AT SEA.—AN ECLIPSE.—THE SICK-BAY.—MORAL

MECHANISM OF A MAN-OF-WAR.—SPEAKING A BRIG.—DEPARTURE OF MR.

BEALE.—DEATH OF SPILLIER.—ASTOR-HOUSE SAILOR.—UNIVERSALIST

CHAPLAIN.—A PETREL.—SPEAKING A SHIP.—DEPARTURE OF MR.

NORRIS.—CROSSING THE EQUATOR.—SOUTHERN CONSTELLATIONS.—A MAN

LOST.—LAND HO!

“The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,

And merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.”

FRIDAY, OCT. 31. A brilliant soft atmosphere; a light breeze from the

southwest; average log, three knots; sounded in thirty-six fathoms; a

sand and shell bottom; exercised the men at the guns from 10 to 12

o’clock; loaded the guns a little before sunset. One of the crew, after

nightfall, watched his opportunity and knocked down a marine. The

aggressor is one of those hardened fellows where the hope of reformation

seems to despair in its work. He was flogged but a few days since for an

aggravated offense. He has cruised before, and been notorious for his

bad conduct. The best thing that could be done with him would be to turn

him out of the ship, but the law don’t allow this. The next best thing

is to try him by a court-martial, and award him a punishment that will

linger with terror in his memory. I am opposed to severity when milder

measures will avail; but leniency to the incorrigible is destructive of

discipline.

Corporal punishments are opposed to the spirit of the age; but he would

be worthy a monument who could invent an adequate substitute on board a

man-of-war. It is easy to pull down a house, but not so easy to build

another on its ruins. Still the power to inflict corporal punishment is

so liable to abuse, and is so often abused, I do not wonder public

sentiment seems to demand its abolition. Could sailors be brought

thoroughly under moral influences, it might be easily dispensed with.

Virtue has motives and impulses to good conduct stronger than those ever

wielded by physical force. The best obedience is that which flows from

moral rectitude.

SATURDAY, NOV. 1. The high temperature of the water, which my boy

brought me this morning for bathing, indicated that we were in the Gulf

Stream. On inquiry, I ascertained that during the night we had

penetrated near to its centre. This great river of the ocean holds its

majestic course in seeming independence of the vast and violent elements

through which it moves. Storms may howl over it, and conflicting

currents fiercely assail it, but it moves on in the tranquil greatness

of its unabated strength. It never stops to parley with its adversaries,

proposes no terms, accepts none; but like a brave champion of truth,

moves steadily to its goal. In its equanimity, its fidelity to one great

purpose, and its triumph, the God of Nature utters a moral lesson in the

ear of nations.

Our coursers, topsails, top-gallant, and studding-sails are set to a

free, fresh wind from the southwest, and we are making ten knots the

hour. Our ship has been too much by the stern, but the removal of four

of her spar-deck guns from her after to her forward ports, has brought

her more by the head, and she sails better. Her constructor conjectured

that if deep, she would sail better by being at least fifteen inches by

the head. His conjecture turns out to be correct. She is now moving

through the waters as if she had an exulting pride in her occupation. I

do not wonder sailors regard a fast ship as a thing of life, and speak

of her with an affection applicable only to the higher attributes of

humanity. She is indeed the highest triumph of human skill—the noblest

representative of art.

SUNDAY, NOV. 2. The Sabbath. The force of the wind and the roll of the

ship might have excused divine service with those disposed to find an

apology for such omission. But we have commenced the cruise with the

determination to have service every Sabbath when it is at all

practicable. Regularity in this duty promotes regularity in every other.

The discipline of a man-of-war lies in the fact that nothing is omitted

that ought to be done. Besides what more appropriate for men, tost on

the howling waste of the ocean, than a recognised dependence on that

Being who binds the elements at his will; who can say to the rushing

storm and chainless wave, hitherto shall ye come and no further, and

here shall your proud strength be stayed.

Last evening a bird flew on board. He had been driven far out to sea in

a gale, and now timidly sought our spars as a place of rest. No one was

allowed to molest him for the night; in the morning, turning his eyes in

that direction where the land lay, though some three hundred miles off,

he bade us adieu and disappeared in the distant horizon. A safe passage

to him and a speedy return to those left behind. He too has his home,

and those there who make that home dear; and though but a bird of the

wild wood, he shares the benevolent regard of One whose care extends to

the falling sparrow, and who hears the young raven when it cries. If the

bird whose wing is thrown on the wind to-day, and is furled in death

to-morrow, may share the guardianship of the great Parent of all, much

more man with his boundless sympathies and immortal hopes.

MONDAY, NOV. 3. The wind last night hauled several points to the east,

and forced us north of our true course. We have been waiting for it to

haul back, but it seems to have settled down as if determined to make

itself at home in its new quarter. Well, let it stay there, if it will,

and I will ponder these lines which I find inclosed in my last letter

from home.

THE SAILOR’S WIFE.

Thou o’er the world and I at home,

But one may linger, the other may roam,

Yet our hearts will flee o’er the sounding sea,

Mine to thy bosom, and thine to me.

Thy lot is the toil of a roving life,

Chances and changes, sorrow and strife—

Yet is mine more drear to linger here—

In a ceaseless, changeless war with fear.

I watch the sky by the stars’ pale light,

Till the day-dawn breaketh on gloomy night,

And the wind’s low tone hath a dreary moan

That comes to my heart as I weep alone.

With the morning light, oh! would I could see

Thy white sail far on the breaking sea,

And welcome thee home, o’er the wild wave’s foam,

And bid thee no more from my side to roam.

TUESDAY, NOV. 4. The sun rose this morning with that look of darkness

and flame which the monarch of the seasons puts on when tempests are

abroad in his domain. Yet he drove his flashing chariot up the lowering

steep of clouds with a fleetness and force which indicated no

disposition to resign his sceptre. The glance of his eye kindled the

ridges of the black masses around into lines of fire, and revealed the

caverns of darkness which stretched away in their unfathomed folds. The

roused ocean threw up its howling billows as if in stern defiance. It

was evident we were to have a conflict of the giant elements. They

rushed into the battle like foes who neither give nor crave quarter.

The roar of the tempest above, the thunder of the sea below, the

careering squadrons of clouds, and the dark defiant waves, as they

rushed into combat, added sublimity to terror. Our ship was not an idle

spectator; she plunged into the thickest of the fight, and with wings

furled and a steady keel, presented her frowning mass of exulting

courage and strength; she trembled but not with fear, she wavered but

not from want of valor. Wave after wave of the great ocean rolled its

massive strength against her, but she met each successive shock with

dauntless intrepidity. Night at last closed over the conflict, and the

lightnings lit the watch-fires of the hostile squadrons. The moon broke

through a rift in the black masses, and cast her soft light on the

savage features of the scene. So rose she over Thermopylæ, and Waterloo,

and blushed at the havoc of human ambition.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 5. The gale of yesterday increasing at nightfall, we

sent down our fore and mizen top-gallant masts, and put our ship under

close-reefed main topsail, fore storm stay-sail, fore and mizen

try-sails. Thus she lay like a crouched lion. Darkness was on the face

of the deep, save here and there, where a falling meteor threw its

transient light on the foaming crest of some towering wave. As the

soaring billow combed over, sheets of lighted foam rolled down into the

intervening gulfs of night, and then succeeded a darkness that might be

felt. As the heavy bell struck the hours, the voices of the watch from

different parts of the ship came like broken tones from unseen sources.

The hollow sound of the storm through the rigging, made it seem as if

the very winds were pouring our death-dirge.

But a little after midnight the gale broke. It broke suddenly as the

hope of the wicked at death. But the driving waves still remained, dark

and tumultuous as the convulsions of guilt in despair. Our ship, without

wind or sail to steady her, plunged blindly about. She had scarcely a

dry foot of plank in her, and yet multitudes slept soundly that night.

Such is life at sea. The resistless gale and the dead calm follow each

other with the fickleness of an unweaned child over its toys. And proud

man submits, as well he may; for he cannot help it. We are always

reconciled to that which is remediless. Even death seems to lose its

terrors in its inevitability.

THURSDAY, NOV. 6. At quarters, this morning, one of the crew, John Amey,

was missing at his post. His name was called through the ship, but there

was no reply. All the decks and the hold were searched, but he was

nowhere to be found. He was last seen between seven and eight bells of

the mid-watch. He had not been well since we left Norfolk, had

complained of his head, of an oppression on the brain, and had evinced

at times, in the incoherency of his remarks, symptoms of insanity. He

had most undoubtedly, in a paroxysm of this disease, jumped out of one

of the ports, and perished. The watch might perhaps have heard him as he

fell into the water, but for the high sea that was running at the time.

