AT SEA.
_September 23d._—
“The sea again! the swift, bright sea!”—
and, at the rate of twelve miles the hour,
“Away, away upon the rushing tide
We hurry faster than the foam we ride,
Dashing afar the waves, which round us cling,
With strength like that which lifts the eagle’s wing,
Where the stars dazzle and the angels sing.
We scatter the spray,
And break through the billows,
As the wind makes way
Through the leaves of willows!”
We had expected to meet at Rio de Janeiro, the frigate Brandywine, the
ship the Congress came to relieve; but instead, Commodore McKeever found
orders awaiting him there to proceed to Montevideo. In obedience to
these we got under way, early on the 17th inst.; but, after dropping
down the bay a couple of miles, the land breeze failed us and we again
came to anchor. For three successive days, we made a like attempt to get
to sea, but to no purpose; and, on the morning of the 21st, employed a
steam tug to tow us out. The British Admiral had previously proffered
the use of a small steamer, in attendance upon his flag; and now sent
her, to aid the little tow-boat in stemming with her stately burden, the
tide just beginning to set in. When well outside we took a smacking
breeze; and, though scarce two days at sea, have run five hundred
miles—nearly half the distance to Montevideo.
There was no special reason for regret at the delay in getting off. The
position we occupied while detained was the finest possible for the
study of the imagery amidst which we lay. But for some accidental cause
of the kind, we should not have had an opportunity of enjoying it, and I
availed myself of the chance to secure a panoramic drawing, embracing
points of beauty not commanded from the customary anchorage of
men-of-war. During the detention, Captain McIntosh took me with him in
two or three excursions upon the water in his gig, followed by walks on
shore of interest and novelty. One of these was to Praya Grande,
opposite Rio; and another to the bay of St. Francis Xavier, called by
the English Five-fathom Bay, on the same side of the water, but nearer
the sea.
The formation of the land on the eastern side of the harbor is less bold
and lofty than that on which the city lies. The mountains are more
distant, and the spurs from them come down in rounded hills,
interspersed with valleys and broad interval lands. Praya Grande and
Praya San Domingo form one gently curving beach on this shore, some
three miles in length, extending northward from the fragmentary islet—on
the bluff crest of which is perched the little chapel of Boa Viagem—to a
beautifully rounded promontory jutting far westward into the bay. They
are contiguous parishes, seemingly but one settlement, and are rural and
village like. The green banks along the water side are overhung with
trees, and the houses every where interspersed with large gardens and
ornamented enclosures. The population of the two places amounts to about
three thousand. The residences, for the most part, are well built, and
many of them tasteful in architecture, and fanciful in their
embellishment. In comparison with the city opposite, the whole district
is pure and cleanly; and, in place of the villanous smells too often met
there, abounds with the mingled fragrance of the orange, cape jessamine,
heliotrope, and unnumbered other blossoms—constituting a sweetness more
fresh and grateful than the choicest ‘mille fleurs’ of the perfumist.
Wild roses, multiflora, and clustering flowers of varied hues, mantle
the tops and fringe the sides of the hedges of myrtle and mimosa, aloes
and cacti which border the roads, while many of the pleasure gardens, of
which we had glimpses through the iron railings and open gateways, are
adorned with plants and shrubs of novel forms and gorgeous bloom, amidst
fountains of greater or less beauty.
We made our way into the open country, meeting, at one or two points,
features in the scenery quite homelike: one—a meadow of coarse grass
edged by a copse and thickets interspersed with single trees; and
another, a large field on a hill-side having the earth freshly turned
up, like newly ploughed ground with us, over which noble mango trees,
with their thickly set leaves, and rounded tops, were scattered like
oaks in an English park. On every hand there was a great variety of
growth in shrub and tree, and it was with no slight degree of pleasure
that I recognized among others, as old friends at the Sandwich Islands,
not only the cocoa-nut, palm and banana, but also the bread-fruit, the
tamarind, and _alucrites triloba_—or candle tree.
