 | IV. The South-west |  |
4. IV.
Land—Abaco—Fleet—Hole in the Wall—A wrecker's hut—
Bahama vampyres—Light houses—Conspiracy—Wall of Abaco
—Natural Bridge—Cause—Night scene—Speak a packet ship
—A floating city—Wrecker's lugger—Signal of distress—A
Yankee lumber brig—Portuguese Man-of-War.
“Land ho!” shouted a voice both loud and long,
apparently from the clouds, just as we had comfortably
laid ourselves out yesterday afternoon for our
customary siesta.
“Where away?” shouted the captain, springing
to the deck, but not so fast as to prevent our tumbling
over him, in the head-and-heels projection of
our bodies up the companion-way, in our eagerness
to catch a glimpse, once more, of the grassy earth;
of something at least stationary.
“Three points off the weather bow,” replied the
man aloft.
“Where is it?”—“which way?” “I see it”—“Is
that it captain—the little hump?” were the eager
exclamations and inquiries of the enraptured passengers,
who, half beside themselves, were peering,
straining, and querying, to little purpose.
It was Abaco—the land first made by vessels
bound to New Orleans or Cuba, from the north.
it from the small blue clouds, which, resting, apparently,
on the sea, floated near the verge of the
southern horizon. But with the spy glass, we could
discern it more distinctly, and less obscured by that
vail of blue haze, which always envelopes distant
objects when seen from a great distance at sea, or
on land.
As we approached, its azure vail gradually faded
away, and it appeared to our eyes in its autumnal
gray coat, with all its irregularities of surface and
outline clearly visible.
Slightly altering our course, in order to weather
its southern extremity, we ran down nearly parallel
with the shores of the island that rose apparently
from the sea, as we neared it, stretching out upon
the water like a huge alligator, which it resembled
in shape. Sail after sail hove in sight as we coasted
pleasantly along with a fine breeze, till, an hour before
the sun went down, a large wide-spreading
fleet could be discerned from the deck, lying becalmed,
near the extreme southern point of Abaco,
which, stretching out far into the sea, like a wall
perforated with an arched gateway near the centre,
is better known by the familiar appellation of
“The Hole in the Wall.”
“There is a habitation of some sort,” exclaimed
one of the passengers, whose glass had long been
hovering over the island.
“Where—where?” was the general cry, and
closer inspection from a dozen eyes, detected a
so wild and wretched in appearance, that we
unanimously refused it the honor of
“— A local habitation and a name!”
had seen for many a day; and notwithstanding our
vote of non-acceptance, it was not devoid of interest
in our eyes. It was evidently the abode
of some one of those demi sea-monsters, called
“Wreckers,” who, more destructive than the waves,
prey upon the ship-wrecked mariner. The Bahamas
swarm with these wreckers who, in small lugger-sloops,
continually prowl about among the islands,
“When the demons of the tempest rave,”
storm-tossed vessel, should it be driven among the
rocks or shoals with which this region abounds.
At midnight, when the lightning for a moment
illumines the sky and ocean, the white sail of the
wrecker's little bark, tossing amid the storm upon
the foaming billows, will flash upon the eyes of the
toiling seamen as they labour to preserve their
vessel, striking their souls with dread and awakening
their easily excited feelings of superstition.
Like evil spirits awaiting at the bed-side the release
of an unannealed soul, they hover around the struggling
ship through the night, and, flitting away at
the break of morning, may be discovered in the
the horizon with a sailor's hearty blessing sent after
them.
That light-houses have not been erected on the
dangerous head-lands and reefs which line the Bahama
channel, is a strange oversight or neglect on
the part of the governments of the United States
and England, which of all maritime nations are most
immediately concerned in the object. Suitable
light-houses on the most dangerous points, would
annually save, from otherwise inevitable destruction,
many vessels and preserve hundreds of valuable
lives. The profession of these marauders would
be, in such a case, but a sinecure; provided they
would allow the lights to remain. But, unless each
tower were converted into a well-manned gun-battery
the piratical character of these men will preclude
any hope of their permanent establishment.
