 | III. The South-west |  |
3. III.
Shakspeare—Suicide or a `fowl' deed—A conscientious table
—Fishing smacks—A pretty boy—Old Skipper, Skipper junior, and
little Skipper—A young Caliban—An alliterate Man—Fishermen
—Nurseries—Navy—The Way to train up a Child—Gulf Stream
—Humboldt—Crossing the Gulf—Ice-ships—Yellow fields—Flying
fish—A game at bowls—Bermuda—A post of observation—
Men, dwellings, and women of Bermuda—St. George—English
society—Washing decks—Mornings at sea—Evenings at sea—A
Moonlight scene—The ocean on fire—Its phosphorescence—
Hypotheses.
“Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again,”
was the gentle oratory of the aspiring Richard, in
allusion to the invading Bretagnes.—
“Lash hence these overweening rags of France.”
The interpreter of the heart's natural language—
Shakspeare, above all men, was endowed with
human inspiration. His words come ripe to our
lips like the fruit of our own thoughts. We speak
them naturally and unconsciously. They drop from
us like the unpremeditated language of children—
spring forth unbidden—the richest melody of the
mind. Strong passion, whether of grief or joy,
while seeking in the wild excitement of the moment
her own words for utterance, unconsciously
enunciates his, with a natural and irresistible energy.
There is scarcely a human thought, great or simple,
as never man, uninspired, spake; which he
has not embodied and clothed with a drapery of
language, unsurpassable. So—
“Let's whip this straggler o'er the seas again,”
from your lips, as most applicable to
my barren letter; in penning which I shall be
driven to extremity for any thing of an interesting
character. If it must be so, I am, of all epistlers,
the most innocent.
Ship, air, and ocean equally refuse to furnish me
with a solitary incident. My wretched “log” now
and then records an event: such as for instance,
how one of “the Doctor's” plumpest and most deliciously
embonpoint pullets, very rashly and unadvisedly
perpetrated a summerset over-board, after
she had been decapitated by that sable gentleman,
in certainly the most approved and scientific style.
None but a very silly chicken could have been
dissatisfied with the unexceptionable manner in
which the operation was performed. But, both
feathered and plucked bipeds, it seems, it is equally
hard to please.
For the last fourteen days we have been foot-balls
for the winds and waves. Their game may
last as many more; therefore, as we have as little
free agency in our movements as foot-balls themselves,
we have made up our minds to yield our
fretted bodies as philosophically as may be, to their
farther pastime. The sick have recovered, and
warm south sun, like so many luxurious crocodiles.
To their good appetites let our table bear witness.
Should it be blessed with a conscience, it is doubly
blessed by having it cleared thrice daily by the most
rapacious father-confessors that ever shrived penitent;
of which “gentlemen of the cloth” it boasts no
less than eight.
The first day we passed through a widely dispersed
fleet of those short, stump-masted non-descripts,
with swallow-tailed sterns, snubbed bows,
and black hulls, sometimes denominated fishing
smacks, but oftener and more euphoniously, “Chebacco
boats,” which, from May to October, are scattered
over our northern seas.
While we dashed by them, one after another, in
our lofty vessel, as, close-hauled on the wind, or
“wing and wing,” they flew over the foaming sea, I
could not help smiling at the ludicrous scenes which
some of their decks exhibited.
One of them ran so close to us, that we could
have tossed a potato into the “skipper's” dinner-pot,
which was boiling on a rude hearth of bricks placed
upon the open deck, under the surveillance of, I
think, the veriest mop-headed, snub-nosed bit of an
urchin that I ever saw.
“Keep away a little, or you'll run that fellow
down,” suddenly shouted the captain to the helmsman;
and the next moment the little fishing vessel
shot swiftly under our stern, just barely clearing the
spanker boom, whirling and bouncing about in the
in the surf of Madras.
There were on board of her four persons, including
the steersman—a tall, gaunt old man, whose
uncovered gray locks streamed in the wind as he
stooped to his little rudder to luff up across our wake.
The lower extremities of a loose pair of tar-coated
duck trowsers, which he wore, were incased, including
the best part of his legs, in a pair of fisherman's
boots, made of leather which would flatten a
rifle ball. His red flannel shirt left his hairy breast
exposed to the icy winds, and a huge pea-jacket,
thrown, Spanish fashion, over his shoulders, was
fastened at the throat by a single button. His tarpaulin—a
little narrow-brimmed hat of the pot-lid
tribe, secured by a ropeyarn—had probably been
thrown off in the moment of danger, and now hung
swinging by a lanyard from the lower button-hole
of his jacket.
