The monotony of our daily life was without variety for the next four or five days. The wind had been somewhat favorable, and we were making good progress until the evening of the fifth day, when suddenly the wind changed and we shortly after found ourselves in the midst of as nice a hurricane as ever sunk a ship or leveled a forest. The wind howled and shrieked in such a manner that I could compare it with nothing earthly; the sea, too, had assumed, by this time, a most formidable appearance; the rain was falling in perfect torrents—the lightning flashed incessantly, and such deafening thunder-peals mortal man never heard before. It appeared as if the elements, for the last five days or so, had been nursing their wrath for this particular occasion, and were determined that we, poor devils of passengers, should be made thoroughly acquainted with the comforts of a crowded ship in a tornado at sea.
The poor affrighted passengers (myself among the rest) despaired of the ship long before the severest part of the tempest was felt, and prayers and promises were offered up without stint for our salvation, by many that never prayed before and I suppose have never done so since. When morning dawned it seemed as if the fury of the storm increased—sea and sky were apparently as one; every thing, and every body appeared helpless, hopeless, panic-stricken. Most of our canvas had been taken in or closely furled, yet the ship dashed along with the speed of a race-horse. Things that were not well secured rolled about in the greatest disorder and confusion. The heavy seas which she had already shipped, and the still heavier ones she was then shipping, increased, if possible, the consternation inspired by the awful scene. In fact, things began to wear such a threatening aspect, that a speedy change of some sort was looked forward to with the greatest anxiety, not only by the passengers, but by the captain and crew, when, to complete our terrors, topgallant-masts, royals, and main-top-mast, with their appendages, came down with a crash that was heard above the howling of the storm. By this time the day had been spent, and night considerably advanced,—with fear and trembling we retired to our state-rooms, doubting whether we should ever be permitted to see the light of another day. For myself, I suppose I was quite as indifferent about the matter as any one else; for, when a person gets to be as much under the influence of nausea as I was at the time, any change is desirable, even though it carry him to the bottom of the deep. The night passed, and we found that the storm was beginning to abate, so that, in about forty-eight hours thereafter, its violence had entirely ceased, and fine weather attended us across the equator.
The loss of our masts, in this severe gale, at once threw a damper on our high hopes of a quick passage; but, fortunately for us, we had extra masts on board; and, through the indefatigable exertions and perseverance of our vigilant captain, we succeeded in getting all the wreck cleared away and jury-masts rigged. The shattered timbers and torn sails opened an unusually large field of labor for our carpenter and sail-maker. We kept on our course, which had been very nearly south-east ever since we started, until we passed the Cape Verde Islands, about four degrees to the west, when we steered due south, and crossed the equator between twenty-nine and thirty degrees west longitude.
The next interesting event that happened to us occurred off the coast of Brazil, in latitude 22° 25´—longitude 38° 29´, Sunday, March 2d. It was about six o’clock in the morning, and I had just left my state-room and gone on deck to take a bath, when a sailor by my side, pointing over the starboard bow, cried out, “Boat ahoy! boat ahoy! with men in it.â€� In an instant, as if by electricity, the news was conveyed to every ear on board, and, at the same time, the starboard rail was lined fore and aft with anxious sailors and half-dressed passengers. As we drew near them, (they had been rowing towards us all the while as hard as they could pull,) they commenced waving their hands and handkerchiefs, beckoning to us and calling out in an unintelligible language, as if imploring us to receive them on board. At the time, the sea was running moderately high, and we were gliding along at the rate of five or six knots per hour, so that in a few minutes we had them directly astern of us; but we were not so destitute of humanity as to pass them by and leave them to certain death. Our sympathies were quickly and enthusiastically aroused in their behalf, and as soon as our captain could get his ship under proper command, he hove her to and waited for them to row along side. Pretty soon they came close under the lee of our vessel, and their weather-beaten features and nautical garb at once gave evidence that they were not unacquainted with the life of sea-faring men.
A rope was thrown to them and they were all able to pull themselves on board by it, except one, whom we afterwards ascertained to be their captain,—he, poor fellow, was so much exhausted that he could not help himself, and we were obliged to hoist him in. Their story was the next thing to be learned; for, as yet, not a word they said had been understood. This difficulty was removed, however, as soon as we got our men collected; for, among our polyglot assemblage of men, representing nearly forty different nations, we quickly found an interpreter in the person of an old Swede, whose translation of their story was, in substance, as follows:—They were Swedes and belonged to the Russian brig Sylphide, which had been to Rio and taken in a cargo of eighteen hundred and twenty-five bags of coffee, with which they had set sail for Helsingfors, Finland,—when five days out from Rio, a severe storm, or rather squall, came upon them, and so completely and suddenly wrecked their vessel, that they had barely time to escape in one of the little boats with their lives—not even having an opportunity to procure so much as a bottle of water or a mouthful of food. So precipitate and unexpected was the calamity which thus overtook them, that they had to quit their brig without any preparation whatever, and abandon their carpenter, who happened to be in his berth sick at the time, to a watery grave.
