PASSAGE FROM RIO TO CAPE HORN.
GETTING UNDER WAY.—THE LETTER-BAG.—RUNAWAY SAILOR.—ISLE OF ST.
CATHERINE.—PAMPEROES.—THE SHOTTED GUN.—LOSS OF OUR COON.—THE SAILOR
AND SHARK.—GENERAL QUARTERS AT NIGHT.—FIREWORKS IN THE SEA.—THE
PHANTOM SHIP.—PATAGONIANS.—THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.—THE CAPTURED
ALBATROS.—TERRIFIC GALE.—CONDITION OF OUR FRIGATE.—THE SAILOR’S
BURIAL.—THE CAPE OF STORMS.
All hands unmoor—the captain’s brief command;
The cable round the flying capstan rings,
The anchor quits its bed, the sails expand,
The gallant ship before the quick breeze springs.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 1846. This morning as the first rays of the sun lit
the Corcovada peak, we tripped our anchors, and, under a light land
breeze, stood down the bay of Rio. It being understood that we were to
take our departure at this hour, the officers and crews of the national
ships, which lay moored around us, were on deck to see us get under way.
This being the first time we had gone through with these evolutions on
the cruise, a slight solicitude was felt, lest some awkwardness in
executing the orders, some want of perfect harmony and dispatch, should
be evinced. The liability to those errors which we wished to avoid, was
perhaps only enhanced by the presence of so many professional eyes. But
the successive orders were executed with admirable promptitude and
accuracy. We left our berth with the grace of the swan gliding from the
place of her cradled sleep.
We left at anchor the U. S. frigate Columbia, bearing the broad pennant
of Commodore Rousseau, bound to La Plata; the U. S. sloop-of-war
Plymouth, bound to the same place; and the U. S. frigate Raritan, bound
to the Mexican gulf. To each and all we waved our adieu, and filled away
for Cape Horn. What a contrast between what lay around us, and what lay
before us! We were exchanging a quiet harbor for a tumbling
ocean,—zephyrs too soft to ruffle the cheek of beauty, for storms which
the sturdy ship can hardly withstand,—a clime of perpetual sunshine and
flowers for one of eternal ice.
THURSDAY, JAN. 15. We were to-day at 12 o’clock two hundred and sixty
miles from our anchorage at Rio, a very good commencement of our run
south. We have been looking out all day for some vessel to heave in
sight, that we might throw on board her our last letter-bag, which, by a
singular inadvertence, had been brought off to sea with us. It had been
made up during our last night at Rio, and contained our last words of
affection and remembrance; and here it was going with us towards Cape
Horn, instead of our homes. This was vexatious, and required that
philosophy which the heart is slow to learn. They who can write their
friends every twenty-four hours, will let months perhaps roll away
without penning them a sentence. But take away this facility, spread an
ocean between them and their kindred, and they will look for a vessel
bound home as eagerly as a condemned culprit looks for a reprieve or
pardon.
FRIDAY, JAN. 16. Our wind still continues directly aft; we have all
studding-sails out below and aloft. The weather is extremely warm; the
thermometer ranging at 87. The night is quite as oppressive as the day,
and perhaps more so, as we are then in our state-rooms. The wind-sail is
a great comfort; without it the berth-deck would be almost intolerable.
But we are like frogs jumping out of the sun into the frost, and then
out of the frost into the sun.
Our sailors while at Rio behaved extremely well. They were constantly
passing between the ship and the shore, and frequently without an
officer in charge of the boat, and yet but one or two instances of
intoxication occurred; only one deserted, and he was so worthless a
creature that no efforts were made to recover him. We all felt quite
relieved when it was known that he had run; our only fear was, that he
would relent and come back. Captain Du Pont might have said to him with
some propriety, “I shall punish you, not for running away, for that was
relieving us of a bad man, but for coming back.” Our Rio runaway did
not, however, return; if this was the result of an unwillingness to ask
further our charity and forbearance, he is certainly entitled to some
praise.
SATURDAY, JAN. 17. The weather still continues close and sultry. The sky
is filled with a dull haze, the sea is smooth, the breeze very light and
directly aft, where it has been for the last eight-and-forty hours, and
yet we have sailed between 12 o’clock yesterday and the same hour to-day
105 miles. Four knots the hour is slow sailing by the clock, but in the
aggregate for the day extends over a wide space of water. You would
think so, were you doomed to swim it, though you might have three months
to do it in. No man should complain of a horse or a ship that carries
him faster than he can carry himself.
