PASSAGE FROM CAPE HORN TO VALPARAISO.
GALE.—HABITS OF THE ALBATROS AND PENGUIN.—THE SEA OFF CAPE HORN.—SLEET
AND HAIL.—FAREWELL TO THE CAPE.—DIRECTIONS FOR DOUBLING THE
CAPE.—GALE IN THE PACIFIC.—APPEARANCE OF THE STARS.—A
RAINBOW.—DIVINE SERVICE.—THE RAZOR AT SEA.—THE LITTLE
BARK.—PLUM-PUDDING AND TRIPE.—THE CORDILLERAS.—ARRIVAL AT
VALPARAISO.
Amid the storm, an iceberg’s form
Came tumbling through the ocean,
So like the cape in hue and shape
Our crew, who watched its motion,
While rounding-to beneath our lee,
Declared the Cape had put to sea.
SUNDAY, FEB. 8. The severity of the weather and the heave of the sea
prevent our holding divine service to-day. May each heart silently erect
within itself an altar on which to offer the oblations of contrition,
gratitude, and faith. Religion is a mission from Heaven to the heart of
man; and when taken away from that heart, and shrined in stately temples
and sumptuous altars, it loses its vitality and power. No floating
censer or pealing organ can have the moral efficacy of that still small
voice of the Deity, which speaks in the whispers of the human
conscience.
The gale which we have had for several days veered last night, and
brought the heave of the sea under our quarter. It was enough to make
our ship roll her masts out of her. Every thing not secured by strong
lashings fetched away. Even the shot were thrown from the combings of
our main-hatch. As for repose in our berths, the Countess of Nottingham
had as much of it under the death-shakings of her indignant queen,—till
that last sleep overtook her which grief and rage reach not. I write
this with my inkstand fastened down, my chair and table secured to the
deck, and my paper presenting a plane at every heave of the sea steep
enough, if it were covered with snow, to tempt the sledge of the truant.
7 o’clock, P. M. Our barometer is now down to 28.44, and is still
falling. The gale has become truly terrific; the sea and sky seem
rushing together. We can only carry our storm try-sails; and even their
strength is tested to the last thread. The whole ocean is white with
foam, which falls in cataracts from the crests of soaring waves. It is
terrible and sublime to watch one of these huge combers heaving up
within the horizon, and rolling mast high upon you. Niagara gazed at
from the boiling abyss, is its only parallel. The hail is driving upon
our deck, the sea breaking over our bows, and a starless night closing
in. Yet a spirit of cheerfulness and alacrity in duty animates all.
Captain Du Pont, with his thorough experience and sound judgment, leaves
the deck only to return to it again. Our first lieutenant is exercising
that vigilance which never fails him through the ship, and our watch
officers meet the emergency with great firmness. But our trust is in Him
who can say to the chainless wave, hitherto shalt thou come, and no
further, and here shall thy proud strength be stayed.
MONDAY, FEB. 9. The gale still continues with unmitigated force. Our
ship has a good character for steadiness, but last night she plunged and
rolled like a leviathan in his death-throes. At every heave of the sea
she rolled her lee guns under. The water which was forced through her
ports lay on her gun-deck ankle deep, and rolled in sheets over the
combings of her hatches. Her lee scuppers could not be opened to carry
it off; and in opening her weather ones there was great danger of
admitting a torrent to let out a rivulet.
In the mid-watch my library, secretary, mirror, and washstand, fetched
away. The books and looking-glass rushed together into my cot. I was
half asleep, and thought for the moment our guns were tumbling below. In
extricating myself I cut my hands with the fragments of the mirror. I
felt for my clothes, and found them on the floor, covered with the wreck
of my wash-bowl and pitcher, and well drenched. I hauled on a few
articles and groped out to the gun-deck to get a light. The watch on
deck had just been relieved and were crowding below, covered with sleet,
stiff with cold, and wading through water ankle deep to reach their
hammocks; there to turn in and sleep in these drenched frozen garments.
What are my petty griefs compared with this? I got my light, and
dividing my berth with my books, shivered mirror, manuscripts, inkstand,
razors, chessmen, and broken flasks of casash, turned in—abundantly
satisfied with the romance of sea-life.
TUESDAY, FEB. 10. Lat. 57° 34′ S., long. 61° 32′ W. We are very near
where we were a week ago. Seven days of the roughest sea-service and in
_statu quo_! Our progress resembles that of Ichabod’s courtship, who
being asked, after seven years of devoted attentions, how he got along
in the business, replied that now and then he thought he had a little
encouragement, and should feel quite sure of it were it not for the
rebuffs.
