Читать книгу Pencillings by the Way - Nathaniel Parker Willis - Страница 7

Oct. 29.—We have a tandem of whales ahead. They have been playing about the ship an hour, and now are coursing away to the east, one after the other, in gallant style. If we could only get them into traces now, how beautiful it would be to stand in the foretop and drive a degree or two, on a summer sea! It would not be more wonderful, de novo, than the discovery of the lightning-rod, or navigation by steam! And by the way, the sight of these huge creatures has made me realize, for the first time, the extent to which the sea has grown upon my mind during the voyage. I have seen one or two whales, exhibited in the docks, and it seemed to me always that they were monsters—out of proportion, entirely, to the range of the ocean. I had been accustomed to look out to the horizon from land (the radius, of course, as great as at sea), and, calculating the probable speed with which they would compass the intervening space, and the disturbance they would make in doing it, it appeared that in any considerable numbers, they would occupy more than their share of notice and sea-room. Now—after sailing five days, at two hundred miles a day, and not meeting a single vessel—it seems to me that a troop of a thousand might swim the sea a century and chance to be never crossed, so endlessly does this eternal horizon open and stretch away!

Oct. 30.—The day has passed more pleasantly than usual The man at the helm cried "a sail," while we were at breakfast, and we gradually overtook a large ship, standing on the same course, with every sail set. We were passing half a mile to leeward, when she put up her helm and ran down to us, hoisting the English flag. We raised the "star-spangled banner" in answer, and "hove to," and she came dashing along our quarter, heaving most majestically to the sea, till she was near enough to speak us without a trumpet. Her fore-deck was covered with sailors dressed all alike and very neatly, and around the gangway stood a large group of officers in uniform, the oldest of whom, a noble-looking man with gray hair, hailed and answered us. Several ladies stood back by the cabin door—passengers apparently. She was a man of war, sailing as a king's packet between Halifax and Falmouth, and had been out from the former port nineteen days. After the usual courtesies had passed, she bore away a little, and then kept on her course again, the two vessels in company at the distance of half a pistol shot. I rarely have seen a more beautiful sight. The fine effect of a ship under sail is entirely lost to one on board, and it is only at sea and under circumstances like these, that it can be observed. The power of the swell, lifting such a huge body as lightly as an egg-shell on its bosom, and tossing it sometimes half out of the water without the slightest apparent effort, is astonishing. I sat on deck watching her with undiminished interest for hours. Apart from the spectacle, the feeling of companionship, meeting human beings in the middle of the ocean after so long a deprivation of society (five days without seeing a sail, and nearly three weeks unspoken from land), was delightful. Our brig was the faster sailer of the two, but our captain took in some of his canvas for company's sake; and all the afternoon we heard her half-hour bells, and the boatswain's whistle, and the orders of the officers of the deck, and I could distinguish very well, with a glass, the expression of the faces watching our own really beautiful vessel as she skimmed over the water like a bird. We parted at sunset, the man-of-war making northerly for her port, and we stretching south for the coast of France. I watched her till she went over the horizon, and felt as if I had lost friends when the night closed in and we were once more

"Alone on the wide, wide sea."

Nov. 3.—We have just made the port of Havre, and the pilot tells us that the packet has been delayed by contrary winds, and sails early to-morrow morning. The town bells are ringing "nine" (as delightful a sound as I ever heard, to my sea-weary ear), and I close in haste, for all is confusion on board.