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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
one of which places he expected to sail himself, with his wife
and daughter, in the course of a few months. I knew he had
had one appointment, thought he might receive another, and
hoped everything would turn out for the best.
The Crisis sailed on her day; and she went to sea from the
Downs, a week later, with a smacking southerly wind. Our
Philadelphians turned out a noble set of fellows; and we had
the happiness of beating an English sloop-of-war, just as we
got clear of the channel, in a fair trial of speed. To lessen our
pride a little, a two-decker that was going to the Mediterranean, treated us exactly in the same manner, only three days
later. What made this last affair more mortifying, was the fact
that Marble had just satisfied himself, and all hands, that, a
sloop-of-war being the fastest description of vessel, and we
having got the better of one of them, it might be fairly inferred
we could outsail the whole British navy. I endeavoured to console him, by reminding him that “the race was not always to
the swift.” He growled out some sort of an answer, denouncing
all sayings, and desiring to know out of what book I had picked
up that nonsense.
I have no intention of dwelling on every little incident
that occurred on the long road we were now travelling. We
touched at Madeira, and landed an English family that went
there for the benefit of an invalid; got some fruit, fresh meat
and vegetables, and sailed again. Our next stopping-place was
Rio, whither we went for letters from home, the captain being
taught to expect them. The ship’s letters were received, and
they were filled with eulogiums on our good conduct, having
been written after the arrival of la Dame de Nantes; but great
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
was my disappointment on finding there was not even a scrawl
for myself.
Our stay at Rio was short, and we left port with a favourable slant of wind, running as far north as 50°, in a very short
time. As we drew near to the southern extremity of the American continent, however, we met with heavy weather and foul
winds. We were now in the month that corresponds to November in the northern hemisphere, and had to double The
Horn at that unpropitious season of the year, going westward.
There is no part of the world of which navigators have given
accounts so conflicting, as of this celebrated passage. Each man
appears to have described it as he found it, himself, while no
two seem to have found it exactly alike. I do not remember
to have ever heard of calms off Cape Horn; but light winds
are by no means uncommon, though tempests are undoubtedly the predominant characteristic. Our captain had already
been round four times, and he held the opinion that the season made no difference, and that it was better to keep near
the land. We shaped our course accordingly for Staten Land,
intending to pass through the Straits of Le Maire and hug the
Horn, as close as possible, in doubling it. We made the Falkland Islands, or West Falkland rather, just as the sun rose, one
morning, bearing a little on our weather-quarter, with the
wind blowing heavily at the eastward. The weather was thick,
and, what was still worse, there was so little day, and no moon,
that it was getting to be ticklish work to be standing for a passage as narrow as that we aimed at. Marble and I talked the
matter over, between ourselves, and wished the captain could
be persuaded to haul up, and try to go to the eastward of the
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
island, as was still possible, with the wind where it was. Still,
neither of us dared propose it; I, on account of my youth, and
the chief-mate, as he said, on account of “the old fellow’s obstinacy.” “He likes to be poking about in such places,” Marble
added, “and is never so happy as when he is running round the
ocean in places where it is full of unknown islands, looking
for sandal wood, and bêche-la-mar! I’ll warrant you, he’ll give
us a famous time of it, if he ever get us up on the North-West
Coast.” Here the consultation terminated, we mates believing
it wiser to let things take their course.
I confess to having seen the mountains on our weatherquarter disappear, with melancholy forebodings. There was
little hope of getting any observation that day; and to render
matters worse, about noon, the wind began to haul more to
the southward. As it hauled, it increased in violence, until, at
midnight, it blew a gale; the commencement of such a tempest
as I had never witnessed in any of my previous passages at sea.
As a matter of course, sail was reduced as fast as it became necessary, until we had brought the ship down to a close-reefed
main-top-sail, the fore-top-mast staysail, the fore-course, and
the mizen-staysail. This was old fashioned Canvass; the more
recent spencer being then unknown.
Our situation was now far from pleasant. The tides and
currents, in that high latitude, run with great velocity; and,
then, at a moment when it was of the greatest importance to
know precisely where the ship was, we were left to the painful uncertainty of conjecture, and theories that might be very
wide of the truth. The captain had nerve enough, notwithstanding, to keep on the larboard tack until daylight, in the
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
hope of getting in sight of the mountains of Terra del Fuego.
No one, now, expected we should be able to fetch through the
Straits; but it would be a great relief to obtain a sight of the
land, as it would enable us to get some tolerably accurate notions of our position. Daylight came at length, but it brought
no certainty. The weather was so thick, between a drizzling
rain, sea-mist and the spray, that it was seldom we could see a
league around us, and frequently not half a mile. Fortunately,
the general direction of the eastern coast of Terra del Fuego, is
from north-west to south-east, always giving us room to ware
off shore, provided we did not unexpectedly get embarrassed
in some one of the many deep indentations of that wild and
inhospitable shore.
