NOVEMBER 19. (Sunday.)
At one this morning a violent gust of wind came on; and, at
the rate of ten miles an hour, carried us through the Chops of
the Channel, formed by the Scilly Rocks and the Isle of Ushant.
But I thought that the advance was dearly purchased by the
terrible night which the storm made us pass. The wind roaring,
the waves dashing against the stern, till at last they beat in
the quarter gallery; the ship, too, rolling from side to side, as if
every moment she were going to roll over and over! Mr. J—
was heaved off one of the sofas, and rolled along, till
he was stopped by the table. He then took his seat upon the
floor, as the more secure position; and, half an hour afterwards,
another heave chucked him back again upon the sofa. The
captain snuffed out one of the candles, and both being tied to the
table, could not relight it with the other: so the steward came
to do it; when a sudden heel of the ship made him extinguish
the second candle, tumbled him upon the sofa on which I was
lying, and made the candle which he had brought with him fly
out of the candlestick, through a cabin window at his elbow;
and thus we were all left in the dark. Then the intolerable
noise! The cracking of bulk-heads! the sawing of ropes! the
screeching of the tiller! the trampling of the sailors! the clattering
of the crockery! Every thing above deck, and below deck
all in motion at once! Chairs, writing-desks, books, boxes,
bundles, fire-irons and fenders, flying to one end of the room;
and the next moment (as if they had made a mistake) flying
back again to the other with the same hurry and confusion!
"Confusion worse confounded!" Of all the inconveniences
attached to a vessel, the incessant noise appears to me the most
insupportable! As to our live stock, they seem to have made up
their minds on the subject, and say with one of Ariosto's knights
(when he was cloven from the head to the chine)," "or convien
morire." Our fowls and ducks are screaming and quacking their
last by dozens; and by Tuesday morning it is supposed that we
shall not have an animal alive in the ship, except the black
terrier-and my friend the squeaking pig, whose vocal powers
are still audible, maugre the storm and the sailors, and who (I
believe) only continues to survive out of spite, because he
can join in the general chorus, and help to increase the number
of abominable sounds. We are now tossing about in the Bay of Biscay: I shall
remember it as long as I live.
