JANUARY 17. (Saturday.)
On Saturday, the 3rd, we managed to crawl over the
line,
and had no sooner got to the other side of it, than we were completely
becalmed ; and even when
we were able to resume our
progress, it was at such a pace that a careless observer might
have been pardoned foe mistaking our manner of moving for a
downright standstill. Day after day produced nothing better
for us than baffling winds, so light that we scarcely made tow
miles and hour, and so variable that the sails could be scarcely set
in one direction before it became necessay to shift them to another;
while the monotony of our voyage was only broken by
an occasional thunder-storm, the catching of stray dolphin now
and then, watching a shoal of flying-fish, or guessing at the complexion of
the corsairs on board
some vessel in the offing : for
the Caribbean Sea is now dabbed all over like apainter's pallette with
corsairs of all colours,—black from St. Domingo,
brown from Carthagena, white from North America, and peagreen from
the Cape de Verd
Islands. On the afternoon of the
4th, one of them was no very great distance from us ; she
hoisted English colours on seeing ours ; but there was little
doubt, from her peculiar appearance, that she was aprivateer
from Carthagena. She set her head towards us, and seemed to
be doing her best to come to a nearer aquaintance ; but the
same calm which hindered us from bravely running away from
her, hindered her also from reaching us, although at nightfall
she seemed to have gained upon us. In the night we had a violent
thunder-storm, and the next
morning she was not to be seen.
Still we continued to creep and to crawl, grumbling and growling, till on
Sunday, the 11
th, the
long-looked-for breeze came at
last. The trade-wind began to blow with all its might and main
right in the vessel's poop, and sent us forward at a rate of 200
miles a -day. We passed between Deseada and Antigua in the
night of the 15th ; and, on the 16th, the rising sun showed us
the island-mountain of Montserrat ; the sight of which was
scarcley less agreeable to our eyes from its romantic beauty,
than welcome from its giving us the assurance that out longwinded voyage
is at length drawing
towards its termination.
