Chapter VIII: Part 8

All last night it blew a fresh breeze and we gradually fell away to leeward, and at two o’clock this morning the captain decided to abandon Le Maire and kept off for Cape St. John. When we went on deck after breakfast (it was too dark to see anything before eight o’clock) we were startled at the sight. Broadside on, and parallel with our course, lay the extreme eastern end of Staten Land, distant not more than two miles, with the tiny, cosy harbor of St. John just abeam. So close to the land were we that we could easily see the stunted evergreens that covered the hills up to the snow-line, which is much higher here than towards the middle of the island, where the breakers seem to fling their spray upon the fields of snow; while high up on a rugged mountain side there stood an isolated, lonely pine-tree, bringing to mind those exquisite lines of Heine:

“Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
im Norden auf kahler Höh’,
ihn schläfert, mit weisser Decke
umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee.

Er träumpt von einer Palme,
die fern im Morgenland
einsam und schweigend trauert
auf brennender Felsenwand.”

Now that we had approached so closely we hoped to get some photographs of the hills, especially when the sun, bursting from a cloud on the horizon, threw his horizontal rays upon the distant peaks. But, alas! they showed up as nothing but a blur upon the finder. St. John, comparatively speaking, looked like a snug, comfortable little place, but hardly such a one as a man would voluntarily choose to winter in, as do a colony of hardy sealers. The harbor seems to be formed by a neck of land projecting out from the right-hand side of the entrance, upon the verge of which we perceived the diminutive light-house which guides the rugged South Shetland seal-catchers into safety. On the port hand going in, over against the light-house, rises a lofty cone composed of a single huge crag, standing sentry-like over the safe harbor within; while roundabout on all sides tower great, dark, scowling mountains and vast precipices, the harbor being in reality naught but a cleft in the hills, after the manner of a Scandinavian fjord. Yet the wild beauty of the place enchants one, and long before we had lost sight of the little light-house I had acknowledged to my wife that, after all, the thought of a winter spent in St. John was not such a very dreadful one, for the fascination of Nature in her grander forms far outweighs bodily inconveniences; it is safe to say that von Humboldt in the deep recesses of the Ecuadorian Andes and Hooker in the awful solitudes of the Himalayas often longed for even the rude comforts provided in a settlement like St. John.

We looked in vain with the glasses for the little steamer which makes regular, monthly trips to the Falkland Islands and at times even to Montevideo; but she was not visible, and was no doubt away on one of her voyages. A truly turbulent life in one sense this one on the little vessel, but hardly so dreary as the lives of the seal-fishers who winter at St. John, which is, I believe, the southernmost permanent settlement on the globe, and from October to April penetrate deep into the Southern Ocean in pursuit of their livelihood.

Two strange, natural formations attract the attention far out on Cape St. John. The first is a mass of gray rock perched upon the very brim of a vertical cliff, almost overhanging the surf that boils furiously around it, bearing a striking resemblance to an ancient feudal castle; and one can see, as it were, the high walls with heavy battlements, and the lofty crenellated towers of the massive edifice. The second object is another monolith so closely resembling the Sphinx that one starts on first catching sight of it, for it seems impossible that mere chance could produce so accurate a counterpart of the famous Egyptian monument.

Well, we have seen Staten Land almost in its entirety; and if we didn’t have the satisfaction of passing through the Le Maire Straits, we went a third of the distance in last Sunday morning; and we have beheld the cape and settlement of St. John, where the scenery is, if possible, even grander and more desolate than at the western end. How odd it is, by the way, if Cape St. Anthony, near the straits, should have been so called from the temptation that possesses mariners to pass through instead of going around the island, thereby often incurring great risk!

On issuing into the open sea we fell into a tide-rip caused by the swift currents meeting at the point of the land, this rip being at times so heavy as to fill the decks of large ships. A number of hail-squalls descended upon us here, and as the land at noontime had grown very dim, at that hour we had what I fear was our last glimpse of the sorrowful hills of Staten Land.

We found a long swell outside, but not nearly as much as we had anticipated, though we are as yet under shelter of the land. As for the wind, it is now almost calm, the hour being three in the afternoon; but there is nothing set above the topsails on account of frequent squalls of considerable violence. The men are now so heavily wrapped up in clothes as to resemble nothing so much as corpulent mummies. They have to waddle instead of walk, and many of them have tied pieces of gunny sacks over their rubber boots. This, singularly enough, is a wonderful protection against cold; and they assert that if nothing else is handy, by simply pulling a pair of heavy socks over their boots their feet do not grow numb. It is strange that it should be so cold with the mercury no lower than 36°; yet here are stout, hardy men who have to knock off work sometimes to beat some life into themselves when the mate isn’t looking. My own clothes now weigh twenty-two pounds, or seventeen without the boots; this includes three suits of underwear and a sheepskin coat with the wool on, just as it came from the flank of the animal. Every one knows how the spectators rattle and shake at a football game in spite of thick wraps when the thermometer is no lower than 50°; how much more penetrating it must be here, then, when the mercury is nearly twenty degrees lower, and when the atmosphere is charged with that bitterness peculiar to the air at sea in the higher latitudes!

