As I gaze upon the sea,
All the old romantic legends—
All my dreams come back to me!”
July 29th.—Happily I am not unfitted for mental occupation; by being on shipboard, as is the case with many, and, with the prospect of a voyage of fifty or sixty days, I have set myself closely to work. The early part of the day I give to the graver studies of my profession, and the later to lighter reading; visits to the sick, when there are such; exercise on deck with some fellow-officer; and such “walks of usefulness” as I can light upon among the crew, in different parts of the ship in the evening, fill up the intervals of leisure till bed-time.
One of our young officers, Midshipman L——, has the misfortune to be incapacitated for duty, by a nervous affection of the eyes and head, the consequence of three separate attacks of fever in the Gulf of Mexico. The surgeons interdict to him all use of the eyes; and, to relieve the ennui into which he is thus thrown, I have invited him to my room for an hour or two every day, that by my reading aloud he may have the benefit of such works as I am running over; travels and biography—Maxwell’s Russia, Irving’s Mahomet, and the excellent books of Miss McIntosh, the accomplished sister of the captain of the Congress, interspersed with those of a more serious character, such as Angell James’ “Young Man from Home” and Pike’s “Persuasives to Early Piety”—have thus far occupied these hours. The touches of deep feeling frequently met in the writings of Miss McIntosh, in her lifelike and instructive delineations of character, have been the means of bringing into exercise sympathies, the involuntary betrayal of which to each other, has led to quite an intimate friendship, considering the disparity of our years.
For a week after leaving port, we had every reason to hope that it had been with entire impunity, in regard to health, that we had been exposed to the burning sun, and, at this season of the year, pestilential air of Havana. But on the eighth day, just as we were congratulating ourselves on the certainty of our escape from all infection, a light fever made its appearance among both officers and men. Some dozen in number were brought down by it. It was the yellow fever, but of so modified a type, that, in a few days, all were convalescent and no new cases occurred.
Sickness, whether of a serious nature or not, presents an opportunity of approach, and often gives access to the confidence which I am careful to improve. I was much interested, a day or two ago, in an interview with a fine-looking young man of the crew, under the influence of the prevailing epidemic. He had evidently been familiar with better associations than those of a man-of-war; and, I soon learned from him that he was the prodigal son of a pious mother, by whom he had been carefully trained and cherished, and was a child of many prayers. The first glance of his eye, as I approached his cot, told me by the starting tears—not from alarm, for no danger was apprehended in his case, but from remembrances of the past—that he was in a state of mind to open his heart to me; and, in the admissions and confessions of a long conversation, I became deeply interested in the penitence and purposes of future well-doing which he avowed.
In a hammock near by I found a middle-aged Scotchman, of intelligent and respectable appearance, who was equally open to religious conversation. He told me he had been long deeply sensible of his guilt and misery as a sinner, and greatly troubled in mind and conscience; that a conflict had been going on in his soul, as if a good and an evil spirit were ever in contest there for the mastery over him: but that the good at last had gained the triumph, and he was “at peace with the Father, through the Son and Spirit, and feared no evil—not death itself.”
August 7th, N. Lat. 12°, W. Long. 38°.—Delicious seems the only epithet descriptive of the atmosphere we are now breathing, and “delicious—delicious!” is the stereotyped exclamation of every one, as he mounts to the deck from below and drinks in the pure ether, as if it were the very elixir of life. The morning is in all respects lovely. The heavens have a look of infinity. A snow-white cloud alone floats here and there in them; and, as, rushing over the blue sea, before the fresh trade-wind, we dash the foam widely from our prow, unnumbered flying fish spring into the air, and skim the surface of the water before and around us, like so many birds of silver gleaming brightly in the sun.
August 28th, N. lat. 3° 30′, W. Long. 25°.—The region, through which we have been making our way, for the last ten days, is known among seamen by the very unsentimental name of the “doldrums.” The origin of the epithet it might be difficult to trace. It is an equatorial belt, characterized by light weather and head-winds; by alternate calms and squalls, clouds and rain. Hence every thing on board and without, is, and has been, in as wide contrast as possible with that of my last date. The whole ship is saturated, both on deck and below, with rain, and the washings of the sea through the ports and hawser-holes. The air on deck is close and oppressive, and below stifling and musty, and the tossings and pitchings and rolling of the ship any thing but agreeable to the fastidious stomachs of many on board—especially to my friend T——, who, though familiar for more than twenty years with the caprices of the deep, is in a most annoying state of discomfort at every return of rough weather. The progress made on our course is small, averaging not more than twenty-five or thirty miles in the twenty-four hours, though we sail by tacks in that period, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty. We are navigating by Lieut. Maury’s wind and current charts, and notwithstanding the seeming tedium of our progress, in beating against what he denominates the south-west monsoons of these latitudes, are satisfactorily demonstrating the truth of his theory and the correctness of his sailing directions in conformity with it.