Men of their buccaneering habits are not likely to
lie quietly on their oars, and see their means of
livelihood torn from them by the secure navigation
of these waters. They will sound, from island to
island, the tocsin for the gathering of their strength,
and concentrate for the destruction of these enemies
to their honest calling, before they have cast
their cheering beams over these stormy seas a
score of nights.
As we approached the Hole in the Wall, the
breeze which we had brought down the channel, stole
in advance and set in motion the fleet of becalmed
vessels, which rolled heavily on the long, groundswell,
about a league ahead of us. The spur or
is a high, wall-like ridge of rock, whose surface
gradually inclines from the main body of the island
to its abrupt termination about a quarter of a league
into the sea. As we sailed along its eastern side
we could not detect the opening from which it derives
its name. The eye met only a long black wall
of rock, whose rugged projections were hung with
festoons of dark purple sea-weed, and around whose
base the waters surged, with a roar heard distinctly
by us, three miles from the island.
On rounding the extremity of the headland, and
bearing up a point or two, the arch in the Cape
gradually opened till it became wholly visible, apparently
about half the altitude of, and very similar
in appearance to the Natural bridge in Virginia.
The chasm is irregularly arched, and broader at
thirty feet from the sea than at its base. The water
is of sufficient depth, and the arch lofty enough, to
allow small fishing vessels to pass through the aperture,
which is about one hundred feet in length
through the solid rock. There is a gap which
would indicate the former existence of a similar
cavity, near the end of this head-land. A large,
isolated mass of rock is here detached from the
main wall, at its termination in the sea, which was
undoubtedly, at some former period, joined to it by
a natural arch, now fallen into the water, as, probably,
will happen to this within a century.
These cavities are caused by the undermining of
the sea, which, dashing unceasingly against the
foundations of the wall, shatters and crumbles it by
and loosens large fragments of the rock, that
easily yield and give way to its increased violence;
while the upper stratum, high beyond the reach of
the surge, remains firm, and, long after the base has
crumbled into the sea, arches over like a bridge the
chasm beneath. By and by this falls by its own
weight, and is buried beneath the waves.
As the shades of night fell over the sea, and veiled
the land from our eyes, we had a fresh object of excitement
in giving chase to the vessels which, as the
sun went down among them, were scattered thickly
along the western horizon far ahead of us—ships,
brigs, and schooners, stretching away under all sail
before the evening breeze to the south and west.
We had lost sight of them after night had set in,
but at about half past eight in the evening, as well all
were peering through the darkness, upon the qui
vive for the strangers, a bright light flashed upon
our eyes over the water, and at the same moment
the look-out forward electrified us with the cry—
“A ship dead ahead, sir!”
The captain seized his speaking-trumpet, and
sprang to the bows; but we were there before him,
and discovered a solitary light burning at the base
of a dark pyramid, which towered gloomily in the
obscurity of the night. The outline of the object
was so confused and blended with the sky, that we
could discern it but indistinctly. To our optics it
appeared, as it loomed up in the night-haze, to be a
ship of the largest class. The spy glass was in immediate
requisition, but soon laid aside again.
Let me inform you that “DAY and NIGHT” marked
upon the tube of a spyglass, signifies that it may
be used in the day, and kept in the beckets at night.
We had been gathered upon the bowsprit and
forecastle but a few seconds, watching in silence
the dark moving tower on the water before us, as
we approached it rapidly, when we were startled by
the sudden hail of the stranger, who was now hauling
up on our weather bow—
“Ship-ahoy!” burst loudly over the water from
the hoarse throat of a trumpet.
“Ahoy!” bellowed our captain, so gently back
again through the ship's trumpet, that the best “bull
of Bashan” might have envied him his roar.
“What ship's that?”
“The Plato of Portland,” with a second bellow
which was a very manifest improvement upon the
preceding.
“Where bound?”
“New-Orleans!”
Now came our turn to play the querist. “What
ship's that?”
“The J. L., eleven days from New-York, bound
to New-Orleans.”
“Ay, ay—any news?”
“No, nothing particular.”
We again moved on in silence; sailing in company,
but not always in sight of each other, during
the remainder of the night.