It cannot be said that we have done particularly well so far on this voyage, for we have been nine weeks at sea this day and have only just pushed out into the Southern Ocean. I wonder how long it will be before we can point our jib-boom for the north star again? Latitude, 54° 50′ south; longitude, 63° 36′ west.

+July 14+

Last night was an almost perfect one, with moonlight nearly as bright as sunshine and the sky absolutely free from clouds. About the hour of sunset we witnessed what, for spectacular effects, was perhaps the finest scenery that we have had yet. At four o’clock all the mists, etc., that sailors call muck had disappeared, disclosing in its entire length of fifty miles the south side of Staten Land. This consists altogether of jagged rocks and fierce, angry peaks shooting up three thousand feet above the sea. The eastern or St. John end of the island was wrapped in gloom and shadow, while the rest of the land swept superbly down toward the west, stretching away in ridges of wonderfully fantastic beauty, the peaks near the straits soaring up grandly against a rich crimson glare where the sun had sunk behind a rift in the clouds. Gradually, however, the light was diffused over the entire western heavens, changing from soft golden tints to royal purples and scarlets, which spread over the glorious mountains a cloud-mantle almost supernatural in its marvellous hues. Imperceptibly, however, the bright colors began to wane and grow dull, shapes of dun vapor seemed to rise from the land, and at length darkness fell upon the deep and the mountains receded till engulfed in the blackness of night.

The scene on deck at 8.30 was also one long to be cherished, with the joyous, rosy light of advancing day in the northeast, the full moon slowly falling, a huge golden ball, behind the western horizon, and the tall, violet pyramid of the Bell Mountain on Tierra del Fuego rising out of the sea fair and soft, far away in the northwest. Ah, no one knows what the real beauties of the sea are until he has made at least one deep-water voyage in a sailing ship! The flying glimpse of the Atlantic that one catches from the deck of a steamer or the experiences of a midwinter voyage to the Mediterranean in a North German Lloyder gives one no true idea of what ocean life really is. No; to comprehend the sea in all of its splendid phases one must live on it for months at a time; for not till then can one fully appreciate that “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.”

Up to eleven o’clock this morning the weather was perfect and we carried the top-gallant-sails without trouble; we were heading our course southwest, and the sun looked down from a cloudless sky. As we went below at that hour we noticed a small bank dead ahead, but so insignificant that I didn’t think anything more about it until half an hour later, when, buried in the ice with Nansen, we became aware that it was growing very dark. The next second the ship heeled far over, and some one at the same instant cast off the spanker-halliards, the iron mast-hoops jingling noisily as the sail ran down. Of course we were on deck in another moment, and found that the wind had whipped around seven points and that a heavy squall had struck the ship aback; the great sails were swelled out inboard against the masts and backstays, while snow and sleet hurtled through the air in cutting blasts. Luckily, the top-gallant-sails had been clewed up a quarter of an hour before; but a large vessel in irons, even under short sail, in bad weather is a shocking sight. The captain was perfectly self-contained, however, and executed some rapid and precise manœuvres, no one losing his head except the mate, who went bellowing around the decks till brought to by the skipper’s angry commands, “Square that crojjick-yard; get the spencer brailed up. Call all hands. Stop that noise and single reef the fore- and maintop-sails.”

Oh, well hast thou earned thy reputation, boisterous and treacherous Cape! From bright skies and glorious sun-light we came in fifteen minutes to reefed topsails, sobbing decks, and flying snow, while the heavens were completely veiled in that puny cloud, which had expanded as though by the agency of some black art. “Here comes Cape Horn,” said MacFoy; and looking to windward, we beheld another sinister squall, dark with snow, bearing swiftly down upon us. A squall with snow in it can always be detected by its peculiarly black appearance. They rapidly increased in number and severity, until now, the middle of the afternoon watch, the wind seems to have settled down for a steady blow from somewhere between west and south. The glass is very unsteady at 29.25, 5 +P.M.+ The wind has increased to a fresh gale, while a heavy swell is rolling magnificently up from the southwest. This is the first time that we have seen this heavy sea, as heretofore it has been cut off by Cape Horn itself. Every minute it seems to increase, and within forty-eight hours we will probably be surrounded by the huge rollers which have made this region so famous. Even now they are so large and steady that, as far as the apparent rise and fall is concerned when below, we might almost as well be in perfectly smooth water. Our experience of heavy seas has been that the largest of them do not move rapidly, and at the present time the ship mounts so leisurely to their summits that one cannot detect the motion. When below, it is only in the tremendous roll of the vessel as she mounts to the crests that one is conscious of the height of the seas.

From existing indications we are going to make quite a good bit of easting during the next twenty-four hours, for our course now is south-southeast, and as there is a strong easterly current running ceaselessly here, southeast will be nearer the true course. At noon we were thirteen miles north of Cape Horn, but still considerably to the eastward of it. Latitude, 55° 46′ south; longitude, 65° 48′ west.