He had shipped from Philadelphia, where he left a sister, of whom he

often spoke with tenderness and affection. He was prompt and faithful in

the discharge of his duties, and had been promised promotion. But he is

now where the frowns or caresses of fortune can never reach him. His

sister will long wait and watch for his return, and will long doubt in

her amazement and tears the story of his death. But he has gone to that

silent bourne from which nor wave, nor sail, nor mariner, has e’er

returned, nor one fond farewell word traversed the waters back. He will

reappear no more, till the signal trump of the archangel shall summon

the sea to give up her dead. He will then, wrapped in the winding-sheet

of the wave, appear at that tribunal where infinite rectitude will sit

in judgment on the deeds of men.

FRIDAY, NOV. 7. All hands were mustered this morning on the spar-deck by

order of the commodore, and the untimely death of poor Amey was

announced to the crew. The chaplain was called upon for such remarks as

the melancholy event suggested. After briefly sketching the

characteristics of the deceased, his fidelity to duty, his love for his

sister, the awful malady of which he died, he told the crew that the sad

event impressed one lesson with fearful force upon all, and that was the

necessity of a preparation for death and the scenes that await us

beyond, while life and reason remain,—that as no one knows the hour or

circumstances of his death, his only security lies in that thorough

preparation which no event can surprise. The crew listened with

attention, as they always do on such occasions; but impressions

connected with death are often transient with the sailor. His wild

adventurous life is so full of tragedy, that the dead drop through it

like pebbles through a stormy wave.

If you would see the most deep and wide impression that death ever

produces, go to a quiet country village. You will hear it whispered from

house to house, that Henry or Mary is dead! No long array of

mourning-carriages darkens the street; but a silent train is there,

moving in sympathy and grief to the grave. All gather around that narrow

cavern, and as the coffin rumbles down to its rest, tears from the aged

and the young fall thick and fast, and each, as he returns to his home,

feels that a joy has been extinguished, that a light has fled from his

own hearth.

SATURDAY, NOV. 8. Last evening, while a fine breeze was filling our

sails, and the white caps were dancing under the light of the stars, a

cloud was seen emerging above the bright line of the horizon. It sailed

steadily up the blue cope, and at last stationed its dark distended form

directly over our ship. All eyes were turned to it, expecting a storm to

explode from its folds. But its contents fell in a sheet of water that

instantly drenched us all, and utterly annihilated the breeze. The poor

dog-vane fell motionless, as if suspended in a grave. The cloud now

dissolved, the light of the stars streamed down through the radiant

depths of air, and the crushed wind, like an unhorsed rider, resumed its

career.

Man, when frustrated in his purposes, slowly, if ever, recovers his

courage and force; but nature instantly moves on again in her exulting

strength. What to her are crumbling temples and mouldering pyramids? She

spreads her verdure over the ruins of nations! In her august domain

empires rise and fall with as little sensation as leaves put forth and

perish. She hushes the great dirge of human sorrow. Her winds waltz over

the graves of ages. All are hers, and all, from the stars that tremble

in the blue vault of heaven to the groves of coral which wave over the

pavements of the unsounded sea, feel the pulses which throb in her

mighty heart. What, then, frail man, is thy pride amid these stupendous

attributes and achievements of nature?—a bubble that breaks amid the

eternal thunders of the deep.

NOV. 9. Sunday, and a soft breeze from the southwest. The sparkling wave

disturbs not the even tenor of our keel. Our ship swings only to the

slow and solemn undulations of the ocean. No flaping sail disturbed the

quietude of our worship. We sung “old hundred,” the band performing the

instrumental part. How impressive on the sounding sea is that old

majestic tune! It seems in harmony with the many-voiced waves around.

The organ-tones of the mighty deep roll it to heaven with a fullness and

power which no cathedral choir can pour from its melodious recesses.

Nature through all her vast domains awakens and sustains the devotions

of the human heart. Our pilgrim fathers worshipped in the sanctuary of

the forest. The aisles of the deep wood rang with their hymns of

gratitude and praise.

What to them were stately shrines,

Gorgeous dome or towering spire?

’Neath their sturdy oaks and pines,

Rose their anthems, winged with fire.

I distributed tracts to-day to the crew—to all who came to me for them;

and few remained behind. It would have encouraged the hearts of those

who supply these sources of salutary instruction, to have witnessed the

eagerness with which our sailors took them. In a few minutes there were

three or four hundred men on the decks of our ship reading tracts; each

catching some thought which lures from sin, and throws its clear and

tender light on the narrow path which leads to heaven.

MONDAY, NOV. 10. Our sweet southwest breeze still continues, and we are

moving on under an easy sail seven knots the hour. There is not a

greater folly on the ocean than for a man-of-war to be crowding on sail,

as if speed were the all-predominant motive. This will do for a

merchantman, when a market is to be reached as soon as possible; but for

a national ship, bound on a three years’ cruise, it is a miserable

exhibition of impatience. Indeed, in all the affairs of human life

moderation is true philosophy. Our energies will give way soon enough

without any forced action. A spirit of restlessness and discontent is

one of the most striking faults in the American character. We rush with

railroad speed even on ruin. It is as if a man on his way to the

scaffold were to put his horse into a gallop.

We have been for several days past in the vicinity of water-spouts. One

of them rose close upon our larboard bow. It towered through several

strata of clouds, preserving through each its columnar form till its

summit was lost in the sky. We attempted to near it sufficiently to

bring it within the range of a cannon-ball, but it seemed to elude our

approach as the rainbow the flying footsteps of childhood. Its apparent

vicinity was undoubtedly one of those optical delusions so common to the

phenomena of the sea. The wonders of the deep belong to their Maker. Man

may survey them as a worshipper, but when he attempts to appropriate

them, they fly his profane grasp, disarm him with their terrors, or

overpower him with their magnificence. We filled away and were again on

our course.

TUESDAY, NOV. 11. This has been inspection-day. Once a month each sailor

is required to exhibit his clothing to the officer who has charge of the

division to which he belongs. The object of this inspection is to see

that his clothes are in good condition, to see if he wants any thing

further for his comfort, and to see that every article of apparel is

marked with his name. In this respect sailors are to be treated as

children. They require the same constant care. They are the most

thoughtless, improvident beings in the world; and if left to themselves,

will be, in some instances, without a decent article of clothing, and in

others with their whole wages in their clothes-bag. There is no subject

on which officers of the navy should exercise so much patience, and such

sound paternal judgment. It is a work which brings its own reward in the

consciousness of the benefits conferred.

The life of a sailor is brief enough at best. Even with all the care

which you can bestow upon his habits, and with all the restraints you

can exert upon his headlong career, he soon reaches his goal. You seldom

meet with a grayheaded sailor. Long before age can have frosted his

locks, the icy hand of death has been laid on his heart. He dies in the

midst of his days, and often in his full strength. He perishes like his

ship, which the tempest hath cast on the rocks. Could the wave which

sepulchres his form be the winding-sheet of his soul, our solicitude for

him might be less; but he has a spirit that will sing in worlds of light

or wail in regions of wo, when the dirge of the deep sea is over.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12. Last evening we had another tropical shower. It fell

as if some atmospheric lake had burst its cloudy boundary. In a moment

all exposed to it were drenched. It passed, and the moon circled up out

of the sea full of mellow light. I love that orb on land, but more at

sea. On shore, other objects relieve your solitude, but on the ocean it

is all that seems to break the desolation which would else be universal.

I have seen sailors sit and look at it by the hour. Few of them

understand the laws which regulate its phenomena, but all feel its

influence. Nature unrolls her treasures to the simplest of her children.

This morning a fine breeze visited us from the northwest, the first that

has cheered us from that quarter. We have been on the starboard tack

ever since we left Norfolk. We who occupy the larboard state-rooms, now

congratulated ourselves that in the event of a blow, we should have dry

quarters, and our starboard companions would take their turn at leaking

ports. But this self-gratulation was hardly over, when the wind chopped

about to its old quarter, and our exultation, like most exhibitions of

selfish delight, proved premature. Our frigate, with a breeze that

scarcely crisps the sea, knots her hundred miles a day. This, before

steam began to annihilate space, would have been considered very fair

travelling. But now it is a tortoise by the side of an antelope. Four

bells have struck—my light must be extinguished, and I can either walk

the deck or turn in for the night.

THURSDAY, NOV. 13TH. I rise with the sun, and, like that stern old

monarch, from a salt bath. Like him, too, I take another on retiring to

rest. Here, I suppose, ends the resemblance between us, except that both

have some spots. They who go to sea for their health should rise with

the sun, bathe in salt water, and inhale the fresh atmosphere an hour

before breakfast. They should also bathe before they retire to rest.

Salt water, the chafing towel, and fresh air, are the restoratives most

to be relied on, and the very restoratives which a lazy invalid will

first neglect. Were I to omit these, I should hardly live long enough to

reach our next port. The invalid should confine himself to a spare diet,

and take no stimulants. His only tonic should be the pure salt

atmosphere of the sea. Wine, brandy, and porter are sufficiently

injurious on land, but at sea they carry disease and death in their

train.

