He knew the omen, which that whisper gave,
Would burst one day in thunder from the grave.
Friday, Dec. 5. We are to-day in lat. 3° 23′ N., long. 28° 20′ W. We have a steady but light breeze from the southeast, and are heading south by southwest, with half a point westerly variation. We shall cross the line if this wind holds, and there is now little prospect of change, at 30°. This is three or four degrees further west than most ships bound to Rio de Janeiro venture to cross it at. Still, unless we encounter westerly currents on the other side of the line, we expect to be able to double Cape San Roque, and proceed directly to our port. Should we be disappointed, we shall be obliged to make a long tack to the northeast, which may keep us many days longer at sea. But we are going to make the experiment, and must bide the consequences. Nothing can be less certain than a ship’s progress. Even those winds deemed regular and almost infallible by mariners, seem now and then infected with the last degree of fickleness and perversity.
We have now been thirty-six days at sea without an isle or promontory to break the dim horizon, or relieve the vast rolling waste of waters. Harmony and good feeling prevail among the officers. There has not been the slightest clash of feeling between our Captain and those who carry on duty under him. And yet the most energetic forms of discipline have been maintained. The crew are cheerful and active. Punishments have been very rare. The cats have been used but once since we weighed anchor. Efficiency has been secured by a thorough attention to details on the part of Mr. Livingston, our first lieutenant, and the watch officers.
Saturday, Dec. 6. We are now within one degree of the equator. But the wind having hauled round one point east of south, we have been obliged to go upon our starboard tack to avoid crossing it too far to the west. We shall probably have made sufficient easting by to-morrow noon to make a dash over it. Then for a new hemisphere and new constellations. But we have a splendid moon to-night, directly in the centre of the great dome of heaven. Our masts cast no shadow. This position gives the moon a much greater apparent distance than it has when near the horizon. It now seems as some heaven-born sphere, that, having in vain tried to win you from the cares of earth, has gone back with melancholy countenance to its choiring sisterhood on high.
“There’s not the smallest orb, which thou behold’st,
But in his motion, like an angel, sings,
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubim.”
We had a visit, a few evenings since, from a whale. We were lying in a dead calm, when this monster saluted us like a locomotive blowing off steam. The column of brine which he threw up with his great forcing-pump, fell in a sparkling shower. Man constructs his fountain with great cost and pains, and when all is done, it can play only in that one place: but the whale moves about, throwing up his brilliant cascade at will in every zone. The springs may fail, the streams forsake their channels, but this showering column still soars from a source exhaustless as the mighty deep. Give me the whale and ocean for a fountain, and you may do what you please with your drizzling pipes and frog-ponds.
Sunday, Dec. 7th. At eleven o’clock, the tolling of the ship’s bell announced the hour of worship. The officers took their accustomed station on the starboard quarter; the marines on the poop-deck; the crew on the larboard quarter, stretching back to the waist and circling the main-mast to the opposite side; the band and singers between the after-hatches; Mr. Ten Eyche and Mr. Turrel, with their families, forming a group between the officers and marines. The commodore, being informed by the captain that the crew were assembled for worship, appeared and took his station on the left of the officers. The chaplain then took his station at the capstan, which was covered with a large flag, when the band played the impressive air to the words, “O come and let us worship.”