+July 15+

Last evening we prepared for a dirty night, and we got it. As the captain and I were pacing the poop after supper, the moon then shining brightly in a clear sky, suddenly, from a bank in the southwest, so low and thin as to be almost invisible, there appeared a streak of light. “Wasn’t that a flash of lightning?” asked the captain. “I think it was,” said I; “it certainly looked like it.” “H’m,” said the skipper. Closely we watched the southern horizon, and within ten minutes perceived two more brilliant flashes. A more uncanny effect it would be difficult to imagine; for, except the insignificant stratum near the sea-line, no other cloud was visible in the heavens, and the vivid streaks produced a startling effect in the white moonlight. After a look at the glass, which stood at 29.15, the captain called the second mate, who was on watch, and ordered the upper foretop-sail clewed up and a reef tied in the foresail; the upper mizzentop-sail hasn’t been set for some time, as it generally comes in when the cross-jack is hauled up. The wind at the moment was from the west, force 6, a strong breeze, with that deep swell that seems to be as eternal in the Southern Ocean as the snows of Mount Everest. Quickly, though strangely imperceptibly, some small, windy-looking clouds grew and expanded over the heavens; and from eight last evening until daylight this morning it was a night of furious squalls, thick snow and hail, and high seas. Throughout the twelve hours we were under a single-reefed maintop-sail, ditto foresail and main-sail and the spencer. During the fifteen or twenty minutes that the squalls lasted the wind blew with terrific force and shrieked like a thousand steam sirens in the rigging, and then would follow a light spell, in which we might have carried everything.

Our first really hard squall came at 9.30, in the mate’s watch. It was accompanied with a sweeping snow-storm that drove in great drifts across the decks, the ship standing up like a church against the blasts and sliding comparatively dry over the big seas that came piling toward us out of the gloom, invisible till their foaming tops flashed out of the darkness to windward. It was a grand, wild scene, and as the heavier puffs went ripping through the shrouds with a peculiar scream, I thought, as I looked at the driving snow and the darkness and the raging ocean, that the Dusk of the Gods had come upon us. This squall lasted fully thirty minutes, and so heavy was the fall of snow that it took the watch some little time to shovel it overboard.

All through the night we were afflicted with these unwelcome visitors, variety being afforded by hail, which fell to the size of marrowfat pease, while along the lee alley-way, as that part of the poop is called between the cabin-house and the rail, crouched the forms of the seamen, for they are compelled to stay aft every night now, ready at an instant’s call, and not coiled away napping under the top-gallant forecastle. The helmsman, too, was kept busy, for every squall seemed to take us aback more or less, and the air rang with the voice of the officer of the watch, “Put your wheel up, there!”

It had never been our lot to witness so dismal a scene as that disclosed to us at a quarter-past eight this morning. A squall had just passed over us, and we were at the moment in a sickly calm, with a high, greasy sea, which broke sluggishly at intervals like frothing oil; the decks and weather-side of the masts and spars were covered inch deep with the wet, clammy snow that had just fallen, the canvas was flapping loudly against the masts in the great heaving rolls, and that miserable, leaden-hued struggle was passing between the breaking day and the wan, gibbous moon showing between the ragged clouds, which casts so wretched and melancholy a light over all objects. A more oppressive scene it would be impossible to picture, and it was the moment best suited to him determined upon ending forever his earthly career; while, as if to increase the desolate aspect, an immense albatross, nearly white with age, flew circling around the ship, driving before him the flock of pigeons that hovers continuously near us.

A rather distressing thought is that we are now well within the limit of ice, and that every degree farther south renders more probable the presence of some of these off-spring of the Antarctic Ice-King. This is offset, however, by the fact that most of the ice is seen more to the eastward of the Horn, and that it is usually not at all thick during the winter season. February is the worst month for those huge ice islands which render navigation in the Southern Ocean so hazardous an undertaking. Fortunately, at the summer season actual darkness off the Horn doesn’t last more than a couple of hours.

The temperature has fallen, too, and to-day reached the freezing point of fresh water, sea-water congealing at about 28°. To our surprise, the sun showed himself at noon, and though the horizon was bad, we got an approximately good sight, which showed that the orb was only 11° high, and that we were a degree south of Cape Horn and fifty miles east of it. Latitude, 56° 58′ south; longitude, 66° west.

+July 16+

Hove to in a heavy gale, Cape Horn in sight, bearing at noon east by north distant about fifteen miles! Yesterday afternoon it was very mild as far as wind was concerned, and I went down on the main-deck and did a lot of pumping to make up for the days lost through bad weather, when it was dangerous to try it. From the main-deck the seas looked infinitely larger than from the poop, the difference in elevation of six or seven feet making an immense difference in their apparent height. All through the early part of the night it was fine, and we set the upper mizzen-top-sail and the spanker. By the way, it is remarkable that a ship-rigged vessel will steer well with hardly any after-canvas set. For instance, for some time previously the only sail on the mizzen was the lower topsail; while forward were a jib, foretop-mast stay-sail, both topsails, and reefed foresail.

