When the “La Pallice” was about half a mile astern, she put her helm up to wear round on the same tack which we were on. At that moment the whole spectacle was a most thrilling one, ourselves plunging into a fierce head-sea, the flocks of sea-fowl whirling through the gale, and the angry sky, each contributed its part to the sombre picture; while a great rent in the western clouds cast a broad shaft of light through the gloom full upon the big Frenchman, now in the act of wearing. Even Captain Scruggs and the second mate were impressed with the solemnity of the scene until they were attracted by the actions of the stranger. She had now worn completely around on the port tack, and as she had passed us so close to windward, we all thought that she would come up on our lee-quarter. But what is this? Can it be possible that her captain is going to try to put himself on our weather to show how his ship can hold a wind? He can scarcely be so mad as that. On comes the ship, however, nearer and nearer; fathom by fathom she hauls up on us till she is not more than a quarter of a mile astern and not two hundred yards to windward, and we can plainly see the whole of her forefoot, as her great bows, shearing through a sea, are flung high up, and then come crushing down in a smother of foam. All of our men have crowded to the side, for here is a spectacle indeed: a vessel bearing down upon another hove to and without steerage-way! However, she has still time to put her wheel up and pass under our stern; but no such notion is entertained by the maniac in command of her, and he is pinching her till her weather-leeches shiver in his mad endeavor to pass us to windward; and as the ship rises to a sea and pauses for an instant on its crest, it seems as though she would topple right down upon us. At this juncture Captain Scruggs begins to grow anxious, as well he might, and mutters, “Is that d—— fool really going to try it?” Five minutes more pass, and it becomes evident that we must get out of her way or be cut down by that sharp iron stem. Now this is quite a long job, being hove to, for it would be at least several minutes before we could gather headway. But we must do something, so the skipper sings out, “Cast off those tackles,” and two men are sent to the wheel. Anxiously we watch to see her head fall off, but she stubbornly hangs. “Square that crojjick-yard.” This is done; and then very heavily and clumsily we fall off and begin to gather way. So close are we to the Frenchman now that we could talk to those on board if the wind were not so strong. But we are not out of danger yet, for the French skipper seems possessed of a devil, and follows us up, as his vessel appears to handle like a yacht. It is but a few minutes more, though, until we have put half a mile of clear water between ourselves and M. Crapeau, and the danger is, for the time being, a thing of the past.

All through the night, though, this demon ship haunted us, as if we were a magnet which resistlessly attracted her iron hull. I believe that if Captain Scruggs and the second mate could have laid hands on the French skipper, they would have strangled him. At supper, whither we repaired after the excitement, the captain delivered the following address: “If you see an English, or a Dutch, or a German, or a Danish, or a Norwegian, or an American vessel near you, don’t be afraid, for he’s all right. But if it’s a Frenchman or an Eyetalian, get behind the horizon just as soon as you can, for nobody can tell what he’s goin’ to do.”

During the night sail was made, the wind having dropped to force 7, and this morning broke fine, clear, and cold, and showed us the frog-eater to windward. Will it be credited that no sooner did he catch sight of us than he started down the wind toward us? At least, so it looked; but he had only squared away for Cape St. John, at the other end of the island, having evidently given up all hope of the Le Maire Straits.

We were presented with a beautiful view of the middle part of Staten Land this morning at eleven o’clock. It differs from the western end in that the snows, instead of being confined to the upper half of the mountains, appeared to reach down to the sea itself. How silent and cold the hills looked with the sun striking the sharp peaks and throwing its purple shadows across the great snow-fields between! So dazzling were the mountains that, had we not known them to be land, we would have supposed that they were icebergs. It is singular that such a scene is not one of desolation, but of immutable repose, and seems to partake of that calm, fascinating peace and quiet which so irresistibly attracts explorers to the Polar seas. It was a vista of enchantment, and it was difficult to believe that in the region of Cape Horn there existed scenes of such surpassing loveliness.