Captain Williams showed great steadiness in the trying
circumstances in which we were placed. The ship was just far
enough south to render it probable she could weather Falkland Islands, on the other tack, could we rely upon the currents; but it would be ticklish work to undertake such a thing,
in the long, intensely dark nights we had, and thus run the
risk of finding ourselves on a lee shore. He determined, therefore, to hold on as long as possible, on the tack we were on,
expecting to get through another night, without coming upon
the land, every hour now giving us the hope that we were
drawing near to the termination of the gale. I presume he felt
more emboldened to pursue this course by the circumstance
that the wind evidently inclined to haul little by little, more
to the southward, which was not only increasing our chances
of laying past the islands, but lessened the danger from Terra
del Fuego.
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
Marble was exceedingly uneasy during that second night.
He remained on deck with me the whole of the morning watch;
not that he distrusted my discretion in the least, but because
he distrusted the wind and the land. I never saw him in so
much concern before, for it was his habit to consider himself a
timber of the ship, that was to sink or swim with the craft.
“Miles,” said he, “you and I know something of these
‘bloody currents,’ and we know they take a ship one way, while
she looks as fiercely the other as a pig that is dragged aft by the
tail. If we had run down the 50th degree of longitude, now, we
might have had plenty of sea-room, and been laying past the
Cape, with this very wind; but, no, the old fellow would have
had no islands in that case, and he never could be happy without half-a-dozen islands to bother him.”
“Had we run down the 50th degree of longitude,” I answered, “we should have had twenty degrees to make to get
round the Horn; whereas, could we only lay through the Straits
of Le Maire, six or eight of those very same degrees would carry
us clear of everything.”
“Only lay through the Straits of Le Maire, on the 10th November, or what is the same thing in this quarter of the world,
of May, and with less than nine hours of day-light! And such
day-light, too! Why, our Newfoundland fogs, such stuff as I
used to eat when a youngster and a fisherman, are high noon
to it! Soundings are out of the question hereabouts; and, before
one has hauled in the deep-sea, with all its line out, his cutwater may be on a rock. This ship is so weatherly and drags
ahead so fast, that we shall see terra firma before any one has
a notion of it. The old man fancies, because the coast of Fuego
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
trends to the north-west, that the land will fall away from us,
as fast as we draw towards it. I hope he may live long enough
to persuade all hands that he is right!”
Marble and I were conversing on the forecastle at the time,
our eyes turned to the westward, for it was scarcely possible
for him to look in any other direction, when he interrupted
himself, by shouting out – “hard up with the helm – spring
to the after-braces, my lads – man mizen-staysail downhaul!”
This set everybody in motion, and the captain and third-mate
were on deck in a minute. The ship fell off, as soon as we got
the mizen-staysail in, and the main-topsail touching. Gathering way fast, as she got the wind more aft, her helm threw
her stern up, and away she went like a top. The fore-topmast
staysail-sheet was tended with care, and yet the cloth emitted
a sound like the report of a swivel, when the sail first filled
on the other tack. We got the starboard fore-tack forward,
and the larboard sheet aft, by two tremendously severe drags,
the blocks and bolts seeming fairly to quiver, as they felt the
strains. Everything succeeded, however, and the Crisis began
to drag off from the coast of Terra del Fuego, of a certainty;
but to go whither, no one could precisely tell. She headed up
nearly east, the wind playing about between south-and-byeast, and south-east-and-by-south. On that course, I own I had
now great doubt whether she could lay past the Falkland Islands, though I felt persuaded we must be a long distance from
them. There was plenty of time before us to take the chances
of a change.
As soon as the ship was round, and trimmed by the wind
on the other tack, Captain Williams had a grave conversation
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
with the chief-mate, on the subject of his reason for what he
had done. Marble maintained he had caught a glimpse of the
land ahead – “Just as you know I did of la Dame de Nantes,
Captain Williams,” he continued, “and seeing there was no
time to be lost, I ordered the helm hard up, to ware off shore.” I
distrusted this account, even while it was in the very process of
coming out of the chief mate’s mouth, and Marble afterwards
admitted to me, quite justly; but the captain either was satisfied, or thought it prudent to seem so. By the best calculations
I afterwards made, I suppose we must have been from fifteen to
twenty leagues from the land when we wore ship; but, as Marble said, when he made his private confessions, “Madagascar
was quite enough for me, Miles, without breaking our nose on
this sea-gull coast; and there may be ‘bloody currents’ on this
side of the Cape of Good Hope, as well as on the other. We’ve
got just so much of a gale and a foul wind to weather, and the
ship will do both quite as well with her head to the eastward,
as with her head to the westward.”