The squalls, too, eased up as the moon rose, and up to 2 +A.M.+ the weather was fine. At midnight, though, a sinister movement was noticed in the aneroid, the needle rising rapidly from 29. Every one who knows Cape Horn understands what this signifies with a westerly breeze,--it means a gale of wind. True to precedent, when we went on deck after breakfast, the ship being then on the port tack, it was breezing rapidly. After each squall it blew harder and harder, with proportionally increasing sea, and the skipper ventured the opinion that we were going to see a Cape Horn “snorter.” At ten o’clock the main-sail had to come in, the ship from being driven too hard taking in large quantities of water, especially from the lee side. So both watches were called, and it was a spirited scene as the sturdy fellows stretched along the deck, heedless of the seas that thundered aboard every few minutes, while they manned the weather main-clew-garnet with a chorus that rose above the gale. Brave? A more courageous lot of men than Cape Horn foremast hands do not exist!

Here the old man thought he’d take a hand, though everything was running smoothly; so he hopped down on deck, sprang up on the main-hatch, and in thirty seconds so great was the distraction that the men didn’t know whether they were hauling on the main-buntlines or the jib-downhaul. The skipper commenced in what was for him a mild exhortation to “Pull away lively, now; pull away there.” But the men were thoroughly drenched by this time, and the teeth of the weaker were beginning to chatter; for of what use are oil-skins to a man in two or three feet of water, when he is constantly tripping on the slippery deck and flying headlong as the ship rolls? By and by the skipper began to swear, and then it was all up with everything; five minutes later he was in a whirling cyclonic passion. He fairly jigged upon the hatch in his frenzy, and thumped his chest with his right fist as he clung with his left to the lee lower maintop-sail-sheet, still urging the men to “pull away.” At length his temper so flew away with him that he seemed to strangle, and the last sentence we heard was, “Catch hold of any d---- thing and haul on it.”

In spite of him, however, both main-sail and foresail were hauled up in an hour and a half, the ship being then under lower topsails and spencer, and the captain announced his intention of wearing round after dinner, adding, “You could see Cape Horn now if it wasn’t for the snow.”

All this time the wind had been increasing, and by the time that dinner was over it had risen to a full gale. “Land on the lee beam,” sung out the lynx-eyed mate at one o’clock. We looked; and there, down to leeward, we perceived the most famous promontory in the world, the terrible Cape Horn itself, smothered in gloom, rising dimly out of the sea about fifteen miles away. “Brail up that spencer and stand by to wear ship.” “Ay, ay, sir,” cheerfully, for a hot meal had put life into the men. And now there followed a spectacle that it will be impossible ever to forget. The wind was roaring from the southwest a violent gale, accompanied with tremendous squalls blowing with inconceivable fury, swallowing us up in blinding snow. The ocean had assumed a terrible appearance, white as a snow-drift to windward; while at intervals we could see the breaking crest of some immense sea, towering high above the rest in his grand and stately progress. The helm was then put hard up, the main- and cross-jack-yards were squared, and we fell away dead before the wind.

For the next fifteen minutes a scene was enacted that absolutely defied a description worthy of it. The huge, shaggy seas came rushing along astern, full sixty feet from crest to trough; and when close by, if you wanted to follow their progress, you had to throw your head back as though looking up at a mountain peak, while they shook their white manes like wild horses, and it seemed as if they must crash over the stern. But no, the ship rode them superbly, and when she reached the crest of one, and we looked deep down into that dark-green, foam-streaked valley astern, we caught our breath as the billows ran under us and fell thundering upon the main-deck forward. The sight of the great ship with nothing set but the three lower topsails, flying before the gale, almost choked you with emotion. It was grand, it was fearfully sublime. It was the apotheosis of the power and majesty of God.

An albatross, too, in a storm is a wonderful sight. No matter how furious the gale, no matter how fierce the terrific, hurricane squalls of Cape Horn, the great bird soars up against the blast grim and serene. Then wheeling, he comes sweeping down on the wings of the gale at a speed so tremendous that it cannot be less than eighty or even ninety miles an hour, when, describing a low but immense circle, with the tip of his lee wing just brushing the tops of the giant seas, he again takes his flight upward against the storm. No living creature conveys the idea of boundless freedom so perfectly as the King of Space, the Wandering Albatross.

By two o’clock in the afternoon we had the relieving tackles on the tiller, and when darkness came after a sickly, pallid sunset, it found us hove to in a mountainous sea, with the same angry squalls yelling in savage, ruthless glee over this desert ocean. Latitude. 56° 12′ south; longitude, 67° 24′ west.

+July 17+

Last night the gale diminished somewhat; but at eleven o’clock the chain topping-lift of the spencer-gaff carried away, and we had to rig a makeshift with a tackle until to-day.

