24. CHAPTER XXIV.
INTRODUCTORY TO CAPE HORN.
And now, through drizzling fogs and vapors, and under
damp, double-reefed top-sails, our wet-decked frigate drew
nearer and nearer to the squally Cape.
Who has not heard of it? Cape Horn, Cape Horn—a
horn indeed, that has tossed many a good ship. Was the descent
of Orpheus, Ulysses, or Dante into Hell, one whit more
hardy and sublime than the first navigator's weathering of
that terrible Cape?
Turned on her heel by a fierce West Wind, many an outward-bound
ship has been driven across the Southern Ocean
to the Cape of Good Hope—that way to seek a passage to the
Pacific. And that stormy Cape, I doubt not, has sent many
a fine craft to the bottom, and told no tales. At those ends
of the earth are no chronicles. What signify the broken spars
and shrouds that, day after day, are driven before the prows
of more fortunate vessels? or the tall masts, imbedded in icebergs,
that are found floating by? They but hint the old
story—of ships that have sailed from their ports, and never
more have been heard of.
Impracticable Cape! You may approach it from this direction
or that—in any way you please—from the East, or from
the West; with the wind astern, or abeam, or on the quarter;
and still Cape Horn is Cape Horn. Cape Horn it is
that takes the conceit out of fresh-water sailors, and steeps in
a still salter brine the saltest. Woe betide the tyro; the foolhardy,
Heaven preserve!
Your Mediterranean captain, who with a cargo of oranges
has hitherto made merry runs across the Atlantic, without so
much as furling a t'-gallant-sail, oftentimes, off Cape Horn,
receives a lesson which he carries to the grave; though the
grave—as is too often the case—follows so hard on the lesson
that no benefit comes from the experience.
Other strangers who draw nigh to this Patagonia termination
of our Continent, with their souls full of its shipwrecks
and disasters—top-sails cautiously reefed, and every thing
guardedly snug—these strangers at first unexpectedly encountering
a tolerably smooth sea, rashly conclude that the Cape,
after all, is but a bugbear; they have been imposed upon by
fables, and founderings and sinkings hereabouts are all cock-and-bull
stories.
“Out reefs, my hearties; fore and aft set t'-gallant-sails!
stand by to give her the fore-top-mast stun'-sail!”
But, Captain Rash, those sails of yours were much safer in
the sail-maker's loft. For now, while the heedless craft is
bounding over the billows, a black cloud rises out of the sea;
the sun drops down from the sky; a horrible mist far and
wide spreads over the water.
“Hands by the halyards! Let go! Clew up!”
Too late.
For ere the ropes' ends can be cast off from the pins, the
tornado is blowing down to the bottom of their throats. The
masts are willows, the sails ribbons, the cordage wool; the
whole ship is brewed into the yeast of the gale.
And now, if, when the first green sea breaks over him, Captain
Rash is not swept overboard, he has his hands full, be
sure. In all probability his three masts have gone by the
board, and, raveled into list, his sails are floating in the air.
Or, perhaps, the ship broaches to, or is brought by the lee. In
either case, Heaven help the sailors, their wives, and their
little ones; and Heaven help the underwriters.
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but
less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest
round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly. A veteran
mariner is never deceived by the treacherous breezes which
sometimes waft him pleasantly toward the latitude of the
Cape. No sooner does he come within a certain distance of it—
previously fixed in his own mind—than all hands are turned to
setting the ship in storm-trim; and, never mind how light the
breeze, down come his t'-gallant-yards. He “bends” his strongest
storm-sails, and lashes every thing on deck securely. The
ship is then ready for the worst; and if, in reeling round the
headland, she receives a broadside, it generally goes well with
her. If ill, all hands go to the bottom with quiet consciences.
Among sea-captains, there are some who seem to regard the
genius of the Cape as a willful, capricious jade, that must be
courted and coaxed into complaisance. First, they come
along under easy sail; do not steer boldly for the headland,
but tack this way and that—sidling up to it. Now they woo
the Jezebel with a t'-gallant-studding-sail; anon, they deprecate
her wrath with double-reefed-top-sails. When, at length,
her unappeasable fury is fairly aroused, and all round the dismantled
ship the storm howls and howls for days together,
they still persevere in their efforts. First, they try unconditional
submission; furling every rag and heaving to; laying
like a log, for the tempest to toss wheresoever it pleases.
This failing, they set a spencer or try-sail, and shift on the
other tack. Equally vain! The gale sings as hoarsely as
before. At last, the wind comes round fair; they drop the
fore-sail; square the yards, and scud before it: their implacable
foe chasing them with tornadoes, as if to show her insensibility
to the last.
Other ships, without encountering these terrible gales, spend
week after week endeavoring to turn this boisterous world-corner
against a continual head-wind. Tacking hither and
thither, in the language of sailors, they polish the Cape by
beating about its edges so long.
Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first navigators
who weathered Cape Horn. Previous to this, passages
had been made to the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan;
nor, indeed, at that period, was it known to a certainty that
there was any other route, or that the land now called Terra
Del Fuego was an island. A few leagues southward from
Terra Del Fuego is a cluster of small islands, the Diegoes;
between which and the former island are the Straits of Le
Mair, so called in honor of their discoverer, who first sailed
through them into the Pacific. Le Mair and Schouten, in
their small, clumsy vessels, encountered a series of tremendous
gales, the prelude to the long train of similar hardships which
most of their followers have experienced. It is a significant
fact, that Schouten's vessel, the
Horne, which gave its name
to the Cape, was almost lost in weathering it.
The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis Drake,
who, on Raleigh's Expedition, beholding for the first time,
from the Isthmus of Darien, the “goodlie South Sea,” like a
true-born Englishman, vowed, please God, to sail an English
ship thereon; which the gallant sailor did, to the sore discomfiture
of the Spaniards on the coasts of Chili and Peru.
But perhaps the greatest hardships on record, in making
this celebrated passage, were those experienced by Lord Anson's
squadron in 1736. Three remarkable and most interesting
narratives record their disasters and sufferings. The
first, jointly written by the carpenter and gunner of the
Wager; the second, by young Byron, a midshipman in the
same ship; the third, by the chaplain of the Centurion.
White-Jacket has them all; and they are fine reading of a
boisterous March night, with the casement rattling in your
ear, and the chimney-stacks blowing down upon the pavement,
bubbling with rain-drops.
But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend
Dana's unmatchable “Two Years Before the Mast.” But
you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters
describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle.
At the present day the horrors of the Cape have somewhat
abated. This is owing to a growing familiarity with it; but,
more than all, to the improved condition of ships in all respects,
and the means now generally in use of preserving the
health of the crews in times of severe and prolonged exposure.