Besides, why should we be in haste to reach our port? We are out here on
a great ocean, exempt from all the troubles and perplexities of the
shore. Realms may be revolutionized, capitals shaken, dynasties
overthrown, and we feel and know it not. We are as secure as Mahomet’s
coffin, swinging high and serene above the careering sirocco. If the
world wearies you, if its frivolities sicken or its crimes overwhelm
you, proceed to sea, get out on the broad ocean, and hold communion with
the stars and the free billows. Here you are not a slave to custom, you
are not trammelled by party, you have not to coin your cheek to smiles.
The ocean exacts no such homage; but impresses on her children a portion
of her own grandeur and strength.
SUNDAY, JAN. 18. We have had divine service on a very unquiet deck. The
fall of the barometer through the first watch, last night, indicated a
change in the weather. It came, during the mid-watch, in the shape of a
strong blow from the southeast. This is the first pampero that we have
encountered, and if the rest are like this, the fewer we have of them
the better. They knock you off your course, raise a tumbling sea, and
then leave you like a culprit escaping from the scene of his outrage.
We have passed the Brazilian island of St. Catharine, unable to gratify
our curiosity by any stay there. This small island has many attractions;
its fruits are unrivalled; its scenery is wild and picturesque; its
inhabitants are mild and amiable. The climate, though warm, is so
modified by a sea breeze that the heat is never oppressive. The birds of
this island are remarkable for the sweetness and brilliancy of their
music. The fertility of the soil is seen in the rich verdure which waves
in a mass of living green over its steeps and glens. Could Eden have
taken its departure from the east in the shape of an island, I should
think it had anchored itself here under the name of St. Catharine.
“How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle!
Oft, in my fancy’s wanderings,
I’ve wished that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bowers,
Were wafted off to seas unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
And we might live, love, die alone—
Far from the cruel and the cold—
Where the bright eyes of angels only
Should come around us, to behold
A paradise so pure and lonely.”
MONDAY, JAN. 19TH. The wind is still out of the south and in our teeth.
It has taken up its stand there like the indignant angel heading off
Balaam’s ass. This reminds me of an anecdote not more out of place here
than the graceless animal that introduces it. A man who stammered to
such a degree that he was under the necessity, when journeying, to have
an interpreter with him, encountered on the road a clergyman, mounted on
rather a sorry-looking horse. Before the parties met, the stammerer told
his interpreter that he was going to pro-pro-pose to the par-par-parson
a certain question, and then explained, in his broken dialect, what the
question was. As the clergyman came up, the stammerer saluted him with
“Good morning, Mr. par-par-parson: can you tell me wha-wha-wha”—Here the
interpreter came in to his relief, and, with a satirical leer in his
look, told the parson that his companion wished to ask him—what made
Balaam’s ass speak. The clergyman instantly replied, “Why, Balaam was a
stammerer, and his ass spake for him.” This is not the only instance in
which a wicked wag, attempting an impudent witticism upon a
simple-hearted man, has fallen into his own snare. Wisdom is justified
of her children.
But I forget the ship and our destination. The last we might well forget
till the wind hauls. Nothing conduces more to resignation than losing
sight of your objects. We are always in the greatest fever nearest our
goal. Youth may indeed pursue interests which can be reached only in
age; but enthusiasm and anticipation overleap this gulf of years,
leaving action and reality to come along afterwards. Love lights its
lamp long before it reaches its shrine; so long, indeed, that it often
goes out on the road; and when once quenched, there is no Promethean
spark that can rekindle it. But what have lamps and love, or ladies
either, to do with our getting to Cape Horn?
TUESDAY, JAN. 20. The wind has hauled to the west at last, and we are
now laying our course. But such a change in the temperature! our
thermometer fell fifteen degrees in almost as many minutes, and remains
there like a broken-down politician. A day or two since, and we were
panting with heat even in our thinnest dress; now we are in winter
apparel, and cold at that. Our crew are barking all over the ship. It is
a little singular that the two animals which withstand these changes of
climate the best, are man and the hog. I always had some regard for this
last animal till he was introduced into Congress to help out a metaphor
of party animosity; since that, I have seen him roasted without
compunction. Every thing is known by the uses to which it is put.