In yesterday’s log I forgot to mention an incident that happened which came very nearly being a lamentable accident. After we had worn around, at about thirty minutes past one, while some of the men were hauling taut the weather forebrace, we were boarded by an enormous sea that came whooping over the weather-side. The whole of the starboard watch, including the second mate, were hauling on the brace when the sea broke on board and fell directly upon them. I never saw anything like the scene that followed. The men absolutely disappeared from view. It was as though they had gone through the deck. Only once before had we seen so great a volume of water on a ship’s deck, and that was during our first voyage when we were hove down to the turnbuckles in the North Atlantic. Yesterday it was, at the very least, two feet deep on the level, and it filled the galley and carpenter-shop, putting out the fires in the donkey-boiler, and this through the lee doors. During all this time we looked in vain for the sight of a human being. Not one was to be seen on the main-deck, and the water was dashing up twenty or thirty feet into the air at every heave. Gradually it began to run off, and now and then a clumsy, yellow bundle loomed up out of a snarl of ropes, sat up for a second, and then went whizzing away to leeward. Again a man would gain his feet and clutch frantically at belaying-pins; but before he could support himself his legs would slide from under him, and he would be swept into the water-ways like a cork in a sluice.

When all but a few inches of water had run off, and it was deep only in the lee scuppers, we perceived a knot of men away aft wedged between the bitts and the rail not far from the cabin bulkhead, entangled in a fearful snarl of gear. So tightly were they packed away that at first it seemed as though there were only two men there; but one by one they crawled apart till three half-drowned sailors sat wabbling on the deck, and then we saw that another luckless creature was lying prone in the scuppers. Slowly and painfully he got his legs under him, and, waiting for a lurch, with an effort reached his feet. It was Mr. Rarx, one of the most powerful men on board, and he was gasping for breath. It seems that they had all been swept aft together, and all were badly used up, especially Mr. Rarx, who formed the base of the wedge. He says that he was completely under water for a good deal more than a minute.

We are beginning to regard deep-water sailors as little short of heroes. Indeed, they seem to me far more valiant than the battalions of soldiery that are hurled nowadays against little bands of savages. From 50° to 50° they and the dark cavern in which they live are soaking wet; they have no time to change their clothes, and no dry garments to put on if they had, for often, no sooner have the watch below kicked off their boots, actually filled to the brim with salt-water, than comes the cry, “All hands reef the maintop-sail,” and when that is done, “Haul up the main-sail” rings out, and there are two hours gone from their watch below. There is no such thing as throwing off their coats or even oil-skins when they turn in; nor would it be advisable in a leaky forecastle like this, with half an inch of water on the floor shooting up in their faces. Yet look at these men as they haul on the braces in a gale of wind, hardly able to keep their feet. Never a word of complaint at the weather have I heard yet. Calm and unmoved in the storms of spray and snow, they sing out as heartily as ever, grin good-naturedly up at the poop where we are standing dry and comfortable, and face the crest of a sea that rattles against them as if it were a summer shower. The more we see of forecastle life the more difficult is it to understand why men ever ship before the mast for a Cape Horn voyage.

It is pleasant to think that that wretched man Goggins was washing about in his room, too,--pleasant, because he continues to drive and haze the men down here when they are striving to do their utmost under such conditions. When he awoke last night in the middle watch he found several inches of water on the floor of his room, and he is wondering where it came from. Indeed, we had a shower-bath ourselves last night, for part of a sea fell on the poop, ran aft against the wheel-house when the bows rose and then recoiled into our after-window, which was open, drenching that portion of our room.

Steam is kept up continuously in the donkey-boiler now, as the men are getting pretty well used up from exposure and the immense amount of making and shortening of sail that goes on continuously. Captain Scruggs believes in taking every single point of advantage in the wind, and shakes out a reef at the least indication of a lull, each time, of course, necessitating the mastheading of the yard; though eventually even he realized that the men were wearing out, and now the donkey does all the heavy hoisting. Many people think that the engine does all the trimming of yards, etc., during a voyage, but with the exception of the passage of the Horn, it is seldom ever in use at sea, and never for sail-trimming. The chief use to which a donkey is put is in loading and discharging when in port and heaving in the anchor.

Well, the wind now, at 3 +P.M.+, is at west, force 8, and we have set a reefed maintop-sail and spencer. We have drifted about southeast by east true since yesterday, sometimes hove to, sometimes headreaching through a heavy sea. The elements are somewhat more placid, and I must not bring this day’s journal to a close without extolling my wife’s bravery during the foul weather, for her courage was remarkable. Only those who have been to sea in a sailing ship whose main-deck is but seven feet above the water can appreciate what a whole gale of wind means under such circumstances. Latitude, 57° south; longitude, 65° 45′ west.

+July 18+

Land was reported on the weather-beam this afternoon. We think that it is Barneveld Island, about thirty miles northeast of Cape Horn, and it bore, when first sighted, northwest. We didn’t do anything at all during the last twenty-four hours but seesaw up and down, north and southeast, with the wind at southwest, and we were surprised by a calm last night from six until twelve o’clock, with a comparatively high thermometer,--41° at the latter hour,--so that the skipper looked for a northerly wind during this morning. But no such luck for us; daylight saw us under a reefed maintop-sail (we had set the main-top-gallant at midnight) with a moderate gale from the westward, though the sea was quite smooth. We have entirely lost the long southwesterly roll, and it is astonishing how that swell does go down if you are only a little to the eastward of the Cape. For instance, suppose a vessel to be in 57° south and 68° west, she is almost certain to have this big heave; but if in 66° west and the same latitude she will be almost entirely free from it; at least, this has been our experience.