It was the captain’s intention to try the straits once more this afternoon; but, alas! the implacable westerly winds began to lash out again; and it is now, 3.30 P.M., blowing as hard as ever, the sky is covered with heavy snow-clouds, and everything is gloomy and dreary once more. We now have to light the lamps below to read by soon after two o’clock; this is the third day of westerly gales, and goodness knows how long they may have been blowing before we got down here; these are the winds which keep ships off Cape Horn for a month at a time. One of the most arduous and protracted passages of the Horn was that of Lord Anson on his famous voyage in 1740-41, when he was three months in doubling the stormy Cape; while in modern times the cases of the British ships “Natuna” and “The Hahnemann” offer examples of what the weather can do down here. They each made passages within the last year of about two hundred and thirty days from Great Britain to San Francisco. The “Natuna” had a particularly hard passage; she made four distinct attempts to round the Horn, but was driven back so far each time that Captain Fretwurst decided to square away for the Good Hope passage, which he did, running down the eighty-five degrees of longitude which separate the capes in nineteen days. The cargo was a miserable one, cement and creosote, and while off the Horn some of the casks containing the latter were stove, and the drinking-water became tainted with the disagreeable stuff. To the eastward of Good Hope the parrels of several of the yards carried away in a gale of wind, and the captain had to lash them with chains and wire, while he ran away over into 130° west before hauling up to the northward. The other vessel, “The Hahnemann,” had just as hard a passage, though she stuck to Cape Horn, and her captain died during the voyage. About eighty-five guineas premium had been paid on both vessels.

A curious phase of the weather to the northward and eastward of the Horn is that a westerly gale generally doesn’t blow steadily for more than twelve hours, when it will clear up for a while and then begin again; while fine, clear nights often succeed the most villanous weather during the daytime.

This morning we sent down the three sky-sail-yards and secured them on top of the forward house; this is the practice of some ship masters, while others never do so; but to strike them must certainly greatly relieve the strain on the backstays, for each sky-sail-yard, including sail and gear, weighs about seven hundred pounds, and the leverage of a ton one hundred and sixty feet from the fulcrum must be very considerable. Latitude, 54° 20′ south; longitude, 64° 20′ west.

July 13

All last night it blew a fresh breeze and we gradually fell away to leeward, and at two o’clock this morning the captain decided to abandon Le Maire and kept off for Cape St. John. When we went on deck after breakfast (it was too dark to see anything before eight o’clock) we were startled at the sight. Broadside on, and parallel with our course, lay the extreme eastern end of Staten Land, distant not more than two miles, with the tiny, cosy harbor of St. John just abeam. So close to the land were we that we could easily see the stunted evergreens that covered the hills up to the snow-line, which is much higher here than towards the middle of the island, where the breakers seem to fling their spray upon the fields of snow; while high up on a rugged mountain side there stood an isolated, lonely pine-tree, bringing to mind those exquisite lines of Heine:

Now that we had approached so closely we hoped to get some photographs of the hills, especially when the sun, bursting from a cloud on the horizon, threw his horizontal rays upon the distant peaks. But, alas! they showed up as nothing but a blur upon the finder. St. John, comparatively speaking, looked like a snug, comfortable little place, but hardly such a one as a man would voluntarily choose to winter in, as do a colony of hardy sealers. The harbor seems to be formed by a neck of land projecting out from the right-hand side of the entrance, upon the verge of which we perceived the diminutive light-house which guides the rugged South Shetland seal-catchers into safety. On the port hand going in, over against the light-house, rises a lofty cone composed of a single huge crag, standing sentry-like over the safe harbor within; while roundabout on all sides tower great, dark, scowling mountains and vast precipices, the harbor being in reality naught but a cleft in the hills, after the manner of a Scandinavian fjord. Yet the wild beauty of the place enchants one, and long before we had lost sight of the little light-house I had acknowledged to my wife that, after all, the thought of a winter spent in St. John was not such a very dreadful one, for the fascination of Nature in her grander forms far outweighs bodily inconveniences; it is safe to say that von Humboldt in the deep recesses of the Ecuadorian Andes and Hooker in the awful solitudes of the Himalayas often longed for even the rude comforts provided in a settlement like St. John.

We looked in vain with the glasses for the little steamer which makes regular, monthly trips to the Falkland Islands and at times even to Montevideo; but she was not visible, and was no doubt away on one of her voyages. A truly turbulent life in one sense this one on the little vessel, but hardly so dreary as the lives of the seal-fishers who winter at St. John, which is, I believe, the southernmost permanent settlement on the globe, and from October to April penetrate deep into the Southern Ocean in pursuit of their livelihood.

Two strange, natural formations attract the attention far out on Cape St. John. The first is a mass of gray rock perched upon the very brim of a vertical cliff, almost overhanging the surf that boils furiously around it, bearing a striking resemblance to an ancient feudal castle; and one can see, as it were, the high walls with heavy battlements, and the lofty crenellated towers of the massive edifice. The second object is another monolith so closely resembling the Sphinx that one starts on first catching sight of it, for it seems impossible that mere chance could produce so accurate a counterpart of the famous Egyptian monument.

Well, we have seen Staten Land almost in its entirety; and if we didn’t have the satisfaction of passing through the Le Maire Straits, we went a third of the distance in last Sunday morning; and we have beheld the cape and settlement of St. John, where the scenery is, if possible, even grander and more desolate than at the western end. How odd it is, by the way, if Cape St. Anthony, near the straits, should have been so called from the temptation that possesses mariners to pass through instead of going around the island, thereby often incurring great risk!

