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THE
PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK.
EDITED BY
MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
PORTLAND:
COLMAN & CHISHOLM.
Arthur Shirley, Printer.
1836.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by
EDWARD STEPHENS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of Maine.
PREFACE.
The object of the Portland Sketch-Book, is to collect in a small
compass, literary specimens from such authors as have a just claim to be
styled Portland writers. The list might have been extended to a much
greater length, had all been included who have made our city a place of
transient residence; but no writer has a place in this volume who is
not, or has not been, a citizen of Portland, either by birth or a long
residence. Therefore, all the names contained in these pages are
emphatically those of Portland authors. Among those who were actually
born here and either wholly, or in part educated here, will be found the
following names, most of which are already known to the world of
literature.
S. B. Beckett--James Brooks--William Cutter--Charles S.
Daveis--Nathaniel Deering--P. H. Greenleaf--Charles P. Ilsley--Joseph
Ingraham--Geo. W. Light--Henry W. Longfellow--Grenville
Mellen--Frederick Mellen--Isaac McLellan, Jr.--John Neal--Elizabeth
Smith--William Willis--N. P. Willis.
Considering the population of our city--hardly fifteen thousand at this
time--the list itself we apprehend will be considered as not the least
remarkable part of the book.
It was the design of the Publishers to furnish a book composed of
original articles from all our living authors, and to select only from
those who have been lost to us; but though great exertions were made,
the editor found much difficulty in collecting original materials, even
after they had been promised by almost every individual to whom she
applied. According to the original design, each living author was to
have contributed a limited number of pages; but after frequent
disappointments, all restrictions were taken off; each writer furnished
as many original pages as suited his pleasure, and the deficiency was
supplied by selected articles. In her selections, the editor has
endeavored to do impartial justice to our authors, and, in almost every
instance, she has been guided by them in her choice. If in any case she
has been obliged to exercise her own judgment, in contradiction to
theirs, it was because the publishers had restricted her to a certain
number of pages, and the articles proposed would have swelled the volume
beyond the prescribed limits. _Original_ papers are inserted exactly as
they were supplied by their separate authors. A general invitation was
extended; therefore it should give no offence, if those who have
contributed largely fill the greater portion of the Book, to the
exclusion of much excellent matter, which might have been selected.
Several writers who did not forward their contributions as expected,
have been omitted altogether, as the editor could find nothing of theirs
extant which was adapted to a work strictly literary.
In order to avoid all appearance of partiality, it has been thought
advisable to make an alphabetical arrangement of names, and to let
chance decide the position of each author in the Book.
The compiler has a word of apology to offer, before she consigns her
little book to the public. Reasons which will be easily understood would
have prevented her appropriating any considerable portion to herself;
but she had contracted with the publishers to furnish a volume, which
should be at least two thirds original, and when the pages forwarded to
her were found insufficient for her object, she was obliged, however
unwillingly, to supply the deficiency.
The Editor now submits her Portland Book to the public, with much
solicitude that it may meet with approbation--feeling certain that
indulgence would be extended to her, could it be known how much labor
and difficulty have attended her slender exertions, in the literature of
a city she has never ceased to love.
P. S. Among the papers omitted from necessity, is one by the Rev. Dr.
Nichols, which, owing to accident, did not arrive till the arrangements
for the work were entirely completed. In the absence of the Editor,
whose own leading article arrived _almost_ too late for insertion, we
have taken the liberty to state the facts, that our readers may
understand the cause of an omission so extraordinary.
CONTENTS.
Preface iii
Diamond Cove--By S. B. Beckett 9
Our Own Country--By James Brooks 13
The Cruise of The Dart--By S. B. Beckett 21
To M--, on her Birth-Day,--By William Cutter 59
Religious Obligation in Rulers--By John W. Chickering 60
A New-England Winter Scene--By William Cutter 74
Loch Katrine--By N. H. Carter 78
Worship--By Asa Cummings 82
The Valley of Silence--By William Cutter 86
Descriptions of The Divine Being--By Gershom F. Cox 88
The French Revolution--By Charles S. Daveis 98
Mrs. Sykes--From the papers of Dr. Tonic, recently
brought to light--By Nathaniel Deering 102
Old and Young--By James Furbish 115
Autumnal Days--By P. H. Greenleaf 119
The Plague--By Charles P. Ilsley 123
'Oh, This is not My Home'--By Charles P. Ilsley 125
The Village Prize--By Joseph Ingraham 126
Indifference to Study--By George W. Light 134
The Village of Auteuil--By Henry W. Longfellow 138
The Past and The New Year--By Prentiss Mellen 145
The Ruin of a Night--By Grenville Mellen 150
Courtship--By William L. McClintock 152
Venetian Moonlight--By Frederick Mellen 158
Ballooning--By I. McLellan, Jr. 160
Ode--By Grenville Mellen 166
The Boy's Mountain Song--By I. McLellan, Jr. 167
The Unchangeable Jew--By John Neal 168
A War-Song of The Revolution--By John Neal 183
Musings on Music--By James F. Otis 185
Sin estimated by the Light of Heaven--By Edward Payson 194
The Way of the Soul--By L. S. P. 200
Fragments of An Address on Music--By Edward Payson 206
The Blush--By Mrs. Elizabeth Smith 212
The Widowed Bride--By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens 216
Jack Downing's Visit to Portland--By Seba Smith 227
The Deserted Wife--By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens 272
Portland as it Was--By William Willis 231
The Cherokee's Threat--By N. P. Willis 239
Grecian and Roman Eloquence--By Ashur Ware 256
Religion--By Jason Whitman 269
THE PORTLAND SKETCH BOOK.