Great agitation pervaded the ship aft to-day when the discovery was made that the pumps had not been working properly for twenty-four hours. In heavy weather the “Higgins” has to be pumped out every two hours on account of a leak near the rudder-head, although the majority of wooden sailing vessels have to man the pumps every watch in a seaway, for they all leak in bad weather. Something was wrong with the plunger, I believe, and the pumps have been useless for a whole day, unknown to any one, which in itself seems remarkable, though I must say that the decks have been so full of water that it has been very hard to tell whether a stream was coming up from below or not. Therefore both men and donkey have been alternately pumping without result, and when the carpenter sounded the well this noon, lo! there were two and a half feet of water in the vessel, which means nearly twenty thousand gallons, or about six hundred barrels. By using both sides of the pumps, however, the engine had them sucking in an hour, doing sixty revolutions to the minute. There was a violent scene, though, when the old man learned of the affair, and a still more turbulent half-hour followed while the plunger was being repaired.

Here, in the bad, wet weather, for it has been raining for forty-eight hours, this ship is extremely uncomfortable and disagreeable below, and the most slovenly one that I have ever seen. To begin with, it is very dark, for the skylights are absurdly small, and boards have to be secured on their weather-sides to prevent a repetition of the river Plate incident, so that the gloom of the interior is that of a hole in the ground. However, this doesn’t count, for we expected it. The after-cabin is a rather unpleasant spot, by reason of a so’wester or two, a dripping black oil-skin, several pair of wet woollen wrist-protectors, a few greasy magazines, a chart or two, and a couple of camp-chairs all continually sliding about the floor, making locomotion an extremely hazardous undertaking. But, upon approaching the forward or dining cabin, a spectacle meets the eye which would shake the heart of the stoutest landsman. In the forward end, in a recess, stands the stove, stayed with iron rods; while surrounding it on three sides is a permanent aggregation of various objectionable articles, perfectly appalling. The heater is completely smothered at all times in ancient, wet garments of the skipper’s, almost in a state of fermentation, suspended on wires, so that the stove can hardly be seen. At dinner to-day the following disreputable articles of clothing hung before the fire, dank and mildewed: two pairs of aged trousers, two waist-coats, three coats, one overcoat, two mufflers, one pair of knitted gloves, one handkerchief, and two pairs of socks. From these garments there issued a peculiarly obnoxious, thin steam, through which a yellow lamp glowed unhealthily.

Below, at the base of the stove, and surrounding it as with a chevaux-de-frise, were two pairs of rubber boots, ditto leather shoes, ditto felt slippers for boots, two dishes filled with the cat’s half-devoured food, no one knows how old, a wash-tub half filled with soaking sheets, a bucket, and a wooden box nearly full of ashes, upon which reposed a coffee-pot. And when to all this is added the humidity of this region, which is so dense that moisture condenses on the walls, and the fact that the mizzen-mast-coat leaks, covering several square feet of the floor with water, it will be conceded that the interior of this vessel is distinctly disreputable. Indeed, we never attempt to sit and read anywhere else than in our own room. Nor are the dishes what they should be, and I often find a clot of coagulated soup in the ladle from yesterday’s repast; this latter is, of course, the fault of the steward, though the best of servants will grow careless if they are not watched.

Then the mate is extremely unclean, so much so that even Mr. Rarx said a day or two ago that he was the dirtiest man whom he had even seen in a ship’s cabin. He never washes his face and hands to come to the table, both of which are streaked with soot, lard oil, and goodness knows what else. The captain is considerably better in this respect, but his temper seems to be more uncontrollable than ever, and he shouts at the steward and Sammie as though they were on the foretop-sail-yard in a gale of wind. He seems to consider it a personal affront every time that the men come aft on Saturday nights to buy things from the slop-chest, which he throws at them with scant ceremony. Last night “Long John” Pettersen asked him for a pair of No. 10 rubber boots in his cowed, frightened way. “I ain’t got no tens,” cried the skipper; “here’s nines; take ’em and get out”; and he cast the boots at John, who promptly dodged, and they struck the stove with a great, clattering din.

I will, no doubt, be accused of inhumanity in taking my wife to sea in such a vessel as this, but we had not the least notion that she would prove so different from what we supposed her to be, and few persons would suspect that such things would occur aboard of a ship which looked so neat and trim in the New York docks. Our previous experience at sea, we have since discovered, was not of any use to us as a guide as to what we might expect here. Indeed, in the worst weather off the Cape of Good Hope the “Mandalore’s” cabin, with its brightly polished open-grate and shining bird’s-eye maple panelling, would not have been discreditable to a well-found yacht. Latitude, 56° 14′ south; longitude, 66° west.