We have had this evening an eclipse of the moon; only a narrow rim of

the orb escaped the dark shadow of our earth. Our sailors, not

anticipating this eclipse, could not at first account for the

disappearing light. They saw the slender spars and tracery of the ship

becoming momentarily less distinct and visible, but knew not from whence

the shadow fell. A few of them, better versed in lunar observations,

explained to the rest the phenomenon. They said the earth had shoved a

part of her black hull between us and the moon. But when asked why she

had done this, the reason assigned was, that the moon had probably got a

little out of her reckoning, and in attempting to tack had missed stays.

FRIDAY, NOV. 14. We have now been fourteen days at sea, and have sailed

eighteen hundred miles. A vast sheet of water spreads between us and our

homes, but a greater between us and our port of destination. Our fresh

provisions still hold out, but the appearance of a junk of corned beef

on our table every day indicates the gradual approach of short commons.

Still it will be some time before we reach that last dish of gastronomic

desperation—lobscouse. We have an experienced caterer, a provident

steward, and an ingenious cook. With the three we feel pretty safe. I

have been at sea in four or five national ships, and have never found in

any, after the second week out, a table so well supplied as ours. Still

our variety is effected in a great measure by the ingenuity of our

steward and cook.

The culinary art is forced into its highest degree of perfection, and

achieves its last triumph at sea. The cook, who, in a Parisian

restaurant, can make a palatable soup from the carcass of a crow that

has perished of inanition, is entitled to but little praise in

comparison with him who can raise a good soup at sea after the third

week out. The nautical cook has seemingly nothing left for his pot but

the recollections of his coop. Recollections make very good poetry, but

they simmer badly into a soup. The attenuation is too fine even for

homœopathic gastronomy. It would do, perhaps, for Bishop Berkeley’s

ideal world. I rather think the worthy bishop must have formed that

theory at sea after the third week out. It certainly suits man in that

condition. The unstableness of a thing entitles it to faith.

SATURDAY, NOV. 15. To-day our ship has been holystoned from stem to

stern. A person who has stood in the silent excavations of Herculaneum,

and heard the carriages rattling overhead, can have some idea of the

sounds which those rumbling stones produce on the decks of a ship. The

whole ship is converted into a floating Babel, and worse indeed, unless

the strokes of the gravel be comprehended in the vocal jargon of the

tower. But we shall have our compensation for this in decks so clean

that a handkerchief might be swept over them without soiling its

whiteness.

Nothing on board a man-of-war requires such unremitted attention as

cleanliness. It puts to the last test the most indomitable purpose.

Without it, a ship soon becomes intolerable. Without it, sickness would

ensue; some epidemic would sweep half the crew to the grave. And yet

nine-tenths of our sailors are so inconsiderate, that if left to

themselves they would exercise no precautions on the subject. This

renders the most careful supervision of officers indispensable.

Negligence in this department soils every laurel he can win on the deck.

It is like that louse which Burns saw climbing up a lady’s bonnet in

church. This allusion reminds one of an anecdote related of Lord Byron

and Lady Blessington. Her ladyship had taken something that the poet had

said in high dudgeon, but dismissed it with the fling that she “didn’t

care three skips of a louse for his lordship.” To which the sarcastic

poet retorted in the couplet—

“I forgive the dear lady what she has said,

A woman will talk of what runs in her head.”

SUNDAY, NOV. 16. The Sabbath has returned, and we have had divine

service. Last night we discovered a sail on our starboard bow, close

hauled upon her wind. This morning we tacked ship and brought her to.

She proved to be a brig from Norfolk, bound to Rio de Janeiro. She had

been fifty-two days out, with light head winds. We wished the captain a

pleasant voyage, and parted company. We were in hopes she might prove a

craft bound to some port in the United States, and that she would take

letters back from us. We were disappointed; our friends must wait for

letters from our port of destination. It will probably be six months

from our departure before they will get a line from us.

You who cannot leave your wives and children for a week, without

intelligence from them, go to sea with the prospect that we have, of not

hearing from them for a year. The truth is, none but old bachelors and

hen-pecked husbands should go to sea. The latter flies from persecution,

the former from that wretchedness which a sight of real domestic

happiness inflicts. The bliss of Eden made even Satan more wretched than

he was before. But the ocean is itself a rich domain. The treasures of

empires lie in its depths. The wrecks of the richest argosies are hers;

and her waves roll over the unsurrendered forms of matchless beauty. She

gives back nought that comes within her vast embrace. Her great seal of

proprietorship will be broken only by the thunders of the last trump.

MONDAY, NOV. 17. Our ship has been tantalized all day with a light head

wind—just one of those winds that are but little better than none; the

only advantage it has over a dead calm is the air it affords. As for

progress, we might as well be

“A painted ship upon a painted ocean.”

How dependent is a ship on the elements! Let the winds refuse to visit

us, and this noble frigate would never move from her present position;

she would rot down piece-meal where she is now lying, with the bleaching

bones of five hundred men on her decks. But the winds are at the bidding

of Him whose pavilion is in the clouds, and whose mandates are nature’s

resistless law. May we ever live in humble submission to His will, and

rejoice that He reigns; feeling fully assured that His measures are

dictated by infinite wisdom, and by an unerring regard to the happiness

of His creatures.

I found in the sick-bay to-day a patient laboring under a typhoid fever,

and apparently near his end. He spoke to me of his mother and his

sisters, and tears filled his eyes. The first being that rushes to the

recollections and heart of a sailor, smitten with disease at sea, is his

mother. She still clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all

the forgetfulness and hardihood induced by a roving life. The last

message he leaves is for her; his last dying whisper breathes her name.

The mother as she instills the lessons of piety and filial obligation

upon the heart of her infant son, should always feel that her labor is

not in vain. She may drop into her grave, but she has left behind

influences that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is

sped and will do its office.

TUESDAY, NOV. 18. Another day of light airs. Our sails hang as

pertinaciously to our masts as a veil over the features of one whose

imaginary beauty has touched your heart. We discovered another sail

to-day over our weather bow, hull down. Conjecture makes her the

Courier, which sailed from Hampton Roads two or three days before us.

There is an interest in speaking a vessel at sea, which they who dwell

on land can hardly realize. These nautical greetings are all that break

the vast solitude of the ocean. Without them a ship would be more lonely

than the solitary traveller on the desert of Sahara, for _he_ will now

and then encounter a gazelle.

A sailor’s life is one of constant privations. He makes his meals from

bread which the hammer can scarcely break, and from meat often as

juiceless and dry as the bones which it feebly covers. The fresh

products of the garden and the fruits of the field have all been left

behind. As for a bowl of milk, which the child of the humblest cottager

can bring to its lips, it is as much beyond his reach as the nectar

which sparkled in the goblets of the fabled divinities on Ida. When Adam

went forth from his lost Eden, under the frown of God, he had still a

confiding companion at his side, to share with him the sorrows of his

lot, and he still found some flowers amid the briers and brambles which

infested his path; but the sailor finds no flowers springing up along

the pathway of the sea, and he has no consoling companion there, except

in his dreams of some far-off shore.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19. We have three sailors in the sick-bay to-day, in a

very critical condition. They are all good men, so far at least as ship

duty is concerned. Their death would make a serious breach in our crew.

Our intelligent surgeon and his faithful assistants are devoted to them.

They are not left night or day, for an hour, without a medical

attendant. Commodore Stockton went into the sick-bay to-day to see them.

He never forgets the sailor. He pities when others might reproach,

forgives when others might denounce, and never abandons him even though

he should abandon himself; and yet he exacts prompt obedience. His

discipline, and that of Capt. Du Pont, is derived in a great measure

from moral influences, the power of correct example and the pressure of

circumstance.

Make the moral mechanism of a ship like a piece of well-contrived

machinery, and but few blows will be required to keep it in order. But

this requires energy in the details. It is much easier to flog a man who

has committed an error, than it is to train him to avoid that error.

Indolence flies to the lash, enlightened activity to a system of correct

training, which is to be pressed at all points. And this training must

be consistent with itself. It will not succeed if it is to be broken in

upon constantly by brute force, or by language as disreputable to the

officer who uses it, as it is unjust and provoking to the men to whom it

is addressed. Profane or opprobrious epithets are a mockery of all

discipline, except that which is enforced by the lash. An officer

incapable of enforcing any other discipline, is a calamity to the

service.

THURSDAY, NOV. 20. We discovered, this morning, a brig on our

weather-beam, standing down for us, and hove-to with our main topsail to

the mast. She run up Danish colors, and in an hour hove-to at a cable’s

length under our lee-quarter. We lowered a boat and boarded her. She

proved to be the brig Mariah, forty days from Rio Grande, bound to

Hamburg. We inquired for fruit, but she had none. The captain wished to

correct his reckoning, and well he might, for he was seven degrees out

of his longitude.