DIAMOND COVE.
A beauteous Cove, amid the isles
That sprinkle Casco's winding bay,
Where, like an Eden, nature smiles
In all her wild and rich array.
'Tis sheltered from the ocean's roar
By beetling crags and foam-girt rifts,
And mossy trees, that ages hoar
Have braved the sea-gales on its cliffs!
The broad-armed oak, the beech and pine,
And elm, their branches intertwine
Above its tranquil, glassy face,
So that the sun finds scarcely space
At mid-day, for his fervid beam
To shimmer on the limpid stream;
And in its rugged, sparry caves,
Worn by the winter's tempest waves,
Gleams many a crystal wildly bright
Like _diamonds_, flashing radiant light,
And hence the fairy spot is 'hight.'
The forests far extending round,
Ne'er to the spoiler's axe resound;
Nor is man's toil or traces there;
But resteth all as lone and fair--
The sunny slopes, the rocks and trees,
As desert isles in Indian seas,
That sometimes rise upon the view
Of some far-wandering, wind-bound crew,
Sleeping alone mid ocean's blue.
The lonely ospray rears her brood
Deep in the forest-solitude;
And through the long, bright summer day,
When ocean, calm as mountain lake,
Bears not a breath its hush to break,
The snow-winged sea-gull tilts away
Upon the long, smooth swell, that sweeps,
In curving, wide, unbroken reach,
Into the cove from outer deeps,
Unwinding up the pebbly beach.
Oft blithly ring the wide old woods,
Within their loneliest solitudes,
To youthful shout, and song, and glee,
And viol's merry minstrelsy,
When summer's stirless, sultry air
Pervades the city's thoroughfare,
And drives the throng to seek the shades
Of these green, zephyr-breathing glades!
The dance goes round; the trunks so tall--
Rough columns of the festal hall--
Sustain a broad and lofty roof
Of nature's greenest, loveliest woof!
The maiden weaves, in lieu of wreath,
The bending fern-plumes in her hair,
And the wild flowers with scented breath,
That spring to blossom every where
Around; the forest's dream-like rest
Drives care and sorrow from each breast,
And makes the worn and weary blest!
And when the broad, dim waters blush
Beneath the tints of ebbing day,
When comes the moon out in the hush
Of eve, with mellow, timid ray,
And twilight lingers far away
On the blue waste, the fisher's skiff
Comes dancing in, and 'neath the cliff
Is moored to rest, till morning's train
Beams with fresh beauty o'er the main,
And wakes him to his toil again!
O, lovely there is sunset-hour!
When twilight falls with soothing power
Along the forest-windings dim,
And from the thicket, sweet and low,
The red-breast tunes a farewell hymn
To daylight's latest, lingering glow--
When slope, and rock, and wood around,
In all their dreamy, hushed repose,
Are glassed adown the bright profound--
And passing fair is evening's close!
When from the bright, cerulean dome,
The sea-fowl, that have all the day
Wheeled o'er the far, lone billows' spray,
Come thronging to their eyries home;
When over rock and wave, remote,
From yon dim fort, the bugle's note
Along the listening air doth creep,
Seeming to steal down from the sky,
Or with out-bursting, martial sweep
Rings through the forests, clanging high,
While echo waked bears on the strain,
Till faint, beyond the trackless main,
In realms of space it seems to die.
But lovelier still is night's calm noon!
When like a sea-nymph's fairy bark,
The mirrored crescent of the moon
Swings on the waters weltering dark;
And in her solitary beam,
Upon each bald, storm-beaten height,
The quartz and mica wildly gleam,
Spangling the rocks with magic light;
And when a silvery minstrelsy
Is swelling o'er the dim-lit sea,
As of some wandering fairy throng,
Passing on viewless wing along,
Tuning their spirit-lyres to song;
And when the night's soft breeze comes out,
And for a moment breathes about,
Shaking a burst of fresh perfume
From every honied bell and bloom,
Startling the tall pine from its rest,
And sleeping wood-bird in her nest,
Or kissing the bright water's breast;
Then stealing off into the shade,
As if it were a thing afraid!
The Indian prized this beauteous spot
Of old; beneath the embowering shade
He reared his rude and simple cot;
And round these wild shores where they played
In youth, still--pilgrims from the bourn
Of far Penobscot's sinuous stream,
Aged and bowed, and weary worn--
Lingering they love to stray, and dream
O'er the proud hopes possessed of yore,
When forest, isle and mainland shore,
For many a league, owned but their sway;
When, on the labyrinthine bay,
Now checkered o'er with many a sail,
Alone his lightsome birch canoe
Fast, by the bright, green islets flew,
Nor bark spread canvas to the gale.
Matchless retreat! mayst aye remain
As wild, as natural and free
As now thou art; nor hope of gain,
Nor enterprize a motive be
To lay thy hoary forests low;
Gold ne'er can make thy beauties glow,
Nor enterprize restore thy pride,
When once the monarchs round thy tide,
Have felt the exterminating blow.