+July 19+

Hail, mighty sun! Welcome, radiant, glorious monarch! We saw the luminous orb for ten minutes at mid-day, marking an epoch, for events off Cape Horn date from the last time that the sun was seen. When day broke this morning, behold! the sky was clear and everything presaged at least two hours of bright sunshine. No sooner, however, did the orb show signs of appearing above the horizon than a cloud-bank arose in the west which proved to be the mother of a procession of squalls which covered the sky for the rest of the day, bar a few minutes at noon. But how we did rejoice for even a glimpse of the heavenly body! For days we had dwelt in darkness and twilight, and when we caught sight of the golden disk again it was like the face of an old friend. No one who has not experienced it can imagine what the gloom of Cape Horn is like even at mid-day. It has doubtless somewhat the effect of the darkness of the Polar seas, which, it is said, kills more men than frost and starvation. Practically, throughout the year the heavens in this region are wrapped up in a pall of cloud so dense and low as to feel like an increased atmospheric pressure; and unless one’s spirits are as elastic as rubber the mind must succumb to the dreary influence of this endless waste of gray ocean. It is oppressive beyond the power of words; and so great is the solitude that it is difficult to believe that we are still on the earth and not floating upon the ocean of another planet.

“So lonely ’twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.”

The sun’s altitude at noon was only 8° 42′, so that he was only about sixteen diameters above the horizon; but notwithstanding, all hands hailed him with glad pæans, and deep and mournful was the wailing when he withdrew. At eleven o’clock, while we were reading below, the skipper called down to know if we didn’t want to see a regular old-fashioned squall. So up we went, and upon issuing from the companion-way were almost literally blown over by a heavy gust. The ship was hove down till the sea flowed over the lee rail thick and smooth and dark, like the water on the verge of a cataract; the wind howled and screeched overhead; spray fell in blinding sheets; while the snow was positively overpowering and almost smothered us when we looked to windward. The ship for some time had dragged a double-reefed maintop-sail, and it was every stitch that she could stand. All through the day we were bombarded by these squalls, and by three in the afternoon the wind had once more increased to a fresh gale, with a wicked, breaking sea which frequently broke on the poop itself.

How little, how pitifully little departure we made in the last week! On Tuesday, six days ago, we rounded Cape St. John, and now we are only a degree farther west! I should think it _was_ hard to make westing off the Horn. Call it forty miles in a week, for the degrees of longitude are scarcely thirty-five miles long in this latitude. Six miles of westing a day! Speaking of the length of degrees, though, it is remarkable how much farther south of the line the Horn seems (56° south) than 56° north seems north of it. For instance, the fifty-sixth northerly parallel passes between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is not very far north of Hamburg; yet but few persons would suppose that, roughly speaking, these cities were in the same relative latitude as the southern extremity of South America.

Last evening, just before dark, a sail was sighted about ten miles to leeward, and was there still this morning. It was a ship, and we conjectured that she was the “Dowes” until the glasses showed that she had a standing spanker-gaff, which made her a foreigner. Perhaps she is the demon Frenchman; may she approach no nearer.

One of the men at the wheel, Jack Michaels, whispered to me this morning, “Say, was that land the Diego Ramirez we saw yesterday?” And when told that we were still east of Cape Horn, the poor fellow ejaculated, “Oh, my God!” so earnestly and sorrowfully that it spoke whole volumes for what the men are suffering in the leaky forecastle. Two men are constantly at the wheel now, and even when the tiller is lashed and we are hove to, the law compels one man to stand with his hands on the spokes as though still steering, so as to be ready in case of accident. Well, it looks as though we were going to have a worse night than ever for sleeping; last night we got only three hours of rest. Latitude, 56° 54′ south; longitude, 65° west.

+July 20+

“The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.”

It came on to blow very hard indeed yesterday afternoon at three o’clock, just as we had finished writing, and at four it became necessary to haul up the main-sail and foresail, though both were reefed. When the skipper sung out, “Clew up the main-sail,” I think that it was blowing harder than we ever saw it at sea. The captain said that there was more wind the other day in sight of Cape Horn; but I think that this was only to contradict. Whether or no, it blew a fearful gale, though the full strength didn’t last more than three hours, with, for a while, the worst snow and hail that we have had yet. The ocean seethed; big seas swept the decks fore and aft like cataracts every five minutes, and the ship, with nothing showing but the lower topsails, was bowed down before the blasts like a palm-tree in a hurricane. We thought that we were surely going to lose the main-sail through the fault of the wretched mate, who is of no use whatever in bad weather. It is necessary to observe extreme caution in hauling up any of the courses in a gale of wind, for the tack and sheet must be eased off just so, in order that both they and the clew-garnets shall be perfectly taut until the clews are right up to the yard. If not, the chance of losing the sails is exceedingly good. Well, the miserable man, in the midst of a tearing puff, let the main-tack get away from him. Instantly there arose a frightful slatting, and we expected to see the strong, new canvas whipped into ribbons, while the great, ninety-foot mainyard buckled and bent almost like a coach-whip. I hope never to witness such a sight again. The old man’s state while this was going on must be left to the imagination; and when a sea swept over the side, carrying almost every man on the clew-garnets and buntlines into the scuppers, we feared that his reason was going. After a hard struggle, though, the gaskets were put on the main-sail, and then the foresail had to come in. Here the mate, very properly, found something else to do, and Mr. Rarx, calm and perfect master of himself, slacked away the tack first; and when the weather-side had been hauled up, he did the same with the sheet, without the least show of exertion; he is a splendid seaman.

