Читать книгу Los Gringos - H. A. Wise - Страница 8

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"Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave,

The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave."

Falconer.

On the twenty-ninth of October, the anchors were loosened from their muddy beds; a light land wind fanned us out of the harbor, and with a white silver moon, we began our dreary march towards Cape Horn.

The following night the ship was dashing over the seas eleven miles the hour. The bell had just struck eight, watch set, and the topmen came dancing gaily down the rigging, here and there one, with a pea jacket snugly tied up and held by the teeth, preparatory to a four hours' snooze in the hammocks, when a moment after the cry, "Look out, Bill!—Overboard!—Man overboard!" was cried from the main rigging, and amid the bustle that ensued, the voice of the poor drowning wretch was heard in broken exclamations of agony, as the frigate swept swiftly by. Down went the helm, and sails were taken in as she came up to the wind, but by the strangest fatality, both life buoys were with difficulty cast adrift, and even then the blue lights did not ignite. A boat was soon lowered, and sent in the vessel's wake. An hour passed in the search, without hearing or seeing ought but the rude winds and breaking waves; and this is the last ever known of poor Bill de Conick.

He struck the channels from a fall of twenty feet up the rigging, and was probably either encumbered by heavy clothing, or too much injured to be able to reach the buoys.

Friday, too, the day of all others in our superstitious calendar for those "who go down to the sea in ships:" even amid a large crew, where many, if not all, are utterly reckless of life, an incident of this nature sheds a momentary gloom around, and serves to make many reflect, that the same unlucky accident might have wrapped any other in the same chilling shroud. There are few more painful sights in the world than to behold the imploring looks, with outstretched hands, of a fellow being,

—"When peril has numbed the sense and will,

Though the hand and the foot may struggle still—"

silently invoking help, when all human aid is unavailing—before the angry waves press him below the surface, to a sailor's grave. Aye, there can be no more dreadful scenes to make the strong man shudder than these. Yet it seems a wise ordination in our natures, that the sharp remembrance of these painful incidents is so rapidly dispelled. This very characteristic of the sailor, his heedless indifference to the future, in a great degree makes up his measure of contentment in all the toils and dangers that beset his course, unconscious that time,

"Like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave."

A fortnight flew quickly by, the good ship going at as lively a pace. We passed the wide mouth of La Plata, buttoned our jackets, and slept under blankets. As the weather became colder, mammy Carey and her broods, with goneys, albatrosses, boobies and cape pigeons, swarmed around the wake, to pick up the stray crumbs. Divers hooks and lines were thrown out to entice them aboard, but for a long interval all efforts proved fruitless, until one morning, an albatross abstractedly swallowed the bait, and much to his surprise was pulled on board, like to a boy's kite. He measured eleven feet four inches, with enormous quills and feathers, and such a bed of down the monster had concealed about his oily person, was never known nearer than an eider duck. He had large, fierce, black eyes, too, with a beak sharp, and hard enough to have nipped a silver dollar into bits. Whales favored us occasionally with an inspection—rolled their round snouts out of water—tossed a few tons of foam in the air—threw up their enormous flukes—struck the waves one splashing blow, and then went down to examine the soundings. Thus we sailed along the dull shores of Patagonia, with the long taper top gallant masts replaced by stumps to stand up more obstinately against the furious tempests of the "still vexed Bermoothes" of Cape Horn, the bugbear of all landsmen, and the place of all others, where more yarns are spun, wove, and wondered at, than from China to Peru. He was a bold sailor any way, who first doubled the Cape, whatever others may be who follow. At last came our turn, and on the afternoon of the sixteenth day from Rio, the clouds lifting, we saw the dark, jagged, rugged bluffs and steeps of Staten and Terra del Fuego. The next morning we rounded Cape St. John, and were received by the long swelling waves of the sister ocean. If the great Balboa when standing on the mountains of Panama, regarding the placid waves of the equatorial ocean, could have known the tempestuous gales and giant seas of the polar regions, sporting around this snowy cape, he might possibly have been less overjoyed at his grand discovery. Our pleasant weather and smooth seas clung to us, to the last, and, as if loth to leave, gave one unclouded view of Staten Land, like a casting in bronze, with the bleak, snow-capped heights, tinged by the rising sun. An hour after the bright sky was veiled by mist, the rising gale, from the west, brought hail and chilling rain. We lost sight of land, reefed the sails close down, and then bid defiance to the storm. Nothing venture nothing gain, is as true with ships' rigging, as thimble rigging, and we staked all our hopes on a rapid passage. Sorry work we made of it. The very birds were obliged to trim their pinions with great nicety in beating to windward—even then a terrible gust ruffled their plumes, and away they were driven, eddying, and screaming, to leeward. Still we strove the tempests to disarm, by stout hearts, and tough canvas, with partial success, too, for even with adverse winds, we managed to get to the southward, besides making something in the voyage; blessed, also, by a cool, bracing atmosphere, and day and twilight the whole twenty-four hours. Though the sun in tracking his bright career in either hemisphere is supposed to tinge the land and sea beneath his blaze, with what is generally called summer, yet an exception to the rule exists in vicinity of Cape Horn. The days, it is true, are longer; in fact the night is day, but the sun diffuses no pleasant, genial warmth, and is only seen peering out from behind the clouds, with a careworn, desolate, blurred face, as if he was ashamed of his company, and had marched entirely out of his beat.

