Passing Terra del Fuego, and the little island of Cape Horn, at too great a distance to obtain a view of those famous headlands, we held steadily on our course into still higher latitudes; till, having gained a sufficient elevation to avoid all danger of being blown back into the Atlantic, the ship's head was, at last, turned towards the west; and on the morning of the twenty-second of May we waked up in the Pacific, with something of the feeling of those early navigators when they first burst through into this unknown sea.
The sun off Cape Horn is a very sleepy fellow, with none of that inconvenient propensity to early rising that elsewhere interferes so much with our arrangements; he rose about eight, attained a meridian altitude of some twelve degrees, and retired at four. The weather was now cold and squally. Spirts of rain or sleet, or what was still worse, the tops of the waves driven in upon us by the winds, made it almost as hard to remain upon deck as if it had been swept by the fire of a battery. The ship seemed almost entirely deserted; a few of the more resolute sort, their heads drawn into their shoulders, purple with cold, and half blinded by the spray, still clung to the rigging, and stared stupidly, with puckered mouth and eyebrows, out into the immeasurable gloom. The rest had retired, like bats and owls, or a somnolescent bear, into the most out-of-the-way places they could find; and it was about as safe and agreeable an operation to disturb one of them as to stir up the abstracted, meditative gentleman last mentioned from his hollow tree.
Slinking away to my berth, I wrapped myself in great-coats and blankets, and strove, by the aid of a feeble lantern and an entertaining book, to conjure up more pleasing associations; but the result was a wretched failure. My narrow stateroom, six feet by four, contained, within its dark green walls, as much that was gloomy and repulsive as the wet, slippery deck, and melancholy ocean—everything had the feeling of a "cold, damp, uncomfortable body."
Cooking, in such weather, was well nigh impossible, but fortunately we had no appetite. We were put on an allowance of water, three quarts a day; but then we could not have drunk half of it if we had tried. Everybody, however, was out of sorts; and the dismal weather, the wretched fare, and the unjustifiable length of the voyage, afforded sufficient matter, if not cause, for grumbling. In such a state of mind it is anything but agreeable to be left behind by more successful rivals. A handsome, gaily-painted ship came up with us one of these days, and the usual question was propounded, how long she had been out. "Sixty-one days," was the ready and self-satisfied answer; "how long have you?" "One hundred and four," very slowly and reluctantly. We heard the passengers on the Loo Choo repeat the number with jeering triumph, as she forged ahead, flinging up her heels, and showing her bright yellow bottom in a very insulting manner. I hurled after them a wish not of the most amiable character, and looked to see them go down together; but they held on their course, rejoicing in the successful flam they had put upon us. The first question we asked, on arriving at San Francisco, was about the ships we had spoken on the way; and it gave us no little gratification to learn that the Loo Choo had not yet come into port. At the time of our meeting, she had really been out eighty-one days, and her whole passage was even longer than our own.
We then knew nothing of all this, however, and it would be hard to find a more discontented, distracted set of beings than was on board the Leucothea after the Loo Choo was fairly out of sight. A merry party got together round the windlass for the express purpose of cursing the ship and all concerned in her, the day in which they ever heard there was such a place as N——, and themselves, most of all, for having taken passage in what their prompter called such a lubberly, blubber-hunting craft. They were unfortunately interrupted, however, in their well meant design, by the cheerful cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," and hurrying to the bows, we soon had one of these delicate monsters floundering on deck, which, like a lump of sugar to a peevish child, put us all, for a time, in good humor.
Early the next morning, before it was light enough to see the ship's length, a fierce and sudden cry of "put the helm hard down, lower the boat," pierced every part of the ship, falling on the ears of the sleeping passengers like their funeral knell. "What's the matter? is the ship sinking?" cried at once a hundred voices, and a hundred hearts stood still for the answer. The next moment, "a man overboard" explained the alarm, and converted the lively apprehensions for our own safety into a comparatively inert sympathy for another. The waves were running mountains high, and the boats were all firmly lashed in their places, so that lowering one was both difficult and dangerous, yet ten minutes found the man safe in the ship, though so thoroughly exhausted by the intense cold as to be unable to stand alone. His escape was almost miraculous; he was stationed just beneath the bowsprit, trying to harpoon a porpoise, when the ship plunging heavily, he was swept off by the waves. As he passed along the side, he uttered the cry that had produced such an excitement, and was thus the first to announce his own danger. He afterwards contrived to kick off his boots, and being an excellent swimmer, kept his head above water till the boat, pulling directly in the wake of the ship, came to his relief.
The night came on unusually cold and blustering. I was sitting with Tertium and Captain Bill, in their stateroom, when a faint smell of fire attracted our attention. As it grew stronger, we became greatly alarmed, as indeed we well might, for nothing can appear more hideous to the imagination, than a ship loaded with passengers, on fire of a dark, stormy, wintry night off Cape Horn. Captain Bill now hastily descended into the cabin and roused the captain, who was already asleep, and became almost palsied with fright on hearing the dreadful tidings.
"Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burn'd."
Before, however, he reached the deck, we had opened the door of the adjoining stateroom, and discovered the seat of danger. The wife of one of the seamen, who occupied the room, had incautiously placed a hot brick between the sheets, to answer the purpose of a warming pan, and the whole bedding was soon in a light blaze. It was extinguished without difficulty, and, as I had displayed, through the whole of this trying occasion, that presence of mind of which I am so justly proud, I was able to laugh without mercy at my companions for their needless alarm.