On issuing into the open sea we fell into a tide-rip caused by the swift currents meeting at the point of the land, this rip being at times so heavy as to fill the decks of large ships. A number of hail-squalls descended upon us here, and as the land at noontime had grown very dim, at that hour we had what I fear was our last glimpse of the sorrowful hills of Staten Land.

We found a long swell outside, but not nearly as much as we had anticipated, though we are as yet under shelter of the land. As for the wind, it is now almost calm, the hour being three in the afternoon; but there is nothing set above the topsails on account of frequent squalls of considerable violence. The men are now so heavily wrapped up in clothes as to resemble nothing so much as corpulent mummies. They have to waddle instead of walk, and many of them have tied pieces of gunny sacks over their rubber boots. This, singularly enough, is a wonderful protection against cold; and they assert that if nothing else is handy, by simply pulling a pair of heavy socks over their boots their feet do not grow numb. It is strange that it should be so cold with the mercury no lower than 36°; yet here are stout, hardy men who have to knock off work sometimes to beat some life into themselves when the mate isn’t looking. My own clothes now weigh twenty-two pounds, or seventeen without the boots; this includes three suits of underwear and a sheepskin coat with the wool on, just as it came from the flank of the animal. Every one knows how the spectators rattle and shake at a football game in spite of thick wraps when the thermometer is no lower than 50°; how much more penetrating it must be here, then, when the mercury is nearly twenty degrees lower, and when the atmosphere is charged with that bitterness peculiar to the air at sea in the higher latitudes!

It cannot be said that we have done particularly well so far on this voyage, for we have been nine weeks at sea this day and have only just pushed out into the Southern Ocean. I wonder how long it will be before we can point our jib-boom for the north star again? Latitude, 54° 50′ south; longitude, 63° 36′ west.

July 14

Last night was an almost perfect one, with moonlight nearly as bright as sunshine and the sky absolutely free from clouds. About the hour of sunset we witnessed what, for spectacular effects, was perhaps the finest scenery that we have had yet. At four o’clock all the mists, etc., that sailors call muck had disappeared, disclosing in its entire length of fifty miles the south side of Staten Land. This consists altogether of jagged rocks and fierce, angry peaks shooting up three thousand feet above the sea. The eastern or St. John end of the island was wrapped in gloom and shadow, while the rest of the land swept superbly down toward the west, stretching away in ridges of wonderfully fantastic beauty, the peaks near the straits soaring up grandly against a rich crimson glare where the sun had sunk behind a rift in the clouds. Gradually, however, the light was diffused over the entire western heavens, changing from soft golden tints to royal purples and scarlets, which spread over the glorious mountains a cloud-mantle almost supernatural in its marvellous hues. Imperceptibly, however, the bright colors began to wane and grow dull, shapes of dun vapor seemed to rise from the land, and at length darkness fell upon the deep and the mountains receded till engulfed in the blackness of night.

The scene on deck at 8.30 was also one long to be cherished, with the joyous, rosy light of advancing day in the northeast, the full moon slowly falling, a huge golden ball, behind the western horizon, and the tall, violet pyramid of the Bell Mountain on Tierra del Fuego rising out of the sea fair and soft, far away in the northwest. Ah, no one knows what the real beauties of the sea are until he has made at least one deep-water voyage in a sailing ship! The flying glimpse of the Atlantic that one catches from the deck of a steamer or the experiences of a midwinter voyage to the Mediterranean in a North German Lloyder gives one no true idea of what ocean life really is. No; to comprehend the sea in all of its splendid phases one must live on it for months at a time; for not till then can one fully appreciate that “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.”

Up to eleven o’clock this morning the weather was perfect and we carried the top-gallant-sails without trouble; we were heading our course southwest, and the sun looked down from a cloudless sky. As we went below at that hour we noticed a small bank dead ahead, but so insignificant that I didn’t think anything more about it until half an hour later, when, buried in the ice with Nansen, we became aware that it was growing very dark. The next second the ship heeled far over, and some one at the same instant cast off the spanker-halliards, the iron mast-hoops jingling noisily as the sail ran down. Of course we were on deck in another moment, and found that the wind had whipped around seven points and that a heavy squall had struck the ship aback; the great sails were swelled out inboard against the masts and backstays, while snow and sleet hurtled through the air in cutting blasts. Luckily, the top-gallant-sails had been clewed up a quarter of an hour before; but a large vessel in irons, even under short sail, in bad weather is a shocking sight. The captain was perfectly self-contained, however, and executed some rapid and precise manœuvres, no one losing his head except the mate, who went bellowing around the decks till brought to by the skipper’s angry commands, “Square that crojjick-yard; get the spencer brailed up. Call all hands. Stop that noise and single reef the fore- and maintop-sails.”