Not knowing how far the road we were following might lead, before it
would again conduct towards the water, we were about to retrace our
steps the same way, when, a question accidentally put to a negro
passing, led to a return under his guidance over a hill, by a wild and
romantic bridle-path. This was so overhung by densely interwoven growth,
that the glare of midday soon became twilight to us, and the heat of a
burning sun tempered to the coolness of a grotto. At many points of the
entire walk, the views of the bay and city in the distance, and of the
mountains overhanging them were of unsurpassed beauty. Indeed, there was
no end to the forms of loveliness by which we were surrounded, and to
the associations in memory and affection brought to my mind by them.
With the expectation of spending many a tedious month of our long exile
on the adjoining waters, it was a delight to know that walks of such
freshness and beauty are so near and so accessible.
The row to the bay of St. Francis Xavier was made the succeeding
afternoon. A bold and strongly defined promontory of granite, separates
this sheet from the waters of the general harbor, and makes it so
land-locked as to give to it the aspect of a secluded lake. Till we had
doubled this, I had no idea of the depth to which the bay sweeps seaward
behind the promontory, or of the feeling of remoteness from civilized
life which its general features at once impart. The wild mountains, with
a rude hut clinging here and there to their uncultivated sides; the
primitive look of the lowly cottages of fishermen stretched along a
distant beach; and the canoes drawn up on the sands, or resting lightly
upon the water, again transported me to the South Seas, and I felt as if
at the Marquesan or Society Islands, rather than within a half a dozen
miles of the metropolis of a magnificent empire. Just so untamed, just
so Indian-like, I am told, were the entire surroundings of the bay of
Rio, till within the last thirty or forty years.
The eastern side of this inlet is formed by a long curving beach of
sand, called the Praya Carahy. It fronts an extensive plain of low
alluvial ground through which, at either end, two streams from the
mountains make their way. Landing at the mouth of the most southern of
these, with orders for the boat to meet us at that to the north, we
walked upon the sands the intervening distance, in alternate admiration
of the scenery inland, on the one side, and the sportings of a heavy
surf on the other. This illumined by the rays of the declining sun, rose
high in emerald masses, till, cresting into ten thousand diamonds, it
thundered on the beach and came rushing to our feet in sheets of foam.
_September 27th._—The fresh wind mentioned in my last date brought us,
the next evening, on soundings off the Rio de la Plata. A change then
suddenly occurred with every indication of heavy weather. The mercury in
the barometer fell low; and during the night there was heavy rain, with
a good deal of thunder and lightning, while meteors, called by seamen,
compesant—a corruption of corpo santo or holy body—flitted about the
yard-arms and mast-heads of the ship. All these were forerunners of
weather more like a gale than any thing experienced since leaving
Norfolk: indeed, a regular pampero, a storm of wind so called from the
pampas or boundless plains between the Rio la Plata and Patagonia, over
which the cold south and south-west winds from the polar regions sweep,
corresponding in force and temperature to our fiercest north-west winds
at home. The storm was not of long continuance, and yesterday afternoon
we made the land near Cape St. Mary, the northern entrance to the river.
We lay off shore for the night, and sighting the land again this
morning, soon after made the little islet of Lobos, a chief landmark in
entering the Plata from the north, seventy miles from Montevideo. It
derives its name from the multitude of seal frequenting it. Many of
these were seen, as we approached, basking on the rocky shores and
swimming about in the water. A strong and offensive odor was also very
perceptible. The island is a governmental possession of the Republic of
Uruguay, but leased for a long term of years to a gentleman of
Montevideo, and yields a handsome income in skins and oil.
The river is here one hundred and twenty miles wide. Its northern shore
only, of course, is visible. This is low and sandy, marked here and
there by a green hillock. With a glass, great numbers of horses, in vast
droves as if wild, could be seen grazing in the distance; also the
church towers of Maldonado, the town next in size in the Republic to
Montevideo. From all we can learn, it is in such decay and depopulation
at present, that the euphony of its name is its chief attraction.
