On arriving at the Stream we dipped up a bucketful of its water from alongside, and found it quite warm. A short time afterwards we repeated the experiment, and found a variation in the temperature. Thus, at intervals of fifteen minutes throughout our passage across it, we tested the water to the best of our ability; and although our thermometer could not be fully depended upon, yet the result was still decided enough to make me a convert to Professor Bache’s theory: that, the Gulf Stream is a series of belts of water, varying in temperature, instead of a body of water of uninterrupted equivalent warmth.
On the following day we experienced one of those southeast gales, attended by fog, which are so common to the American coast in the month of March. As long as we felt satisfied that we had an offing, things went pretty well, and we rejoiced at the way the ship was making before the gale; although, in the absence of sun, moon, and stars, we had nothing by which to ascertain our whereabouts. At noon we spoke the brig Pilotfish, of Boston, and found that by her reckoning we were fifty miles farther to the westward than what our chronometer gave it; however, we felt pretty well satisfied as to our own correctness until night, when we shortened sail, (which throughout the day we had carried to the extent of the vessel’s ability,) and luffed to the wind, hove the lead, and sounded with the deep-sea line. At the same time the gale increased to a hurricane, and, as we could not see a ship’s length ahead, we were compelled, sorely against our inclinations, to heave the ship to for the night.
At 3 o’clock A. M. the next morning we all at once felt a change in the atmosphere, and, on inquiring the cause, found that the wind had hauled to the westward. A few minutes afterward the fleecy scud drove rapidly to the leeward, and the wind from the southwest bore down on us with extreme violence. But not too violent for us. Oh, no! It was hailed with delight. It was fair and strong; and, although we could show only close-reefed topsails and foresail to it, we bowled away, with it on our quarter, at the rate of twelve knots an hour. As we gradually neared the land we saw a number of small coasting-crafts laying-to, with the water sweeping over them—they not venturing to run in such weather. Of these we spoke several, and ascertained from them the bearings of Montauk Point. We found now that our chronometer was indeed wrong, and that had we depended upon it we would most likely have been by this time high and dry on some part of our own coast. This variation of the chronometer was very strange to us. During the whole voyage we had found it perfectly trustworthy; and, of course, after so long an acquaintance with its exactness, we had learned to place implicit confidence in it. At St. Helena it was correct, and so also off Cape St. Roque only three weeks before. But the present was precisely the case with it on the last voyage, when Captain James Allen commanded the ship. Then, likewise, there had not been a mile’s variation in it until he had crossed the Gulf Stream, homeward-bound, when an error of fifty miles was discovered—a pilot-boat giving him his true whereabouts. Now, the question is, what was the cause of this singular variation? Was it the Gulf Stream, or what was it? Here is a question for the savans, and should they solve it, I will be happy to hear of their explanation.
CHAPTER XVI.
After speaking these coasting crafts, our course was still onward and homeward. At noon we saw land; it was greeted with three as hearty cheers as ever swelled American throats. All was bustle and excitement, and naught but the discipline of a well-regulated ship kept our enthusiasm within bounds. The watch below, wearied with exertion, caught the gladsome cry, and, leaping from their berths, hurried on deck as they were, and, without hesitating at the coldness of the weather, sprang, half nude, into the rigging, to catch a sight of their native land. One, more enthusiastic than the rest, made the foretop a rostrum, and, hatless and shoeless, with his shirt flying in the wind, he repeated in a loud voice, intelligible above the shrieking of the gale, the beautiful lines of Sir Walter Scott:
“Lives there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said—
This is my own, my native land;
Whose heart has ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he has turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand.