Oh, well hast thou earned thy reputation, boisterous and treacherous Cape! From bright skies and glorious sun-light we came in fifteen minutes to reefed topsails, sobbing decks, and flying snow, while the heavens were completely veiled in that puny cloud, which had expanded as though by the agency of some black art. “Here comes Cape Horn,” said MacFoy; and looking to windward, we beheld another sinister squall, dark with snow, bearing swiftly down upon us. A squall with snow in it can always be detected by its peculiarly black appearance. They rapidly increased in number and severity, until now, the middle of the afternoon watch, the wind seems to have settled down for a steady blow from somewhere between west and south. The glass is very unsteady at 29.25, 5 P.M. The wind has increased to a fresh gale, while a heavy swell is rolling magnificently up from the southwest. This is the first time that we have seen this heavy sea, as heretofore it has been cut off by Cape Horn itself. Every minute it seems to increase, and within forty-eight hours we will probably be surrounded by the huge rollers which have made this region so famous. Even now they are so large and steady that, as far as the apparent rise and fall is concerned when below, we might almost as well be in perfectly smooth water. Our experience of heavy seas has been that the largest of them do not move rapidly, and at the present time the ship mounts so leisurely to their summits that one cannot detect the motion. When below, it is only in the tremendous roll of the vessel as she mounts to the crests that one is conscious of the height of the seas.

From existing indications we are going to make quite a good bit of easting during the next twenty-four hours, for our course now is south-southeast, and as there is a strong easterly current running ceaselessly here, southeast will be nearer the true course. At noon we were thirteen miles north of Cape Horn, but still considerably to the eastward of it. Latitude, 55° 46′ south; longitude, 65° 48′ west.

July 15

Last evening we prepared for a dirty night, and we got it. As the captain and I were pacing the poop after supper, the moon then shining brightly in a clear sky, suddenly, from a bank in the southwest, so low and thin as to be almost invisible, there appeared a streak of light. “Wasn’t that a flash of lightning?” asked the captain. “I think it was,” said I; “it certainly looked like it.” “H’m,” said the skipper. Closely we watched the southern horizon, and within ten minutes perceived two more brilliant flashes. A more uncanny effect it would be difficult to imagine; for, except the insignificant stratum near the sea-line, no other cloud was visible in the heavens, and the vivid streaks produced a startling effect in the white moonlight. After a look at the glass, which stood at 29.15, the captain called the second mate, who was on watch, and ordered the upper foretop-sail clewed up and a reef tied in the foresail; the upper mizzentop-sail hasn’t been set for some time, as it generally comes in when the cross-jack is hauled up. The wind at the moment was from the west, force 6, a strong breeze, with that deep swell that seems to be as eternal in the Southern Ocean as the snows of Mount Everest. Quickly, though strangely imperceptibly, some small, windy-looking clouds grew and expanded over the heavens; and from eight last evening until daylight this morning it was a night of furious squalls, thick snow and hail, and high seas. Throughout the twelve hours we were under a single-reefed maintop-sail, ditto foresail and main-sail and the spencer. During the fifteen or twenty minutes that the squalls lasted the wind blew with terrific force and shrieked like a thousand steam sirens in the rigging, and then would follow a light spell, in which we might have carried everything.

Our first really hard squall came at 9.30, in the mate’s watch. It was accompanied with a sweeping snow-storm that drove in great drifts across the decks, the ship standing up like a church against the blasts and sliding comparatively dry over the big seas that came piling toward us out of the gloom, invisible till their foaming tops flashed out of the darkness to windward. It was a grand, wild scene, and as the heavier puffs went ripping through the shrouds with a peculiar scream, I thought, as I looked at the driving snow and the darkness and the raging ocean, that the Dusk of the Gods had come upon us. This squall lasted fully thirty minutes, and so heavy was the fall of snow that it took the watch some little time to shovel it overboard.

All through the night we were afflicted with these unwelcome visitors, variety being afforded by hail, which fell to the size of marrowfat pease, while along the lee alley-way, as that part of the poop is called between the cabin-house and the rail, crouched the forms of the seamen, for they are compelled to stay aft every night now, ready at an instant’s call, and not coiled away napping under the top-gallant forecastle. The helmsman, too, was kept busy, for every squall seemed to take us aback more or less, and the air rang with the voice of the officer of the watch, “Put your wheel up, there!”