Midway between the island of Lobos and Montevideo are the highlands of
Monte Negro. The next landmark is the isle of Flores, surmounted by a
light-house, fifteen miles distant from the anchorage. This light we are
in momentary expectation of making.
_Montevideo, October 1st._—On the night of the 29th ult., after having
run a sufficient distance beyond the light of Flores to bring us abreast
of Montevideo, we dropped anchor without having caught sight of any
shipping in the roadstead, or discovering any signs of the town. On the
lifting of a dense fog the next morning, the first objects discernible
were the men-of-war of a French squadron about five miles in shore of
us. Shortly after, the Mount—a conical hill situated on the western side
of a circular indenture in the river, constituting the harbor—which
gives name to the place, was disclosed; and lastly, the town itself on a
point opposite, distant from it a mile or more, in a direct line across
the water. The whole landscape is as different as possible from that at
Rio de Janeiro. It is low and level, without rock or tree: a soft
verdure covered the shore and gleamed in the sun, like so much velvet,
as it came peering on the eye through the fog bank.
The Mount is an isolated hill rising gradually and regularly on all
sides, at an angle of 45°, to a height of 480 or 90 feet. It is crowned
by a small rectangular fortress, above which the lantern of a pharos
rises some twenty or thirty feet. Being in possession of a besieging
force, no light is shown from it, that additional embarrassment may be
placed on the commerce of the port. Midway between the Mount on the west
and the town on the east, a smaller hill rises two or three miles
inland, in like manner in regular lines from the plain. This too is
crowned by a little fort, which, like the other, is in possession of the
besieging party. It is called the “Cerrito,” or little hill, in
contradistinction to the other, known as the “Cerro,” or hill par
excellence. The town is situated on a peninsula of tufa rock, a half
mile in length by a quarter in width, rising gently from the water on
three sides to an elevation of eighty or a hundred feet, much in the
shape of a tortoise’s back. From a distance it presents a mass of
compactly built, white, flat-topped houses, one and two stories high, of
Spanish aspect, with multitudes of small, square turrets or miradors
overtopping them, from the midst of which, on the central height, rise
the lofty roofs, dome and double towers of a cathedral.
It was in vain we searched among the shipping of the outer roads, where
alone there is sufficient depth of water for a frigate, for the broad
pennant of Commodore Storer. The sloop-of-war St. Louis, however, was
recognized in the inner harbor. On communicating with her, we learned
that the Brandywine had sailed for Rio de Janeiro ten days ago, again
leaving orders for the Congress to follow. Our trip has thus been for
naught. We sail again for Brazil, with the first fair wind, and I shall
defer all observation in the city to the more favorable opportunities of
an after visit.
The general view around us is more homelike than any thing seen by us
since leaving the United States. The growth is no longer tropical. The
sky, the temperature of the air, the tinting of the clouds at sunrise
and sunset are all those of the Northern States. Yesterday, the Sabbath,
was altogether like a fine, bright, fresh and transparent day in October
on the Hudson; though, while October there is the gradual freshening of
autumn into winter, here it is the softening of spring into summer. The
mercury in Fahrenheit has not yet fallen below 50°; still the change
from the heat of Rio was felt so sensibly, on reaching the latitude of
the river, that flannels, cloth clothes, and overcoats were found
comfortable, if not absolutely necessary. The region of the La Plata is
famed for the transparency of its atmosphere in fine weather. To this
probably is to be attributed, in part at least, the great beauty of the
sunsets at this place. We have been delighted by two already gazed on;
the one remarkable for the exquisite delicacy of its tints in blue and
gold, amber, pink and pearl, and the other, equally soft and beautiful
at first, but afterwards gorgeous to sublimity, from the reflections in
crimson and gold of a canopy of fleecy clouds spread widely over the
heavens.