We have had for some time past a shot in one of our spar-deck guns,
which we found it impossible at Rio to dislodge, to make room for firing
a salute. Every other expedient having failed, it was decided to-day to
fire it off. The danger lay in the gun’s bursting. It was trained to one
of the forward ports, the crew ordered below, and a slow match applied
to it. It went off, and the ball with it, into the infinity of space,
harming nothing save the air through which it passed, and which closed
up again as suddenly as Europe restored itself to its old landmarks
after the battle of Waterloo. This was a tragedy running foul of a
counterplot in the very last scene. It was a triumphant wave just
sweeping the shore, and then suddenly thrown back by a rock to whence it
came.
“Thanks for that lesson: it will teach
To after warriors more
Than high philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.”
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21st. We met this morning with an irreparable loss in
the death of our coon. He took, passage on board our frigate at Norfolk.
The great presidential election having just closed, and there being no
further occasion for his distinguished services, till another campaign
should open, he determined to spend a portion of the intervening time in
studying the habits and customs of coons in other lands.
He had been extremely occupied at Rio with the objects of his mission,
and probably neglected those precautions observed by coons in a torrid
zone. He was seized with a malady beyond the sagacity of the profession,
and which suddenly unrove his life line. This evening he was silently
consigned to the deep, by the boatswain’s mate, who committed a great
breach of propriety in not piping him over. But he probably thought that
one who had been so honored in his life could dispense with ceremony at
his death. My Ariel, however, who loved the coon, and will long lament
his loss, has penned the following:
ELEGY ON THE COON.
Thou meek and melancholy moon!
Smile sweetly on yon curling wave,
For ’neath its foam our gentle coon
Is in his grave.
No more he’ll leave his woodland hole
To frolic with the fox,
Or meet the Whiggies, cheek by jowl,
At ballot-box:
No more will stir the Locos’ bile
By his provoking pranks—
To think that he, who lead their file,
Should quit their ranks.
In grand processions he stood out,
High o’er the gaping crowd,
As if to him arose that shout,
Full thunder loud.
He knew to chasten his desires,
To curb all selfish wishes,
And left to those who worked the wires
The loaves and fishes.
The flowing waves will softly wreath
A chaplet on his breast,
The sighing winds a requiem breathe
Above his rest.
We are to-day nearly past the broad mouth of the Plata. The wind for the
last twenty-four hours has been extremely light, but we have made about
a hundred miles on our course. At this rate we shall soon be beyond the
reach of the pampero. This wind gives no admonition; it springs upon you
like a serpent from the brake, striking with its fang before it springs
its rattle. This is foul play, but we must put up with it, or make
ourselves ridiculous over a wayward element.
THURSDAY, JAN. 22d. We caught our first shark this morning. The rogue
had been following in the wake of our ship for some hours. The sailors
baited a large hook with a piece of pork, and let it trail by a long
line from the stern. The shark nabbed it, and finding himself caught,
attempted to break the line by his vigorous plunge, but it was too
strong for him. He was soon brought on deck, cut up, and on the fire
broiling for dinner. The sailors ate him with that savage glee which
often attends an act of retributive justice. But for eating him, they
felt quite sure he would in the end eat some of them. The way to
_finish_ an adversary is to eat him up. He will then give you no further
trouble save in the digestion. Anthropophagy is greatly abused. It is
much more innocent to devour a man’s body than his character; yet the
latter is done every day; while even a vague rumor of the former will
fill a whole community with consternation. But what has this to do with
getting to Cape Horn?
FRIDAY, JAN. 23d. Fresh meat at this rate will soon cease to be a dainty
with us. One of our crew harpooned a huge porpoise this morning. He
shared the fate of the shark, on coals and the gridiron. He makes very
good eating; rather dry, as the Irishman said—picking the bones of an
owl, which he had shot for a grouse.