OUR OWN COUNTRY.
By James Brooks.
What nation presents such a spectacle as ours, of a confederated
government, so complicated, so full of checks and balances, over such a
vast extent of territory, with so many varied interests, and yet moving
so harmoniously! I go within the walls of the capitol at Washington, and
there, under the star-spangled banners that wave amid its domes, I find
the representatives of three territories, and of twenty-four nations,
nations in many senses they may be called, that have within them all the
germ and sinew to raise a greater people than many of the proud
principalities of Europe, all speaking one language--all acting with one
heart, and all burning with the same enthusiasm--the love and glory of
our common country,--even if parties do exist, and bitter domestic
quarrels now and then arise. I take my map, and I mark from whence they
come. What a breadth of latitude, and of longitude, too,--in the fairest
portion of North-America! What a variety of climate,--and then what a
variety of production! What a stretch of sea-coast, on two oceans--with
harbors enough for all the commerce of the world! What an immense
national domain, surveyed, and unsurveyed, of extinguished, and
unextinguished Indian titles within the States and Territories, and
without, estimated, in the aggregate, to be 1,090,871,753 acres, and to
be worth the immense sum of $1,363,589,69,--750,000,000 acres of which
are without the bounds of the States and the territories, and are yet to
make new States and to be admitted into the Union! Our annual revenue,
now, from the sales, is over three millions of dollars. Our national
debt, too, is already more than extinguished,--and yet within fifty-eight
years, starting with a population of about three millions, we have fought
the War of Independence, again not ingloriously struggled with the
greatest naval power in the world, fresh with laurels won on sea and
land,--and now we have a population of over thirteen millions of souls.
One cannot feel the grandeur of our Republic, unless he surveys it in
detail. For example, a Senator in Congress, from Louisiana, has just
arrived in Washington. Twenty days of his journey he passed in a
steam-boat on inland waters,--moving not so rapidly, perhaps, as other
steam-boats sometimes move, in deeper waters,--but constantly moving, at
a quick pace too, day and night. I never shall forget the rapture of a
traveller, who left the green parks of New Orleans early in March,--that
land of the orange and the olive, then teeming with verdure, freshness
and life, and, as it were, mocking him with the mid-summer of his own
northern home. He journeyed leisurely toward the region of ice and snow,
to watch the budding of the young flowers, and to catch the breeze of the
Spring. He crossed the Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne; he ascended the
big Tombeckbee in a comfortable steam-boat. From Tuscaloosa, he shot
athwart the wilds of Alabama, over Indian grounds, that bloody battles
have rendered ever memorable. He traversed Georgia, the Carolinas, ranged
along the base of the mountains of Virginia,--and for three months and
more, he enjoyed one perpetual, one unvarying, ever-coming Spring,--that
most delicious season of the year,--till, by the middle of June, he found
himself in the fogs of the Passamaquoddy, where tardy summer was even
then hesitating whether it was time to come. And yet he had not been off
the soil of his own country! The flag that he saw on the summit of the
fortress, on the lakes near New Orleans, was the like of that which
floated from the staff on the hills of Fort Sullivan, in the easternmost
extremity of Maine;--and the morning gun that startled his slumbers,
among the rocky battlements that defy the wild tides of the Bay of Fundy,
was not answered till many minutes after, on the shores of the Gulf of
Mexico. The swamps, the embankments, the cane-brakes of the Father of
Waters, on whose muddy banks the croaking alligator displayed his
ponderous jaws,--the cotton-fields, the rice-grounds of the low southern
country,--and the vast fields of wheat and corn in the regions of the
mountains, were far, far behind him:--and he was now, in a Hyperborean
land--where nature wore a rough and surly aspect, and a cold soil and a
cold clime, drove man to launch his bark upon the ocean, to dare wind and
wave, and to seek from the deep, in fisheries, and from freights, the
treasures his own home will not give him. Indeed, such a journey as this,
in one's own country, to an inquisitive mind, is worth all 'the tours of
Europe.' If a young American, then, wishes to feel the full importance of
an American Congress, let him make such a journey. Let him stand on the
levee at New Orleans and count the number and the tiers of American
vessels that there lie, four, five and six thick, on its long embankment.
Let him hear the puff, puff, puff, of the high-pressure steam-boats, that
come sweeping in almost every hour, perhaps from a port two thousand
miles off,--from the then frozen winter of the North, to the full burning
summer of the South,--all inland navigation,--fleets of them under his
eye,--splendid boats, too, many of them, as the world can show,--with
elegant rooms, neat berths, spacious saloons, and a costly piano, it may
be,--so that travellers of both sexes can dance or sing their way to
Louisville, as if they were on a party of pleasure. Let him survey all
these, as they come in with products from the Red River, twelve hundred
miles in one direction, or from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, two thousand
miles in another direction, from the western tributaries of the vast
Mississippi, the thickets of the Arkansas, or White River,--from the
muddy, far-reaching Missouri, and its hundreds of branches:--and then in
the east, from the Illinois, the Ohio, and its numerous tributaries--such
as the Tennessee, the Cumberland, or the meanest of which, such as the
Sandy River, on the borders of Kentucky--that will in a freshet fret and
roar, and dash, as if it were the Father of Floods, till it sinks into
nothing, when embosomed in the greater stream, and there acknowledges its
own insignificance. Let him see 'the Broad Horns,' the adventurous
flatboats of western waters, on which--frail bark!--the daring
backwoodsman sallies forth from the Wabash, or rivers hundreds of miles
above, on a voyage of atlantic distance, with hogs--horses--oxen and
cattle of all kinds on board--corn, flour, wheat, all the products of
rich western lands--and let him see them, too, as he stems the strong
current of the Mississippi, as if the wood on which he floated was
realizing the fable of the Nymphs of Ida--goddesses, instead of pines.
