Tuesday, Jan. 27. We were at twelve o’clock to-day within six hundred miles of the Cape. We had a ten-knot breeze, and the prospect of a fine run, when a black thunder-storm careered into the sky directly ahead. We had only time to shorten sail before it was upon us. It swept past, throwing back its forked lightning. I regretted its departure about as much as I should that of a savage disappearing in the thicket, and throwing behind the sheen of his tomahawk.
But one evil the storm has wrought us: it has destroyed our good wind, and left us to look out for another, like a widow for a second husband. No lady should marry a second time. If her first husband was a good one, she should cherish his memory; if bad, he should serve as a beacon. Gentlemen may marry again; for they were once allowed as many wives as they wished, and it would be a pity if under any circumstances they couldn’t have one. But somehow the ladies outdo us entirely in these second marriages, and in most other things which require tact and management. But what has this to do with getting to Cape Horn?
A large number of black whales are plunging about our ship. They have a long heavy motion, and move over a swell like a lubberly Dutch merchantman. How the lazy rascals ever secure their food is unaccountable. I should suppose every thing would drift out of their way. They move in Indian file, and their uneven backs, rippling above the water, so closely resemble the bumps of the sea-serpent, that I began to suspect we had got into the neighborhood of Nahant, or that the commanders of her fishing-smacks had lost forever their great marine fiction:
“Our army swore terribly in Flanders.”
Wednesday, Jan. 28. Our good wind, which the thunder-squall knocked down last evening, has not yet recovered itself. It occasionally sends out a breath, but it comes faintly, as from some dying thing. I fear we shall have to part with it. Let its grave be in the clouds, and let the softest sun-light rest upon it. May the thunder which has killed it be compelled to roll its funeral dirge.
Our thermometer has stood to-day at 60. The sky at the zenith has been brilliant, but on the horizon full of mist. The refraction of the sun’s rays in the latter, has the effect to lift the distant line of the sea into a circular wall. We seem to float in the centre of a magnificent basin, the rim of which soars into the circumambient line of the sky. It is an amphitheatre of waters, and as daylight darkens over it, the stars hang in the blue dome their lamps of gushing light. No human architecture can rival its beauty and grandeur. The Coliseum, which exhausted the genius and wealth of Rome, dwindles into a cock-pit at its side. Nations might be seated here as spectators, and the navies of the world float in the arena. How nature pours contempt on the vanity of man wherever she encounters it! From the fathomless depths of the rolling ocean to the dew-drop that trembles on the thorn, she sends out her challenge, and covers the presumptuous competitor with humiliation. She is the mirror of her Maker, and images forth his power; and chiefly thou, great ocean, ever rolling, ever free and full of strength!
“Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.”
Thursday, Jan. 29. We discovered this morning, on our weather bow, a small white cloud, skimming along the undulating line of the horizon. Its shape, its whiteness, in contrast with the dark background of the sky, and its horizontal movement, all gave its appearance a singularity that arrested our attention, When first seen, it was going east, but it soon tacked, and stood west. It was distinctly visible, as it rose on the crest of a long sweeping wave, and then seemed lost behind its tumbling foam—
“A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!