The gale broke down last evening. The remnant of its force hauled round
to the south and enabled us to lay our course, but a heavy head-sea has
prevented our carrying sail. By the time the sea goes down, and we have
shaken a few reefs out of our topsails, it may whirl back, and then we
shall have to fight the battle over again, as the whigs said when
President Tyler suddenly took up his old democratic position. But _nil
desperandum_, the whigs will in time come into power, and we shall in
time double Cape Horn. But the Cape and the democracy are both hard to
weather.
Our little bark is once more in sight. She has survived the gale, and is
now, with good heart, struggling forward to double the Cape. Our stormy
petrels still follow us. They are ever on the wing, close to our stern,
to pick up the crumbs which are thrown overboard. Capt. King, of the
British navy, states that having caught one of these birds and fastened
a piece of ribbon to it, to designate it, he ascertained that it
followed his ship over five thousand miles. A lesson to all good wives
with wayward husbands.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11. The wind, as we predicted, has gone back to its old
quarter, like a wolf to his jungle. We have only been able to hold our
own. Sunset leaves us where the flushing day found us.
We have the albatros still about us, but we have missed the penguin. The
habits of these birds are peculiar, especially when they get up their
annual rookery. They select for this purpose, as one informs me who has
been among them, a plot of smooth ground, covering two or three acres,
and opening on the sea. From this they remove the sharp pebbles, piling
them on each side into a miniature stone-fence. The ground is then
plotted off into little squares, with paths intersecting each other at
right angles. In each corner of the square a penguin scoops out a nest;
while the albatros takes, by common consent, the centre, raises a small
mound and constructs a nest on the top, so that each albatros has four
penguins around him. The paths, which resemble gravelled walks, are used
for promenading and exercise, except the broad one, which runs around
the whole encampment, and where sentries are constantly patrolling.
These sentries give the alarm at the approach of danger, and are
relieved at regular intervals. The watch is kept up night and day, and
is always under the command of the albatros.
When the eggs have been laid, the strictest vigilance is exercised by
the albatros to prevent the penguin from stealing them; for the penguin
lays but one egg, and, as if ashamed of making all this ado for the sake
of that one, tries to get another from the nest of the albatros. But the
latter has no idea of gratifying the domestic ambition of its neighbor
in that way. There is of course little need among them of a foundling
hospital.
The eggs are never left or exposed to a breath of cold air during
incubation. The male bird, who has been at sea seeking his repast,
returns and takes the place of his faithful consort. He always allows
her the most favorable hours out of the twenty-four in which to secure
her food, and often brings it to her, especially when the infant progeny
requires her more delicate maternal attentions. He never ill-treats his
mate, or goes off at the dead of night serenading other birds. He may
have indeed his little domestic troubles, but he overcomes them by
kindness and affection. His partner always greets him, on returning from
his brief excursions at sea, with the liveliest expressions of gladness.
Ye who prate of incompatibilities, and fly to a legislature for an act
of separation if a little jar occurs at your hearth, look at these
birds, and if there be shame or compunction in ye, go find your divorced
mates and resolve not to be outdone in forbearance and attachment by an
albatros.
When the little ones get sufficiently strong to endure a change of
element, the penguins and albatros break up their encampment, and young
and old take to the sea, that great harvest-field where the reapers of
earth and air, under a beneficent Providence, gather their food. But
what have penguins to do with our getting round Cape Horn?
THURSDAY, FEB. 12. The lion-wind still roars from its old lair. That
lair lies directly in our path. If we attempt to escape it on the right,
the breakers of Cape Horn lift their thunder; if we try to avoid it on
the left, tumbling icebergs present their steep fronts. So here we are,
hemmed in like the hero of Marengo, amid the black battlements and keen
hail of Russia’s capital and clime. Patience, thou meekest virtue in
man, still pour on us thy soft, submissive light.
10 o’clock, P. M. The wind went down with the sun, leaving only the
long, low undulations of the sea. The moon is forth, placid as if this
were no region of storms. The stars, without an obscuring veil, blaze in
the deep blue vault of heaven. A flood of diamond light melts down
through the depths of air, and pours itself in radiant softness on the
sea. There it lies unbroken and still, save where the sleeping ocean
gently heaves, like one who should breathe in his shroud. Such a night
as this in the region of Cape Horn! It is as if a nightingale were to
pour its liquid melody through the interludes of the forest-shaking
storm.
But our anxiety is to know where, amid this serenity of the sea, the
wind will next wake up—where the slumbering storm will first howl on the
waste. The rising sun will not find us in that repose on which he shed
his parting glance.
A change will come, like that the sculptor throws
In lines of life, on marble’s cold repose.
FRIDAY, FEB. 13. In the night, our old frigate beginning to stir herself
complainingly, like one troubled with bad dreams, I asked the officer of
the deck, as he came below from the mid-watch, about the wind. “In gusts
from the northwest,” was the reply. From the northwest! then we are
laying our course—that will do; and I relapsed back again into slumber,
and dreamed we had rounded Cape Horn. I saw it sheer astern, storming
like a savage at the escape of his intended victim.