Mr. Beale, our second master, took passage in her for the United States.

It was arranged between him and the captain of the brig, that he should

be put on board the first vessel that they might fall in with bound to

an American port, and if they fell in with none before that, he should

be landed at Dover, England. The captain must have had a very flexible

policy. When it was understood that letters could be sent back, pens

that had slumbered for weeks woke up. In half an hour the commodore had

finished his communications, our home-letters were written, and Mr.

Beale was passing over the side. In reaching the boat, a box of segars

and a revolving-pistol fell overboard. Strange as it may seem, the

pistol floated a moment, and was saved, while the segars were lost. I

watched the letter-bag, saw that safe in, thought of the satisfaction it

would give, and forgot the Havanas. Though the sea was running high, Mr.

Beale reached the brig safely, and our boat returned. The little vessel

then squared away, and we made sail; and thus we parted, the one for

Hamburg, the other for Rio. How the paths of life cross each other!

FRIDAY, NOV. 21. Poor Spillier, whose critical condition I have watched

for several days in the sick-bay, has passed beyond hope. His disease

has passed into pneumonia, and his lungs have already ceased, in a great

measure, to perform their functions. I told him to-day he could not

live. The sad intelligence brought tears to his eyes. He said it was

dreadful to die away from his friends, and be buried in the sea. I told

him his mother died a good Christian and had gone to heaven, and he

could go there and meet her. But he must bring all the errors and sins

of his life, and with sincere sorrow and contrition, lay them at the

foot of the cross, and implore divine forgiveness. He was silent for a

few minutes, and then uttered a brief and appropriate prayer, confessing

his manifold transgressions, and casting himself on the compassion of

Christ.

He was silent again, and seemed absorbed in thought. The expressions of

mental anguish and hope alternated over his pale features like cloud and

sun-light over a landscape. He now became composed, and opening his

large swimming eyes upon me, thanked me for my attentions to him, and

requested me to write his sisters; to give them his dying love; to say

that he died in Christ and hoped to go to heaven, where he should see

their mother. He told me that the dread of being buried at sea had left

him; that it was no matter where his poor body was laid, if his soul was

saved; that his blessed mother would know him and would be the first to

greet him. How the ties of a mother’s love fasten upon her child,

soothing the couch of pain and triumphing over the terrors of the grave!

SATURDAY, NOV. 22. We have a stiff wind to-day from the southeast, and

we are running, close hauled, under reefed topsails. The sea is high,

and every now and then a huge wave throws its curling crest through some

half-closed port, as a wolf pounces into a sheep-fold, or as the arch

adversary o’erleaped the green wall of Eden. Though we are any thing but

Eden, with its beauty and its bliss: our first parent would have had but

little cause of regret, if, in resigning Eden, he had relinquished only

the habitudes of a sea-life. A wigwam might have consoled him for his

loss. No Milton had sung—

“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden.”

The truth is, man was never intended for a nautical being. He was made

perfect, but he has sought out many inventions; and this going to sea is

one of them. His pathway on the deep is hedged about with storms,

icebergs, water-spouts, and breakers. But, in the strange perversity of

his nature, he perseveres through the whole of them. He knows and feels

that he is a fool in his nautical obstinacy, and yet he clings to it, as

the inebriate to the cup that consumes his vitals. He seems to court

hardship for its own sake, and to court peril for the excitement which

it bestows. But for the indecency of the thing he would toll, in

advance, his own funeral-bell, that its fearful monotone might tremble

on his heart before it should be cold. And he would almost dig his own

grave, that he might hear his coffin rumbling down to its rest.

SUNDAY, NOV. 23. Another Sabbath morn has poured its holy light on land

and sea. On land, the stir of the village and the tumult of the great

city have ceased. Men walk softly in the prelude of that rest which

remains to the good. Sacred truth melts on their hearts like dew. No

community in a Christian land can be utterly bereft of moral influence.

If it has none from within, there is a pressure from without. The moral

as well as physical atmosphere tends to an equilibrium. Righteous Lot

may have fled from Sodom, but his warning voice rolled back upon the

wind to the doomed city.

But a ship is cut off by its position from all extraneous influences. It

is like a ball suspended in the centre of a hollow sphere. This

isolation has placed it beyond the reach, and seemingly beyond the

sympathies, of those who dwell on the land. They have regarded it as a

thing apart from themselves, a thing with which they had no common bond

of brotherhood, and they have abandoned it to its calamities and its

crimes. When guilt and misery have done their worst, when the

pirate-flag has been unfurled where the insignia of commerce streamed

before, instead of accusing their own apathy and negligence, they have

seemed to regard the terrible spectacle as some singular exemplification

of divine justice—as some malignant star accursed and made

“A wandering hell in the eternal space.”

MONDAY, NOV. 24. Yesterday morning, as the men left their hammocks, the

ominous whisper went round—“Spillier is dead!” He had died during the

night, while storm and darkness rested on the face of the deep. Last

evening, as the sun was going down, we consigned him to his floating

grave. The deep-toned call, “All hands to bury the dead!” went like a

knell through the ship. The body, wrapped in that hammock in which the

deceased had swung to the force of the wind, was borne by his messmates,

preceded by the chaplain of the ship, from the gun-deck up the forward

hatch, and round the capstan to the lee-side; the band, with muffled

drums, playing the “dead-march,” and the marine guard presenting arms.

The commodore, the captain, and officers of the ship, took their

position near the main-mast; the crew were stationed forward.

Then commenced the burial-service: “I am the resurrection and the life,

saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall

he live; and whosoever believeth in me shall never die.” When the solemn

sentence was uttered, “We commit this body to the deep,” the inner end

of the plank was lifted, and down its steep plane moved the hammocked

dead, and a hoarse hollow sound followed the heavy plunge. The waters

closed over the disappearing form—the ship glided on as before. Then,

with impressive effect, came in the words, “Looking for the general

resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through

our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose second coming in glorious majesty to

judge the world, the earth and sea shall give up their dead, and the

corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed, and made

like unto His own glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby

He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.” The benediction followed,

and the crew returned in silence to their stations.

Reader, when you die, it will be, I trust, in the sabbath calm of your

hushed chamber; but the poor sailor dies at sea between the narrow decks

of his rolling vessel. The last accents that will reach your ears will

be those of kindness and affection, such as flow from a mother’s care,

and a sister’s solicitude; the last sounds that reach the ears of the

dying sailor are the hoarse murmurs of that wave which seems to complain

at the delay of its victim. You will be buried beneath the green tree,

where love and grief may go to plant their flowers and cherish your

virtues; but the poor sailor is hearsed in the dark depths of the ocean,

there to drift about, in its under-currents, to the great judgment-day.

Alas, for the poor sailor! the child of misfortune, impulse, and error:

his brief life filled with privation, hardship, and peril; his grave in

the foaming deep! Though man pity him not, may God remember his

weaknesses and trials in the day of his last account.

TUESDAY, NOV. 25th. We have had for two days past a steady breeze from

the southeast, and have run an average of seven knots the hour. We are

now in the hope of making Rio in twenty days from this time. This will

make our whole passage forty-six days,—not a bad run. The Columbia was

ninety-three days making the same passage; but it was at the most

unfavorable season of the year. To take this as a specimen of her

sailing would be doing great injustice to that noble frigate.

WEDNESDA, NOV. 26th. We are to-day in lat. 18° 49′ N., long. 33° 46′ W.,

with a light steady breeze from the southeast. We are knocked off to the

west of our course. We ought to head east of south, even with the

variation in our favor. We are anxious to cross the line at twenty-seven

or eight, to avoid the head winds of Cape St. Roque. We are where we

ought to have the northeast trades, but we have not yet had a puff of

wind from that quarter. Unless our present breeze hauls or dies we shall

be obliged to tack, which will be about as agreeable as running back in

a railroad-car to make way for a locomotive ahead, when you are in haste

to get on. But we have one thing to console us, it is all in the cruise,

so let the winds blow as they list.

The hammers of our blacksmiths are heard this morning, the first time

for some days. They have been silenced on account of the sick; but they

are now going as if determined to make up lost time. Iron takes almost

every shape under their blows. A ship’s blacksmith has no such word as

can’t in his vocabulary. He takes his order, and tries to shape his iron

accordingly, though he may know it to be utterly impracticable. We had

on board the Natchez an old time-piece which had broken its main-spring.

The first lieutenant, for fun, told the blacksmith to take it to the

anvil and put a new main-spring in it. Hearing the puff of the bellows

and the click of the hammer, I went forward, where I found the old watch

taken to pieces, and the worthy representative of Vulcan, beating with

his full force a piece of iron. “What are you doing with this

time-piece?” I inquired. “Making a kinked-up sort of a thing, sir, to

make it go,” was the sardonic reply.