Take the young traveller where the clear, silvery waters of the Ohio
become tinged with the mud from the Missouri, and where the currents of
the mighty rivers run apart for miles, as if indignant at the strange
embrace. Ascend with him farther, to St. Louis, where, if he looks upon
the map he will find that he is about as near the east as the west, and
that soon, the emigrant, who is borne on the wave of population that now
beats at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and anon will overleap its
summits--will speak of him as he now speaks of New-England, as far in the
east. And then tell him that far west as he is, he is but at the
beginning of steam navigation--that the Mississippi itself is navigable
six or seven hundred miles upward--and that steam-boats have actually
gone on the Missouri two thousand one hundred miles above its mouth, and
that they _can go_ five hundred miles farther still! Take him, then, from
this land where the woodsman is leveling the forest every hour, across
the rich prairies of Illinois, where civilization is throwing up towns
and villages, pointed with the spire of the church, and adorned with the
college and the school,--then athwart the flourishing fields of Indiana,
to Cincinnati,--well called 'the Queen of the West,'--a city of thirty
thousand inhabitants, with paved streets, numerous churches, flourishing
manufactories, and an intelligent society too,--and this in a State with a
million of souls in it now, that has undertaken gigantic public
works,--where the fierce savages, even within the memory of the young
men, made the hearts of their parents quake with fear,--roaming over the
forests, as they did, in unbridled triumph,--wielding the tomahawk in
terror, and ringing the war-hoop like demons of vengeance let loose from
below! Show him our immense inland seas, from Green Bay to Lake
Ontario,--not inconsiderable oceans,--encompassed with fertile fields.
Show him the public works of the Empire State, as well as those of
Pennsylvania,--works the wonder of the world,--such as no people in
modern times have ever equalled. And then introduce him to the busy,
humming, thriving population of New-England, from the Green Mountains of
Vermont, the Switzerland of America, to the northern lakes and wide
sea-coast of Maine. Show him the industry, energy, skill and ingenuity of
these hardy people, who let not a rivulet run, nor a puff of wind blow,
without turning it to some account,--who mingle in every thing, speculate
in every thing, and dare every thing wherever a cent of money is to be
earned--whose lumbermen are found not only in the deepest woods of the
snowy and fearful wilds of Maine, throwing up sawmills on the lone
waterfalls, and making the woods ring with their hissing music--but
found, too, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and coming also on mighty
rafts of deal from every eastern tributary of the wild St. John,
Meduxnekeag and Aroostook, streams whose names geographers hardly know.
And then too, as if this were not enough, they turn their enterprize and
form companies 'to log and lumber,' even on the Ocmulgee and Oconee of
the State of Georgia--and on this day they are actually found in the
Floridas, there planning similar schemes, and as there are no waterfalls,
making steam impel their saws. Show him the banks of the Penobscot, now
studded with superb villages--jewels of places, that have sprung up like
magic--the magnificent military road that leads to the United States'
garrison at Houlton, a fairy spot in the wilderness, but approached by
as excellent a road as the United States can boast of.
Show him the hundreds and hundreds of coasters that run up every creek
and inlet of tide-water there, at times left high and dry, as if the
ocean would never float them more: and then lift him above
considerations of a mercenary character, and show him how New-England
men are perpetuating their high character and holy love of liberty,--and
how, by neat and elegant churches, that adorn every village,--by
comfortable school-houses, that appear every two miles, or oftener, upon
almost every road, free for every body,--high-born, and low-born,--by
academies and colleges, that thicken even to an inconvenience; by
asylums and institutions, munificently endowed, for the benefit of the
poor:--and see, too, with what generous pride their bosoms swell when
they go within the consecrated walls of Faneuil Hall, or point out the
heights of Bunker Hill, or speak of Concord, or Lexington.
Give any young man such a tour as this--the best he can make--and I am
sure his heart will beat quick, when he sees the proud spectacle of the
assemblage of the representatives of all these people, and all these
interests, within a single hall. He will more and more revere the
residue of those revolutionary patriots, who not only left us such a
heritage, won by their sufferings and their blood, but such a
constitution--such a government here in Washington, regulating all our
national concerns--but who have also, in effect, left us twenty-four
other governments, with territory enough to double them by-and-by--that
regulate all the minor concerns of the people, acting within their own
sphere; now, in the winter, assembling within their various capitols,
from Jefferson city, on Missouri, to Augusta, on the Kennebec;--from
the capitol on the Hudson, to the government house on the Mississippi.