The wind favored us during the morning, and we shot ahead with high
hopes of success. But by noon it began to haul round towards the south,
and in an hour or two more reached its old quarter, the southwest. It is
now blowing a gale, and we have all sails furled except our close-reefed
main-top and storm try-sails. The sea is running high, and the huge
combers, shaking the foam from their crests, are rushing down upon us
like a host of cavalry frothing at the bit. The sun is sinking in cold
dim light, and seems to abandon the ocean to the lashing tempest.
Such is the life of the sailor: one hour is full of sunshine, the next
of storms. He lives between hope and disappointment: they alternate
through his whole existence. Nothing but the most indomitable resolution
could endure the vicissitudes of his lot. He is cheerful when others
would despond, and triumphs when others would despair. He elicits sparks
of joy from his hard lot, as you strike flashes of fire from flint. Ye
who sigh over the tales of fictitious bereavement, bestow one glance on
this real tragedy of life. Here are woes which no illusion paints,—a
death-knell rung by no unseen hands.
SATURDAY, FEB. 14. The passenger who caught the first albatros, and
which was liberated by the crew, caught another the day following and
killed it to get its wings. It would probably have been rescued by the
sailors had they been aware of the cruel intention of its captor. They
associate a sacredness with this noble bird which invests it with the
privileges of a charmed life, and regard a violation of this sanctity as
an outrage, which will be followed by disastrous consequences. Dark
ominous looks fell on their faces when the wild whisper went round among
them that the beautiful albatros had been killed. We had been for
several days in thick foul weather—
“At length did cross this albatros;
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
“And a good north wind sprung up behind;
The albatros did follow,
And every day for food, or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo.
“And he has done a hellish thing,
And it will work us woe;
For all averr’d, he had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.”
“And it will work us woe”—and so it has proved, for we have had ever
since head winds, gales, and storms. These, in the simple creed of the
sailor, are the penalties through which expiation is to be made for the
crime of having killed the albatros.
SUNDAY, FEB. 15. Lat. 58° 39′ S., long. 68° 41′ W. We are at last some
forty-five miles west of Cape Horn, and about one hundred and sixty
south of it. This position we have gained in spite of the elements, by
taking prompt advantage of those slight variations which will occur in
winds of remarkable constancy; still we are not round the cape; for the
wind is dead ahead, and is blowing almost a gale. We are on our larboard
tack, close hauled, and shall be obliged this evening to wear ship and
stand off to the southeast, where the heave of the sea alone, if the
gale continues, will soon throw us back into the meridian of the cape.
Such is life at sea; gaining, losing, persevering, and finally
triumphing.
8 o’clock, P. M. The cutting gale still continues. The sun has set in
gloomy grandeur. As he plunged below the horizon, a flood of flame
flashed up through the masses of cloud which overhung his descent. This
soon vanished; and now thick darkness settles on the sea. The light of a
full moon cannot struggle through it, and the brightest star glimmers on
it faintly as the glow-worm on the pall of the coffined dead. Our
sailors have had to-day very little of that comfort and rest which
belong to the Sabbath. Though sent aloft as seldom as the condition of
the ship would allow, still they have been often on the yards, with the
rain and sleet driving in their faces. Nor have those on the deck fared
much better. When off watch and allowed to reach the berth-deck, they
have found their Bibles and tracts. May these scattered rays of heavenly
light reach their hearts, and point their hopes to that shore where
clouds and storms come not.
MONDAY, FEB. 16. Our southwest gale went suddenly down last night, and
this morning a fresh wind rose in the northwest. We are now laying our
course with a fair prospect of getting clear of Cape Horn. I have no
desire of ever coming near this cape again. I would give it a berth
world-wide.
Here and there a navigator, it is true, has doubled the Cape without
encountering the gales which we have experienced. But his good fortune
was an exception to a general rule. A man may escape death under the
gallows by the breaking of the rope; but then the fifty, who come after
him, will swing till dead. This cape has acquired its stormy reputation
by its acts. Had nautical theory only invested it with difficulties,
they would long since have been dissipated by experience. But what
navigators found the Cape a century ago, their successors find it now.
It is as true to its stormy character as a lion to his savage instincts.
You may as well trifle with the shaking mane of the one as with the
awaking tempest of the other.
A distinguished naval commander—the late Commodore Porter—who had
cruised in almost every sea, inserted in his journal this significant
paragraph: “The passage round Cape Horn, from the eastward, I assert,
from my own experience, is the most dangerous, most difficult, and
attended with more hardships than that of the same distance in any other
part of the world.”