THURSDAY, NOV. 27. The wind hauled round into our teeth last evening. We

tacked to the east, and headed east by north through the night. But the

wind soon became too light for us to make much progress in any

direction. Instead of trade winds, these fickle puffs ought to be called

the variables. No coquette was ever half so inconstant. The only certain

thing about them is the lightning, which has been throwing its cables of

flame from its aerial craft. I have often thought a thunder-cloud might

be the chariot of the prince of darkness. But let that pass: digression

is my besetting infirmity.

This morning, large masses of cloud broke the horizon in the east with

their dark distended forms. The sun coming up behind them, converted

their jagged outline into fire, and poured over their steep precipices

torrents of flame. We predicted a strong wind from that quarter. But one

battlement after another tumbled from this cloudy fortress, till only a

few tottering bastions remained, and these soon dissolved,

“And like an unsubstantial vision faded,

Left not a wreck behind.”

We felt as much disappointed as a confident lover getting a blank

refusal. How singular it is that the enamored youth always ascribes the

first negative to female delicacy, and the second to the hostility of

some one of her friends. He still believes she loves him, and would say

so if her heart could only speak out. Perhaps this amiable weakness has

been placed in our nature to relieve disappointment, and suppress an

indignant tone from wounded pride.

FRIDAY, NOV. 28. This morning our vanished clouds reappeared on the

eastern horizon, and as they lifted, a strong wind streamed down from

that quarter, and we were able to lay our course. We shook the only reef

out of our topsails, and at seven bells set our top-gallant-sails. The

sky had that light haze upon it peculiar to the tropics. The sun melts

through it, instead of throwing its full burning beams. The appearance

of the atmosphere resembles in some respects that of the Indian summer

in other climes, but it is more humid and softer. In the afternoon the

wind became so stiff that our ship fairly staggered under it. Her lee

guns knocked the caps from the waves. We now took in our

top-gallant-sails. At sunset we took a reef in our topsails and courses,

but still plunged ahead sufficiently fast.

Our frigate returned from her last cruise with a brilliant reputation

for speed,—a reputation which she has not sustained thus far with us.

Some ascribe this loss of character to a foul bottom; but the three

thousand miles which we have run, must have pretty well scoured her

copper. Others ascribe it to her lying so deep; but this difficulty

every day is removing in the consumption of provisions and water. We

shall soon be able to settle the truth or fallacy of this supposition.

The truth is, a ship often loses her sailing and recovers it again

without any satisfactory reason. The United States, one of the best

sailors in the service, once lost her reputation entirely, but recovered

it again; and our frigate will, I doubt not, regain her laurels. Our

commodore and captain are studying her points as anxiously as a

gentleman of the turf those of a race-horse that has had the misfortune

to be beaten once.

SATURDAY, NOV. 29th. Our east wind still holds steady and strong; we are

running nine and ten knots on our course. This has put us all in fine

spirits, notwithstanding the wet condition of our frigate. Only give a

sailor a good ten-knot breeze on his course, and he wont complain, if he

wades in water to the chin. Some of us had a fine shower-bath to-day. We

were reading on the half deck between the weather guns, when we shipped

a tremendous sea through the ports, which half buried us in its surge.

Our chairs slipped up, and we were tumbling about like porpoises. One of

the crew, at least, laughed in his sleeve.

This reminds me of an occurrence on board the Vincennes. We had been in

a gale for two days, which at last broke suddenly, leaving a high sea.

Governor V. S., of Santa Cruz, whom we were taking out as passenger,

when the gale had broken, sent an invitation to the wardroom officers to

come to the cabin and take a glass of whisky-punch with him. Total

abstinence not being at that time the order of the day, we all went up.

The governor stated that he had one bottle of very old Irish whisky with

him, which would make a capital punch. Tumblers were ordered; the hot

water, whisky, and sugar, in due proportions, mixed and stirred. Now,

said the governor, please take your glasses, gentlemen, and I will

propose one sentiment; each lifted his glass, when a tremendous sea

struck us under the counter, and pitched us all in a mass together on

the floor. Whisky, glasses, and sentiment all came down in one crash.

The first thing I heard was the exclamatory inquiry of the

governor,—“Captain Shubrick, are we still afloat?”

SUNDAY, NOV. 30th. We were apprehensive that our sabbath worship would

be broken in upon, by a dash of rain from some of the clouds that were

driving over our ship. But only a few drops fell. Sailors have but very

little respect for fair-weather Christians. They believe the course to

heaven lies through a stormy sea, and that a man to get there must

battle with hostile elements. They like plain, direct preaching, full of

heart and strength. They cannot tolerate a display of literature, or

metaphysical acumen, in a sermon. They know they are wicked and unfit

for heaven, and they wish to be told so. The man who should tell them

otherwise would at once forfeit their confidence.

A gentleman of the Universalist persuasion was once appointed a chaplain

in the navy, and reported for duty on board one of our ships fitting for

sea. His creed soon became known to the sailors, and was freely

discussed in their messes. “If we are all so good that we are going to

heaven,” said an old tar, “what is the use in overhauling one’s sins? it

only gives a man a bloody sight of trouble for nothing.” “If we are all

on the right tack,” said another, “and must bring up at the right port,

what is the use in preaching and praying about it?” “If we trust this

doctrine, and it don’t turn out true, there’ll be hell to pay,”

exclaimed a third. These sentiments were shared in by the whole crew,

and soon became known to the newly-appointed chaplain. He resigned his

commission, and showed a considerateness in doing it which entitles him

to respect. Sailors, ignorant and wicked as they are, can never be made

to believe that the good and bad bring up at last in the same port.

MONDAY, DEC. 1. Our fine east wind, which has been shoving us on at the

rate of two hundred and thirty miles a day, was crossed this afternoon

by a squall from the south, and knocked under. We watched its overthrow

with grief, and expected for some time that it would rally and overpower

its antagonist. But victory remained with the foe, and we were driven

from our course. In the mean time, a tropical shower, falling without

premonition, has drenched all on duty to the skin.

These reverses fall hardest upon the _gentlemen_ among the crew. We have

one, an Englishman by birth, who was living a few months since at the

Astor-House, drinking the choicest wines the hotel could furnish, and

promenading Broadway in white-kid gloves, with gold-headed cane and

quizzing-glass. But suddenly, from some freak of nature, he threw

himself into our ship as a common sailor. He is about twenty years of

age, full six feet high, and extremely well proportioned. He has a small

foot and hand, an open cheerful countenance, large floating eye, and

hair that falls in showering ringlets. He is willing and prompt in the

performance of every duty. But what a transition! The Astor-House for a

wet rolling deck, its beds of down for a hammock, its rich viands and

desserts for salt junk and hard tack. The last London cut in coat,

pants, and beaver, for a blue roundabout, ducks, and tarpaulin, and a

gold-headed cane for a tarred rope! And yet he is cheerful, and

seemingly ambitious of excelling as a sailor. How nature accommodates

herself to circumstances!

TUESDAY, DEC. 2. Poor Lynch, one of our crew, from the state of Maine,

died last evening, and we have to-day, as the sun was setting, committed

his remains to the deep. He has left a pious mother, of whom he often

spoke to me in his last sickness. She seemed to be the strongest tie

that fastened him to earth. Her early lessons of piety awoke with

singular power as his end approached. They crowded thick and fast upon

his heart; he clung to them as something that could stay him, something

that could lift him above present suffering and future apprehension. He

died under the light of these sentiments, and in an humble hope of the

happiness which they promise to the pure and meek.

At the call, “All hands to bury the dead!” the officers and crew took

their stations. The body, wound in its hammock, and preceded by the

chaplain, was brought up the fore hatch and round the capstan to the

waist, the band playing the “dead-march,” and the marine guard

presenting arms. The service was read, and the hollow sound of the

hammocked dead descending through the sea, told that another of our crew

had left us for ever. This is the third that we have lost within less

than thirty days. The death of a man in a crowded town is little felt,

but in a ship’s crew it leaves a vacuum which all observe. Still, these

bereavements are so blended with the vicissitudes of a sea-life, that

they fail to make a permanent impression; they are felt deeply for the

moment and then glide away.

“As from the wing the sky no scar retains,

The parted wave no furrow from the keel,

So dies in human hearts the thought of death.”

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3. Our trade-wind has left us utterly. We have had a

regular Irishman’s hurricane—up and down. The rain fell in a perfect

avalanche; with all the scuppers open, the water became, in a few

minutes, almost knee deep on the spar-deck. The rolling of the ship

threw it over the combings of the hatches, and down it came upon the

gun-deck, and then took another leap below, flooding the wardroom,

steerage, and berth-deck. With the hatches covered, and the external air

excluded, the heat below soon became intolerable. Our choice lay between

being roasted or drenched. Most of us preferred the latter, and emerged

into the drifting sea above.

