FAIR WEATHER PAST THE HORN.
After beating about the Horn for eight days, going only from forty to eighty miles day after day, a fine breeze sprung up and we have for twenty-four hours been going at the rate of ten knots an hour, sometimes faster. To look out of the cabin windows and see the water racing by makes one dizzy, and you hasten on deck to gratify the eye with a longer range of sight.
12 M., we have made two hundred and fifty-nine miles the last twenty-four hours, the best day’s run of the voyage thus far. In the Gulf we made two hundred and fifty miles, and once nearly as much off the River Plate.
One of the tiniest little fishes which we have seen was found on deck. It was washed over the side yesterday when every twenty minutes a sea came over the rail. The little thing shows us what the birds pick up at sea. “The small and the great are there.” We are glad to see the smallest thing in this region of wonders in the deep.
We are now fully round the Horn, having passed beyond 50° S., which completed the semicircle. At 12 M. one day lately we had gone beyond 50° to 43°. Patches of blue sky appear. Our spirits are revived. The ship seems to partake of our joy. Toward evening to-day she seemed to the captain to be exerting herself beyond her strength, having on a crowd of canvas. He ordered the royals to be taken down, to our regret; but it relieved her. We are promised another race at daybreak should the weather be fair.
CHANGE OF SEASONS AT SEA.
One of the pleasant things about this voyage is, the frequent change of seasons. Leaving New York late in October we were in a few days in the warm region of the Gulf; then came spring and summer in the tropics, then fall and winter with severe blasts round the Horn. To-day, Jan. 6th, spring seems to have dawned. By Jan. 20th, we shall have premonitions of summer heat. I took my old seat on the house under the mizzenmast, a mild air about me yet strong enough to bear the ship along at the rate of eight or nine knots, the sky clear, the water smooth, the horizon distinct, everything indicating our approach to the tropics.
THE MORNING HOUR.
If I were asked, “What recurs to you most frequently with pleasure in your experience at sea thus far”, I should say, The hour under the mizzen mast, morning after morning. The solitude there was unrivalled. In the depths of a forest you are not sure of being alone; for you yourself have come thither, and what hinders the approach of others? Half of the ship’s company are asleep; those who are up are busily occupied; before you left your bed you heard the tramp of feet overhead. The dash of buckets of water, the noise of brooms, the holy-stone drawn backwards and forwards and athwart ship, and then the perfect quiet, made you feel that everything was ready for any one who wished to be alone on deck. Behind you, but hidden from view by the spanker, is the man at the wheel; the rudder-head jounces monotonously at every turn; a sailor here and there creeps about barefooted; the steward makes his official visits to the galley; these, and the few others who are stirring, only seem to make you feel that you are isolated. The depths are around you; the distant sail tells you that yonder is a company of human beings shut out like you from the world; you understand how solitary you are, by musing on them; you fancy how lonesome you would be sailing away, as they seem to be, from human fellowship, not considering that you are also. I had made an index to the book of Psalms, easily drawn up, and had written it on paper the size of a small ‘Testament and Psalms,’ twelve pages, and had pasted it in my small Testament. I did not need De Wette, nor Rosenmuller, nor any other commentator to remind me that a word of David was in Hiphil or Hophal, Piel or Pual; the index, looked over, beginning; A, As the hart panteth, 42. B, Behold, bless ye, 134. D, Deliver me from, 59, would each day suggest a Psalm which seemed to have the same key note with the feelings with which I had awaked. No song of bird, no wheels, nor hum of labor disturbed the exceeding peace which all nature seemed to have concentrated, in this morning hour in the solitude of ocean. I could not refrain from thinking how it would have been wholly broken up by paddle wheels or propeller, and by the sympathy which the jaded mind would have with the incessant walking beam, the alternating pistons; and by the column of black smoke, the imprisoned steam. Let trade, and strong nerves, and economy of time, and imperative engagements gratefully avail themselves of machinery in passing from one side of the sea to the other, but let some sailing vessels be spared, with their poetry of motion, and architecture of canvas, mystery of rigging, habits, usages, phraseology, modes of life, the tar and slush, the going aloft instead of down into the furnace room, the laying becalmed instead of driving ahead impetuously, reckless of wind and weather. In our desire for the advancement of mankind, we do not calculate for indisposition. It is out of place. But these clipper ships could not be better contrived for comfort, had they been arranged expressly for invalids.