TUESDAY, FEB. 17. Lat. 58° 10′ S., long. 73° 33′ W. We are at last round
Cape Horn. We have left its stormy steeps astern, and are holding our
course, with a stiff northwester, for more congenial climes.
FAREWELL TO CAPE HORN.
Cape of clouds, of hail and thunder,
Towering o’er a savage sea,
Let the earth’s wide circuit sunder
Our departing keel and thee.
On thy scalp the keen hail dances,
At thy base mad breakers roar,
’Neath thine eye the iceberg glances
From its steep antarctic shore.
’Mid thy billows’ wild commotion,
In thy sea of tumbling foam,
Scaly monsters of the ocean
Share this undisputed home.
Ships of oak, with storm-sails riven,
From thy plunging combers reel,
Like the war-horse backward driven,
From the serried ranks of steel.
Morn in smiles hath ne’er ascended
O’er thy summit stark and drear;
Day and night are dimly blended
In thy sunless atmosphere.
Cape of clouds, of hail, and thunder,
Sinking o’er the ocean’s swell,
Rallied hope and chiding wonder
Shout to thee their stern farewell.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18. Our northwest wind, which we feared would fail us
before we had made sufficient westing, began to awaken this afternoon
apprehensions of a very different character. It suddenly rose into a
gale of terrific energy. It seemed to pin the men to the shrouds as they
tried to draw themselves up into the tops. Such was its roar through the
rigging, you could hardly hear a man at the top of his voice six feet
off. It rivalled in force the hurricane which we experienced off
Tortugas, in 1831, and the sea it raised ran much higher. Our
quarter-boats were in danger of being rolled under.
3 o’clock, P. M. We have had to sail under close-reefed main-top, and
fore and mizen storm try-sails. It seemed almost impossible for a ship
to live in such a sea as now roared and heaved around us. Each comber in
its towering height, seemed to bring with it the plunging force of a
Niagara. It was as if the steep side of a mountain, with torrents
foaming down its crags, were thrown against you by the earthquake. Had
it struck us full on the broadside it would have dashed us into
fragments. But our ship, with buoyant energy, rose up steadily over it,
and descended again into the abyss, to encounter another just like it.
This continued till near sunset, when the gale gradually subsided, and
now, at midnight, is scarcely sufficient to give us steerage way.
THURSDAY, FEB. 19. The sun came up clear, over a calm, cold sea. We
waited impatiently for the wind; it came at length in broken gusts from
the north, and so continued through the day. At sunset we had a dash of
hail from a group of passing clouds. The troubled twilight died away
into a dark, cheerless night.
In doubling Cape Horn from the Atlantic, experienced navigators, who
differ in almost every other suggestion, agree in this—the expediency of
keeping near the land, and especially so if the passage is made with the
sun south of the equator. In this period of the year westerly winds
prevail. They often rise in the northwest, yet in their sweep around the
Isles of Diego Ramirez, take a westerly direction. Near the land you are
within their circle, and can take advantage of every eddy to make
westing, but further south you get their full force, and directly in
your teeth.
Besides, there is very little danger of being driven on the cape. It is
a weatherly shore. The heave of the sea is counteracted, close in, by
the strength of the current, which sets with great force to the east.
This current will carry a vessel off towards the Falkland Islands with
the wind from the southwest and even south. And should it veer into the
southeast, the reacting force of the current, close in, renders the
position of your vessel comparatively safe, even when she is bound into
the Atlantic. This provision of nature against being driven on the cape,
is one of the few alleviations which she has thrown into the hardships
of the mariner’s lot.
In rounding the cape from the Pacific the summer months are the best,
for then you have short nights and westerly winds. In rounding it from
the Atlantic you have a choice of evils in the different seasons. In the
winter you have long nights and icebergs, but favorable winds. In the
summer you have head winds, but short nights and no ice. Captain King,
of the British navy, who has spent several years in the vicinity of the
cape, prefers the winter months. But Basil Hall, as the result of his
experience, recommends the summer season. My own opinion is, that any
man who has a log-hut on land, with a corn cake at the fire, and who
will consent to leave them to double Cape Horn for any purpose whatever,
is a proper subject for a lunatic asylum.
FRIDAY, FEB. 20. Lat. 59° 51′ S., long. 80° 12′ W. The wind having
veered this morning into the southwest, we tacked ship and stood north.
The weather through the day has had all the extremes incident to high
latitudes; an hour of bright sunshine, and then a squall. We have not
had at any time since we came off the cape, a smooth sea and a steady
wind. We have now the long, sweeping waves of the Pacific. They image,
in their majesty, the grandeur of the ocean over which they roll. Nature
never impairs the sublimity of her works by blending the trivial with
the vast. The shout of her torrents fills with solemn echoes the old
ancestral wood. The many-voiced waves of her oceans shake the green
isles with their stately anthems.