As his little vessel struggled like a drowning man
in the yawning concave made by the ship, he stood
with one hand firmly grasping his low, crooked rudder,
and with the other held the main sheet, which
alone he tended. A short pipe protruded from his
mouth, at which he puffed away incessantly; one
eye was tightly closed, and the other was so contracted
within a network of wrinkles, that I could just
discern the twinkle of a gray pupil, as he cocked it
up at our quarter-deck, and took in with it the noble
size, bearing, and apparel of our fine ship.
A duplicate of the old helmsman, though less battered
locks a red, woollen, conical cap, was “easing off” the
foresheet as the little boat passed; and a third was
stretching his neck up the companion ladder, to
stare at the “big ship,” while the little carroty-headed
imp, who was just the old skipper razeed,
was performing the culinary operations of his little
kitchen under cover of the heavens.
Our long pale faces tickled the young fellow's
fancy extremely.
“Dad,” squalled the youthful reprobate, in the
softest, hinge-squeaking soprano—“Dad, I guess
as how them ar' chaps up thar, ha'nt lived on salt
grub long.”—The rascal—we could have minced
him with his own fish and potatoes.
“Hold your yaup, you youngster you,” roared
the old man in reply.—The rest of the beautiful
alliteration was lost in the distance, as his smack
bounded from us, carrying the young sans-culotte
out of reach of the consequences of his temerity.
To mention salt grub to men of our stomachs' capacity,
at that moment! He merited impaling upon
one of his own cod-hooks. In ten minutes after, we
could just discern the glimmer of the little vessel's
white sails on the verge of the distant horizon, in
whose hazy hue the whole fleet soon disappeared.
These vessels were on a tardy return from their
Newfoundland harvests, which, amid fogs and
squalls, are gathered with great toil and privation
between the months of May and October. The
fishermen constitute a distinct and peculiar class—
not of society, but of men. To you I need not describe
in great numbers, about the wharves of New-England
sea-ports in the winter season—weather-browned,
long-haired, coarsely garbed men, with honesty
and good nature stamped upon their furrowed and
strongly marked features. They are neither “seamen”
nor “countrymen,” in the usual signification
of these words, but a compound of both; combining
the careless, free-and-easy air of the one, with the
awkwardness and simplicity of the other. Free
from the grosser vices which characterize the foreign-voyaged
sailor, they seldom possess, however, that
religious tone of feeling which distinguishes the
ruder countryman.
Marblehead and Cape Cod are the parent nurseries
of these hardy men. Portland has, however,
begun to foster them, thereby adding a new and vigorous
sinew to her commercial strength. In conjunction
with the whale fisheries, to which the cod
are a sort of introductory school, these fisheries are
the principal nurseries of American seamen. I have
met with many American ships' crews, one-half or
two-thirds of which were composed of men who had
served their apprenticeship in the “fisheries.” The
youth and men whom they send forth are the bone
and muscle of our navy. They have an instinctive
love for salt water. Every one who is a parent,
takes his sons, one after another, as they doff their
petticoats, if the freedom of their limbs was ever restrained
by such unnecessary appendages, and places
them on the deck of his fishing smack; teaches
them to call the ropes by their names, bait, fling,
harpoon, or plunge the grains—just as the Indian
is accustomed to lead his warrior-boys forth to the
hunting grounds, and teach them to track the light-footed
game, or heavier-heeled foe—wing, with unerring
aim, the fatal arrow, or launch the deadly
spear.
The three succeeding days we were delayed by
calms, or contending with gales and head winds.
On the morning of the seventh day “out,” there was
a general exclamation of surprise from the passengers
as they came on deck.
“How warm!” “What a suffocating air!” “We
must have sailed well last night to be so far south!”
They might well have been surprised if this change
in the temperature had been gained by regular
“southing.” But, alas, we had barely lessened our
latitude twenty miles during the night. We had
entered the Gulf Stream! that extraordinary natural
phenomenon of the Atlantic Ocean. This immense
circle of tepid water which revolves in the
Atlantic, enclosing within its periphery, the West
India and Western Islands, is supposed by Humboldt
to be occasioned “by the current of rotation
(trade winds) which strikes against the coasts of
Veraguas and Honduras, and ascending toward the
Gulf of Mexico, between Cape Caloche and Cape
St. Antoine, issues between the Bahamas and Florida.”