Show me a spectacle more glorious, more encouraging, than this, even in
the pages of all history; such a constellation of free States, with no
public force, but public opinion--moving by well regulated law--each in
its own proper orbit, around the brighter star in Washington,--thus
realizing, as it were, on earth, almost practically, the beautiful
display of infinite wisdom, that fixed the sun in the centre, and sent
the revolving planets on their errands. God grant it may end as with
them!
THE CRUISE OF THE DART.
By S. B. Beckett.
"There was an old and quiet man,
And by the fire sat he;
And now, said he, to you I'll tell
Things passing strange that once befell
A ship upon the sea."--_Mary Howitt._
"There she is, Ricardo," said I to my friend, as we reached the end of
the pier, in Havana, while the Dart lay about half a mile off the
shore,--"what think you of her?"
"Beautiful!--a more symmetrical craft never passed the Moro!"
So thought I, and my heart responded with a thrill of pride to the
sentiment. How saucy she looked, with her gay streamers abroad upon the
winds, and the red-striped flag of the Union floating jauntily at the
main peak--with her lofty masts tapering away, till, relieved against
the blue abyss, they were apparently diminished to the size of willow
wands, while the slight ropes that supported the upper spars seemed,
from the pier, like the fairy tracery of the spider. Although surrounded
by ships, xebecs, brigantines, polacres, galleys and galliots from
almost every clime in christendom, she stood up conspicuously among them
all, an apt representative of the land whence she came! But let us take
a nearer view of the beauty. The hull was long, low, and at the bows
almost as sharp as the missile after which she was named. From the waist
to the stern she tapered away in the most graceful proportions, and she
had as lovely a run as ever slid over the dancing billows. Light and
graceful as a sea-bird, she rocked on the undulating water. But her
rig!--herein, to my thinking, was her chiefest beauty--every thing
pertaining to it was so exact, so even and so _tanto_. Besides the sail
usually carried by man-of-war schooners, she had the requisite
appertenances for a royal and flying kite, or sky-sail, which, now that
she was in port, were all rigged up. Not another vessel of her class in
the navy could spread so much canvas to the influence of old Boreas as
the Dart.
Her armament consisted of one long brass twenty-four pounder, mounted on
a revolving carriage midships, and six twelve-pound carronades. Add to
this a picked crew of ninety men, with the redoubtable Jonathan West as
our captain, Mr. Dacre Dacres as first, and your humble servant,
Ahasuerus Hackinsack, as second lieutenant, besides a posse of minor
officers and middies,--and you may form a faint idea of the Dart.
Bidding adieu to my friend, I jumped into the pinnace waiting, and in a
few minutes stood on her quarter deck.
But it will be necessary for me to explain for what purpose the Dart was
here. She had been dispatched by government to cruise among the Leeward
Islands, and about Cape St. Antonio, in quest of a daring band of
pirates, who, trusting to their superior prowess and the fleetness of
their vessel, a schooner called the Sea-Sprite, had long scourged the
merchantmen of the Indian seas with impunity. Cruiser after cruiser had
been sent out to attack them in vain. She had invariably escaped, until
at length, in reality, they were left for awhile, the undisputed
'rulers of the waves,' as they vauntingly styled themselves. It was said
of the Sea-Sprite, that she was as fleet as the winds, and as mysterious
in her movements; and her master spirit, the fierce Juan Piesta, was as
wily and fierce a robber, as ever prowled upon the western waters.
Indeed, so wonderful and various had been his escapes, that many of the
Spaniards, and the lower orders of seamen in general, believed him to be
leagued with the Powers of Darkness!
But the Dart had been fitted up for the present cruise expressly on
account of her matchless speed, and our captain, generally known in the
service by the significant appellation of Old Satan West, was, in
situations where fighting or peril formed any part of the story, a full
match for his namesake.
* * * * *
After cruising about the western extremity of Cuba, for nearly a month,
to no purpose, we bore away for the southern coast of St. Domingo, and
at the time my story opens, were off Jacquemel. The morning was heralded
onward by troops of clouds, of the most brilliant and burning hues--deep
crimson ridges--fire-fringed volumes of purple, hanging far in the
depths of the mild and beautiful heaven--long, rose-tinted and golden
plumes, stretching up from the horizon to the zenith,--forming
altogether a most gorgeous and magnificent spectacle, while, to complete
the pageant, the sun, just rising from his ocean lair, shed a flood of
glaring light far over the restless expanse toward us, and every rope
and spar of our vessel, begemmed with bright dew-drops, flashed and
twinkled in his beams, like the jeweled robes of a princely bride.
"Fore top there! what's that away in the wake o' the sun?" called out
Mr. Dacres.
"A drifting spar, I believe, Sir--but the sun throws such a glare on the
water I cannot see plainly."
I looked in the direction pointed out, and saw a dark object tumbling
about on the fiery swell, like an evil spirit in torment. We altered our
course and stood away toward it. It turned out to be a boat, apparently
empty, but on a nearer inspection we perceived a man lying under its
thwarts, whose pale, lank features and sunken eye bespoke him as
suffering the last pangs of starvation. My surprise can better be
imagined than described, on discovering in the unfortunate man a highly
loved companion of my boyhood, Frederick Percy! He was transferred from
his miserable quarters to a snug berth on board of the Dart, and in a
few hours, by the judicious management of our surgeon, was resuscitated,
so as to be able to come on deck.
