As I look back on the dangers of our way, and remember how many times by night and day, aloft and on deck, our men have been exposed to accident, I cannot refrain from recording my gratitude to the Preserver of men. One day all hands were around the mainmast hoisting a yard. I was standing with the captain near the wheel, when we heard a noise unlike anything which we ever heard on ship board. It lasted only two or three seconds, but was so peculiar that it was frightful. Was the ship grating over a sunken rock; had she opened a seam, and was the water pouring in? Going forward, the men were found standing silently over one of their number who was lying senseless on deck. One of the chain runners which hoists a yard twenty-five or thirty feet, had given way in one of its upper links, and the chain had come down through the block to the deck. This was the noise which alarmed us. In falling, the chain struck one of the men on the shoulder and he fell senseless. He was soon restored, but he was laid up a fortnight. Had the blow been upon his head, the weight of the chain made it probable that the hurt would have been more serious. This was the only accident which we had to record during the whole voyage.
BIRD ON MIZZEN TOP GALLANT MAST.
One afternoon about five o’clock, several weeks after we had “passed Anjer,” a bird as large as a heron came and sat for half an hour on a yard. We were several hundred miles from any land. The bird was not idle, for his frequent change of position, the motions of his head evidently helping his eye-sight, showed that his thoughts were busy about the next stage in his flight. He will go westward, I said to myself, keeping up as long as possible with the sun; but still he will spend the night somewhere on the waves. I watched him till he flew. To my surprise, instead of going toward the sun he flew eastward. I would have dissuaded him from such a decision, at least would have inquired by what train of thought he came to the conclusion that he would fly toward the night. On reflection it occurred to me that he took the most direct course toward the morning; by going in that direction he would meet the sun before we should see him. Perhaps instinct had taught him this lesson, and therefore he flew into the darkness as the speediest way to the morning. He “who maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven” has given then an instinct before which ours is as nothing. Experience, the comparison of events, wisdom learned from mistakes, from sorrow, from loss, is ours, to guide us on our heavenward path. Improving by such experience we are “wiser than the fowls;” otherwise their instinct makes our folly more pitiable. As the bird flew from me toward the east, this train of thought arose:
THE BIRD ON THE MIZZEN MAST.
THE PASSENGER.
Come! fly with the ship to the westerly ocean;
See how the pathway is flooded with light;
The east is beclouded, the waves in commotion;
Darkness approaches; why tempt you the night?
THE BIRD.