In the midst of these troubles, our cook came aft and informed our

caterer that the water came in such floods into the galley, that he

could not keep fire enough alive to light his pipe by. This was good

news for our last pig, who looked out from his gratings as one that has

another day to live. I always pity the last tenant of the coop and sty.

He looks so lonely, so disconsolate in the midst of that voiceless

solitude, which the untimely death of his companions has spread around

him, that I could never have the heart to kill him. It seems like

extinguishing the last of a race. Indeed, I would never take the life of

any thing, unless it was in the way in which the Irishman thought his

squirrel might have been killed. Two of them were gunning, and had treed

a large squirrel upon a very high limb. One of them, a little more

experienced at the business, lifted and fired his old Queen’s-arm; down

came the squirrel with a bone-breaking crash; when the other exclaimed,

“An’ faith, you might as well have spared your pooder, the fall itself

would ha’ kilt him.”

THURSDAY, DEC. 4. We caught, two days since, a stormy petrel. As the

bird was brought on board, the old sailors around shook their heads with

ominous looks of dissatisfaction. “We’ll have a blow for that,” said an

old salt; and sure enough, before the wings of the petrel were dry a

storm set in. “We’ll have no more fair weather,” said another, “till

that petrel is put back into the sea.” “I knew a ship,” exclaimed a

third, “that had a forty days’ gale for having killed a petrel; and if

that bird dies on board, we’ll escape a wreck by the skin of our teeth,

or we’ll rot down in a dead calm.” Our storm continued without any token

of abatement, and last evening the ominous bird was returned in safety

to its element. The clouds soon swept past, the sun emerged into a

bright sapphire sky, and a leading wind from the southeast sprung up.

How far the return of the petrel to the sea influenced this auspicious

change in the elements, I leave to the decision of those who have more

or less philosophy than myself. I must confess I was glad to see the

petrel go back. There is a sacredness attached to this bird that should

exempt it from violence. It is supposed to be the form in which the

spirit of some one, who has been sepulchred in the sea, still floats in

troubled light, and that when its penance is passed, it will be

translated to some higher form which the gale and the breaker can never

reach. This may all be superstition, but it is a glimmering of the great

truth of man’s immortality. He who believes that man can survive death

in the shape of a bird, is more than half way to the belief that he can

survive in the form of an angel.

It is a tranquil eve; our ship is gliding quietly on; my thoughts,

unoccupied here, run warmly back to those left behind—to the loved and

lost

CATHARA.

The evening star sleeps in the moon’s pale rim,

And slumber rocks the weary world to rest;

Nor wakes a sound except the vesper hymn

Of pines, that murmur on the mountain’s crest;

And now, at this lone hour, fond thoughts of thee

Melt o’er my heart as music on the sea.

But thou hast gone, hast winged thy silent flight

O’er Death’s dim waters to the spirit-land;

Thy faith discerned its hills of purple light

Ere yet thy footstep left our mortal strand;

As closed the shadows on thy farewell track,

A whisper of thy bliss came floating back.

It came too soft and low for Echo’s breath,

And died, with tender transport in its tone;

But ere it ceased, it reached the ear of Death,

And shook the sable monarch on his throne;

He knew the omen, which that whisper gave,

Would burst one day in thunder from the grave.

FRIDAY, DEC. 5. We are to-day in lat. 3° 23′ N., long. 28° 20′ W. We

have a steady but light breeze from the southeast, and are heading south

by southwest, with half a point westerly variation. We shall cross the

line if this wind holds, and there is now little prospect of change, at

30°. This is three or four degrees further west than most ships bound to

Rio de Janeiro venture to cross it at. Still, unless we encounter

westerly currents on the other side of the line, we expect to be able to

double Cape San Roque, and proceed directly to our port. Should we be

disappointed, we shall be obliged to make a long tack to the northeast,

which may keep us many days longer at sea. But we are going to make the

experiment, and must bide the consequences. Nothing can be less certain

than a ship’s progress. Even those winds deemed regular and almost

infallible by mariners, seem now and then infected with the last degree

of fickleness and perversity.

We have now been thirty-six days at sea without an isle or promontory to

break the dim horizon, or relieve the vast rolling waste of waters.

Harmony and good feeling prevail among the officers. There has not been

the slightest clash of feeling between our Captain and those who carry

on duty under him. And yet the most energetic forms of discipline have

been maintained. The crew are cheerful and active. Punishments have been

very rare. The cats have been used but once since we weighed anchor.

Efficiency has been secured by a thorough attention to details on the

part of Mr. Livingston, our first lieutenant, and the watch officers.

SATURDAY, DEC. 6. We are now within one degree of the equator. But the

wind having hauled round one point east of south, we have been obliged

to go upon our starboard tack to avoid crossing it too far to the west.

We shall probably have made sufficient easting by to-morrow noon to make

a dash over it. Then for a new hemisphere and new constellations. But we

have a splendid moon to-night, directly in the centre of the great dome

of heaven. Our masts cast no shadow. This position gives the moon a much

greater apparent distance than it has when near the horizon. It now

seems as some heaven-born sphere, that, having in vain tried to win you

from the cares of earth, has gone back with melancholy countenance to

its choiring sisterhood on high.

“There’s not the smallest orb, which thou behold’st,

But in his motion, like an angel, sings,

Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubim.”

We had a visit, a few evenings since, from a whale. We were lying in a

dead calm, when this monster saluted us like a locomotive blowing off

steam. The column of brine which he threw up with his great

forcing-pump, fell in a sparkling shower. Man constructs his fountain

with great cost and pains, and when all is done, it can play only in

that one place: but the whale moves about, throwing up his brilliant

cascade at will in every zone. The springs may fail, the streams forsake

their channels, but this showering column still soars from a source

exhaustless as the mighty deep. Give me the whale and ocean for a

fountain, and you may do what you please with your drizzling pipes and

frog-ponds.

SUNDAY, DEC. 7th. At eleven o’clock, the tolling of the ship’s bell

announced the hour of worship. The officers took their accustomed

station on the starboard quarter; the marines on the poop-deck; the crew

on the larboard quarter, stretching back to the waist and circling the

main-mast to the opposite side; the band and singers between the

after-hatches; Mr. Ten Eyche and Mr. Turrel, with their families,

forming a group between the officers and marines. The commodore, being

informed by the captain that the crew were assembled for worship,

appeared and took his station on the left of the officers. The chaplain

then took his station at the capstan, which was covered with a large

flag, when the band played the impressive air to the words, “O come and

let us worship.”

We sung the missionary hymn—“From Greenland’s icy mountain”—a hymn for

which sailors have the greatest partiality. The splendid imagery of this

hymn, and the rich melody of the music, always take hold of the sailor.

It has something of the same effect on him, which the impassioned

eloquence of Peter the Hermit must have had, when he poured the

population of Europe, in tumultuous crusades, on the bosom of Asia. If

sailors could win their way to heaven with weapons of war, there is no

act of hardship or daring from which they would shrink. But when you

throw them back upon their own hearts, and confine them to the enemy

found there, they are too apt to make a truce; still, so far are they

from being unsusceptible of religious impression, that could I at all

times select my auditory and place of worship, I would take a ship of

the line with her thousand sailors on her spar-deck: and, if I failed of

making an impression there, I should despair of making it anywhere.

MONDAY, DEC. 8th. The watch in the main-top discovered this morning, at

break of day, a sail just peering up over the swelling sweep of the sea.

She was hull down; indeed, the little canvas that loomed to the eye

might easily have been mistaken for one of those small sheets of vapor

which seem blent with the spray of a wave. But sail after sail emerged

into vision till her hull broke with its dark mass the bright line of

the horizon. She came down to us before the wind, with her royals and

studding-sails set, and with the American ensign flying from her

mizen-peak.

She proved to be the whale-ship Jason, of New London; twelve days from

St. Helena; bound home. She had been out on her whaling expedition

seventeen months, and had secured in that time twenty-eight thousand

gallons of oil, and forty-six thousand pounds of whalebone. The second

mate, a noble tough tar, who came on board, told us that his portion of

the spoil would be eight hundred dollars. He wanted some powder and shot

to keep off the Mexicans. We told him there was no war with Mexico;

still he should be welcome to some ammunition, certainly enough to fire

a salute as he wound into the harbor of New London.

All pens were now put in motion to dispatch letters home. Go where you

would, fore or aft, nothing was to be heard but the scratch of these

pens. What surprised me most was the number of sailors who were driving

the quill. How they can carry paper in their clothes-bags unrumpled,

where every thing else is mussed up, is more than I can explain. But of

all beings the sailor is most fertile in expedients. He stows away every

thing in his clothes-bag, from a mirror to a marlin-spike, from a cable

to a cambric needle, and has plenty of room remaining.