We went to general quarters this afternoon; all fire and lights having
been first extinguished. The crew went through with the evolutions of an
engagement with an enthusiasm that would not dishonor the reality. On
these exercises depends in a great measure the efficiency of a ship when
the crisis comes. But there is one feature of the arrangement not quite
to my liking. I am stationed at the capstan to take notes of the action;
very cool business when balls are flying around you like hail! If there
is any fighting to be done I wish to do my part of it, but not with a
goose-quill. That weapon does very well when there are no cutlasses,
powder, and shot about, but it is not quite the thing with which to
protect your own deck or board the enemy. It is said the chaplain of the
Chesapeake, who wielded a cutlass instead of a goose-quill, gave the
commander of the Shannon, as he attempted to board, the wound of which
he ultimately died: so much
For one whose courage cut him loose
From weapons furnished by a goose.
SATURDAY, JAN. 24. We were to-day at 12 o’clock full half way from Rio
to Cape Horn. The wind is on our starboard quarter, the sea smooth, and
we are slipping along six and seven knots the hour. The atmosphere has
that smoky appearance which is characteristic of our clime when the
autumn has set in. An albatros has been circling around our ship to-day.
He is a large white bird approaching the swan in size, but with shorter
neck and longer wings.
Last night, on the eve of the mid-watch, the drum rolled all hands out
of their hammocks. We sprung to the deck, and went to general quarters.
The guns were cast loose, and we went through with the evolutions of a
night engagement. Hardly a loud word was heard, though the manœuvring of
our ship, and the management of her batteries, would have signalized us
in the battle of the Nile. If we are to have a fight, we shall know how
to go at it, whether it come at noon or midnight. What would have
surprised a stranger most, was the quickness with which every one
appeared on deck, when the call was beat. From the first tap of the drum
not more than three minutes elapsed before the last hammock was stowed,
and its roused occupant was ready for action. The marine officer, who
occupies the state-room adjoining mine, must have jumped into his
clothes without the time to draw them on:
Ere you could open well your eye,
He stood in arms prepared to die.
SUNDAY, JAN. 25. We have had no service to-day, in consequence of a cold
which I had taken, and which rendered speaking extremely difficult. Our
wind still holds, without having veered scarcely a point, and is now
carrying us onward ten knots the hour.
We had last night a splendid exhibition of aquatic fireworks. The night
was perfectly dark, and the sea smooth; and you might see a thousand
living rockets shooting off in all directions from our ship, and,
running through countless configurations, return to her, leaving their
track still bright with inextinguishable flame. Then they would start
again, whirling through every possible gyration, till the whole ocean
around seemed medallioned with fire. The fact was, we had run into an
immense shoal of porpoises and small fish. The sea being filled at the
same time with animalculæ, which emit a bright phosphoric light when the
water is agitated, the chase of the porpoises after these small fish
created the beautiful phenomena described. The light was so strong that
you could see the fish with the utmost distinctness. They lit their own
path, like a skyrocket in a dark night. Our ship left the track of its
keel in flame for half a mile. I have witnessed the illumination of St.
Peter’s and the castle of Michael Angelo at Rome, and heard the shout of
the vast multitudes as the splendors broke over the dark cope of night;
but no pyrotechnic displays ever got up by human skill, could rival the
exhibitions of nature around our ship. Give me a phosphoric sea and a
shoal of porpoises for fireworks: out on man and his vanity; he is
outdone, even with the thunders of the Vatican at his command, by the
ocean hog!
MONDAY, JAN. 26. We have been engaged to-day in stumping our
top-gallant-masts, and striking below some six of our spar-deck guns.
The gales often encountered off Cape Horn render these precautions
expedient on board a man-of-war. She is not like a merchantman, with the
great bulk and weight of her cargo down in the hold; her heavy
batteries, the strong decks which support them, her lofty masts, solid
spars, and immense field of canvas, are all above water-mark. She feels,
therefore, more than her mercantile sister, the strength of the wind,
and rolls more fearfully to its force.
It is seldom indeed that a man-of-war is lost. But her safety lies in
her precautions,—in the fact that she has not the same motive for
carrying sail as a merchant-ship rushing to a market,—and in the great
amount of living force which she can throw upon her yards in any sudden
emergency. Her crew is necessarily sufficient not only for managing her
sails, but for working her batteries, and can at a moment be summoned to
this duty or that, as the occasion requires. In this lies her safety in
storms and her strength in battle.