AT SEA.
_October 12th._—We made an attempt to leave Montevideo on the 2d inst.,
but succeeded in making a small change only in our anchorage. At the end
of three days, we had scarcely passed the island of Flores, fifteen
miles from the city, though we had weighed anchor not less than three
times each day in the hope of taking a final departure. The difficulty
was caused by a succession of calms, thick fogs, head winds and adverse
tides characteristic of the season here. It was not till the 6th that we
again passed Lobos and were fairly outside.
Since clearing Cape St. Mary, we have been experiencing all the
vicissitudes of the sea: first in a long stretch, off our course, far to
the south-east, close hauled upon a head wind; and, since the 9th inst.,
when this changed in our favor, in a rapid but boisterous run of more
than half the distance to Rio de Janeiro. While thus careering on our
way, in addition to the ever-varying rush and roar—the cresting,
breaking and foaming of the billows behind and around us, we have found
an interesting relaxation on deck in watching the sportings and
unwearied movements of unnumbered sea-birds, following closely in the
broad and troubled wake of our ship, in pursuit of the fragments of food
thrown overboard from the different messes at all hours of the day. It
is not often that so rich a windfall as the waste of such a ship falls
to their lot. To this fact they seem fully alive, and were indefatigable
in making the best of their good fortune. Amidst flocks of beautiful
Cape pigeons, outrivalling in numbers the crows of Crum Elbow[2] in an
autumnal evening, were to be seen the gigantic albatross, sweeping round
on wide-expanded and motionless wing; the sea-mew and man-of-war bird,
black as ravens; the booby, and any quantity of the stormy petrel,
treading the water more confidently and more securely than did the
unbelieving Peter.
[Footnote 2: A well known point on the Hudson River, overhung by
precipitous cliffs, a favorite resort of crows.]
The Cape pigeon—_Procellaria Capensis_—is beautiful on the wing or as
seen tossing gracefully on the water. Its size is that of a large dove.
Its breast is snow-white, with back, wings and tail of slate color,
thickly set with oval spots of white, having much the effect on the eye
of a tasteful dress in second mourning. Several were taken with hook and
line, baited with pork, and one by the mere entanglement of its wings in
a line. They are not so pretty or symmetrically formed, on close
inspection as at a distance; and in place of the gentleness of the dove,
which they at first so much resemble, are as snappish and resentful in
spirit against their captors as the most carnivorous of their species.
The albatross—_Diomedia Exulans_—is white, with wings and back varying
in different birds from black to a light brown. It is an ugly-looking
bird, about the size of a domestic goose, with large head and great
goggle eyes. The wings are very long—from eleven to fourteen feet from
tip to tip. This interferes much with the facility of rising when seated
on the water. It is only with evident effort and an awkward floundering
that they mount again after having alighted; but then, it is a wonder to
observe the ease and rapidity of their flight, and their ability, with
seemingly motionless wing, to sweep in wide circuit round and round the
ship, and still keep up with her in her swiftest career; and this day
after day, without apparent exhaustion or fatigue, though sailing at the
rate of two hundred miles and more in the twenty-four hours. The fiercer
the winds and the more tumultuous the towering and thundering of the
waves, the more joyous are their sportings, and the more triumphant
their mastery of the elements.
The booby—_Sula Bassana_—is somewhat like the albatross in general
appearance, but less clumsy, smaller, more angular in outline and
pinion, and less majestic in flight. The man-of-war bird—_Fregata
Pelicana_—is less adventurous in its wanderings over the sea. Its form
is more that of the eagle—hence one of its names, _Tachypetes
Aquilas_—with long feathers on the wings and tail, and its color a jetty
black. It owes its English name to a supposition of the ignorant, that
in returning to the land it heralds the approach of a ship; but, only
from the fact that, like the ship it seeks the shelter of the port on
the approach of a storm, and makes an earlier and surer arrival.