The captain of the Jason kindly offered to take any officer to the

United States whom the commander-in-chief might wish to dispatch. Our

commodore fixed on Mr. Morris, his secretary, who was very desirous of

going; and having given him an outfit, in the shape of provisions and

funds, equal to all emergencies, instructed him to get the President’s

message, the proceedings of Congress, all the news of the day, with

letters for the officers of the ship, take the first packet to Chagres,

cross over to Panama, and join him at the nearest point practicable. The

letters now being bagged, a boat was called away, Mr. Morris took leave

of us, and was soon on the deck of the Jason. The sturdy whaler squared

round before the wind, we filled away, and when the sun went down were

once more alone on the ocean.

Each seemed lost in thoughts of the surprise and pleasure which the

letters he had thus unexpectedly been able to send back would awaken.

One of our best young sailors told me his mother would weep for joy over

his letter, and sleep for a month with it under her pillow. No eloquence

that ever flowed from human lips affected me half so much as the simple

remark of this dutiful sailor. There was a tenderness, a truthfulness, a

moral beauty in it, which made me forget the rough exterior of the being

from whom it came. He seemed as a brother whom I could take to my heart,

and whose hard lot I could most cheerfully share. That man who can

forget his mother, who can forget the sorrows and solicitudes which she

has endured for him, and the lessons of piety which she instilled into

his young mind, has sundered the last tie that binds him to virtue and a

reasonable hope of heaven.

TUESDAY, DEC. 9. Our painters commenced to-day painting our

gun-carriages black. They had a coat of white paint when we left port,

but it soon became dingy and defaced by the rough-and-tumble of sea

usage. Black paint can easily be restored; a few coats of varnish will

make it shine like a Congo under his native sun. The objects to be aimed

at in the use of paint on board a man-of-war are neatness, preservation,

economy in money and time. There is nothing fantastic, but all is

substantial and enduring. It is in harmony with the solid oak out of

which the storm-defying fabric is itself constructed.

I have been attached to ships where the belaying-pins, the

midship-stanchions, and even crowbars, were bright work. The amount of

labor bestowed upon them during a three years’ cruise, might, if

properly directed, have almost constructed another ship equal to that of

which these are mere blacksmith appendages. Were sailors merely

unthinking machines, it might do to keep them employed on such work; but

as it is, the idea will often force itself upon them that their labor is

a frivolous waste of time. This renders them impatient and remiss, and

this impatience and remissness soon extends to their other duties. Keep

sailors employed, but let them feel that their employment is working out

some adequate ends. No man will continue to roll an empty wheelbarrow,

however liberally paid for his services.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10. This morning, with our royals set to a steady

southeaster, we dashed across the equator at longitude thirty. That

great circle, cutting the continents, mountains, oceans, and islands of

the globe asunder, now threw its steep plane between us and the thousand

objects to which memory clings with affection and pride. The sunset

clouds on which we had gazed, the towering crags where morn first broke,

and the brilliant constellations which faith had peopled with the

spirits of the pure and meek, all went down in dying pomp over the dim

horizon. What now to us Niagara’s thunder, or the rush of the Alpine

avalanche! Even the polar star, that has poured its steady light for

ages on the ruins of pyramids, the wrecks of temples, and the graves of

empires, has left its watch-tower in darkness,—all are lost in the

shoreless ocean of night.

Old Neptune formerly saluted every ship that crossed the line. He

appeared in the shape of some tall sturdy tar, in ox-hide mail, with a

long beard of yarn falling far below his chin, and locks of the same

flowing in drenched ringlets down his shoulders. His trident was a huge

harpoon, his pipe the coiled hose of the fire-engine; thus accoutred, he

hailed the ship over her bows, and mounting a gun-carriage, was drawn

aft to the quarter-deck. Here he summoned the green horns to his

presence, and after lathering them from a tub of grease and tar, shaved

them with a ship’s scraper. Having thus introduced the novice into his

service, he returned in triumph to his watery realm. This ceremony was

found such an infraction of discipline, that it has been discontinued on

board our national ships. Our sailors were allowed to splice the

main-brace as a substitute.

THURSDAY, DEC. 11. A delicate question of discipline occurred to-day.

The master’s mate of the gun-deck, finding the captain of the main-top

behind the rest in lashing and stowing his hammock, ordered him to clean

the bell,—a menial service, and intended as a punishment. The captain of

the main-top, knowing the order to be illegal and derogatory to his

position, declined compliance. He was reported to the officer of the

deck and confined. All this had taken place without the knowledge of the

first lieutenant or the commander. When known to them, the facts were

promptly inquired into. I felt some interest in seeing how Captain Du

Pont would dispose of the question.

The illegality of an order, though it may mitigate the offence, cannot

for a moment justify disobedience. Such a doctrine would make every man

a judge in his own case, and overthrow discipline. He must obey the

order, and seek redress at its proper source. The offender saw his

error, as exhibited to him by Captain Du Pont, and said he should submit

to any punishment which the government of the ship required. That was

enough; he was one of our best men, this his first offence, and Captain

Du Pont very properly at once restored him to duty. Now what would have

been the moral effect of inflicting chastisement on that man, as some,

in a spirit of haste, might have done. It might have broken his

ambition. It would certainly have reduced him to a lash-level with the

hardened culprit. It would have relieved punishment of some portion of

the shame which attaches to it. The bad always exult when they see any

portion of their disgrace transferred to the good; therefore never

punish a good faithful sailor for the first offence into which he may be

betrayed, if there is any way of getting round it. Let his virtues

“Plead for him like angels, trumpet-tongued.”

FRIDAY, DEC. 12. We have had, for three days, the regular trade-wind

from the southeast, and have been running under royals and

studding-sails, from seven to ten knots the hour. The thermometer has

ranged at 75, the air has been balmy, and the sky free of clouds. What a

contrast to the weather of the line,—where a cloud gathered before you

could turn your eye, and where showers fell like water from some vast

reservoir, with the bottom suddenly knocked out!

A flying-fish, hard pressed by a dolphin, took refuge on the deck of our

ship. He might as well have remained in the sea, for he was instantly

secured by one of our sailors, and presented by him to a lady passenger,

who, with too little feeling, fried and ate him. It is true he had the

satisfaction of being eaten by a lady, which was perhaps preferable to

being swallowed by a dolphin. How many frantic lovers there are who

would like to be eaten up by their mistress! Besides, it is in much

better taste to dispose of one’s self in this way, than making a plunge

into the sea to feed a hungry shark. Still, for one, I should not like

to see a woman coming at me with a frying-pan.

Our batteries, in their black paint, look solid and uncompromising.

Their threatening strength reminds one of the terrific lines of

Campbell, in the Battle of the Baltic:—

“When each gun,

From its adamantine lips,

Spread a death-shade round the ships

Like the hurricane’s eclipse

Of the sun.”

SATURDAY, DEC. 13. A booby was seen last evening, at sunset, circling

around our masts. He was looking where he should light when it should

become sufficiently dark. He lives on what he can find in the sea, but

prefers a spar to a wave on which to roost. He has sense enough to know

that when asleep, the fish may avenge upon him some of the wrongs which

he inflicts. But he is, after all, a very stupid fellow. He secures his

prey often at the expense of his life, and that, too, when there is no

necessity for it. If a little billow casts a dead fish on a rock, he

poises over it for a moment to be sure of his mark, and then plunging

down, head first, dashes his own brains out; very much like a politician

who rushes so hard upon an office that he destroys himself in its

attainment. The senate is, in this case, the rock on which his little

craft splits.

We are now approaching the region of dolphins, porpoises, sharks, and

small whales. Our sailors are rigging their hooks and harpoons. It will

be difficult for any thing that comes near us to escape their glittering

steel. Their hostility falls mostly on the shark. They regard him as a

graver robber. He can expect no mercy. The loudest note of exultation I

ever heard on board a man-of-war, was when one of these fellows was

brought on board. “There,” said a rough salt, “you have been prowling

about here to get a nab at us, and have got nabbed yourself—you old

blood-sucker!” There are three beings that can expect no mercy in

misfortune,—a rat, a tyrant, and a shark. Of the three I would soonest

spare the rat; I always associated something respectable with his long

tail. But let that pass.

SUNDAY, DEC. 14. We have had the awning spread, and have held divine

service. All joined in, and sung Old Hundred to the hymn commencing with

the lines—

“God of the seas, thine awful voice

Bids all the rolling waves rejoice.”

The impressiveness of a service at sea is owing, in part, to the

isolation of those on board. There is nothing around to distract the

attention, or win a diverted thought. Around rolls or rests the

melancholy main—above stretches the blue heaven, and over all reigns

that Supreme Intelligence, at whose fiat resplendent worlds rolled from

chaotic night. All is vast and awful, like that state of being into

which we are ushered at death. It is this that makes the sailor

religious, and inspires him with respect for all the great truths which

throw their light through the night of the grave.