If such there be, go mark him well,
For him no minstrels’ raptures swell;
Proud though his title, high his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish could claim,
Despite his power and his pelf,
This wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung—
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”
Reader, have you ever read these lines before? Of course you have; so had I before I went to sea; and then with me, as it must have been with you, they had made my heart beat quicker, and my eye flash with indignation at the recreant who could unmoved return to his native shore. But it is impossible to describe our appreciation of the beautiful text at such a moment as it was now presented to us; and in the exuberance of our spirits we could have hugged the author to our breasts and pronounced him sailor in feeling if not in practice. A change, however, soon came over the spirit of our dreams; the yards were squared, and, consequently, as we brought the wind aft, we were enabled to show more canvas to the favoring gale, and in this outlet we found a vent for our highly wrought feelings: reefs were shaken out, gaskets cast off in a twinkling, and the yards and sails were mastheaded, as if by magic, to the music of the merriest homeward bound song in our category, although our fingers and other extremities were benumbed with the cold. We were in hopes of getting in this night, but still we had our misgivings; as, even should we come into close proximity with Montauk Point, the weather was so boisterous that we had little hopes a pilot would venture out upon such a night. So, feeling that should we be necessitated to remain out another night, we would need rest, our watch went below to seek consolation in Nature’s great restorer—sleep; but in vain, slumber came not to our anxious eyes, although wooed by every means in our power. We rolled our eyes, we counted indefinite units, but all to no purpose; the one idea preoccupied all our thoughts and forbade the intrusion of Morpheus on its domain. At 2 o’clock a light-house was seen, which, at first, was called Montauk light, but the land around it not agreeing with that in the vicinity of Montauk, after some deliberation, it was pronounced Fire Island light. This was a damper on all our spirits and dissipated our air castles, which had been built with the provision of going ashore within twenty-four hours; and long faces and dolorous sighs were the attendants upon this decision. After a few minutes of painful uncertainty, some one, whose memory was more retentive, called to mind the fact of having seen in a newspaper a notice of the erection of a new light between Fire Island and Montauk light. This view of the subject was immediately endorsed by all hands, and a corresponding buoyancy pervaded all; but as landmark after landmark was passed, and still Montauk was not to be seen, we gave up all hopes of seeing New Bedford that night, and were fearful that that much wished for occasion might not occur for a fortnight or more; as these southerly winds are not persistent, and no one knows how soon they may leave him and be followed by a north-easter, which, at this season of the year, lasts for weeks, and forbids all entrance into our destined harbor. But just at nightfall, one, who had voluntarily perched himself on the loftiest look-out on the fore royal mast, sung out, “Light ho!” and we soon found that at last we had sighted the veritable Montauk Point and light-house. This was cheering; but no pilot was to be seen, and our only resort was to shorten sail, heave the ship to, and hang on as closely as possible to the windward, so as to have no difficulty in beating up at the approach of daylight. To this end we clewed up and furled our light sails, reefed and furled the courses, clewed down and close-reefed the topsails—and bitter work we had of it. The weather, although not intensely cold to one accustomed to it, to our tropical sensibilities was frigid; and as, during the day, we had been enveloped by fog, our canvas was damp and heavy, and not to be handled in a moment; so that it was a task of time, patience, exposure, and danger, to reduce the old ship’s canvas to a spread commensurate to the violence of the gale which now blew from west-north-west. In reviewing my whole stock of sea experience, comprising over three years of actual life upon the broad bosoms of four out of the five oceans of the globe, I can call to memory no time at which I felt more depressed than during the continuance of this night; not so much from the heaviness of the gale, for I had weathered scores that were much heavier; not from the short, breaking, combing sea, which, from being on soundings and in shallow water, made it but a plaything in the heavy gust, and rendered it trebly unpleasant, breaking upon and against the ship, keeping her continually wet and uncomfortable; but this too was a matter of course to me—I had had my jacket wet a hundred, ay, a thousand times, with the salted spray of old ocean; nor was it from a sense of danger from any or all of these combinations; but the wind gradually, yet steadily, hauling to the northward, occasioned a dead weight; its remaining in its present quarter, west-north-west, being our only hope of getting in; and to be lying here within a few miles, almost in sight, of home, without power to pursue our voyage thither, was a probation by no means gratifying. I strove to shake off the feeling, calling to my aid all the resources of manhood; but in vain. I then attempted to gain some consolation from the old gray-headed seaman, who had for years followed the coast in all its windings from Newfoundland to Florida; but he, like me, was under the thrall of the same vague and undefinable depression, and instead of administering consolation, went off into a narration of how, time after time, he had made the same light with a southerly wind, hove the ship to through the night, anticipating a run in during the next morning, but at dawn the wind came out at north-east with hail and snow, and for weeks nothing could be done but to lay to and sweat it out. This was adding gall to wormwood, and the old fellow, perceiving my lugubriousness, slapped me on the back, and said, “Cheer up, my hearty! we have weathered many a gale together, and, please God, we will make port to-morrow, when we can laugh at our forebodings of to-night.” In this state of mental inquietude, at 11 o’clock at night I went below, and with a prayer that the wind should favor us at dawn, I threw myself in my berth, hoping to rid myself of the solicitude in sleep, but fruitlessly; it was a mere repetition of the afternoon’s performance. I rolled, tumbled, and almost worried myself into a fever; several times I caught a moment’s nap, only to be visited by visions in which the voices of home were calling me, and the outstretched arms of loved ones, prompted by affection, were extended towards me to welcome the wanderer home. But in vain did I struggle to reach them, some invisible agency held me back despite my frantic efforts, and with the sweat profusely dropping from my reeking brow, parched tongue and straining eyeballs, I would awake to find it but a dream.