But nature has, in this portion of her mighty domain, sources of the
beautiful and sublime in the constellations which light her heavens.
Each star burns out from the blue vault with the brilliancy and force of
an independent sun. It has a breadth of circle and an intensity of light
which opens on you like the flame from the eye of the volcano. And then
there is the Southern Cross, a constellation hanging serene and
beautiful over the troubled night of the grave. To it not only the
Christian pilgrim turns in his path to heaven, but the weary traveller
of earth seeks his late repose by its inclined beam.
“’Tis past midnight; the Cross begins to bend.”
SATURDAY, FEB. 21. Our westerly winds still hold; we are braced up
sharp, and steering north. But we have had to-day a strong current
setting us east, and trying to drive us back again off Cape Horn. We
have lost by its force one degree of the westing we had made. If it
continues, and the wind remains in its present quarter, we shall be
obliged ultimately to tack ship and stand off to the southwest; a
gloomy, discouraging result. It is the fate of Agag after congratulating
himself on his escape. But He whose steps are on the clouds, and whose
pathway is in the mighty deep, will order all things right.
We had to-day, at sunset, a sudden shower. It fell from a cloud
travelling east upon an upper current of air, and which carried on its
front, as it passed down over the swelling arch of the ocean, a
magnificent sun-bow. A moment before all had been cloud, darkness, and
storm—
“When overhead this rainbow, bursting through
The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dark sea,
Resting its bright base on the quivering blue:
And all within its arch appeared to be
Clearer than that without, and its wide hue
Waxed broad and waving like a banner free.
It changed again; a heavenly chameleon,
The airy child of vapor and the sun,
Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion,
Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun.”
SUNDAY, FEB. 22. Though the sea is rough, and the roll of the ship deep,
we have had divine service. Even a brief service is much better than
none. It is a recognition of the sanctity of the Sabbath, and of our
obligations to that Being whose guardian care is our defence.
If dependence can awaken the voice of supplication, the sailor, of all
men, should be the most devout. His poor frail bark floats between life
and death. A sudden tempest, a latent rock, or a spark of fire, and he
sinks into a strangling grave. He may emerge, but it is only to strike
his strong arms in wild despair. No drifting plank floats between him
and the “pale bourne.” Prepared or unprepared, he must appear at once
before the dread tribunal and answer for the deeds of his erring life.
He should live with these awful realities ever present to his thoughts.
Like the bird of the stormy peak, his pinion should be ever ready to
unfurl itself. But from _his_ flight there is no return; he is off into
the boundless unknown.
This is the anniversary of the birthday of Washington. Its sacredness is
in harmony with his serene virtues. Too pure for corruption, too
disinterested for ambition, he lived for his country and his God. The
entire energies of his being were surrendered to those great interests
which will quicken the hopes of man when the marble that guards his dust
has crumbled. He has left an example which throws its steady light on
the fetters of captive nations and into the pale recesses of kings.
Millions who sit in darkness will yet hail its auroral splendors.
MONDAY, FEB. 23. To save ourselves from being carried back among the
Patagonians, we have tacked ship and are standing southwest by west.
This, with two points variation, and the current in our favor, will
enable us to make a nearly west course. With the first material
variation in the wind we shall be able to go upon our larboard tack and
make a stretch up the coast.
The high sea and heavy roll of our ship made the use of the razor this
morning a delicate operation. I had strapped the instrument and laid it
on my bureau, when away it went into the wash-bowl. Having fished it up
and made it secure, I got out my china box of shaving-soap, but laying
it down for a moment to find the brush, crash it went on the floor.
Picking up the fragments, I managed to raise suds enough for the present
occasion; when looking around for my razor, to my astonishment, it could
nowhere be found. It had fetched away again, and brought up in one of my
boots. But I had no sooner recovered it, than my candle, having caught
the moving infection, rushed into my cot and scorched my pillow-case.
All things being righted again, and a little fresh suds applied where
the old had evaporated, I took the razor, and watching for the ship to
get on an even keel, gave a clip; but it so happened the ship plunged
instead of rolling, and this brought the point of the razor in contact
with the extremity of the nose, where a severe cut proclaimed itself in
a gush of blood. But stanching the wound, I managed at length, by a clip
here, and another there, to disencumber the chin of its stubble. Such
are some of the advantages for shaving at sea. Man was made perfect, but
has sought out many inventions, and this of shaving at all is one of
them.
TUESDAY, FEB. 24. Lat. 53° 35′ S., long. 78° 56′ W.
“It comes resistless, and with foaming sweep,
Upturns the whitening surface of the deep;
In such a tempest, borne to deeds of death,
The wild-weird sisters scour the blasted heath.”
The black clouds which hovered in the western horizon last evening, hung
their banners of darkness over the descending sun, as if impatient of
the presence of that orb in the frightful work which they purposed.
