ACCIDENT AND PRESERVATION.
As I look back on the dangers of our way, and remember how many times by night and day, aloft and on deck, our men have been exposed to accident, I cannot refrain from recording my gratitude to the Preserver of men. One day all hands were around the mainmast hoisting a yard. I was standing with the captain near the wheel, when we heard a noise unlike anything which we ever heard on ship board. It lasted only two or three seconds, but was so peculiar that it was frightful. Was the ship grating over a sunken rock; had she opened a seam, and was the water pouring in? Going forward, the men were found standing silently over one of their number who was lying senseless on deck. One of the chain runners which hoists a yard twenty-five or thirty feet, had given way in one of its upper links, and the chain had come down through the block to the deck. This was the noise which alarmed us. In falling, the chain struck one of the men on the shoulder and he fell senseless. He was soon restored, but he was laid up a fortnight. Had the blow been upon his head, the weight of the chain made it probable that the hurt would have been more serious. This was the only accident which we had to record during the whole voyage.