The errors and vices of the sailor seldom result from skepticism. I

never met with one who denied or doubted the existence of a God, the

wickedness of the human heart, or the realities of a future state. They

attach a much higher offence to a disrespect to the Bible, than the use

of profane language. They seem to think a man’s impulses may be wrong,

while in the main he is good. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is

weak. They have a law in their members warring against the law of their

mind, and bringing them into captivity to Satan; and yet they are free

to denounce that captivity, and brand it as the source of all their

degredation and misery. Their loathing spirits, touched with a diviner

life, often exclaim, “Who shall deliver us from this body of sin and

death?”

MONDAY, DEC. 15. We were to-day, at 12 o’clock, in lat. 15° 46′ S.,

long. 36° 58′ W. We have run within the last five days a thousand miles,

and are now within six hundred and sixty miles of Rio. Three or four

days more, and we shall probably be at rest in one of the most

magnificent bays in the world. Our ship is in prime condition for

displaying her symmetry and strength. She is indebted for this to the

experience and activity of our captain and first lieutenant. They are

thorough in the details of ship duty, and are sustained by efficient

officers. To keep a man-of-war trig, taxes the profoundest patience and

energy. It requires an eye that sees every thing, and a fidelity that

neglects nothing.

I saw this morning, at daybreak, an old tar standing alone on the

forecastle. His stalwart form rose in bold relief on the brightening

sky. His dark locks flowed out from under his tarpaulin upon the wind.

His large deep eye was fastened on the sun as it came whirling up in

splendor out of the sea. His large sinewy arms were extended, as if to

welcome some being that inspired reverence and love; when Milton’s

sublime apostrophe to light rolled in solemn emphasis from his lips:—

“Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven, first born

Or of the eternal co-eternal beam!

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light,

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright affluence of bright essence increate.”

TUESDAY, DEC. 16. This is beautiful sailing; a soft, balmy atmosphere, a

smooth sea, and a breeze that carries us seven and eight knots the hour.

We have not taken in our studding-sails for several days; while our

royals seemed to have entered into an agreement with our broad pennant

to stand or come down together. The day is not darkened by clouds, and

the night is filled with the soft light of the moon. The stars come out

from the blue vault of heaven, and blaze with a distinctness and force

that makes each one seem some central source of exhaustless and

unquenchable splendor. Of this high host Jupiter leads the way; to him

the eye of the sailor turns as that of the Moslem to the crescent that

glows on the minaret of his prophet.

An officer to-day, after reprimanding a sailor for some alleged neglect

of duty, told him to go forward; that he was such a perfect nondescript

that he did not know what to do with him. So forward Jack went,

muttering to himself _nondescript_—what does that mean? “Here, Wilkins,”

said he, “can you tell me what nondescript means? the officer of the

deck called me a nondescript, and I want to know what it means—something

bad, I suppose, for he was mighty angry.” “No,” said Wilkins, “I don’t

know what it means; call Tim Shades, he can tell you.” Now this latter

person was a sort of ship’s dictionary, and though perhaps as ignorant

as any on board, had a meaning for every thing, and a reason for it

besides. So Tim Shades came. “What does nondescript mean?” inquired the

aggrieved sailor. Our lexicographer seemed at first a little puzzled;

but soon settling his features into oracular solemnity,

replied:—“Nondescript means one who gets into heaven without being

regularly entered on the books.” “Is that all it means?” ejaculated the

offended sailor; “well, well, I shall be glad to get there any way, poor

sinner as I am.” Were there more of the spirit of this sailor among

sectarians, there would be less altercation about the right road, and

quite as much speed.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17. Another hundred miles of the distance that separated

us from Rio has been left behind. Four hundred miles more remain to be

traversed. The breeze is extremely light, directly aft, and our

studding-sails on both sides, below and aloft, are out. We are under a

cloud of canvas, which hangs over our frigate like the brooding wings of

the cherubim over the sanctuary of the ark. But here I fear the parallel

must stop. We have the sacred tables, it is true, and the commandments

inscribed on them, but where is the soul-absorbing reverence they should

inspire?

All hands are at work getting our ship ready for port. She is being

scoured from stem to stern, outside and in. Every soil on her paint is

obliged to yield to soap and clean water; and every weather-stain on her

rigging is removed. She will look neat as a bride approaching the

nuptial altar. What is there more beautiful on earth than a young and

guileless being thus timidly intrusting her destiny to the hands of

another,—leaving her home, her father, mother, brothers and sisters, for

a hearth which another love has lighted, and where other hopes are to

bud and bloom? He who can betray the confidence thus reposed in him, and

break the heart that has treasured its last trust in his, is callous

alike to crime and shame. But this is digression.

THURSDAY, DEC. 18. As we were exercising to-day at general quarters, our

ears were startled by the cry, “Man overboard!” The life-buoy was

instantly cut away, the ship hove-to, and a boat lowered. The missing

sailor had fallen from the steps of the lee gangway, and was discovered

before he had passed the ship’s counter, but immediately disappeared. He

was known to be a good swimmer; the cause of his sudden disappearance is

left to conjecture. His head may possibly have struck the ship’s side

with sufficient force to have stunned him, or he may have fallen a prey

to an enormous shark that has been hanging around our ship all the

morning. A protracted and most diligent search was made, but not a trace

of him could be found. The boat was at last recalled, and our ship

filled away.

The deceased was one of the most intractable and dangerous men we had on

board. He had knocked down one of the crew in the dark, and stamped on

the face of another at night, with the apparent intention of inflicting

a mortal wound. No punishments, no counsels had the slightest effect

upon him. Captain Du Pont had tried his utmost to reform him. He seemed

proof both to the language of kindness and rebuke. When it was known

among the crew that he was the one that was lost, not a sentiment of

sorrow or regret was evinced. But on the contrary, the crew seemed as if

relieved of a calamity by a mysterious Providence. This death carries

one moral lesson with obvious effect to all, and that is, to have the

sympathy and regret of others in death, we must command their friendship

and respect in life. No eloquence can proclaim this truth with half the

effect that this death has done. But the appearance of one at the bar of

God so utterly unprepared for his last account, is a thought

inexpressibly awful, and should strike the deepest alarm into a guilty

breast.

FRIDAY, DEC. 19. We were to-day, at 12 o’clock, in lat. 21° 36′ S.,

long. 38° 55′ W., 200 miles from Cape Frio, and 260 from Rio. The breeze

which for several days past has often died into a calm, has freshened

to-day, and is carrying us along with studding-sails below and aloft,

some six and seven knots. We may perhaps get in on Sunday evening, but

not before. We have seen nothing of the strong westerly winds which

prevail in the North Atlantic during the winter months, and very little

of the northeast monsoons found to the south of the equator. These

winds, like broken-down politicians, have blown themselves out.

A large ship, which, if our glasses speak truly, is armed, and bears a

broad pennant, is in sight. All hands have been called to quarters, the

breeching of the guns cast loose, the match-buckets stationed, cutlasses

and pistols belted, the magazines opened, and every thing ready for an

engagement. Our commodore will never be taken by surprise. His ship is

ready at any moment for action. To this subject he gives his personal

attention. Every division of the guns is exercised under his immediate

supervision. His presence, and the interest he takes in the exercise,

encourages and animates the men. He has an enthusiasm himself which he

infuses into others.

“Our bosoms we’ll bear to the glorious strife,

And our oath is recorded on high,

To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,

Or crushed in its ruins to die.”

SATURDAY, DEC. 20. “Land ho!” This cry from the man in the fore-top sent

an exulting thrill this morning through our whole ship. We have been on

the ocean fifty-two days, and not an island or even desolate rock have

we seen. Our eyes have rested only on the sky and melancholy main. But

now a towering headland welcomes us to a new clime and the wonders of a

new shore. Mr. Morgan, our master, calculated that we should discover

land this morning at half past eleven, on our starboard bow. Within ten

minutes of the time, and bearing precisely as he had calculated, Cape

Frio was announced by the man in the fore-top. This, after an absence

from land of more than seven weeks, and the sailing of more than six

thousand miles, speaks well for our chronometers, and the scientific

accuracy of our sailing-master.

We have been running, for several hours past, twelve knots, with the

wind on our quarter. We shot past a Brazilian brig on the same course,

as if she had been at anchor. The line of coast is now but a few miles

distant, and heaves its soaring peaks into the sky. The sun is setting

in splendor. As the night deepens apace, sheets of moonlight descend

through the rifts of the floating darkness above, while a long train of

phosphoric light flashes behind our keel. The storm on the lofty coast

becomes still more grand and awful. Every mountain-peak becomes a

blazing fortress, and shakes with the heavy thunder. The very sea

trembles under this artillery of the sky.

“And this is in the night:—most glorious night!

Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be

A sharer in your fierce and far delight,—

A portion of the tempest and of thee!

How the lit wave shines a phosphoric sea,

And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!

And now again ’tis black,—and now, the glee

Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,

As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.”