All that day the Crisis stood on the starboard tack, dragging through the raging waters as it might be by violence; and
just as night shut in again, she wore round, once more, with
her head to the westward. So far from abating, the wind increased, and towards evening we found it necessary to furl our
topsail and fore-course. Mere rag of a sail as the former had
been reduced to, with its four reefs in, it was a delicate job to
roll it up. Neb and I stood together in the bunt, and never did I
exert myself more than on that occasion. The foresail, too, was
a serious matter, but we got both sails in without losing either.
Just as the sun set, or as night came to increase the darkness
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
of that gloomy day, the fore-topmast-staysail went out of the
bolt-rope, with a report that was heard all over the ship; disappearing in the mist, like a cloud driving in the heavens. A few
minutes later, the mizen-staysail was hauled down in order to
prevent it from travelling the same road. The jerks even this
low canvass occasionally gave the ship, made her tremble from
her keel to her trucks.
For the first time, I now witnessed a tempest at sea. Gales,
and pretty hard ones, I had often seen; but the force of the
wind on this occasion, as much exceeded that in ordinary gales
of wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a whole-sail
breeze. The seas seemed crushed, the pressure of the swooping atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over
the surface of the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising;
or, where a mound of water did appear, it was scooped up and
borne off in spray, as the axe dubs inequalities from the log.
In less than an hour after it began to blow the hardest, there
was no very apparent swell – the deep breathing of the ocean
is never entirely stilled – and the ship was as steady as if hove
half out, her lower yard-arms nearly touching the water, an
inclination at which they remained as steadily as if kept there
by purchases. A few of us were compelled to go as high as the
futtock-shrouds to secure the sails, but higher it was impossible to get. I observed that when I thrust out a hand to clutch
anything, it was necessary to make the movement in such a
direction as to allow for lee-way, precisely as a boat quarters
the stream in crossing against a current. In ascending it was
difficult to keep the feet on the ratlins, and in descending, it
required a strong effort to force the body down towards the
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
centre of gravity. I make no doubt, had I groped my way up
to the cross-trees, and leaped overboard my body would have
struck the water, thirty or forty yards from the ship. A marlinspike falling from either top, would have endangered no one
on deck.
When the day returned, a species of lurid, sombre light
was diffused over the watery waste, though nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the sea-birds seemed to
have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent coast, none
re-appearing with the dawn. The air was full of spray, and it
was with difficulty that the eye could penetrate as far into the
humid atmosphere as half a mile. All hands mustered on deck,
as a matter of course, no one wishing to sleep at a time like
that. As for us officers, we collected on the forecastle, the spot
where danger would first make itself apparent, did it come
from the side of the land. It is not easy to make a landsman understand the embarrassments of our situation. We had had no
observations for several days, and had been moving about by
dead reckoning, in a part of the ocean where the tides run like
a mill-tail, with the wind blowing a little hurricane. Even now,
when her bows were half submerged, and without a stitch of
canvass exposed, the Crisis drove ahead at the rate of three or
four knots, luffing as close to the wind as if she carried aftersail. It was Marble’s opinion that, in such smooth water, do all
we could, the vessel would drive towards the much-dreaded
land again, between sun and sun of that short day, a distance
of from thirty to forty miles. “Nor is this all, Miles,” he added
to me, in an aside, “I no more like this ‘bloody current,’ than
that we had over on the other side of the pond, when we broke
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
our back on the rocks of Madagascar. You never see as smooth
water as this, unless when the wind and current are travelling
in the same direction.” I made no reply, but there all four of us,
the captain and his three mates, stood looking anxiously into
the vacant mist on our lee-bow, as if we expected every moment to behold our homes. A silence of ten minutes succeeded,
and I was still gazing in the same direction, when by a sort of
mystic rising of the curtain, I fancied I saw a beach of long
extent, with a dark-looking waste of low bottom extending inland, for a considerable distance. The beach did not appear to
be distant half a knot, while the ship seemed to glide along it,
as compared with visible objects on shore, at a rate of six or
eight miles the hour. It extended, almost in a parallel line with
our course, too, as far as could be seen, both astern and ahead.
“What a strange delusion is this!” I thought to myself, and
turned to look at my companions, when I found all looking,
one at the other, as if to ask a common explanation.
“There is no mistake here,” said captain Williams, quietly.
“That is land, gentlemen.”
“As true as the gospel,” answered Marble, with the sort of
steadiness despair sometimes gives. “What is to be done, sir?”
“What can be done, Mr. Marble? – We have not room to
ware, and, of the two, there seems, so far as I can judge more
sea-room ahead than astern.”
This was so apparent, there was no disputing it. We could
still see the land, looking low, chill, and of the hue of November; and we could also perceive that ahead, if anything, it fell
off a little towards the northward, while astern it seemingly
stretched in a due line with our course. That we passed it with
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