It had never been our lot to witness so dismal a scene as that disclosed to us at a quarter-past eight this morning. A squall had just passed over us, and we were at the moment in a sickly calm, with a high, greasy sea, which broke sluggishly at intervals like frothing oil; the decks and weather-side of the masts and spars were covered inch deep with the wet, clammy snow that had just fallen, the canvas was flapping loudly against the masts in the great heaving rolls, and that miserable, leaden-hued struggle was passing between the breaking day and the wan, gibbous moon showing between the ragged clouds, which casts so wretched and melancholy a light over all objects. A more oppressive scene it would be impossible to picture, and it was the moment best suited to him determined upon ending forever his earthly career; while, as if to increase the desolate aspect, an immense albatross, nearly white with age, flew circling around the ship, driving before him the flock of pigeons that hovers continuously near us.

A rather distressing thought is that we are now well within the limit of ice, and that every degree farther south renders more probable the presence of some of these off-spring of the Antarctic Ice-King. This is offset, however, by the fact that most of the ice is seen more to the eastward of the Horn, and that it is usually not at all thick during the winter season. February is the worst month for those huge ice islands which render navigation in the Southern Ocean so hazardous an undertaking. Fortunately, at the summer season actual darkness off the Horn doesn’t last more than a couple of hours.

The temperature has fallen, too, and to-day reached the freezing point of fresh water, sea-water congealing at about 28°. To our surprise, the sun showed himself at noon, and though the horizon was bad, we got an approximately good sight, which showed that the orb was only 11° high, and that we were a degree south of Cape Horn and fifty miles east of it. Latitude, 56° 58′ south; longitude, 66° west.

July 16

Hove to in a heavy gale, Cape Horn in sight, bearing at noon east by north distant about fifteen miles! Yesterday afternoon it was very mild as far as wind was concerned, and I went down on the main-deck and did a lot of pumping to make up for the days lost through bad weather, when it was dangerous to try it. From the main-deck the seas looked infinitely larger than from the poop, the difference in elevation of six or seven feet making an immense difference in their apparent height. All through the early part of the night it was fine, and we set the upper mizzen-top-sail and the spanker. By the way, it is remarkable that a ship-rigged vessel will steer well with hardly any after-canvas set. For instance, for some time previously the only sail on the mizzen was the lower topsail; while forward were a jib, foretop-mast stay-sail, both topsails, and reefed foresail.

The squalls, too, eased up as the moon rose, and up to 2 A.M. the weather was fine. At midnight, though, a sinister movement was noticed in the aneroid, the needle rising rapidly from 29. Every one who knows Cape Horn understands what this signifies with a westerly breeze,—it means a gale of wind. True to precedent, when we went on deck after breakfast, the ship being then on the port tack, it was breezing rapidly. After each squall it blew harder and harder, with proportionally increasing sea, and the skipper ventured the opinion that we were going to see a Cape Horn “snorter.” At ten o’clock the main-sail had to come in, the ship from being driven too hard taking in large quantities of water, especially from the lee side. So both watches were called, and it was a spirited scene as the sturdy fellows stretched along the deck, heedless of the seas that thundered aboard every few minutes, while they manned the weather main-clew-garnet with a chorus that rose above the gale. Brave? A more courageous lot of men than Cape Horn foremast hands do not exist!

Here the old man thought he’d take a hand, though everything was running smoothly; so he hopped down on deck, sprang up on the main-hatch, and in thirty seconds so great was the distraction that the men didn’t know whether they were hauling on the main-buntlines or the jib-downhaul. The skipper commenced in what was for him a mild exhortation to “Pull away lively, now; pull away there.” But the men were thoroughly drenched by this time, and the teeth of the weaker were beginning to chatter; for of what use are oil-skins to a man in two or three feet of water, when he is constantly tripping on the slippery deck and flying headlong as the ship rolls? By and by the skipper began to swear, and then it was all up with everything; five minutes later he was in a whirling cyclonic passion. He fairly jigged upon the hatch in his frenzy, and thumped his chest with his right fist as he clung with his left to the lee lower maintop-sail-sheet, still urging the men to “pull away.” At length his temper so flew away with him that he seemed to strangle, and the last sentence we heard was, “Catch hold of any d—— thing and haul on it.”

In spite of him, however, both main-sail and foresail were hauled up in an hour and a half, the ship being then under lower topsails and spencer, and the captain announced his intention of wearing round after dinner, adding, “You could see Cape Horn now if it wasn’t for the snow.”