TUESDAY, JAN. 27. We were at twelve o’clock to-day within six hundred
miles of the Cape. We had a ten-knot breeze, and the prospect of a fine
run, when a black thunder-storm careered into the sky directly ahead. We
had only time to shorten sail before it was upon us. It swept past,
throwing back its forked lightning. I regretted its departure about as
much as I should that of a savage disappearing in the thicket, and
throwing behind the sheen of his tomahawk.
But one evil the storm has wrought us: it has destroyed our good wind,
and left us to look out for another, like a widow for a second husband.
No lady should marry a second time. If her first husband was a good one,
she should cherish his memory; if bad, he should serve as a beacon.
Gentlemen may marry again; for they were once allowed as many wives as
they wished, and it would be a pity if under any circumstances they
couldn’t have one. But somehow the ladies outdo us entirely in these
second marriages, and in most other things which require tact and
management. But what has this to do with getting to Cape Horn?
A large number of black whales are plunging about our ship. They have a
long heavy motion, and move over a swell like a lubberly Dutch
merchantman. How the lazy rascals ever secure their food is
unaccountable. I should suppose every thing would drift out of their
way. They move in Indian file, and their uneven backs, rippling above
the water, so closely resemble the bumps of the sea-serpent, that I
began to suspect we had got into the neighborhood of Nahant, or that the
commanders of her fishing-smacks had lost forever their great marine
fiction:
“Our army swore terribly in Flanders.”
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28. Our good wind, which the thunder-squall knocked down
last evening, has not yet recovered itself. It occasionally sends out a
breath, but it comes faintly, as from some dying thing. I fear we shall
have to part with it. Let its grave be in the clouds, and let the
softest sun-light rest upon it. May the thunder which has killed it be
compelled to roll its funeral dirge.
Our thermometer has stood to-day at 60. The sky at the zenith has been
brilliant, but on the horizon full of mist. The refraction of the sun’s
rays in the latter, has the effect to lift the distant line of the sea
into a circular wall. We seem to float in the centre of a magnificent
basin, the rim of which soars into the circumambient line of the sky. It
is an amphitheatre of waters, and as daylight darkens over it, the stars
hang in the blue dome their lamps of gushing light. No human
architecture can rival its beauty and grandeur. The Coliseum, which
exhausted the genius and wealth of Rome, dwindles into a cock-pit at its
side. Nations might be seated here as spectators, and the navies of the
world float in the arena. How nature pours contempt on the vanity of man
wherever she encounters it! From the fathomless depths of the rolling
ocean to the dew-drop that trembles on the thorn, she sends out her
challenge, and covers the presumptuous competitor with humiliation. She
is the mirror of her Maker, and images forth his power; and chiefly
thou, great ocean, ever rolling, ever free and full of strength!
“Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.”
THURSDAY, JAN. 29. We discovered this morning, on our weather bow, a
small white cloud, skimming along the undulating line of the horizon.
Its shape, its whiteness, in contrast with the dark background of the
sky, and its horizontal movement, all gave its appearance a singularity
that arrested our attention, When first seen, it was going east, but it
soon tacked, and stood west. It was distinctly visible, as it rose on
the crest of a long sweeping wave, and then seemed lost behind its
tumbling foam—
“A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it near’d and near’d:
As if it dodged a water sprite,
It plunged and tack’d and veer’d.”
But it proved to be no water sprite—no phantom ship, but a good and
substantial whaler, of New Bedford, bound home after a successful
cruise. Right glad were we to fall in with her on this frozen realm of
waters. We saluted her with “Hail Columbia!” She sent a boat alongside,
and her mate came on board. She had just doubled Cape Horn, where she
fell in with several vessels waiting for a change of the wind. She had
been out eighteen months, and was in good condition. In half an hour our
letter-bag was ready, the mate took it on board, and she filled away.
She is again but a speck on the slope of the ocean, and is now beneath
its blue verge.
FRIDAY, JAN. 29. Our wind, which the thunder-storm had crushed, has at
last sprung up again with renewed vigor, like truth overpowered for a
time by falsehood. As if to make up for its temporary overthrow, it is
now overdoing the business. We have been obliged to take in our
top-gallant-sails, and fetch a reef in our topsails. We are now between
the Falkland islands and the Patagonian coast, some three hundred miles
from the Cape. We are heading, close hauled, for the Strait Le Mair. The
sea is pretty rough, but we are tumbling over it at the rate of nine
knots the hour. The air is cold and searching, sleet and hail are on our
deck. What a transition from the melting rays of Rio! A leap from a
lightning cloud into an iceberg!