From this point of projection, where it is
but a few miles wide, it spreads away to the northeast
in the shape of an elongated slightly curved
fan, passing at the distance of about eighty miles
opposite Havana, of about four miles an hour,
which decreases in proportion to its distance from
this point. Opposite Nantucket, where it takes a
broad, sweeping curve toward Newfoundland, it
moves generally only about two miles an hour.
Bending from Newfoundland through the Western
Islands, it loses much of its velocity at this distance
from its radiating point, and in the eastern Atlantic
its motion is scarcely perceptible, except by a slight
ripple upon the surface.
This body of water is easily distinguishable from
that of the surrounding blue ocean by its leaden hue
—the vast quantity of pale-yellow gulf-weed, immense
fields of which it wafts from clime to clime
upon its ever-rolling bosom, and by the absence of
that phosphorescence, which is peculiar to the waters
of the ocean. The water of this singular stream is
many degrees warmer than the sea through which
it flows. Near Cuba the heat has been ascertained
to be as great as 81°, and in its course northward
from Cuba, it loses 2° of temperature for every 3°
of latitude. Its warmth is easily accounted for as
the production of very simple causes. It receives
its original impulse in the warm tropical seas, which,
pressed toward the South American shore by the
wind, meet with resistance and are deflected along
the coast northward, as stated above by Humboldt,
and injected into the Northern Atlantic Ocean—the
vast column of water having parted with very little
of its original caloric in its rapid progress.
We crossed the north-western verge of “The
breadth is about eighty miles. The atmosphere
was sensibly warmer here than that of the ocean
proper, and the water which we drew up in the
ship's bucket raised the mercury a little more than
8°. Not knowing how the mercury stood before
entering the Gulf, I could not determine accurately
the change in the atmosphere; but it must have
been very nearly as great as that in the denser fluid.
Veins of cool air circled through its atmosphere
every few minutes, as welcome and refreshing to
our bared foreheads as the sprinkling of the coolest
water.
When vessels in their winter voyages along our
frigid coasts become coated with ice, so as to resemble
almost precisely, though of a gigantic size,
those miniature glass ships so often seen preserved
in transparent cases, they seek the genial warmth
of this region to “thaw out,” as this dissolving process
is termed by the sailors. We were nearly
three days in crossing the Gulf, at a very acute
angle with its current, which period of time we
passed very pleasantly, for voyagers; as we had no
cold weather to complain of, and a variety of objects
to entertain us. Sea, or Gulf-weed, constantly
passed us in acres, resembling immense meadows
of harvest wheat, waving and undulating with the
breeze, tempting us to walk upon it. But for the
ceaseless roll and pitching of our ship, reminding us
of our where-about, we might, without much trouble,
have been cheated into the conviction that it
was real terra firma.
Flocks of flying fish suddenly breaking from a
smooth, swelling billow, to escape the jaws of some
voracious pursuer, whose dorsal fin would be seen
protruding for an instant afterward from the surface,
flitted swiftly, with a skimming motion, over the sea,
glittering in the sun like a flight of silver-winged
birds; and then as suddenly, with dried wings, dropped
into the sea again. One morning we found the
decks sprinkled with these finned aerial adventurers,
which had flown on board during the night.
Spars, covered with barnacles—an empty barrel
marked on the head N. E. Rum, which we slightly
altered our course to speak—a hotly contested affaire
d'honneur, between two bantam-cocks in the
weather-coop—a few lessons in splicing and braiding
sennet, taken from a good-natured old sailor—a
few more in the art of manufacturing “Turks'Heads,”
not, however, à la Grec—and other matters and
things equally important, also afforded subjects of
speculation and chit-chat, and means of passing
away the time with a tolerable degree of comfort,
and, during the intervals of eating and sleeping, to
keep us from the blues.
A gallant ship—a limitless sea rolled out like a
vast sheet of mottled silver—“goodlie companie”—
a warm, reviving sun—a flowing sheet, and a
courteous breeze, so gently breathing upon our
sails, that surly Boreas, in a gentler than his wonted
mood, must have sent a bevy of Zephyrs to waft us
along—are combinations which both nautical
amateurs and ignoramuses know duly how to
appreciate.