A delightful prospect met our eyes, on coming on
deck the morning after making the Hole in the
Wall. The sea was crowded with vessels, bearing
fortuitous circumstance, a fleet of vessels, bearing
the flags of various nations, had arrived in the Bahama
channel at the same time, and now, were
amicably sailing in company, borne by the same
waves—wafted by the same breeze, and standing
toward the same point. Our New-York friend, for
whom, on casting our eyes over the lively scene we
first searched, we discovered nearly two leagues
from us to the windward, stretching boldly across the
most dangerous part of the Bahama Banks, instead
of taking, with the rest of the fleet, the farther but less
hazardous course down the “Channel”—if a few
inches more of water than the Banks are elsewhere covered
with, may with propriety be thus denominated.
A little to the south of us, rocking upon the
scarcely rising billows, was a rough clumsy looking
craft, with one low, black mast, and amputated
bowsprit, about four feet in length, sustaining a jib
of no particular hue or dimensions. Hoisted upon
the mast, was extended a dark red painted mainsail,
blackened by the smoke, which, issuing from a
black wooden chimney amidships, curled gracefully
upward and floated away on the breeze in thin blue
clouds. A little triangular bit of red bunting fluttered
at her mast head; and, towed by a long line
at her stern, a little green whale-boat skipped and
danced merrily over the waves. Standing, or rather
reclining at the helm—for men learn strangely indolent
postures in the warm south—with a segar between
his lips, and his eye fixed earnestly upon the
J. L., was a black-whiskered fellow, whose head
by a tassel, which dangled over his left ear.
A blue flannel shirt, and white flowing trowsers,
with which his body and limbs were covered, were
secured to his person by a red sash tied around the
waist, instead of suspenders. Two others similarly
dressed, and as bountifully bewhiskered, leaned listlessly
over the side gazing at our ship, as she dashed
proudly past their rude bark. A negro, whose
charms would have been unquestionable in Congo,
was stretched, apparently asleep, along the main-boom,
which one moment swung with him over
the water, and the next supended him over his
chimney, whose azure incense ascended from his
own altar, to this ebony deity, in clouds of grateful
odour.
“What craft do you call that?” inquired one of
the passengers of the captain.
“What? It's a wrecker's lugger.—Watch him
now!”
At the moment he spoke, the lugger dropped
astern of us, came to a few points—hauled close on
the wind, and then gathering headway, bounded off
with the speed of the wind in the direction of the
New-York packet ship, which the wrecker's quicker
and more practised eye had detected displaying signals
of distress. Turning our glasses in the direction
of the ship, we could see that she had grounded
on the bank, thereby affording very ample illustration
of the truth of the proverb, “The more haste
the less speed.”
About the middle of the forenoon the wind died
a brig loaded with lumber. The remaining vessels
of the fleet were fast dispersing over the sea—this
Yankee “fruiterer” being the only one sailing within
a league of us.
These lumber vessels, which are usually loaded
with shingles, masts, spars, and boards, have been
long the floating mines of Maine. But as her
forests disappear, which are the veins from whence
she draws the ore, her sons will have to plough the
earth instead of the ocean. Then, and not till then,
will Maine take a high rank as an agricultural state.
The majority of men who sail in these lumber vessels
are both farmers and sailors; who cultivate
their farms at one season, fell its timber and sail
away with it in the shape of boards and shingles to
a West India mart at another. Jonathan is the
only man who knows how to carry on two trades at
one time, and carry them on successfully.
For their lumber, which they more frequently
barter away than sell, they generally obtain a return
cargo of molasses, which is converted by our “sober
and moral” fellow-countrymen into liquid gunpowder,
in the vats of those numerous distilleries, which,
like guide—posts to the regions of death, line the sea
skirts of New-England!
The smooth bottom, above which we were suspended,
through the deceptive transparency of the
water, appeared, though eighteen feet beneath us,
within reach of the oar. But there were many objects
floating by upon the surface, which afforded
us more interest than all beneath it.