They had been out three days and nights in this condition, with nothing to eat or drink, save the legs of their captain’s boots, which they said they had been chewing to sustain life. Exposed as they were to the burning rays of a tropical sun, without any thing to eat or drink, it is not reasonable to suppose that they would have lived more than three days longer at farthest, if we had not picked them up, or if they had not been otherwise providentially relieved. We received the captain in our own cabin, and at our own table, and entertained him as hospitably and agreeably in every way as it was possible for us to do. His men went before the mast, and proved a very acceptable addition to our crew, especially in doubling Cape Horn, for they could endure the cold much better than our own seamen. That day, in commendation of the act we had performed in the morning, our captain,—who, by the by, was a very exemplary and devout scion of an orthodox Yankee house,—read, during divine service, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
About three o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, a little circumstance came under my observation, which, though it may seem quite a trivial affair in the eyes of many, may nevertheless serve to illustrate in some degree the barbarity of man and his utter indifference in regard to the lives of inferior animals. The subject of the incident was a small land bird, very much resembling our hedge sparrow, which was discovered resting upon one of the larboard main braces. A gust or blast of wind had probably driven it out to sea, and it could not find its way back to the shore. It was so weak that it could scarcely fly, and looked as if it was almost dead. On seeing it, I ran below and got a few crumbs of bread and strewed them along over the life-boat nearest to it. But just at that moment, the Swedish captain, who had now begun to resuscitate, came up on deck; and spying the distressed little wanderer, he walked up as boldly and deliberately to the rope upon which it was sitting, as if it had been some noxious intruder, and shook it violently. Thus frightened, the bird flew off some distance from the ship, but soon returned and alighted in the very same place; again the captain shook the rope as he had done at first, and again the bird did just as it had done before. This same thing was repeated for the third time, when the wearied little creature, apparently disgusted with the brutality of the man, who but a few hours before was himself in a forlorn and helpless condition, dropped down upon the water, and was seen no more.
Keeping along down the South American coast, we passed between Patagonia and the Falkland Islands; and on the morning of the 21st of March were within twenty miles of Staten Land. This was the first land we had seen since leaving home, and we feasted our eyes upon it, until our ship bore us so far distant that it had dwindled down to a mere speck. When we were near enough to Staten Land, I could see with the aid of the captain’s spy-glass nothing but rugged and sterile mountains, the highest peaks of which were covered with snow, and presented quite a picturesque appearance. No vegetation nor living thing of any kind could be discerned. But a young Bostonian, whom we afterwards saw in Valparaiso, told us he passed so near the shore of some of the land lying at the southern extremity of Patagonia, that he could see the natives, who, he said, were a gigantic people, about eight feet high! He also said they ran along on the shore abreast of his vessel, whooping and yelling at him like a set of ferocious savages. On Sunday following we saw Cape Horn, the most notorious of all places upon the high seas for rough weather and contrary winds.
Up to this time we had been congratulating ourselves upon the auspicious season in which we had happened to reach the Cape, and upon the quick run we were going to make around it. Delightful weather and favorable winds had cheered us since leaving the latitude of the La Plata river, and we were in high hopes that we had just hit upon the right time to sail safely round the dangerous Cape in one or two days, instead of being kept there six or eight weeks, as is sometimes the case. But we were doomed to sad disappointment. Towards night that terror of all navigators, a downright Cape Horn tempest, assailed us, and for seven successive days and nights kept us almost completely submerged. During the whole of this time, the wind, which was so intolerably cold and piercing that it seemed to be charged with isicles, blew right in our teeth, and brought hail, sleet, rain or snow with it every hour. Owing to this hard and continued blowing of the wind, the size and power of the waves became perfectly appalling; indeed they ran so heavy and so high that each one looked like a little ocean of itself, and frequently they would strike the ship with such tremendous force that she quivered and groaned as if she were going to pieces; in fact, I often expected to see her shivered into fragments, and could hardly believe otherwise than that we were all destined to become food for the fierce monsters of the deep. We succeeded, however, in getting fairly around the Cape, much to the gratification of all, and especially to the relief of our worn-out seamen, who had been up working with all their might, day and night, for a whole week.
While in the neighborhood of the Cape, we saw great numbers of the albatross, gull, petrel, and other birds; by means of a fish-hook tied to the end of a long line, and baited with a piece of fat bacon, which we let out some eight or ten rods from the stern of the vessel, we caught several of a species which the sailors called the Cape Hen. On measuring one of them from the tip of its right wing to the tip of its left, I found it to be seven feet across. The albatross is about twice as large as the Cape Hen. Here, too, while in this latitude, we had our fairest views of the great Southern Cross and the Magellan Clouds, constellations of as much notoriety in the southern hemisphere, as the Pleiades and Belt of Orion are in the northern.