From the frequency of “squalls” and “blows”
off Hatteras, it were easy to imagine a telegraphic
communication existing between that head-land and
Bermuda, carried on by flashes of lightning and
tornadoes; or a game at bowls between Neptune
and Boreas, stationed one on either spot, and hurling
thunderbolts over the sea. This region, and that
included between 25° and 23° north latitude
termed by sailors the “horse latitudes,” are two of
the most unpleasant localities a voyager has to
encounter on his passage from a New-England
seaport to New-Orleans or Havana. In one he
is wearied by frequent calms, in the other, exposed
to sea sickness, and terrified by almost continual
storms.
On the eighth day out, we passed Bermuda—
that island-sentinel and spy of Britain upon our
shores. The position of this post with regard to
America, forcibly reminds me—I speak it with all
due reverence for the “Lion” of England—of a
lap-dog sitting at a secure distance and keeping
guard over an eagle volant. How like proud England
thus to come and set herself down before
America, and like a still beautiful mother, watch
with a jealous eye the unfolding loveliness of her
rival daughter—build up a battery d'espionage
against her shores, and seek to hold the very key
of her seas.
The Bermudas or “Summer islands” so called
from Sir George Summer, who was wrecked here
two centuries since—are a cluster of small coral
reefs lying nearly in the form of a crescent, and
rocks, which rear their fronts on every side like
battlements:—They are situated about two hundred
and twenty leagues from the coast of South
Carolina, and nearly in the latitude of the city of
Charleston.
The houses are constructed of porous limestone,
not unlike lava in appearance. This material was
probably ejected by some unseen and unhistoried
volcanic eruption, by which the islands themselves
were in all probability heaved up from the depths
of the ocean. White-washed to resist the rain,
their houses contrast beautifully with the green-mantled
cedars and emerald carpets of the islands.
The native Bermudians follow the sea for a livelihood.
They make good sailors while at sea; but
are dissipated and indolent when they return to their
native islands, indulging in drinking, gaming, and
every species of extravagance.
The females are rather pretty than otherwise;
with good features and uncommonly fine eyes.
Like all their sex, they are addicted to dress, in
which they display more finery than taste. Dancing
is the pastime of which they are most passionately
fond. In affection and obedience to their
“lords,” and in tenderness to their children, it is
said that they are patterns to all fair ones who may
have taken those, seldom audibly-spoken, vows, “to
love, honour, and obey”—oft times unuttered, I
verily believe, from pure intention.
St. George, the principal town in the islands, has
become a fashionable military residence. The
is varied by the constant arrival and departure of
ships of war, whose officers, with those of the
army, a sprinkling of distinguished civilians, and
clusters of fair beings who have winged it over the
sea, compose the most spirited and pleasant
society in the world. Enjoying a remarkably pure
air, and climate similar to that of South Carolina,
with handsomely revenued clergymen of the
Church of England, and rich in various tropical
luxuries, it is a desirable foreign residence and a
convenient and pleasant haven for British vessels
sailing in these seas.
This morning we were all in a state of feverish
excitement, impatient to place our eyes once more
upon land. Visions of green fields and swelling
hills, pleasantly waving trees and cool fountains—
groves, meadows, and rural cottages, had floated
through our waking thoughts and mingled with our
dreams.
“Is the land in sight, Captain?” was the only
question heard from the lips of one and another of
the expectant passengers as they rubbed their sleepy
eyes, poked their heads from their half-opened
state-room doors, or peeped from their curtained
berths. Ascending to the deck, we beheld the sun
just rising from the sea in the splendor of his
oriental pomp, flinging his beams far along the sky
and over the waters, enriching the ocean with his
radiance till it resembled a sea of molten gold,
gilding the dew-hung spars, and spreading a delicate
blush of crimson over the white sails. It was
nautical housewifery, its richness could not be enjoyed
from the decks.
At sea, the moment the sun rises, and when one
feels in the humor of quitting his hot state-room
and going on deck, the officer of the watch sings
out in a voice that goes directly to the heart—
“Forard there—wash decks!” Then commences
an elemental war rivalling Noah's deluge. That
was caused by the pouring down of rain in drops—
thié by the out-pouring of full buckets. From the
moment this flood commences one may draw back
into his narrow shell, like an affrighted snail, and
take a morning's nap:—the deck, for an hour to
come, is no place for animals that are not web-footed.