The most constant in its companionship with us, in every latitude and in
all states of the weather, is the little petrel—_Thelassadroma
Pelagica_—a small swallow-tailed bird, about the size, with much of the
appearance, of the common house martin. Wilson in his ornithology gives
a graphic description of these birds as seen in a gale, “coursing over
the waves, down the declivities and up the ascents of the foaming surge,
that threatens to bury them, as it bursts over their heads; sweeping
again through the hollow trough of the sea, as in a sheltered valley,
and again mounting with the rising billow, skimming just above its
surface, occasionally dipping their feet in the water and throwing it up
with additional force: sometimes leaping, with their legs parallel on
the surface of the roughest wave, for yards in succession; meanwhile
continually coursing from side to side of the ship’s wake, making
excursions far and wide to the right and to the left—now a great way
ahead, now shooting far astern and returning again as if the vessel was
stationary, though often running at the rate of ten knots the hour.”
The most singular faculty of these birds, however, is that of standing,
and of running on the face of the water, with the greatest apparent
facility. When any greasy matter is thrown overboard they instantly
collect around it with greedy and clamorous chatterings; and, facing to
the windward, with their long wings expanded and their little webbed
feet pattering the water, eagerly seize the booty. It is the lightness
of their bodies and the force of the wind against their wings that
enable them so readily to do this. In calm weather they perform the same
manœuvre, by keeping their wings just so much in action as to prevent
their feet from sinking below the surface. According to Buffon, it is
this habit which has given to the whole genus the name they bear, from
the walking on the water of the Apostle Peter. It is amusing, and partly
vexatious, to see a clumsy albatross or great booby come swooping down
among them, while they are thus collected around their food, and,
flapping them away with its monstrous wings, at one mouthful rob them of
a whole meal. Greasy substances are their choicest food, and their
little bodies become a mass of oil: so much so, that dried and strung on
a skewer, they are burned on some of the islands of the Atlantic as a
substitute for candles.
The boisterousness of the weather has made the frequent reduction of
sail necessary—at times, almost to bare poles. This has afforded a more
than ordinary opportunity of witnessing the exposure and daring
intrepidity required from the sailor in the discharge of his duty. The
taking in of sail and the reefing of topsails in so large a ship, by a
crew of four hundred men, emulous of excelling in skill and expertness,
is an exciting scene even in a moderate breeze. When this occurs amidst
the rushing winds and howling storm, with such masses of heavy canvas as
compose our sails, flapping seemingly in unmanageable force, and
snapping like thunder in the gale, it is frightful to look aloft. While
the masts are bending to the wind and the ship careening in the water,
you see the yards covered with hundreds of the crew with no guard from
destruction in the giddy height, but the habit of keeping their feet
firmly on the foot-ropes, while their hands and arms are occupied in
overcoming the fearful thrashings of the sails, and in gathering in the
canvas and binding it down with the reef-points. Some of them on the
upper spars, like birds in the topmost branches of a tree, sweep to and
fro over the roaring gulf below; and, occasionally a man or boy is
beheld clinging to a slender spar or single sheet at the very mast-head,
two hundred feet from the deck, disentangling a halliard or
conductor—causing one’s nerves to shake under the apprehension of seeing
him hurled, in some pitch or roll of the frigate, far overboard into the
raging sea, or dashed to death at your feet on deck.
_October 16th._—The mountains and islets around the harbor of Rio are in
full view, and I will close this section of my record. In doing this, I
must follow the subject matter of my last date—the birds of the sea—by a
word on some of its fishes. In a calm yesterday we were surrounded by a
great number of dolphin—_Cyrophæna hippuris_—certainly, as seen moving
in its blue waters, the most beautiful of the inhabitants of the deep.
When full grown, it is from two to three feet in length, elegant and
symmetrical in shape, and brilliant in colors: the prevailing hue being
mazarine blue, or Pompadour, shading from the back to the under parts
into emerald and gold, with fins and tail of green running rapidly into
a bright yellow. Its motions are easy and graceful, and were watched, in
great numbers, under the advantages of a smooth sea and brilliant sun.
