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Title: Deck and port : or, incidents of a cruise in the United States frigate Congress to California. With sketches of Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San Francisco
Author: Colton, Walter
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Deck and port : or, incidents of a cruise in the United States frigate Congress to California. With sketches of Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San Francisco" ***
[Illustration:
COMMODORE R. F. STOCKTON.
_United States Navy_
]
DECK AND PORT;
INCIDENTS OF A CRUISE
IN THE
UNITED STATES FRIGATE CONGRESS
TO
CALIFORNIA.
WITH SKETCHES OF RIO JANEIRO, VALPARAISO, LIMA, HONOLULU, AND SAN
FRANCISCO.
BY
REV. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N.,
AUTHOR OF “SHIP AND SHORE,” ETC.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & CO.,
NO. 51 JOHN-STREET.
CINCINNATI:—H. W. DERBY & CO.
1850.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and
fifty,
BY A. S. BARNES & COMPANY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
RICHARD C. VALENTINE,
NEW YORK
F. C. GUTIERREZ, Printer,
No. 51 John-street, corner of Dutch.
TO
THOMAS I. WHARTON, ESQ.
OF PHILADELPHIA,
This Volume
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS FRIEND
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
On joining the United States frigate Congress, fitting for sea, at
Norfolk, and destined to the Pacific, I commenced a journal, in which I
sketched down the incidents of each day, as they occurred. It was more a
whim of the hour, than any purpose connected with the public press. It
was a diverting experiment on the monotony of a sea-life; was continued
because it had been begun—and the present volume is the result. The
streamlet flows from gathered drops.
I send it to the press as it was written, except the division into
chapters, which has been made at the suggestion of the publishers, who
perhaps, think the yarn will reel better if the thread be broken. It
undoubtedly contains passages which may seem light and irrelevant; but a
diary has privileges, in this respect, which are not extended to
compositions of a graver character. He who gathers what the chance wind
may shake from the trees of his garden, will find some leaves as well as
fruit in his basket; and he may find there the nest of some insect that
has a sting in it, but this he has no right to send to market. He may
send the leaves—perhaps their sear hues may set off the bloom of his
fruit, as a wrinkle the rouge through which age sometimes seeks to blush
back again into youth.
The members of Congress are responsible for any typographical errors
which the volume may contain, for they so lumbered the mails, between
Washington—where the proofs were sent—and New York, with their speeches,
that my publishers had about as little chance of getting a corrected
copy through this travelling Babel, as they would have had in finding a
righteous man in Sodom after Lot had left. I know it seems cruel to roll
the responsibility of blunders on a body of men who have errors enough
of their own to answer for. But the evil one himself is held accountable
for the sins of half the world.
Having thus conveniently disposed of all responsibility, I leave my Deck
and Port to the wave and strand, where they belong. Wreckers will
receive no salvage from me—they must make the most of the floating
planks. I only ask them not to scuttle the craft before she strikes.
W. C.
NOTE.
The incidents which connected the officers of the Pacific Squadron and
of the army, and many other prominent persons, with public events in
California, are not reached by the Diary of this volume; they fall
within the three years which are reserved for another work, entitled
“_Three Years in California_.”
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—PREPARATIONS FOR THE VOYAGE.
Orders to the Congress.—Passengers’ poop-cabin.—Passing U. S.
ship Pennsylvania.—Divine service.—Waiting the
wind.—Rip-raps.—Internal arrangements.—Library of the
crew.—Ship cheered.—Departure of the pilot Page 13
CHAPTER II.—PASSAGE FROM NORFOLK TO RIO DE JANEIRO.
A culprit.—Corporal punishments.—Divine service.—A bird.—A
gale.—Grandeur of the Gulf stream.—Man missing.—Tracts on
board.—Waterspout.—Life at sea.—An eclipse.—The
sick-bay.—Moral mechanism of a man-of-war.—Speaking a
brig.—Departure of Mr. Beale.—Death of Spillier.—Astor-House
sailor.—Universalist chaplain.—A petrel.—Speaking a
ship.—Departure of Mr. Norris.—Crossing the
equator.—Southern constellations.—A man lost.—Land ho! 22
CHAPTER III.—RIO DE JANEIRO.
Bay of Rio.—Scenery.—Aspect of the city.—Royal palace and
chapel.—Lancers and baby.—Miseracordia.—Aqueduct.—Morning
ride.—Botanic garden.—Tea-plant.—The Sabbath in
Rio.—Museum.—Nunnery.—Jealousy of husbands.—A pompous
funeral.—The Plymouth.—Hon. Henry A.
