APRIL 15.
At noon this day we found ourselves once more sailing on the
Atlantic, and bade farewell to the Gulf of Florida without having heard
any news of the dreaded
Commodore Mitchell. The
narrow and dangerous part of the Gulf is about two hundred
miles in length, and fifty in breadth, bordered on one side by the
coast of Florida, and on the other, first by Cuba, and then by
the Bahama Islands, of which the Manilla reef forms the ex-tremity, which reef also terminates the Gulf. But on both
sides of these two hundred miles, at the distance of about four
or five miles from the main-land, there extends a reef which
renders the navigation extremely dangerous. This reef is broken
at intervals by large inlets; and the sudden and violent squalls
of wind to which the Gulf is subject, so frequently drive vessels
into these perilous openings, that it is worth the while of many
of the poorer inhabitants of Florida to establish their habitations
within the reef, and devote themselves and their small vessels
entirely to the occupation of assisting vessels in distress. They
as known by the general name of " wreckers," and are allowed
a certain salvage upon such ships as they may rescue. As a
proof of the violence of the gales which are occasionally experienced in
this gulf, our captain,
about nine years ago, saw the
wind suddenly take a vessel (which had unwisely suffered her
canvass to stand, while the rest of the ships under convoy had
taken theirs in) turn her completely over, the sails in the
water and the keel uppermost. It happened about four o'clock
in the afternoon the captain and the passengers were at dinner
in the cabin ; but as she went over very leisurely, they and the
crew had time allowed them to escape out of the windows and
port-holes, and sustain themselves upon the rigging, till boats
from, the ships near them could arrive to take them off. As she
filled, she gradually sunk, and in a quarter of an hour she had
totally disappeared.
