[CHAPTER V.]
My quiet room-mate went with us no farther. He was disheartened by the length of the voyage, and perhaps thought Brazil presented quite as many advantages as California. His place was filled by a young, red-haired Scotchman, who had formerly lived in Edinburgh, and sat on the knee of Sir Walter. He had been on one or two whaling voyages, and had evidently seen the world. He played on the guitar—sang a variety of songs, some of which were of a very doubtful character—was an expert boxer—had something of a turn for poetry and light literature—and, in spite of his unsettled, wandering life, still possessed, to an unusual degree, that sort of native refinement that makes one tender of the feelings and weaknesses of others. He seemed, however, to value these various accomplishments only as passports to the favour of the other sex. His successes in that line had been very numerous, according to his own showing, and had confirmed him in the belief that there was no such thing as virtue in the world.
On leaving port, we plunged at once into the region of storms. The tropic of Capricorn seemed an actual wall of separation, dividing two distinct climates as smoothly and evenly as it does the zones upon the map. On one side, all was bright and serene; on the other, cloudy and tempestuous. Off the mouth of the La Platte, the mariner is sure to encounter heavy seas, as if there floated down that magnificent river, from its mountain birthplace, nothing but miniature Andes to encumber the smooth surface of the deep. Day after day we climbed up and down these hills, as slowly and painfully as a man walking over a ploughed field. We gained, seemingly, not a foot; and I sometimes thought we were to remain there forever seesawing the same dull wave. Every morning we found ourselves apparently just where we were the night before; the same ill-looking wave on our quarter, the same dirty cloud over head. Drive as hard as we could, there was no getting away from them; they still, like the headless horseman, preserved the same relative position.
But the ocean was no longer a solitude; the space around the ship resembled rather an immense barnyard thronged with a greater variety of poultry than is often seen, even in the enclosures of the most successful fancier. There were little bevies of Mother Cary's Chickens—flocks of Cape pigeons, gonies, hagletts, and mollymocks; and, largest and noblest of all, the solitary albatross. They followed us for miles, floating on the water till almost out of sight, then regaining their position by a hasty flight. We fished for them with great success, using for bait a bit of pork attached to a stout hook, which, being suffered to float on a piece of board, far behind the ship, was eagerly swallowed by these greedy scavengers.
The largest albatross measured nearly twelve feet across his wings, though his body was no larger than a goose. Their powers of flight are unrivalled. I used to watch them for hours together, circling with prying eyes round the ship, now rising, now falling, now coming up heavily against the wind, then suddenly shooting away before it, like a kite that has broken its string; and all, apparently, without any more exertion than is visible in the flight of a thistle down, their "sail broad vans" remaining constantly motionless, with the exception, now and then, of a single, almost imperceptible flap, as they varied their course to one side or the other.
When drawn on board, and placed upon the deck, the albatross lost at once all this poetry of motion, and became an awkward, ungainly bird, unable to rise into the air, and in constant danger of tumbling forward on to its ugly nose. I was rather disappointed by the indifference of our sailors on this interesting subject. They viewed the death of their patron bird with as little concern as if it had been a turkey; they had no superstitious fears about ill-luck thence arising; and, indeed, I am sorry to say, were as little given to superstition of any kind as the stoutest enlightener of the masses could desire.
Some of the smaller birds were also killed for food; but their feathers were so disproportioned to the flesh, that they were not worth the trouble of picking. A far more abundant and grateful repast was furnished by a porpoise, that was harpooned as he frolicked past the bows. No sooner was the approach of these playful creatures discovered, than the inspiriting cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," was echoed through the ship, and all hands were instantly on the alert. They generally made their first appearance on our quarter; and speedily overtaking us, rolled, in broken files, and with many an awkward bound and splash, directly under the bowsprit. A harpoon was always kept in readiness for such an emergency, and the second mate, who was an old hand at the business, taking his station on the martingal, waited a favourable opportunity to hurl his weapon into the back of one of the plunging monsters. This was the first time he had succeeded, and now twenty or thirty of the passengers, bowsing away on the rope to the tune of Uncle Ned, soon landed our game on deck. He weighed several hundred pounds, and the flesh, which was remarkably sweet, closely resembling beef, furnished an excellent dinner for all on board.
The sight of a strange sail in these lonely seas aroused our most eager speculation. She was bound in the same direction as ourselves, and we had no difficulty in conjecturing that she was seeking the same golden gate. She proved to be the ship Sweden; had left port three weeks after us, and partly by not stopping at any port, and partly by her superior sailing, had gained so decided an advantage. We raced with her two days in succession, but, as the wind freshened, she slowly crept ahead, and our captain gave orders to put on more sail. The Sweden followed our example, and both vessels, crowded with all the canvass they could bear, staggered, like a drunken man with a barrel of whisky on his shoulders, heavily, along their uneven path, showing many feet of their bright and dripping copper at every spring. Suddenly the Sweden carried away her foresail, and we began to recover the ground we had lost. But it was set again with provoking rapidity, and, ere long, we were compelled to abandon the contest. Before parting company, however, we endeavoured to find out if her commander intended to go through the Straits of Magellan, as there was a great diversity of opinion on board our ship as to the expediency of attempting the passage. A board was put up in the rigging with the question printed on it in large letters; but though, as we afterwards learned, they saw the board, they could not make out the inscription, and our captain, in his perplexity, finally referred the matter to the passengers. The majority, knowing nothing of the difficulties of the undertaking, and naturally desirous to shorten the voyage as much as possible, were in favour of going through the Straits; but we were fortunately prevented from making the trial by adverse winds that drove us wide of the mark, and compelled us to take the longer, but far safer passage round the Horn.
About the middle of May we arrived off the coast of Patagonia, and soon after made Staten Island. In these inhospitable latitudes, we found the serenest weather since leaving Rio; the sea, though heaving in lazy swells, was almost as smooth as a looking-glass. It was evident that our coming was unexpected, and that the fierce brood of storms that infest that region had left home on some distant marauding expedition. We were so near the coast that we could easily distinguish the helmets of glittering snow worn by the hills drawn up in solid phalanx near the shore; but we were unable to catch a glimpse of that race of giants that had so imposed upon our childish fancy.