The wind has hauled, and we are now heading in for the Patagonians. We
shall find them, says one of our mess, who has been among them, not a
diminutive race, as is generally represented, but tall, well formed, and
possessing great muscular power. They live in huts, which resemble gipsy
tents, are clad in skins, and subsist on seals, guanacoes, and birds.
The women dress like the men, plait their long hair, but wear no
ornament in the ear or nose. They have all a bronze complexion, smooth
skin, and one accredited evidence of nobility, small hands and feet. The
men are fond of the chase, and are dexterous in the use of the lance and
bow. The women are attached to their children, but are kept in vassalage
to the other sex. Their religion is that of nature, and its spirit
partakes of the wild and dreary elements which prevail around them. Let
those who prefer the savage state embark for Patagonia,
And rid themselves of ills and ails
With every meal they make on snails.
SATURDAY, JAN. 31. We gave up the Patagonians as soon as the wind
permitted, and are steering again for the Strait Le Mair. The wind is
fitful and uncertain, and the air cold enough to make you snap your
fingers; but the sky, which through the morning was overhung with
clouds, now throws its blue and brilliant lake on the eye.
The Falkland Islands lie on our larboard quarter, and serve as huge
ice-breakers to the coast. Nothing can be imagined more terrible and
sublime than the rush of a steep iceberg against these towering masses
of rock. The tumult and roar of an Austerlitz or Marengo might pass
unheeded. So much does nature outdo man, even when he rouses in flames
and blood.
The Falkland Islands serve one important purpose in the economy of the
nautical world. They are a resting-place between two great confluent
oceans. Here ships in want of water can find it bubbling up as freshly
as if it had never felt the chain of winter. Wild cattle are leaping
among its rocks free and unfettered as goats among Alpine crags. Wild
geese and ducks swarm in the bays; snipe are so tame, you can knock them
over with your gun if you have not skill to shoot them, a circumstance
that would suit me. The eggs of the penguin, albatros, and gull, as they
return from the sea to rear a new generation, cover acres, as thick as
hailstones; while the teaplant, unlike its delicate Chinese sister,
blooms out amid eternal frost.
SUNDAY, FEB. 1. Lat. 53° 56′ S., long. 64° 49′ W. We are now within
forty miles of Staten Land, that huge barrier-rock of the American
continent, around which raves the Antarctic sea. It is the very throne
of Eolus, the centre of storms which never slumber. One of them struck
us a few hours since, and carried away our fore-topsail. It was an old
sail, and we bent another in its place, which will prove true to its
trust. We have sent down our top-gallant yards, and set our try-sails.
Sleet and hail are falling, and the night has closed over us in starless
gloom.
Against the night-storm, you who dwell on the land can close your
shutters, and retire in safety to repose. That storm summons the sailor
from his hammock to the yards. There, on that giddy elevation, with his
masts sweeping from sea to sea, the tempest roaring through his shrouds,
the thunder bursting overhead, the waves howling beneath, and the quick
lightning scorching the eyeballs that meet its glare, the poor sailor
attempts to reef sail. One false balance, one parting of that life line,
and he is precipitated into the rushing sea. A shriek is heard; but who
in such a night of tumult and terror can save? A bubbling groan ascends:
the billows close over their victim, and he sinks to his deep watery
bier. His poor mother will long wait and watch for the return of her
orphan boy; and his infant sister, unacquainted with death, will still
speak his name in gladness. But they will see his face no more! He has
gone to that dim bourne—
From which nor wave, nor sail, nor mariner
Have e’er returned, nor one fond, farewell word
Traversed the waters back.
MONDAY, FEB. 2. As we were close hauled, with Staten Land on our
lee-bow, we carried during the night only sail enough to steady the
ship. But as day began to glimmer, we shook a reef or two out of our
topsails, and set our courses. The sun came up with a cold beam out of
an horizon of heavy haze. Light clouds, in the southwest, began to shoot
up into the zenith, and were followed by a fierce blow, accompanied with
dashes of sleet and hail. Our courses were hauled up, and we were soon
under close-reefed topsails, main spencer, and fore-staysail.