Among these was the little nautilus which, gaily
dancing over the waves, like a Lilliputian mariner,
“Spreads his thin oar and courts the rising gale.”
by a breeze gentler than an infant's breathing. We
endeavoured to secure one of them more beautiful
than its fellows, but like a sensitive plant it instantly
shrunk at the touch, and sunk beneath the surface;
appearing beneath the water, like a little, animated
globule tinged with the most delicate colours. This
singular animal is termed by the sailors, “The
Portuguee' man-o'-war,” from what imaginary resemblance
to the war vessels of His Most Christian
Majesty I am at a loss to determine; unless
we resort for a solution of the mystery to a jacktar,
whom I questioned upon the subject—
“It's cause as how they takes in all sail, or goes
chuck to bottom, when it 'gins to blow a spankin'
breeze,”—truly a fine compliment to the navarchy
of Portugal!
This animal is a genus of the mollusca tribe,
which glitters in the night on the crest of every
bursting wave. In the tropical seas it is found
riding over the gently ruffled billows in great numbers,
with its crystalline sail expanded to the light
breeze—barks delicate and tiny enough for fairy
“Queen Mab.” Termed by naturalists pharsalia,
from its habit of inflating its transparent sail, this
splendid animal is often confounded with the nautilus
pompilius, a genus of marine animals of an entirely
distinct species, and of a much ruder appearance,
where in the tropical seas, while the living animal
is found swimming upon the ocean in every latitude.
Dr. Coates, in describing the Portuguese man-of--war
(pharsalia) says, that “it is an oblong animated
sack of air, elongated at one extremity into a conical
neck, and surmounted by a membraneous expansion
running nearly the whole length of the body,
and rising above into a semi-circular sail, which can
be expanded or contracted to a considerable extent
at the pleasure of the animal. From beneath the
body are suspended from ten to fifty, or more little
tubes, from half an inch to an inch in length, open
at their lower extremity, and formed like the flower
of the blue bottle. These I cannot but consider as
proper stomachs, from the centre of which depends
a little cord, never exceeding the fourth of an inch
in thickness, and often forty times as long as the
body.
“The group of stomachs is less transparent, and
although the hue is the same as that of the back,
they are on this account incomparably less elegant.
By their weight and form they fill the double office
of a keel and ballast, while the cord-like appendage,
which floats out for yards behind, is called by seamen
“the cable.” With this organ, which is supposed
by naturalists, from the extreme pain felt,
when brought in contact with the back of the hand,
to secrete a poisonous or acrid fluid, the animal secures
his prey.” But in the opinion of Dr. C. naturalists
in deciding upon this mere hypothesis have
concluded too hastily. He says that the secret will
of the organ itself. “The cord is composed of a
narrow layer of contractile fibres, scarcely visible
when relaxed, on account of its transparency. If
the animal be large, this layer of fibres will sometimes
extend itself to the length of four or five yards.
A spiral line of blue, bead-like bodies, less than the
head of a pin, revolves around the cable from end
to end, and under the microscope these beads appear
covered with minute prickles so hard and sharp
that they will readily enter the substance of wood,
adhering with such pertinacity that the cord can
rarely be detached without breaking.
“It is to these prickles that the man-of-war owes
its power of destroying animals much its superior in
strength and activity. When any thing becomes
impaled upon the cords, the contractile fibres are
called into action, and rapidly shrink from many
feet in length to less than the same number of inches,
bringing the prey within reach of the little tubes, by
one of which it is immediately swallowed.
“Its size varies from half an inch to six inches
in length. When it is in motion the sail is accommodated
to the force of the breeze, and the
elongated neck is curved upward, giving to the animal
a form strongly resembling the little glass
swans which we sometimes see swimming in goblets.
“It is not the form, however, which constitutes
the chief beauty of this little navigator. The lower
part of the body and the neck are devoid of all
colours except a faint irridescence in reflected
lights, and they are so perfectly transparent that the
them. The back becomes gradually tinged as we
ascend, with the finest and most delicate hues that
can be imagined; the base of the sail equals the
purest sky in depth and beauty of tint; the summit
is of the most splendid red, and the central part is
shaded by the gradual intermixture of these colours
through all the intermediate grades of purple.
Drawn as it were upon a ground-work of mist, the
tints have an aerial softness far beyond the reach
of art.”
| IV. The South-west | |