[1]. Flogging was abolished, both in the navy and mercantile marine, a few months after the above was written.
June 24th.—
“The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.”
So sings Longfellow, and such is the imagery around us from the passing of a heavy squall. The rushing wind and the dampness brought with it, from the approaching rain, are welcome and most refreshing, after two or three days and nights on the south side of Cuba, sultry almost to suffocation. Whether correct in our recollections or not, all hands agree that, in no part of the world in which we have been, either on land or at sea, have we before suffered so much from the intensity of the heat. Notwithstanding, I was never in the enjoyment of more vigorous health or in more elastic spirits.
In the afternoon of my last date, we had a distant view of a part of the island of Jamaica, as well as of San Domingo and Cuba: a sail, too, was in sight, and the smoke of a steamer marked on the horizon—all taking much from the solitariness of our position. The next morning we were slowly advancing westward, along the lofty, but mist covered and cloud obscured mountain range of the Sierra de Cobra, beneath a point in which lie the port and city of St. Jago de Cuba. At sunset the same evening we were directly abreast Cape de Cruz, in full view of the coast, but at too great a distance to make out the distinctive features of the landscape, even with the best glasses. We are now off the Isle of Pines, famed in the annals of the Buccaneers of the olden time, and a haunt of pirates in our own day.