2 o’clock, P. M. The indications of a still severer blow are gathering
around us. The scud drives over the sky with lightning speed, throwing
out here and there its wild black flukes. The sea is running high, and
our ship is plunging into it like a mad leviathan. We have bent our
storm-sails for the worst that may come. Among small matters, my books,
in a heavy roll of the ship, have just fetched away, and lie in every
possible position in my state-room. I have more literature under my feet
than I shall ever have in my head.
7 o’clock, P. M. The sun has just burst through the heavy clouds that
hang on the horizon, and thrown into light a bark on our
weather-quarter. She is visible only as she comes over the combing
summit of a mountain wave, and is then lost in the hollow of the sea. So
long indeed she disappears, you half believe she is gone forever, when
up she comes, hanging upon the plunging verge of another wave. The sun
has set, and night is on the deep.
TUESDAY, FEB. 3. Lat. by alt. near noon, 55° 17′ S. Long, by dead
reckoning, 61° 32′ W. Distance from Staten Land, 85 miles, bearing N. W.
by W. ½ W. (true) heading W. by S., and making no better than W. N. W.,
allowing two points variation, and one for the heave of the sea. Such is
our position, such our prospect for doubling Cape Horn: a head wind, a
high sea, and dashes of rain and hail. Still we take matters very
quietly. Our dead-lights are in, our hatches hooded, and our ship under
close-reefed topsails. When the wind has blown its blow out, where it
now is, we expect it will change its quarters like a spendthrift without
cash or credit left.
We looked out this morning for the little bark thrown into vision last
evening by a gush of sunset light. But she is now nowhere to be seen.
She relieved for the moment our sense of utter dreariness, and will
again if she comes within the dark line of our vision. It is not good
for man to be alone; and this is as true of a ship at sea as of Adam in
Eden. There is only one exhibition of social solitude so dreary as that
of a single ship at sea, and that is the condition of an old bachelor.
A large number of the albatros and stormy petrel have been following us
for hours to pick up the crumbs which the cooks of the different messes
throw over. The albatros gets all the larger bits; the little petrel
darts about under its overshadowing wings, and looks up for permission
like an infant to its mother’s eyes. The night has closed over us; not a
star looks out through the thick mass of clouds above, and only the
combing billow flashes through the darkness beneath.
Night, and storm, and darkness, and the ocean,
Heaving ’gainst their strength its sullen motion.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4. Our gale which had held out three days broke down
last night in the mid-watch, but the fragments of its strength have had
sufficient calcitrating force to prevent our making any perceptible
progress to-day. We are this evening within a few miles of where we were
at the last sunset, and the wind, which comes in occasional puffs, is
still in our teeth. This is doubling Cape Horn.
There is no mistake about this cape. It has shoved itself out here for
no idle or mistaken purpose. It always has, and always will, exact
homage from seamen. It may now and then, from some whim, allow a ship to
pass without these tokens of fealty, just as the pope may permit a
subject to come into his presence without kissing his great toe. But
then it may put the very next ship into a quarantine from which she
would be glad to escape into a Spanish lazaretto.
Our little bark is again in sight, hovering like an unquiet cloud on the
horizon. She bears up with right good heart against the winds. Steady,
my little ocean friend! Keep up thy indomitable courage; thou shalt yet
weather this cape of ice and thunder. To-day we harpooned a cape
porpoise. It differs widely from those found in other zones; is more
lithe and slender; seems formed for speed, and has beautiful black and
white stripes running from head to tail; the flesh is less dry, and the
liver might almost tempt a piscivorous epicure.
THURSDAY, FEB. 5. At 4 o’clock P. M., lat. 56° 27′ S., long. 61° 57 W.
In the last fifty-two hours we have made but a little more than one
degree of latitude, and less than half a degree of longitude. It will
take us a long time at this rate to get around Cape Horn.
The wind during the morning came in cold gusty puffs from the south. At
noon the whole southern horizon seemed tumbling up in black jagged
masses into the sky. This was a signal for reefing, which none could
mistake. But the men had hardly got into the tops before the storm was
upon us. It came charged with hail and sleet, and lasted some three
hours. The masses of cloud then broke asunder, and through their rift
the sun-light streamed like a torrent from a forest-covered steep.