Dolphin are so common in all tropical latitudes, and so frequently seen,
that I might not have thought of taking note of them in this instance,
but for an assertion respecting them recently met in a book on natural
history, which, emanating from a fellow of Oxford, ought to be of good
authority. After stating the fact that the shape of this fish, as given
in heraldic and classic representations, is entirely poetical and
untrue, the author—Wood—adds: “indeed almost the whole history of the
dolphin is imaginary—very poetical, but very untrue. The red and blue of
the heraldic lion are not less fabulous than the changing colors of the
dying dolphin, so dear to poetry. Alas! our unpoetical dolphin, when we
have harpooned him and brought him to the deck is only black and white,
and all the change that he makes is that the black becomes brown in
time, and the white gray.” This assertion I know, from personal
observation in company with many witnesses, to be an error. In the first
voyage I ever made, I had an opportunity of observing and admiring the
varying and beautiful colors of the dolphin while dying; and now, fully
proved to myself the truthfulness of the record of it then made. Mr.
G——, secretary to our commander-in-chief, caught one with a hook and
line, and quickly drew him over the stern on deck. I happened to be
present, and, though the dying throes even of a soulless fish can
scarcely be looked on without sympathy, the effect on its coloring could
not be watched without admiration. The first change which took place,
after the fish reached the deck, was of the whole surface into a bright
yellow or gold, spotted, like the speckled trout, with deep blue; then
the whole became blue again, the spots of a deeper hue still remaining
distinctly marked; a third change was into a pure and spotless silver,
over which prismatic colors, like those in an opal under a shifting
light, passed rapidly and tremulously for a few moments, when the
beautiful dolphin became brown and gray like any other dead fish.
It is possible that, when struck with a harpoon, the violence of the
shock may be such as to produce death so suddenly that these changes
have passed away, before the fish can be drawn on board, as their
duration is but momentary. Either this is the truth, or Mr. Wood is not
authority in the case. You may still believe therefore that
“The dolphin, ’mid expiring throes,
More exquisite in beauty grows,
As fades the strength of life:
And tintings bright of sapphire blue,
And rainbow lights of every hue
More exquisite each moment shew,
As fainter grows the strife.”
Portuguese men-of-war—_Physalia physalis_—have also been floating past
us. These are molluscæ with long feelers, and furnished with an air-bag
which they have the power of inflating at pleasure when moving on the
surface. This is provided with apertures at either end, by which they
can expel the air, or take in sail, as a seaman would say, when they
wish to sink. This air bag, when inflated, is of an oval shape, and of
the tenuity almost of a soap-bubble, and exhibits like it, though in
stronger shades, many of the hues of the prism. The beauty discoverable
in many of these animals is said by naturalists to equal any thing in
organic nature.
A passage in Montgomery’s Pelican Island applied to the convoluted
nautilus, which rises and floats on the surface of the water, but
spreads no sail, is perhaps more truthfully descriptive of this
man-of-war:
“Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upwards, from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark,
Put out a tier of oars on either side;
Spread to the wafting breeze a two-fold sail,
And mounted up, and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.”
Should you be disposed to think that such commonplace observations
indicate the tedium and monotony of sea life—the paucity of its
resources for occupation and amusement—and are not worth the time
required for the record, I must take shelter from the reproach in the
example of a voyager no less illustrious than Humboldt, who, at the end
of forty years, confesses to the delight still afforded by reminiscences
of such pastime on the sea. True, we may not, like him, mingle our
admiration with thoughts of deep philosophy, or make our observations
subservient to generalizations in science; still, we can take equal
delight in the varied phenomena of the sea, and, in humble adoration,
thus “look through nature up to nature’s God,” and rejoice in the
infinitude and perfection of his manifold works.
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