Thus passed the weary hours until 3 o’clock, when on the calling of the watch I turned out, and took the helm. My attention, of course, was directed first to the wind. My forebodings were too truly realized. There it was, from the northwest; and, with gloomy resolution, I resigned myself to the decree. Our officer of the deck, scarcely a whit behind me, came to the binnacle for the same purpose. From his anxious and careworn face I could see that he had experienced no refreshment in sleep. Sympathizing with him, I forebore remark; but, after satisfying himself, he turned to me, with a countenance on every line of which was written mental torture, and in a tone that expressed his feelings, he said, “There depart all our bright anticipations—God help me to bear the disappointment!”—and then proceeded moodily to walk the quarter-deck. Again he came, and related to me that on two former occasions, in this same delectable month of March, he had been served in precisely the same way, and wound up by saying, “I shall worry no more! I am now satisfied that we will not get in before the first of April; and so we may as well grin and bear it”
Unable to control my own thoughts, I perforce allowed them to run fancy free, and whilst so engaged paid but little attention to the compass: intuitively easing the helm when the vessel pitched from the surging of the waves so as to endanger the spars, and occasionally when warned by the flapping of the sails raising the wheel to keep her off from the wind a trifle; until at length an unusually heavy sea, breaking over the ship and drenching the decks, awoke me from my reverie.
Day had now began to dawn, and casually I glanced at the compass. Could I be assured that the direction in which the magnetic needle pointed was correct, or was it a mere phantasy of my overwrought brain! I rubbed my eyes, and looked again. Could it be possible, or was I in a lethargy, deceiving myself into a belief in the reality of a wished-for fact! I shook myself, and stamped my feet, now grown cold from inaction. Satisfied at length that I was in the perfect possession of all my faculties, I ventured to glance again at the needle, and then I received the fullest evidence that I was not deceived. I called the second mate to me. He at first could scarce credit it—but, there it was! The wind had hauled two points, and now was west-north-west, and we had a prospect of delivery from all our somber soliloquies. Hurrah! The captain was now called (he having gone below for sleep—the two preceding nights he had been upon deck until utterly worn out). He came up skeptical, but was soon a convert. “We cannot show much sail,” said he, “but we will venture a little more. Shake a reef out of each topsail. Loose the foresail.” (I had now been relieved from the wheel.) Still she did not go fast enough. “Loosen the jib and spanker.” No sooner said, than done. I sprang upon the bowsprit and out upon the jib-boom, skinning my hands fearfully, and receiving a severe blow upon the head from the jibsheet-block; both, at any other time, sufficient to make me groan with pain; but now they passed almost unnoticed. Without faltering, I cast the gasket off. The jib was foul. I had to lay out, and to overhaul the hoops. It was done. The jib gradually rose to its proper position. The sheet was then hauled aft by the strength of the entire crew; but still it was not sufficient. A powerful tackle was now attached to it, and with the aid of numerous arms (the captain, cook, and every one else assisting) it was brought flat enough, and thus secured. Arriving on deck, the clotted blood called my attention to my lacerated hands; but it was no time to complain. Half-a-dozen were so wounded. Our skins being dry, parched, and benumbed, the least contact with any hard material produced an abrasion; which, however, no one noticed: for the spanker was to be set, more reefs shaken out, and the staysails loosened.