Two enormous whales have been plunging about us to-day. Their huge backs
as they crossed the hollow of the sea might have been mistaken for a
reef of rocks. They blow like a locomotive puffing off steam. Every puff
sends up a shower of spray which may be seen at a great distance, and
which guides the Nantucketite with his glittering harpoon. But who would
trust his vessel in such a sea as this with a dead whale at her side? I
should as soon think of lashing to an iceberg.
8 o’clock, P. M. The cold sun has just set; and our barometer has fallen
to 29.44—lower than it has been since we left Norfolk. It has never yet
deceived us, and if true now, we shall have a stormy night. But let it
come—
The earth will on its glowing axle roll
Though billows howl and tempests shake the pole.
FRIDAY, FEB. 6. Our barometer vaticinated correctly last evening. The
storm which it predicted came punctually as an executioner to his
condemned culprit. It lasted through the greater part of the night, and
left us with a heavy head-sea. Going on deck this morning I found it
extremely difficult to preserve my balance, and brought up in the
scuppers, though I have been on sea-legs between fifteen and twenty
years.
A long line was floated astern this morning, with hook and bait, for an
albatros. Several of these noble birds were sailing in our wake. One of
them took the hook, and as he was drawn slowly towards the ship his
female companion followed close at his side. When lifted in she looked
up with an expression of anxiety and bereavement that would not dishonor
the wife of his captor in a reverse of circumstances. We found in his
shape some resemblance to the wild-goose, but much larger in head and
body, and with a longer wing. The hook had not injured him, and though
his wings, which measured twelve feet between their tips, were pinioned,
he walked the deck with a proud defiant air. His large eye flashed with
indignation and menace. His beak was armed with a strong hook like that
of the falcon, his plumage was white as the driven snow, and the down on
his neck soft as moonlight melting over the verge of an evening cloud.
[Illustration]
He was captured by one of our passengers, who now proposed to kill him
for the sake of his wings. But the sailors, who always associate
something sacred with this bird, interfered. They predicted nothing but
head winds, storms, and misfortunes if he should be killed; and
unlocking his wings, gave him a toss over the ship’s side into his own
wild element. His consort, who had followed the ship closely during his
captivity, received him with outstretched wings. She sailed around him
as he lighted, and in her caressing joy, threw her soft neck now over
this wing and now over that. In a few moments they were cradled side by
side, and he was telling her, I doubt not, of the savage beings he had
been among, and of his narrow escape.
Live on ye bright-eyed pair; the deep
Is yours, each crested wave shall keep
Its vigils o’er your cradled sleep.
SATURDAY, FEB. 7. We have made but very little progress during the last
two days. A slant of wind has occasionally favored us, but with the
counter-current, it has been about as much as we could do to hold our
own. What we gain when the wind hauls we are sure to lose when it
returns to its old position. It is in our teeth, and has been there,
with brief variations, for the last six days. Unless it changes we may
box about her till doomsday.
Out on Cape Horn! Had it shoved itself between Pandemonium and Paradise,
Milton would never have expected Lucifer to weather it. He would have
sent him across the Isthmus of Panama. There ought to be a ship-canal
there; not for demons, but for men. If Cheops could build himself a tomb
which the rays of the new-risen sun should greet before they touched the
lyre of Memnon; if Brunell could arch a pathway under the Thames for the
multitudes of London, with navies on its bosom; and if Whitney can run a
railroad from the Atlantic board to Oregon through the Rocky Mountains,
surely the civilized powers of Europe, and those of America combined,
can cut a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. I only wish all who oppose
the project were obliged to double Cape Horn; they would give in before
they got round, if not, a jackass might take lessons from their
obstinacy.
I have swept, with the telescope, the whole horizon to find our little
attendant bark, but not a vestige of her is to be seen. We parted with
her two days since at nightfall. But she is still, I doubt not, afloat,
and will again loom to light. Courage, my little fellow; you may outdo
us yet—
“The race is not—to be got
By him what swiftest runs,
Nor is the battell—to the peopell
What’s got the longest guns.”
[Illustration]