The three succeeding days we were delayed by calms, or contending with gales and head winds. On the morning of the seventh day "out," there was a general exclamation of surprise from the passengers as they came on deck.
"How warm!" "What a suffocating air!" "We must have sailed well last night to be so far south!" They might well have been surprised if this change in the temperature had been gained by regular "southing." But, alas, we had barely lessened our latitude twenty miles during the night. We had entered the Gulf Stream! that extraordinary natural phenomenon of the Atlantic Ocean. This immense circle of tepid water which revolves in the Atlantic, enclosing within its periphery, the West India and Western Islands, is supposed by Humboldt to be occasioned "by the current of rotation (trade winds) which strikes against the coasts of Veraguas and Honduras, and ascending toward the Gulf of Mexico, between Cape Caloche and Cape St. Antoine, issues between the Bahamas and Florida." From this point of projection, where it is but a few miles wide, it spreads away to the northeast in the shape of an elongated slightly curved fan, passing at the distance of about eighty miles from the coast of the southern states, with a velocity, opposite Havana, of about four miles an hour, which decreases in proportion to its distance from this point. Opposite Nantucket, where it takes a broad, sweeping curve toward Newfoundland, it moves generally only about two miles an hour. Bending from Newfoundland through the Western Islands, it loses much of its velocity at this distance from its radiating point, and in the eastern Atlantic its motion is scarcely perceptible, except by a slight ripple upon the surface.
This body of water is easily distinguishable from that of the surrounding blue ocean by its leaden hue—the vast quantity of pale-yellow gulf-weed, immense fields of which it wafts from clime to clime upon its ever-rolling bosom, and by the absence of that phosphorescence, which is peculiar to the waters of the ocean. The water of this singular stream is many degrees warmer than the sea through which it flows. Near Cuba the heat has been ascertained to be as great as 81°, and in its course northward from Cuba, it loses 2° of temperature for every 3° of latitude. Its warmth is easily accounted for as the production of very simple causes. It receives its original impulse in the warm tropical seas, which, pressed toward the South American shore by the wind, meet with resistance and are deflected along the coast northward, as stated above by Humboldt, and injected into the Northern Atlantic Ocean—the vast column of water having parted with very little of its original caloric in its rapid progress.
We crossed the north-western verge of "The Gulf" near the latitude of Baltimore, where its breadth is about eighty miles. The atmosphere was sensibly warmer here than that of the ocean proper, and the water which we drew up in the ship's bucket raised the mercury a little more than 8°. Not knowing how the mercury stood before entering the Gulf, I could not determine accurately the change in the atmosphere; but it must have been very nearly as great as that in the denser fluid. Veins of cool air circled through its atmosphere every few minutes, as welcome and refreshing to our bared foreheads as the sprinkling of the coolest water.
When vessels in their winter voyages along our frigid coasts become coated with ice, so as to resemble almost precisely, though of a gigantic size, those miniature glass ships so often seen preserved in transparent cases, they seek the genial warmth of this region to "thaw out," as this dissolving process is termed by the sailors. We were nearly three days in crossing the Gulf, at a very acute angle with its current, which period of time we passed very pleasantly, for voyagers; as we had no cold weather to complain of, and a variety of objects to entertain us. Sea, or Gulf-weed, constantly passed us in acres, resembling immense meadows of harvest wheat, waving and undulating with the breeze, tempting us to walk upon it. But for the ceaseless roll and pitching of our ship, reminding us of our where-about, we might, without much trouble, have been cheated into the conviction that it was real terra firma.
Flocks of flying fish suddenly breaking from a smooth, swelling billow, to escape the jaws of some voracious pursuer, whose dorsal fin would be seen protruding for an instant afterward from the surface, flitted swiftly, with a skimming motion, over the sea, glittering in the sun like a flight of silver-winged birds; and then as suddenly, with dried wings, dropped into the sea again. One morning we found the decks sprinkled with these finned aerial adventurers, which had flown on board during the night.
Spars, covered with barnacles—an empty barrel marked on the head N. E. Rum, which we slightly altered our course to speak—a hotly contested affaire d'honneur, between two bantam-cocks in the weather-coop—a few lessons in splicing and braiding sennet, taken from a good-natured old sailor—a few more in the art of manufacturing "Turks' Heads," not, however, à la Grec—and other matters and things equally important, also afforded subjects of speculation and chit-chat, and means of passing away the time with a tolerable degree of comfort, and, during the intervals of eating and sleeping, to keep us from the blues.
A gallant ship—a limitless sea rolled out like a vast sheet of mottled silver—"goodlie companie"—a warm, reviving sun—a flowing sheet, and a courteous breeze, so gently breathing upon our sails, that surly Boreas, in a gentler than his wonted mood, must have sent a bevy of Zephyrs to waft us along—are combinations which both nautical amateurs and ignoramuses know duly how to appreciate.
From the frequency of "squalls" and "blows" off Hatteras, it were easy to imagine a telegraphic communication existing between that head-land and Bermuda, carried on by flashes of lightning and tornadoes; or a game at bowls between Neptune and Boreas, stationed one on either spot, and hurling thunderbolts over the sea. This region, and that included between 25° and 23° north latitude termed by sailors the "horse latitudes," are two of the most unpleasant localities a voyager has to encounter on his passage from a New-England sea-port to New-Orleans or Havana. In one he is wearied by frequent calms, in the other, exposed to sea sickness, and terrified by almost continual storms.
On the eighth day out, we passed Bermuda—that island-sentinel and spy of Britain upon our shores. The position of this post with regard to America, forcibly reminds me—I speak it with all due reverence for the "Lion" of England—of a lap-dog sitting at a secure distance and keeping guard over an eagle volant. How like proud England thus to come and set herself down before America, and like a still beautiful mother, watch with a jealous eye the unfolding loveliness of her rival daughter—build up a battery d'espionage against her shores, and seek to hold the very key of her seas.