All this time the wind had been increasing, and by the time that dinner was over it had risen to a full gale. “Land on the lee beam,” sung out the lynx-eyed mate at one o’clock. We looked; and there, down to leeward, we perceived the most famous promontory in the world, the terrible Cape Horn itself, smothered in gloom, rising dimly out of the sea about fifteen miles away. “Brail up that spencer and stand by to wear ship.” “Ay, ay, sir,” cheerfully, for a hot meal had put life into the men. And now there followed a spectacle that it will be impossible ever to forget. The wind was roaring from the southwest a violent gale, accompanied with tremendous squalls blowing with inconceivable fury, swallowing us up in blinding snow. The ocean had assumed a terrible appearance, white as a snow-drift to windward; while at intervals we could see the breaking crest of some immense sea, towering high above the rest in his grand and stately progress. The helm was then put hard up, the main- and cross-jack-yards were squared, and we fell away dead before the wind.

For the next fifteen minutes a scene was enacted that absolutely defied a description worthy of it. The huge, shaggy seas came rushing along astern, full sixty feet from crest to trough; and when close by, if you wanted to follow their progress, you had to throw your head back as though looking up at a mountain peak, while they shook their white manes like wild horses, and it seemed as if they must crash over the stern. But no, the ship rode them superbly, and when she reached the crest of one, and we looked deep down into that dark-green, foam-streaked valley astern, we caught our breath as the billows ran under us and fell thundering upon the main-deck forward. The sight of the great ship with nothing set but the three lower topsails, flying before the gale, almost choked you with emotion. It was grand, it was fearfully sublime. It was the apotheosis of the power and majesty of God.

An albatross, too, in a storm is a wonderful sight. No matter how furious the gale, no matter how fierce the terrific, hurricane squalls of Cape Horn, the great bird soars up against the blast grim and serene. Then wheeling, he comes sweeping down on the wings of the gale at a speed so tremendous that it cannot be less than eighty or even ninety miles an hour, when, describing a low but immense circle, with the tip of his lee wing just brushing the tops of the giant seas, he again takes his flight upward against the storm. No living creature conveys the idea of boundless freedom so perfectly as the King of Space, the Wandering Albatross.

By two o’clock in the afternoon we had the relieving tackles on the tiller, and when darkness came after a sickly, pallid sunset, it found us hove to in a mountainous sea, with the same angry squalls yelling in savage, ruthless glee over this desert ocean. Latitude. 56° 12′ south; longitude, 67° 24′ west.

July 17

Last night the gale diminished somewhat; but at eleven o’clock the chain topping-lift of the spencer-gaff carried away, and we had to rig a makeshift with a tackle until to-day.

In yesterday’s log I forgot to mention an incident that happened which came very nearly being a lamentable accident. After we had worn around, at about thirty minutes past one, while some of the men were hauling taut the weather forebrace, we were boarded by an enormous sea that came whooping over the weather-side. The whole of the starboard watch, including the second mate, were hauling on the brace when the sea broke on board and fell directly upon them. I never saw anything like the scene that followed. The men absolutely disappeared from view. It was as though they had gone through the deck. Only once before had we seen so great a volume of water on a ship’s deck, and that was during our first voyage when we were hove down to the turnbuckles in the North Atlantic. Yesterday it was, at the very least, two feet deep on the level, and it filled the galley and carpenter-shop, putting out the fires in the donkey-boiler, and this through the lee doors. During all this time we looked in vain for the sight of a human being. Not one was to be seen on the main-deck, and the water was dashing up twenty or thirty feet into the air at every heave. Gradually it began to run off, and now and then a clumsy, yellow bundle loomed up out of a snarl of ropes, sat up for a second, and then went whizzing away to leeward. Again a man would gain his feet and clutch frantically at belaying-pins; but before he could support himself his legs would slide from under him, and he would be swept into the water-ways like a cork in a sluice.

When all but a few inches of water had run off, and it was deep only in the lee scuppers, we perceived a knot of men away aft wedged between the bitts and the rail not far from the cabin bulkhead, entangled in a fearful snarl of gear. So tightly were they packed away that at first it seemed as though there were only two men there; but one by one they crawled apart till three half-drowned sailors sat wabbling on the deck, and then we saw that another luckless creature was lying prone in the scuppers. Slowly and painfully he got his legs under him, and, waiting for a lurch, with an effort reached his feet. It was Mr. Rarx, one of the most powerful men on board, and he was gasping for breath. It seems that they had all been swept aft together, and all were badly used up, especially Mr. Rarx, who formed the base of the wedge. He says that he was completely under water for a good deal more than a minute.