His story may be told in a few words. He had been travelling in
England--while there had married a beautiful, but friendless orphan.
Soon after this occurrence he embarked in one of his father's ships for
Philadelphia, intending to touch at St. Domingo city, and take in a
freight. But, three days before, when within a few hours' sail of their
destined port, they had fallen in with a piratical schooner, which,
after a short struggle, succeeded in capturing them. While protecting
his wife from the insults of the bucaneers, he received a blow in the
temple, which deprived him of his senses; and when he awoke to
consciousness it was night, wild and dark, and he was tossing on the
lone sea, without provisions, sail or oars, as we had found him. For
three days he had not tasted food. Poor fellow! his anxiety as to the
fate of his wife almost drove him to distraction.
This circumstance assured us that we were on the right trail of the
marauder whom we sought. We continued beating up the coast till noon,
when the breeze died away into a stark calm, and we lay rolling on the
long glassy swell, about ten leagues from the St. Domingo shore. The sun
was intensely powerful, glowing through the hazy atmosphere, directly
over our heads, like a red-hot cannon ball; and the far-stretching main
was as sultry and _arid_ as the sands of an African desert. To the
north, the cloud-topped mountains of St. Domingo obstructed our view,
looming through the blue haze to an immense height--presenting to as the
aspect of huge, flat, shadowy walls; and one need have taxed his
imagination but lightly, to fancy them the boundaries dividing us from a
brighter and a better clime. The depths of the ocean were as translucent
as an unobscured summer sky, and far beneath us we could distinguish the
dolphins and king-fish, roaming leisurely about, or darting hither and
thither as some object attracted their pursuit; while nearer its surface
the blue element was alive with myriads of minor nondescripts, riggling,
flouncing and lazily moving up and down,--probably attracted by the
shade of our dark hull.
The men having little else to do, obtained from the captain permission
to fish. Directly they had hauled in a dozen or more of the most
ill-favored, shapeless, unchristian-looking articles I ever clapped eyes
on, which, when I came from aft, were dancing their death jigs on the
forecastle-deck, much to the diversion of the captain's black waiter,
Essequibo.
"Halloo!--this way, blackey!" shouted an old tar to the merry African,
who, by the way, was a kind of reference table for the whole
crew--"Egad! Billy, look here,--what do you call this comical looking
devil that has helped himself to my hook? Why! his body is as long as
the articles of discipline, and his mouth almost as long as his
body!--your own main-hatch-way is not a circumstance to it!"
"Him be one gar fish--ocium gar!--he no good for eat," answered the
black with a grin that drew the corners of his mouth almost back to his
ears, so that, to appearance, small was the hinge that kept brain and
body together.
At the sight the querist dropped the fish, exclaiming with feigned
wonder, "By all that's crooked, an even bet!--ar'n't your mouth made ov
injy rubber, Billy!"
"Good ting to hab de larsh mout, Misser Mongo,--eat de more--lib de
longer," said Billy.
"Screw your blinkers this way, Jack Simpson, there's a prize for you,"
said another, as he dragged a huge lump-headed, bull-eyed, tail-less
mass out of the water, with fins protruding, like thorns, from every
part of his body!--"Guess he's one of the fighting cocks down below,
seeing his spurs!--any how, he's well armed,--I'll be keel-hauled, if he
don't look like the beauty that we saw carved out on the Frencher's
stern, with the Neptune bestride it, in Havana, barin' he wants a tail!
Han't he a queer un?--but how in natur do you suppose he makes out to
steer without a rudder?"
"Steer wid he head turn behin' him!" answered Seignor Essequibo,
bursting into a chuckling laugh--mightily tickled with the struggles of
the ungainly monster,--"Che, che, che!--him sea-dragum--catch um plenty
on de cos ob Barbado. Take care ob him horn!"
"Yo, heave, ho! Shaint Pathrick, an' it's me what's caught a whale!"
drawled out a brawny Patlander, while he tugged and sweated to heave in
his prize.
"My gorra! you hook one barracouter!" cried Billy, as his eye caught a
glimpse of the big fish curveting in the water at the end of Paddy's
line,--"Bes' fish in de worl'!--good for make um chowder--good for
fry--for ebery ting,--me help you pull him in, Massa Coulan," and
without further ado, he laid hold of the line. The beautiful fish was
hauled in, and consigned to the custody of the cook.
"Stave in my bulwarks, if this 'ere dragon-fish ha'n't stuck one of his
horns into my foot an inch deep!" roared an old marine,--"Hand me that
sarving mallet, snow ball, I'll see if I can't give him a hint to behave
better!"
"Hurrah!--here comes an owl-fish, I reckon;" shouted a merry wight of a
tar, from the land of wooden nutmegs,--"specimen of the salt-water owl!
Lord, look at his teeth--how he grins!--What are you laughing at, my
beauty?"
"Le diable! une chouette dans la mer?" exclaimed a little wizen-pated
Frenchman, who had seated himself astraddle of the cathead.--"Vel,
Monsieur Vagastafsh, comment nommez vous dish petit poisson?"
"Poison! No, Monsheer, I rather guess there han't the least bit o'
poison in natur about that ere _young shark_!" replied Wagstaff, "though
for that matter a shark's worse'n poison."