Fore and aft the unhappy passenger finds no way
of escaping the infliction of this purifying ceremony.
Should he be driven aloft, there “to banquet on the
morning,” he were better reposing on a gridiron or
sitting astride a handsaw. If below, there the
steward has possession, sweeping, laying the breakfast
table and making-up berths, and the air, a hundred
times breathed over, rushes from the opening
state-rooms threatening to suffocate him—he were
better engulfed in the bosom of a stew-pan.
To stand, cold, wet, and uncomfortable upon the
damp decks till the sun has dried both them and
him is the only alternative. If after all the “holy
stone” should come in play, he may then quietly
jump over-board.
The evenings, however, amply compensate for
the dust, floating particles and exhalations of the
land, is perfectly transparent, and the sky of a richer
blue. The stars seem nearer to you there; and the
round moon pours her unclouded flood of light,
down upon the sea, with an opulence and mellowness,
of which those who have only seen moonlight,
sleeping upon green hills, cities and forests, know
nothing. On such nights, there cannot be a nobler,
or prouder spectacle, as one stands upon the bows,
than the lofty, shining pyramid of snow-white canvass
which, rising majestically from the deck, lessens
away, sail after sail, far into the sky—each sheet
distended like a drum-head, yet finely rounded, and
its towering summit, as the ship rises and falls
upon the billows, waving like a tall poplar, swaying
in the wind. In these hours of moonlit enchantment,
while reclining at full length upon the deck,
and gazing at the diminished point of the flag-staff,
tracing devious labyrinths among the stars, the
blood has danced quicker through my veins as I
could feel the ship springing away beneath me like
a fleet courser, and leaping from wave to wave over
the sea. At such moments the mind cannot divest
itself of the idea that the bounding ship is instinct
with life—an animated creature, careering forward
by its own volition. To this are united the musical
sighing of the winds through the sails and rigging—
the dashing of the sea and the sound of the rushing
vessel through the water, which sparkles with phosphorescent
light, as though sprinkled with silver
dust.
A dark night also affords a scene to gratify curiosity
and charm the eye. A few nights since, an
exclamation of surprise from one of the passengers
called me from my writing to the deck. As, on
emerging from the cabin, I mechanically cast my
eyes over the sea, I observed that at first it had the
appearance of reflecting the stars from its bosom in
the most dazzling splendour, but on looking upward
to gaze upon the original founts of this apparently
reflected light, my eyes met only a gloomy
vault of clouds unillumined by a solitary star. The
“scud” flew wildly over its face and the heavens
were growing black with a gathering tempest. Yet
beneath, the sea glittered like a “lake of fire.” The
crests of the vast billows as they burst high in the
air, descended in showers of scintillations. The
ship scattered broken light from her bows, as
though a pavement of mirrors had been shivered in
her pathway. Her track was marked by a long
luminous train, not unlike the tail of a comet, while
gleams of light like lighted lamps floating upon the
water, whirled and flashed here and there in the
wild eddies of her wake. The spray which was
flung over the bows glittered like a sprinkling of
diamonds as it fell upon the decks, where, as it
flowed around the feet, it sparkled for some seconds
with innumerable shining specks. And so intense
was the light shining from the sea that I was enabled
to read with ease the fine print of a newspaper.
A bucket plunged into the sea, which whitened like
shivered ice, on its striking it, was drawn up full of
glittering sea-water that sparkled for more than a
gradually losing its lustre, finally disappeared in
total darkness.
Many hypotheses have been suggested by scientific
men to account for this natural phenomenon.
“Some have regarded it,” says Dr. Coates, “as the
effect of electricity, produced by the friction of the
waves; others as the product of a species of fermentation
in the water, occurring accidentally in
certain places. Many have attributed it to the
well-known phosphorescence of putrid fish, or to
the decomposition of their slime and exuviæ, and a
few only to the real cause, the voluntary illumination
of many distinct species of marine animals.
“The purpose for which this phosphorescence is
designed is lost in conjecture; but when we recollect
that fish are attracted to the net by the lights
of the fisherman, and that many of the marine shellfish
are said to leave their native element to crawl
around a fire built upon the beach, are we not
warranted in supposing that the animals of which
we have been speaking, are provided with these
luminous properties, in order to entice their prey
within their grasp?”
| III. The South-west | |