Before his level rays had left the ocean, their waiting squadrons began
to rally. One black cohort after another filed into the ranks, till they
presented a solid mass of impetuous strength. Thus compact, they moved
down upon the plane of the trembling sea. When opening to the right and
left, a tempest rushed forth, which seemingly nothing but the stable
mountains could withstand.
Our ship had been put under storm-sails for the encounter; and yet, even
with this precaution, she rolled down before its force like a crushed
foe; while the crested waves howled over her as savages in a death-dance
over their victim. It was some minutes before she could recover herself.
She was overpowered, but her courage was not broken. At every pause in
the storm she came up, and then plunged into it as if for life or death.
The conflict closed about midnight, and our ship won another laurel for
steadiness and strength. This was the most violent gale that we have
experienced.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 25. We had this evening one of the most beautiful
phenomena connected with sunset at sea. The flaming orb had been for
more than an hour below the horizon, when the long, dark bank of clouds,
beneath which he had disappeared, lifted, disclosing a lake of golden
light, which poured its melting radiance far and wide over the sea. It
seemed as a rosy morn rising out of the bosom of night.
Not a star lit the blue vault, and yet the spars and tracery of our ship
became visible in the soft effulgence of the departed sun. When the
beautiful of earth die, they carry their pale charms with them to the
shroud; but when the brilliant orbs of the sky depart, they light their
very pall with their surviving splendors. The light even of the Pleiad,
lost in the infant world, still circles around her choiring sisters, who
have poured for ages her sweet melodious dirge.
Our long-lost, little bark peered to light this morning on our lee-beam.
We had parted with her in a storm off the Cape, and had relinquished all
expectation of falling in with her again. But here she is, within three
miles of us, with the American ensign flying at her peak, in answer to
ours. We may yet speak her. She is, we conjecture, the Charles, which
sailed from Boston on the first of November, bound to the Sandwich
Islands. If she stops at Valparaiso she will probably find us there. We
outsail her, though she has managed, by keeping close in, to double the
Horn with us.
THURSDAY, FEB. 26. Our west wind continued through yesterday and carried
us some eight knots the hour towards our port; but this morning it has
veered into the north and compelled us to go upon our starboard tack.
This steering due west, when our port lies due north, is reaching our
destination by right angles. But there is no angle, that ever yet shaped
itself in the wildest mathematical dream, which is not described by a
ship at sea. The path of the boa constrictor is not further from a right
line.
Our nights are beginning to lengthen as we approach the sun. Off the
Cape we had only a brief dip of darkness. The day was sixteen hours,
twilight three, and the night five. Our fowls lost their reckoning, and
were clucking and crowing when they should have been asleep. What could
be done in our country with only five hours of night? Before the élite
of our city got to a party it would be daylight; and as for the rural
swain, who does all his courting on Sunday night, the sun would be up
before he had got half way to the all-important, yet very awkward
question. He would have to begin anew each Sabbath eve, and stop where
he left off before. A sailor would settle the whole business in fifteen
minutes, and what is more, he would then stick to his bargain for better
or worse. He never troubles a court or legislature for a divorce. If he
cannot make good weather on one tack he tries another; but he never
throws his mate overboard, nor scuttles his own ship. But let that pass.
FRIDAY, FEB. 27. It is now forty-four days since we left Rio. We had a
splendid run to the Cape, but since that we have wrenched every league
from the elements by the hardest. We sailed two thousand miles off the
Cape to make four hundred on our course. We literally beat round it. A
feat that has been deemed almost impracticable. We have hardly been for
an hour without a head wind and a head-sea. We have the latter to-day,
but a wind from the west that is driving us on in spite of it nine knots
the hour.
We are rapidly reaching more genial latitudes. The transition is like
that from Lapland to the Line. The severity of the cold off the cape is
inexplicable. The thermometer never fell below the freezing point, and
yet no amount of clothing we could put on, would keep us warm. We
shivered in double flannels and over-coats; our feet, had they been
chiselled from ice, could scarcely have been colder; and all this in a
temperature that would not crisp a pool of sleeping water. Hail fell, it
is true, with great force and frequency, but it was from upper strata of
air. The currents nearer the sea would not have congealed vapor.
It will be said we felt the cold more, coming, as we did, from a torrid
clime. But the system does not cool down so rapidly. The rigors of the
first northern winter are felt least by those born nearest the sun. The
Italian division in the Russian campaign suffered less than any other.
The Poles fell like icicles from a tree shaken by a winter storm, while
the Neapolitans seemed to melt the very snows in which they bivouacked.
The cold we experienced is to be ascribed to the absorption of
electricity from the system by the condition of the atmosphere.
