For one whose courage cut him loose
From weapons furnished by a goose.
Saturday, Jan. 24. We were to-day at 12 o’clock full half way from Rio to Cape Horn. The wind is on our starboard quarter, the sea smooth, and we are slipping along six and seven knots the hour. The atmosphere has that smoky appearance which is characteristic of our clime when the autumn has set in. An albatros has been circling around our ship to-day. He is a large white bird approaching the swan in size, but with shorter neck and longer wings.
Last night, on the eve of the mid-watch, the drum rolled all hands out of their hammocks. We sprung to the deck, and went to general quarters. The guns were cast loose, and we went through with the evolutions of a night engagement. Hardly a loud word was heard, though the manœuvring of our ship, and the management of her batteries, would have signalized us in the battle of the Nile. If we are to have a fight, we shall know how to go at it, whether it come at noon or midnight. What would have surprised a stranger most, was the quickness with which every one appeared on deck, when the call was beat. From the first tap of the drum not more than three minutes elapsed before the last hammock was stowed, and its roused occupant was ready for action. The marine officer, who occupies the state-room adjoining mine, must have jumped into his clothes without the time to draw them on:
Ere you could open well your eye,
He stood in arms prepared to die.
Sunday, Jan. 25. We have had no service to-day, in consequence of a cold which I had taken, and which rendered speaking extremely difficult. Our wind still holds, without having veered scarcely a point, and is now carrying us onward ten knots the hour.
We had last night a splendid exhibition of aquatic fireworks. The night was perfectly dark, and the sea smooth; and you might see a thousand living rockets shooting off in all directions from our ship, and, running through countless configurations, return to her, leaving their track still bright with inextinguishable flame. Then they would start again, whirling through every possible gyration, till the whole ocean around seemed medallioned with fire. The fact was, we had run into an immense shoal of porpoises and small fish. The sea being filled at the same time with animalculæ, which emit a bright phosphoric light when the water is agitated, the chase of the porpoises after these small fish created the beautiful phenomena described. The light was so strong that you could see the fish with the utmost distinctness. They lit their own path, like a skyrocket in a dark night. Our ship left the track of its keel in flame for half a mile. I have witnessed the illumination of St. Peter’s and the castle of Michael Angelo at Rome, and heard the shout of the vast multitudes as the splendors broke over the dark cope of night; but no pyrotechnic displays ever got up by human skill, could rival the exhibitions of nature around our ship. Give me a phosphoric sea and a shoal of porpoises for fireworks: out on man and his vanity; he is outdone, even with the thunders of the Vatican at his command, by the ocean hog!
Monday, Jan. 26. We have been engaged to-day in stumping our top-gallant-masts, and striking below some six of our spar-deck guns. The gales often encountered off Cape Horn render these precautions expedient on board a man-of-war. She is not like a merchantman, with the great bulk and weight of her cargo down in the hold; her heavy batteries, the strong decks which support them, her lofty masts, solid spars, and immense field of canvas, are all above water-mark. She feels, therefore, more than her mercantile sister, the strength of the wind, and rolls more fearfully to its force.
It is seldom indeed that a man-of-war is lost. But her safety lies in her precautions,—in the fact that she has not the same motive for carrying sail as a merchant-ship rushing to a market,—and in the great amount of living force which she can throw upon her yards in any sudden emergency. Her crew is necessarily sufficient not only for managing her sails, but for working her batteries, and can at a moment be summoned to this duty or that, as the occasion requires. In this lies her safety in storms and her strength in battle.