At this moment I stepped into the wheel-house to look at the aneroid, and found the needle actually jumping back and forth from 29.10 to 29.20, with a quick jerk like the second-hand of a clock. This is known as “pumping” when observed in a mercurial barometer, and occurs most frequently during cyclones, the cause being sudden changes in the velocity, and, consequently, force, of the wind. It is interesting to note that if a barometer is hung against a wall where the wind will blow steadily upon it at a rate of about thirty feet per second the height of the barometer is perceptibly increased. Once before we observed this pumping of the barometer, which happened on the P. and O. steamer “Khedive,” in the Bay of Biscay, when the glass stood at 28.64. This is, of course, a very low reading, but it is often eclipsed during tropical cyclones; indeed, not long ago the British steamer “Foreland,” at New York, from Hull, reported the barometer at 28.10 to the eastward of the Banks during a January passage.

At five yesterday afternoon the force of the wind was greatest, and the surface of the ocean smoked, and we couldn’t see the jib-boom for the spume, which flew through the air like steam; yet in the very eye of the storm the gay little Cape pigeons darted about like sparrows in a summer shower. They seemed to find a deal to eat on the surface, and their method of feeding was this: At the instant that an unusually heavy sea passed they would swoop down into the hollow where it was almost calm, snatch a few mouthfuls of whatever they found, and as the next huge sea rushed at them, at the very second before they were buried in the hissing crest, they extended their wings to the utmost, the wind struck beneath them, and without any perceptible effort they rose against the gale, only to drop again in a few moments, and repeat the operation. It was really very pretty manœuvering, and compelled admiration at the ease and certainty with which the little creatures handled themselves even in the heaviest gusts.

Alas, the poor sailors! They have been continuously wet now for more than ten days. It is true that from 8 +A.M.+ till eight in the evening there is a fire burning in a small stove in the forecastle; but the atmosphere is so extremely humid that the heat doesn’t seem to affect the forecastle or the men’s clothes. Indeed, it is a grewsome sight to look into that apartment as I did the other night at seven o’clock. The port watch were below lying in their bunks with faces toward the stove, which was all but concealed by dripping, steaming garments swinging madly in the heavy rolls, water was splashing high up on the grimy walls from the floor, while a dense, rank vapor pervaded the place, through which the stove glowed dully, like a headlight in a fog. Many of the men are now afflicted with the most grievous perhaps of all the ills with which sailors are cursed in cold, bad weather,--the dreaded sea-boils. These harassing sores are due to the friction of oil-skins and other clothes upon the wrists and neck, continually drenched with salt-water, though the bad condition of sailors’ blood generally is doubtless responsible for the dreadful state of the wrists of the sufferers. It is singular that mere friction combined with cold sea-water should produce such results. Sea-boils or salt-water-boils, as they are sometimes called, are exquisitely painful and very sensitive to any rubbing, and they must be bandaged and poulticed until it is time for the lancing, upon which a sort of core, like a short, thick piece of sinew, is laid bare, which must be seized and plucked out. Two of these boils as large as plums will lay a man up; and any attempt to work him hard generally results in a high fever and his bunk for several days. Imagine what the suffering of sailors must be off Cape Horn when these boils are added to fatigue, cold, loss of sleep from frequent calls of all hands, and to the lethargy that comes from exposure. I repeat again, why do men ship before the mast? There are other things to do, and even breaking stones on a highway is to my mind infinitely preferable. Notwithstanding everything said to the contrary, the life of a Cape Horn foremast hand is the life of a beast. It is hard, wearing, and bitter beyond words; and when are added the kicks and the blows from belaying-pins and knuckle-dusters that the men are usually served with on American ships by way of dessert, it is difficult to believe that human beings can survive such privations and sufferings. Poor fellows! They stumble about the decks with drawn, haggard faces and two or three with staring eyes. We watched one this forenoon (it was Louis Eckers) trying to put a watch-tackle strop on the lee lower maintop-sail-brace; the job amounted to nothing more than standing on the bitts and twisting a bit of rope around the brace; but so weak and stiffened was he that another man had to be called in his stead. Some of the younger fellows are still in pretty good condition, such as Broadhead, Charley, and Olsen; but most of the older men are practically half dead. I think the most remarkable of all of a sailor’s characteristics is the rapidity with which they forget their hardships; for let Jack get up into the balmy Trades again and all of his misery and pain vanish, the memory of what he has but just endured fades away, and when he has been ashore for a week at the end of the voyage, he is quite ready again to face the snow-thickened gales of Cape Horn.