SATURDAY, FEB. 28. Lat. 45° 10′ S., long. 80° 24′ W. We are now making a
good run towards our port. If our west wind holds we shall in a few days
let go our anchors in the harbor of Valparaiso. Fresh meat, vegetables,
and milk will be a luxury. Our last pig and fowl went some days since to
the cook. Our potatoes still hold out, but they are not larger than
bullets, and are as full of water as a tick of blood. Our hommony is in
the kernel, and will not soften sufficiently for use short of a week’s
boiling, which is hardly practicable in a ship’s economy of water.
The only fresh article of the flesh kind that comes upon our table, is
salmon, which has been preserved in air-tight jars. Our bread is baked
on board; by what process it is attempted to be raised I know not; but
well would it be for human nature were its vanity as little puffed up.
We attempted a plum-pudding to-day, but every plum was as soundly
imbedded as marine fossils in primitive rocks. We have some tripe left,
but I understand the leader of our band wants it for a drum-head, and
our blacksmith is anxious to get it for an apron. If its aptitudes
determine the disposition to be made of it, no connoisseur in gastrotomy
can save it from the anvil or the drum. Well dried it would ring a good
tattoo,
Or shield a Vulcan, while he shapes
The form his bolted thunder takes.
SUNDAY, MARCH 1. Divine service on the spar-deck; officers and crew
present; the air balmy; the broad Pacific heaving in silent majesty
around, and a soft cloud, loaded with the incense of nature, soaring
into the great dome of heaven. Lead me for worship—
Not to the dome, where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to the fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned:
To that cathedral, boundless as her wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;
Its choir, the winds and waves; its organ, thunder;
Its dome, the sky.
Found in the sick-bay to-day a sailor, who spoke feelingly and well on
the subject of religion. He is a member of the Methodist church, and
carries a warm, devoted heart under his rude exterior. It is not the
smoothest cloud that has in it the most of summer’s balmy breath. It is
a great comfort to me to find among the crew here and there one of
earnest piety. His example flashes out like a star from a sky of cloud
and storm. God grant these lights may be multiplied till our whole
horizon shall be lit with their steady splendors.
Mrs. Ten Eyke, the wife of our consul on board, whose health has been
for some time delicate, is gradually sinking. How cold the grave to one
so young, to whom the earth seems so fair, and life so full of joyous
pulses! O death! to thy unbreathing realm glide silently away the
beautiful and the beloved.
“They hear a voice, we may not hear,
Which says they must not stay;
They see a hand we may not see,
Which beckons them away.”
MONDAY, MARCH 2. We fidded our top-gallant-masts; crossed our royal
yards; rousted up and mounted the eight spar-deck guns, which had been
struck below off the Cape; unbent our heavy topsails and courses, and
bent lighter ones; holystoned our decks; scrubbed our paint-work;
cleaned our brass rails; finished our new side-ladder; and repaired the
whaleboat stove in the gale. A good day’s work all this, and a wide
stride in our preparations for port. Our band in the mean time is
practising some brilliant airs, with which we expect to captivate the
Chilanos. But of all the music that ever melted on mortal ear, give me
The lay of streamlets, and the trill of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.
The cœlebs may turn away from these earliest words, for they have a
music which he understands not. There is not a string in his soul which
they can touch—not a chord to vibrate as their pulses play over it. But
should he wed, and a sweet miniature of life reflect his own features,
lisp with his voice, and smile with his eyes, he would hang over it as
the Peri over the long-sought secret that was to admit her to celestial
bliss. Its faintest note would breathe a sweeter strain than ever
trembled from the strings of the Orphean lyre. The earth might be full
of loudest harmonies, but he would still turn his ear to that slender
note of piping infancy. But let that pass.
TUESDAY, MARCH 3. Our studding-sails, which have lain undisturbed for
several weeks, have been out to-day, below and aloft, to a light breeze
from the south. The sea has been smooth, presenting only its long,
majestic undulations. The ocean never rests. From the day morn first
broke over its silent depths, it has been rolling on to the present
hour. Capitals have crumbled on its shores, thrones and dynasties
perished, but it still rolls on in the majesty of its unabated strength.
Our preparations for port are still going on. Our standing rigging has
been tarred; our masts, yards, booms, and hull have received a fresh
coat of paint. Our guns are beginning to throw back the sun-light from
their polished surface. You would hardly suspect such volleyed thunder
could sleep in their recesses. Our cutlasses have been furbished, our
boarding-pikes sharpened, and our carbines made true to their trust. We
bear the olive-branch and the sword.
Our albatrosses have left us. They followed us to the verge of the
summer’s clime, and then, wheeling on their bold, arching wings, sped
back to their wintry domain. They were our only companions off the Cape,
and something like a sentiment of bereavement fell on us, as they took
their departure.