We are beginning to regard deep-water sailors as little short of heroes. Indeed, they seem to me far more valiant than the battalions of soldiery that are hurled nowadays against little bands of savages. From 50° to 50° they and the dark cavern in which they live are soaking wet; they have no time to change their clothes, and no dry garments to put on if they had, for often, no sooner have the watch below kicked off their boots, actually filled to the brim with salt-water, than comes the cry, “All hands reef the maintop-sail,” and when that is done, “Haul up the main-sail” rings out, and there are two hours gone from their watch below. There is no such thing as throwing off their coats or even oil-skins when they turn in; nor would it be advisable in a leaky forecastle like this, with half an inch of water on the floor shooting up in their faces. Yet look at these men as they haul on the braces in a gale of wind, hardly able to keep their feet. Never a word of complaint at the weather have I heard yet. Calm and unmoved in the storms of spray and snow, they sing out as heartily as ever, grin good-naturedly up at the poop where we are standing dry and comfortable, and face the crest of a sea that rattles against them as if it were a summer shower. The more we see of forecastle life the more difficult is it to understand why men ever ship before the mast for a Cape Horn voyage.

It is pleasant to think that that wretched man Goggins was washing about in his room, too,—pleasant, because he continues to drive and haze the men down here when they are striving to do their utmost under such conditions. When he awoke last night in the middle watch he found several inches of water on the floor of his room, and he is wondering where it came from. Indeed, we had a shower-bath ourselves last night, for part of a sea fell on the poop, ran aft against the wheel-house when the bows rose and then recoiled into our after-window, which was open, drenching that portion of our room.

Steam is kept up continuously in the donkey-boiler now, as the men are getting pretty well used up from exposure and the immense amount of making and shortening of sail that goes on continuously. Captain Scruggs believes in taking every single point of advantage in the wind, and shakes out a reef at the least indication of a lull, each time, of course, necessitating the mastheading of the yard; though eventually even he realized that the men were wearing out, and now the donkey does all the heavy hoisting. Many people think that the engine does all the trimming of yards, etc., during a voyage, but with the exception of the passage of the Horn, it is seldom ever in use at sea, and never for sail-trimming. The chief use to which a donkey is put is in loading and discharging when in port and heaving in the anchor.

Well, the wind now, at 3 P.M., is at west, force 8, and we have set a reefed maintop-sail and spencer. We have drifted about southeast by east true since yesterday, sometimes hove to, sometimes headreaching through a heavy sea. The elements are somewhat more placid, and I must not bring this day’s journal to a close without extolling my wife’s bravery during the foul weather, for her courage was remarkable. Only those who have been to sea in a sailing ship whose main-deck is but seven feet above the water can appreciate what a whole gale of wind means under such circumstances. Latitude, 57° south; longitude, 65° 45′ west.

July 18

Land was reported on the weather-beam this afternoon. We think that it is Barneveld Island, about thirty miles northeast of Cape Horn, and it bore, when first sighted, northwest. We didn’t do anything at all during the last twenty-four hours but seesaw up and down, north and southeast, with the wind at southwest, and we were surprised by a calm last night from six until twelve o’clock, with a comparatively high thermometer,—41° at the latter hour,—so that the skipper looked for a northerly wind during this morning. But no such luck for us; daylight saw us under a reefed maintop-sail (we had set the main-top-gallant at midnight) with a moderate gale from the westward, though the sea was quite smooth. We have entirely lost the long southwesterly roll, and it is astonishing how that swell does go down if you are only a little to the eastward of the Cape. For instance, suppose a vessel to be in 57° south and 68° west, she is almost certain to have this big heave; but if in 66° west and the same latitude she will be almost entirely free from it; at least, this has been our experience.

Great agitation pervaded the ship aft to-day when the discovery was made that the pumps had not been working properly for twenty-four hours. In heavy weather the “Higgins” has to be pumped out every two hours on account of a leak near the rudder-head, although the majority of wooden sailing vessels have to man the pumps every watch in a seaway, for they all leak in bad weather. Something was wrong with the plunger, I believe, and the pumps have been useless for a whole day, unknown to any one, which in itself seems remarkable, though I must say that the decks have been so full of water that it has been very hard to tell whether a stream was coming up from below or not. Therefore both men and donkey have been alternately pumping without result, and when the carpenter sounded the well this noon, lo! there were two and a half feet of water in the vessel, which means nearly twenty thousand gallons, or about six hundred barrels. By using both sides of the pumps, however, the engine had them sucking in an hour, doing sixty revolutions to the minute. There was a violent scene, though, when the old man learned of the affair, and a still more turbulent half-hour followed while the plunger was being repaired.