"I not mean poison--I say poisson--_fish_."
"O, poison fish--yes, I know--you'll find plenty of them on the Bahamy
copper banks. I always gets the cook to put a piece of silver in the
boilers, when we grub on fish in them ere parts."
"O, mon dieu! le rashcalle hash bitez mon vum almos' off! Sacré, vous
ingrat, to treatez me so like, when I am feed you wis de bon dîner!"
My attention was called away from this scene of hilarity, by the voice
of the watch in the fore-top, announcing a sail in sight.
A faint indefinable speck could be seen in the quarter designated,
fluttering on the bosom of the blue sea like a drift of foam. With the
aid of the glass we made it out to be the topsail of a schooner, so
distant that her hull and lower sails were below the brim of the
horizon. Her canvas had probably just been unloosed to the breeze, which
was directly after seen roughening the face of the broad, smooth expanse
as it swept down toward us.
"That glass, Mr. Waters--she is standing toward us, and by the gods of
war! the cut of her narrow flying royal, looks marvellously like that of
our friend, the Sea-Sprite!" said the captain, while the blood flashed
over his bald forehead, like 'heat lightning' over a summer cloud; "Mr.
Hackinsack, see that every thing is ready for a chase."
The broad sails were unloosed and sheeted close home. Directly the wind
was with us, and we were bowling along under a press of canvas.
"Now, quartermaster, look to your sails as closely, as you would watch
one seeking your life." Another squint through the glass. "Ha! they have
suspected us, and are standing in toward the land, jam on the
wind;--let them look to it sharply; it must be a fleet pair of heels
that can keep pace with the Dart,--though to say the least of yonder
cruiser, she is no laggard!"
After pacing the deck some ten minutes, he again hove short and lifted
the glass to his eye.
"By heavens! the little witch still holds her way with us!--Have the
skysail set, and rig out the top-gallant-studd'n'sail!"
Every one on board was now eager in the chase. The orders were obeyed
almost as soon as given. Our proud vessel, under the press of sail,
absolutely flew over the water, haughtily tossing the rampant surges
from her sides, while her bows were buried in a roaring and swirling
sheet of foam, and a broad band of snow stretched far over the dark blue
waste astern, showing a wake as strait as an arrow. She was careened
down to the breeze, so that her lower studd'n'sail-boom every moment
dashed a cloud of spray from the romping billows, and her lee rail was
at times under water. Her masts curved and whiffled beneath the immense
piles of canvas, like a stringed bow.
"She walks the waters bravely," said the captain, casting a glance of
exultation at the distended sails and bending spars, and then at our
arrowy wake.--"But, by Jupiter, the chase still almost holds her way
with us. We need more sail aft. Bear a hand, my men, and run up the
ringtail."
"That will answer,--a dolphin would have a sweat to beat us in this
trim!"
"Well, Mr Percy, is yonder dasher the craft that pillaged your ship, and
sent you cruising about the ocean in that bit of a cockle-shell, think
you?"
"That is the pirate schooner--I cannot mistake her," replied Percy, who
stood with his flashing eyes rivetted on the vessel, and his fingers
impatiently working about the hilt of his cutlass, while his brow was
darkened with an intense desire of revenge.
Three hours passed, and we had gained within a league of the noble
looking craft. She was heeled down to the breeze, so that owing to the
'bagging' of her lower sails, her hull was almost hidden from sight.
Like a snowy cloud, she darted along the revelling waters, the sunbeams
basking on her wide-spread wings, and the sprightly billows flashing and
surging around her bows. Never saw I an object more beautiful.
The land was now fully in sight--a stern and rock-bound coast, against
which the breakers dashed with maddening violence, and for half a mile
from the shore, the water was one conflicting waste of snowy surf and
billow. No signs of inhabitants, on either hand, as far as the eye could
view, were discernible. The long range of stern, solitary mountains
arose from the waves, and towered away till lost in the clouds. Their
sides, save where some splintered cliff lifted its gray peaks in the
day, were clothed with thick forests, among which the tufted palm and
wild cinnamon stood up conspicuously, like sentinels looking afar over
the wide waste of blue. Here and there a torrent could be traced,
leaping from crag to cliff, seeming, as it blazed in the fierce
sun-light, to run liquid fire; and gorgeous masses of wild creepers and
tangled undergrowth hung down over the embattled heights, swaying and
flaunting in the gale, like the banners and streamers of an encamped
army.
Not the slightest chance for harbor or anchorage could be discovered
along the whole iron-bound coast, yet the gallant little Sea-sprite
held steadily on her course, steering broad for the base of the
mountains.
"Why, in the name of madness, is the fellow driving in among the
breakers?" muttered our captain;--"Thinks he to escape by running into
danger? By Mars, and if I mistake not, he shall have peril to his
heart's content, ere nightfall!"
