The honors of our Saviour God;
When His salvation reigns within,
And grace subdues the power of sin.”
Admiral Grenfell was present. I was in doubt as to the light in which he, a monarchist by birth and an imperialist by commission, might view the subject as illustrated, in some portions, by the history and experience in faith and prayer, of the fathers of our own Republic; and was gratified to hear that he had expressed himself in terms of unqualified satisfaction with the entire discourse.
April 20th.—Since my last date, we have made a cruise of three weeks off the Plata. In addition to the various exercises, nautical and military, for which chiefly we put to sea, several interesting experiments were made under the direction of Mr. Parker, the flag-lieutenant of our ship, in deep sea soundings. The first result of much interest was obtained on the 3d inst., in S. Lat. 35° 25′ W. Long. 45° 10′. It was during a dead calm; the surface of the ocean being every where glassy as a newly-frozen lake. Not a ripple at any point met the eye. At 9 o’clock in the morning, a reel, on which had been arranged ten thousand fathoms of line, furnished by the Hydrographical Bureau and brought to the Congress by the sloop St. Mary, was fitted to one of the quarter-boats, in which Lieut. Parker and Mr. Glover left the ship to try the depth of the sea. They had expected to be absent a few hours only, and took no refreshments, not even a breaker of water with them: but the calm continued, and interested in the duty in which they were engaged, they remained with the boat’s crew the whole day in voluntary fast. The sinker was a thirty-two pound shot. Eight thousand five hundred fathoms were expended, and at sunset the line was still slowly running off the reel. The true depth gained was believed to be only about three thousand five hundred fathoms; the remainder being stray line carried away by a strong submarine current. The existence of this was conclusively ascertained: its rate being nearly two miles the hour, in a direction opposite to the surface current, which had a force of about one mile per hour. The determination of this fact was an abundant reward for the labor of a wearisome day in the glaring sun. Nine miles of the line were lost. Upon attempting to haul it in, the tension became so great that five men could obtain a few fathoms only per minute; and greater force being applied, it parted a few hundred yards from the boat. Different soundings were afterwards satisfactorily secured, at the various depths of 950, 1500, 1780, 2000, 2100, and 2200 fathoms, the particulars of which are prepared for transmission to Lieutenant Maury. Fifteen thousand fathoms of line were furnished by this Congress when in Rio, to the commander of H. B. M. Frigate Herald, whom we met there; and it is reported that soundings were obtained by him on his way to the Pacific, at a depth of more than seven thousand fathoms.
The calm which enabled us to make our first deep sounding continued for three days, with a temperature like the finest autumnal weather at home. The sky during the time, was clear and brilliant, both by day and night: for a full moon, in a state of the atmosphere peculiarly translucent, afforded us a splendor of light that enabled the crew to occupy themselves in reading. During this time, I saw men at their stations reading books, even of small print, in the mid-watch. Immediately afterwards, however, we experienced the heaviest gale, with the wildest and most tumultuous sea we have known since leaving the United States. In a small vessel it would have been fearful; but the Congress is so large, and so perfect a sea-bird in her motions, that she rides and sports among the billows with an ease and triumph that call forth admiration only. She dashes from her bows and lofty bulwarks, in seeming playfulness, seas which would sweep the decks of a small craft, or bury them beneath an avalanche of water. Though the gale was heavy, the sky was bright; and in the afternoon, especially when the rays of the sun fell obliquely upon
“The restless, seething, stormy sea!”
the scene was magnificent. As sea after sea rose high against the sun, it would change in hue from the blue of indigo to emerald green. Then cresting into snowy whiteness, would scatter itself far and wide, in beds of sparkling diamonds. The tumultuous rushing and roaring of mighty waters in endless forms around us; the deep roll of the frigate to the leeward; and then, the rapid plunge headforemost down a mountain, as it were, into a yawning gulf below, made the afternoon to me one of admiration and delight.
Below decks, it is true, every thing was uncomfortable enough. The ward-room was dark and dreary; and the gun-deck all afloat. Still, as is generally the case with the sailor in such rough weather, all hands were in high spirits, and the deeper the roll of the ship—though by it, one half the crew should be pitched across the ship; and the heavier the plunge downward, though followed by rivers of water taken in at the hawser-holes and bridle-ports—especially, if those on deck were at the same time drenched by the breaking on board of a sea, or by being thrown into the floods rushing along the water-ways, the louder was the laughter and the greater the glee.
The poop-deck, from its elevation and the command it gives of every thing far and near, is a favorite resort of the officers. It is also, in ordinary circumstances, a place of etiquette. To sit while there, is not allowable, at least in the day-time, except to the Commodore and Captain, or such as they may invite beside them; much less is it etiquette to lie there. But now, the wind was too strong and withal too cold to stand, or even to sit; and going up after dinner, and finding it abandoned except by a sailor at the main-halliards, wrapping myself in a pea-jacket, I stretched myself in a corner to the windward, flat upon the deck, with my face partially protected by the hammock-nettings, turned to the sea. The position gave me an unobstructed view of the raging and roaring deep; and for an hour and more, I exulted in the contortions of the storm and the ever varying beauty and sublimity of the scene. Towards evening, the appearance of the Commodore and Captain brought me to my feet; and we together enjoyed the spectacle till the setting sun and gathering night dropped a curtain of darkness over it.