The heart will doubly feel alone,
When that which served to cheer hath flown.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4. Our sick list, which ran up to forty, in consequence
of the hardships and exposures off the cape, is rapidly diminishing.
Commodore Stockton, who has been quite ill, is convalescent. We should
regret extremely any circumstance that would deprive us of the pleasures
and advantage’s derived from our present relations to him. Mr. G., one
of our watch officers, has been for some days confined to his berth. But
he is gathering strength again, and will soon be able to resume his post
on the quarter-deck.
As for myself, I am a slender reed, easily bowed before the blast, but
coming up again as soon as its force is spent. I entered the navy with a
constitution impaired by sedentary habits, and have perhaps derived some
advantage from the recreations and adventures involved in a sea-life. I
have been in every variety of climate, but I doubt much if these changes
have been promotive of health. My advice to invalids is, never go to sea
with the expectation that ship-board is to restore you. A change of
climate may be of benefit, but the passage in nine cases out of ten will
begin in seasickness and end in debility. If you have a comfortable
home, stay by it; if your digestion is bad, stop eating; if your nerves
are deranged, bathe in cold water; if you have children, romp and frolic
with them. This is much better than sucking sugar canes in Cuba, or
going to Rome to kiss the pope’s toe.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5. Our hawse bucklers are out, our chains bent, and we
are now ready to let go our anchors; we are still seventy miles from our
port, but the first breeze, which breaks the calm of the sea, will
probably take us in. We are now fifty one days out from Rio, and more
than half of them have been passed in storms. We have been at sea since
we left the United States, one hundred and three days; and have sailed,
in that time, twelve thousand two hundred and twenty miles. We have yet
some twelve thousand miles more to sail before we circle round into the
port where we may look for repose. Our ship is another dove over the
unsubsided waters of the deluge.
Several of the stormy petrels, which joined us before we reached the
Cape, are still skimming along in the wake of our keel. They follow us,
as little politicians their leader, for crumbs, not of office—they are
too sensible for that—but of Jack’s tablecloth; and in doing this they
never displace or disturb their betters. Between a stormy petrel and a
little party politician I should not hesitate a moment where to place my
regard. We have had about us to-day a flotilla of whales, sharks, and
porpoises. Their gambols stirred the sleeping sea into foam. They seemed
to be trying their speed. The whale was quickest to the goal, but
slowest in doubling it. His head is entirely too far from his tail. I
commend his case to the Owenites at their next world-convention.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6. The light breeze which fanned us along faintly through
the night, has left us in the morning-watch within twenty miles of our
port. The coast on our starboard beam lies full in view, with its deep
indentations, and its bold bluffs, against which the Pacific rolls its
surge. Far in the background rise the stupendous steeps of the
Cordilleras, throwing their shadows a hundred miles at sea. On their
summit, glittering with the icy hail of centuries, the morning star
furls its wing of flame. Beneath such a vision, what is man? He
disappears, and his shadow, as if ashamed to linger, goes with him.
The breeze, for which we have been waiting and watching, has come. Our
studding-sails, below and aloft, are out to catch its first breath. We
are again moving up the coast. Fifteen miles of it are passed, but no
headland appears which we can identify with those designated on the
chart. Seven more, and still no evidences of a harbor. We begin to think
our master, like a Millerite, has left out some figure in his reckoning.
At last we discover, upon a slight swell in the coast, a little
lighthouse, but no bay, and nothing that indicates one. Doubling this
projection, we catch our first glimpse of Valparaiso, nestled among the
fissures and shelves of a steep ascent of rocks. It seems one of those
wild nooks in which pirates might have sought a perilous home. Taking in
our studding-sails, and hauling up our courses, we have rounded to
handsomely, and anchored in thirty-two fathoms.
All eyes are directed to the shipping. A French man-of-war has already
saluted us; a national courtesy which we have promptly returned. But we
are looking for the American flag; only one can be seen, and that is
flying over a merchantman. No national vessel holds out any hope of
letters from home by the Isthmus. Our disappointment is confirmed by our
consul, who informs us that no dispatches have been received from the
United States of a date subsequent to our departure, except a copy of
the President’s message, which was brought in the English mail, and
which was considered quite belligerent in its tone. The news of the
resignation of the Peel ministry greatly surprises us, and has in it, as
we fancy, quite a little war-cloud. A national ship abroad catches every
premonition of hostilities as quickly as a barometer the approach of a
storm.
So, here we are at last in front of Valparaiso, with a continent and an
ocean between us and our homes; another ocean still to be traversed, and
to roll us yet wider asunder; and then this war-cloud on the horizon!
But there is one separation, one which awaits us all, still wider than
this—the chasm of the grave. Over that no signals extend, and no
messenger-bird hath winged its way. I have walked in its pale light for
years, hovering between the sun and a total eclipse.
“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: VALPARAISO]