But fate willed that we should be disappointed; for just as every thing
had been arranged to treat the bucaneer with a fist full of grape and
canister, one of those sudden tempests, so common to the West Indies in
the autumn months, was upon us. A vast, black, conglomerated volume of
vapor swung against the mountain summits, and curled heavily down over
the cliffs. Brilliant scintillations were darting from its shadowy
borders, and the zigzag lightnings were playing about it, and licking
its ragged folds like the tongues of an evil spirit! Suddenly it burst
asunder, and a burning gleam--a wide conflagration, as if the very earth
had exploded--flashed over the hills, accompanied with a peal of thunder
that made the broad ocean tremble, and our deck quiver under us, like a
harpooned grampus in his death gasp! The electric fluid upheaved and
hurled to fragments an immense peak near the summit of the mountains,
and huge masses of rock, with thunderous din, and amid clouds of dust,
smoke and fire, came bounding and racing down from crag to crag,
uprooting the tall cedars, and dashing to splinters the firm iron-wood
trees, as though they had been but reeds--sweeping a wide path of ruin
through the thick forests, and shivering to atoms and dust the loose
rocks that obstructed their career, till, with a whirring bound, they
plunged from a beetling cliff into the sea, causing the tortured water
to send up a cloud of mist and spray. All on board were struck aghast at
the blinding brilliancy of the flash and its terrible effects.
We were aroused to a sense of our situation, by the clear, sonorous
voice of Satan West, whom nothing pertaining to earth could daunt,
calling all hands to take in sail.
Instantly the trade-wind ceased, and a fearful, death-like silence
ensued. This was of short duration; hardly were our sails stowed close,
when we saw the trees on shore drawn upwards, twisted off and rent to
pieces, while a dense mass of leaves and broken branches whirled over
the land; and a wild, deep, wailing sound, as of rushing wings, filled
the air, foretelling the onset of the whirlwind.
"The hurricane is upon us!--helm hard aweather!" thundered the captain.
But the Dart was already lying on her beam-ends, heaving, groaning and
quivering throughout every timber, in the fierce embrace of the
tremendous blast! After its first overpowering shock, however, the
gallant craft slowly recovered, and by dint of the strenuous exertions
of our men, she was got before the gale. Away she sprang, like a
frighted thing, over the tormented and whitening surges, completely
shrouded in foam and spray. A dense cloud, murky as midnight, spread
over the face of the heavens, where a moment before, naught met the
gazer's eye, save the fleecy mackerel-clouds, drifting afar through its
cerulean halls. The blue lightnings gleamed, the thunder boomed and
rattled, the black billows shook their flashing manes, the whole
firmament was in an uproar; and amid the wild rout, our little Dart, as
a dry leaf in the autumn winds, was borne about, a very plaything in
the eddying whirls of the frantic elements.
The tempest was as short lived as it was sudden, and, as the schooner
had sustained no material injury, directly after it had abated she was
under sail again. When the rain cleared up in shore, every eye sought
eagerly for the pirate craft.
She had vanished!
Nothing met our view but the tossing and tumbling surges, and the
breaker-beaten coast. If ever old Satan West was taken aback, it was
then. His brow darkened, and a shadow of unutterable disappointment
passed over his countenance.
"Gone!--By all that is mysterious and wonderful--gone!" he muttered to
himself,--"escaped from my very grasp! Can there be truth in the wild
tales told of her? No, no!--idiot to harbor the thought for a
moment--she has foundered!"
But this was hardly probable, as not the slightest vestige of her
remained about the spot.
Poor Percy, too, was the picture of despair. His hat had been blown away
by the hurricane; and his hair tossed rudely in the wind, as he stood in
the main-chains, gazing with the wildness of a maniac over the uproarous
waters.
"The lovers of the marvelous would here find enough to fatten upon, I
ween," said Dacres, composedly helping himself to a quid of tobacco.
"What think you is to come next? for I hardly think the play ends with
actors and all being spirited away in a thunder gust!"
I was interrupted in my reply by the energetic exclamations of the
captain, who had been gazing seaward, over the quarter-rail.
"Yes, by all the imps in purgatory, it is that devil-leagued pirate,"
burst from his lips; and at the same moment the cry of _Sail O!_ was
heard from the forward watch.
A long-sparred vessel could be seen, relieved against the black bank of
clouds, that were crowding down the horizon. Surprise was imaged on
every countenance, and when the order was passed to crowd on all sail in
pursuit, a murmur of disapprobation ran through the whole crew. However,
such was their respect for the regulations of the service, and so great
their dread of old Satan West, that no one dared demur openly. Again the
Dart was bounding over the waves in pursuit of the stranger, which had
confirmed our suspicions as to her character, by hoisting all sail and
endeavoring to escape us.
But here likewise we were disappointed. She proved to be a Baltimore
clipper, and had endeavored to run away from us, taking us for the same
craft we had supposed her to be.
After parting from the Baltimorean, we ran in; and as the evening fell,
anchored under the land, sheltered from the waves by a little rocky
promontory. It was my turn to take the evening watch. Our wearied crew
were soon lost in sleep, and all was hushed into repose, if I except the
shrill, rasping voices of the green lizards, the buzzing and humming of
the numerous insects on shore, and the occasional, long-drawn creak,
creak of the cable, as the schooner swung at her anchor. The evening was
mild and beautiful. The moon, attended by one bright, beautiful planet,
was on her wonted round through the heavens, and the far expanse of
ocean, reflecting her effulgence, seemed to roll in billows of molten
silver beneath the gentle night-wind, which swept from the land,
fragrant with the breath of wild-flowers and spicy shrubs.