In all this time hardly an incident occurred to make us even wink, except, perhaps, the tumble of a topman from aloft, who was picked up with a fractured spine; and a little sauciness, reproved by our stout armorer, through the intervention of an iron rod upon the limbs of a tall negro, thereby breaking his arm in two places. One's bones are brittle in frosty weather, and young Vulcan was made to submit to severe personal damages. I must chronicle also the sudden demise of a venerable sergeant of marines, who departed this life one cold night, while relieving the guard under the forecastle—the next day he was consigned to the mighty deep, divested of all his worldly accoutrements, save a hammock and a couple of round shot, to pull him into eternity. We had not exchanged nautical salutations since leaving port, and well nigh believed the ocean was deserted; however, one day there came looming through the mist and rain, a large ship, with all her flaunting muslin spread, running before the gale—the distance was too great to make out her colors, but sufficiently near to cause some of us to wonder when our bark's prow would be turned in the same direction, and the sheets eased off for home. Speaking of ships, while at Rio an American vessel of war arrived, and our sympathies were universally enlisted on learning that she had been two long months trying to reach Valparaiso, but when off the Horn, or in fact after having passed it, she experienced tremendous hurricanes and giant waves, which blew the sails to ribbons, tore away the boats, shattered the stern frame, and left her altogether in a most distressing and heart-rending condition, consequently she put back. It was worthy of remark, however, that she came buoyantly into the harbor, tricked out in a bran new suit of clothes, and when a number of officers went on board to survey her pitiable plight, they could find neither leak nor strain, and very sensibly concluded she was one of the staunchest and best corvettes in the navy, as indeed she was. John Bull took back his mails and declared he would never take advantage again of a crack Yankee sloop-of-war to forward important dispatches by.

Our pleasures were now limited, no one raised his nose above the taffrail if not compelled; our chief resource was reading, and after absorbing heaps of ephemeral trash drifting about the decks, we sought the library and poured over ponderous tomes of physics, history or travels. Books find their true value a shipboard—cut off from all amusement of the land, we derive the full benefit by reading, for more than reading's sake, or for the purpose of killing time in silly abstraction, and many a stupid author is thoroughly digested, and many labored narrations of voyages are carefully studied, whose narrators have "compiled very dull books from very interesting materials," and they should be grateful to governments for purchasing, and thankful for indifferent persons to peruse them.

On the advent of Saturday nights, when the wind was blowing cold and dreary, we sought the lowest depths of the frigate. Facilis decensus averni, in other words, "'tis easy to dive into the cock-pit"—there in a cozy state-room, we made a jovial little party, conducted on strictly private principles, for the purpose of seeking medical advice. We consulted a pot-bellied gentleman, with a small copper kettle on his head, illumined by a spirit lamp, whilom, termed Doctor Faustus—unlike the Sangrado practitioners, the Doctor constantly poured out instead of in. One humorsome fellow, the President of our club, who was rather stout on his pins, and carée par la base, poured forth wit and hot water by the hour, diversifying both occasionally, by ravishing strains on the violin, and chanting Virginia melodies, which acted on the heels of one of our attendants, in a complicated series of jigs, called the double shuffle.

At last the fates befriended us; a new moon appeared, and the west wind having apparently blown itself out of breath, a breeze sprang up from south-east and commenced blowing the sea and ourselves in an opposite direction; snow fell thick and fast, driving the thermometer below freezing point, and barometer running rapidly up. As the flakes fell and adhered to rigging and sails, the entire mass of ropes, spars and hampers were soon clothed in icy white jackets. The sun broke out for a moment and converted a showering cloud of snow into a magnificent bow. Rainbows of sun and moon are beheld by the million, but seldom a novelty like a snow-bow! The ship was hurried along at great speed on the sixtieth parallel, until reaching the meridian of eighty, when we bore away to the northward. Congratulating ourselves with the hope that the clerk of the weather had forgotten to announce our arrival to the court of winds in the great South Pacific; faint delusion!—off the gusty isle of Chiloe, we had a hug from a gale, which, however, exhausted itself in a few hours, and then left us to flounder about on the mountainous backs of waves as best we might—then there was an interval of rain and squalls from all quarters, when the breeze again came fair, and on the second of December, we anchored at Valparaiso, just five weeks from Rio Janeiro.