Here, in the bad, wet weather, for it has been raining for forty-eight hours, this ship is extremely uncomfortable and disagreeable below, and the most slovenly one that I have ever seen. To begin with, it is very dark, for the skylights are absurdly small, and boards have to be secured on their weather-sides to prevent a repetition of the river Plate incident, so that the gloom of the interior is that of a hole in the ground. However, this doesn’t count, for we expected it. The after-cabin is a rather unpleasant spot, by reason of a so’wester or two, a dripping black oil-skin, several pair of wet woollen wrist-protectors, a few greasy magazines, a chart or two, and a couple of camp-chairs all continually sliding about the floor, making locomotion an extremely hazardous undertaking. But, upon approaching the forward or dining cabin, a spectacle meets the eye which would shake the heart of the stoutest landsman. In the forward end, in a recess, stands the stove, stayed with iron rods; while surrounding it on three sides is a permanent aggregation of various objectionable articles, perfectly appalling. The heater is completely smothered at all times in ancient, wet garments of the skipper’s, almost in a state of fermentation, suspended on wires, so that the stove can hardly be seen. At dinner to-day the following disreputable articles of clothing hung before the fire, dank and mildewed: two pairs of aged trousers, two waist-coats, three coats, one overcoat, two mufflers, one pair of knitted gloves, one handkerchief, and two pairs of socks. From these garments there issued a peculiarly obnoxious, thin steam, through which a yellow lamp glowed unhealthily.

Below, at the base of the stove, and surrounding it as with a chevaux-de-frise, were two pairs of rubber boots, ditto leather shoes, ditto felt slippers for boots, two dishes filled with the cat’s half-devoured food, no one knows how old, a wash-tub half filled with soaking sheets, a bucket, and a wooden box nearly full of ashes, upon which reposed a coffee-pot. And when to all this is added the humidity of this region, which is so dense that moisture condenses on the walls, and the fact that the mizzen-mast-coat leaks, covering several square feet of the floor with water, it will be conceded that the interior of this vessel is distinctly disreputable. Indeed, we never attempt to sit and read anywhere else than in our own room. Nor are the dishes what they should be, and I often find a clot of coagulated soup in the ladle from yesterday’s repast; this latter is, of course, the fault of the steward, though the best of servants will grow careless if they are not watched.

Then the mate is extremely unclean, so much so that even Mr. Rarx said a day or two ago that he was the dirtiest man whom he had even seen in a ship’s cabin. He never washes his face and hands to come to the table, both of which are streaked with soot, lard oil, and goodness knows what else. The captain is considerably better in this respect, but his temper seems to be more uncontrollable than ever, and he shouts at the steward and Sammie as though they were on the foretop-sail-yard in a gale of wind. He seems to consider it a personal affront every time that the men come aft on Saturday nights to buy things from the slop-chest, which he throws at them with scant ceremony. Last night “Long John” Pettersen asked him for a pair of No. 10 rubber boots in his cowed, frightened way. “I ain’t got no tens,” cried the skipper; “here’s nines; take ’em and get out”; and he cast the boots at John, who promptly dodged, and they struck the stove with a great, clattering din.

I will, no doubt, be accused of inhumanity in taking my wife to sea in such a vessel as this, but we had not the least notion that she would prove so different from what we supposed her to be, and few persons would suspect that such things would occur aboard of a ship which looked so neat and trim in the New York docks. Our previous experience at sea, we have since discovered, was not of any use to us as a guide as to what we might expect here. Indeed, in the worst weather off the Cape of Good Hope the “Mandalore’s” cabin, with its brightly polished open-grate and shining bird’s-eye maple panelling, would not have been discreditable to a well-found yacht. Latitude, 56° 14′ south; longitude, 66° west.

July 19

Hail, mighty sun! Welcome, radiant, glorious monarch! We saw the luminous orb for ten minutes at mid-day, marking an epoch, for events off Cape Horn date from the last time that the sun was seen. When day broke this morning, behold! the sky was clear and everything presaged at least two hours of bright sunshine. No sooner, however, did the orb show signs of appearing above the horizon than a cloud-bank arose in the west which proved to be the mother of a procession of squalls which covered the sky for the rest of the day, bar a few minutes at noon. But how we did rejoice for even a glimpse of the heavenly body! For days we had dwelt in darkness and twilight, and when we caught sight of the golden disk again it was like the face of an old friend. No one who has not experienced it can imagine what the gloom of Cape Horn is like even at mid-day. It has doubtless somewhat the effect of the darkness of the Polar seas, which, it is said, kills more men than frost and starvation. Practically, throughout the year the heavens in this region are wrapped up in a pall of cloud so dense and low as to feel like an increased atmospheric pressure; and unless one’s spirits are as elastic as rubber the mind must succumb to the dreary influence of this endless waste of gray ocean. It is oppressive beyond the power of words; and so great is the solitude that it is difficult to believe that we are still on the earth and not floating upon the ocean of another planet.