Wise.—Slave-trade.—Marriages and domestic
arrangements.—Political condition of the
Brazilians.—Treatment of the
slaves.—Religion.—Washerwomen.—San Antonio.—Climate.—The
unknown couple.—Diamonds.—Farewell to Rio 86
CHAPTER IV.—PASSAGE FROM RIO TO CAPE HORN.
Getting under way.—The letter-bag.—Runaway sailor.—Isle of St.
Catharine.—Pamperoes.—The shotted gun.—Loss of our coon.—The
sailor and shark.—General quarters at night.—Fireworks in
the sea.—The phantom ship.—Patagonians.—The Falkland
Islands.—The captured albatros.—Terrific gale.—Condition of
our frigate.—The sailor’s burial.—The cape of storms 125
CHAPTER V.—PASSAGE FROM CAPE HORN TO VALPARAISO.
Gale.—Habits of the albatros and penguin.—The sea off Cape
Horn.—Sleet and hail.—Farewell to the Cape.—Directions for
doubling the Cape.—Gale in the Pacific.—Appearance of the
stars.—A rainbow.—Divine service.—The razor at sea.—The
little bark.—Plum-pudding and tripe.—The
Cordilleras.—Arrival at Valparaiso Page 156
CHAPTER VI.—SKETCHES OF VALPARAISO.
Aspect of the city.—Groups on the quay.—Chilian
horsemanship.—The women.—Huts of the natives.—American and
English society.—Opera-house.—The tertulia.—Mode of
travelling.—Police of the city.—Visits from the
shore.—Feudal system.—The clergy.—The Bible in Chili.—The
confessional.—Burial-ground.—The Indian mother.—Political
condition of Chili.—Farewell to Valparaiso 191
CHAPTER VII.—PASSAGE FROM VALPARAISO TO CALLAO.
Flare up of the Pacific.—Songs of seamen.—Sailors on
shore.—Loss of the Samson of our ship.—The setting sun at
sea.—Our Astor-House sailor.—The mad poet of the crew.—Land
ho!—Aspect of Callao.—Appearance of the natives.—The burial
isle 219
CHAPTER VIII.—SKETCHES OF LIMA.
Incidents of the road.—The grand plaza.—Shops and houses.—The
saya y manto.—American lady.—Mixture of races.—Demeanor of
girls and boys.—Procession on Palm Sunday.—Convent of the
Franciscans.—Doctors of Lima.—Good Friday.—The Last
Supper.—Pilate’s court.—Garden of Gethsemane.—Close of
Lent.—Jubilations.—Climate.—An officer in
prison.—Lawyers.—The Indian’s eyrie.—Lottery.—Bull-fight 234
CHAPTER IX.—SKETCHES OF LIMA.
Education of females.—Marriages.—Lapses from virtue.—The
sunset bell.—Silk factory in a convent.—Habits of the
Indians.—The half wedlock.—Blind pedler.—Protestant youth in
Lima.—Religion of the Limanians.—Intrigues at court.—Modes
of living.—The Zampas.—Churches.—Indian doctors.—Fruits of
the country.—Old Spanish families.—Masses for the repose Of
the soul 265
CHAPTER X.—PASSAGE FROM CALLAO TO HONOLULU.
Departure from Callao.—The rum smuggler.—Sunset.—Sea-birds.—A
sailor’s defence.—General quarters.—Spirit ration.—The
sailor and religion.—The flag.—Sagacity of the rat.—The
cloud.—Calms and showers.—Religious
tracts.—Constellations.—Trade winds.—Conduct of the
crew.—Moon in the zenith.—Lay sermon.—Funeral.—Land ho! 299
CHAPTER XI.—SKETCHES OF HONOLULU.
Bay of Honolulu.—Kanacka funeral.—The missionaries.—Huts and
habits of the natives.—Taro-plant.—Roast dog.—School of the
young chiefs.—Ride in the country.—The
Mausoleum.—Cocoanut-tree.—Canoes.—Heathen temple.—King’s
chapel.—Ride to Ewa.—Father Bishop.—His sable flock 328
CHAPTER XII.—SKETCHES OF HONOLULU.
The king and court.—American commissioner.—Royal
residence.—The salt lake.—Surf sports of the natives.—Gala
day.—The women on horseback.—Sailor’s equestrianism.—The old
man and the children at play.—Address of Com.
Stockton.—Capt. La Place.—His Jesuits and brandy.—Lord
George Paulet 348
CHAPTER XIII.—PASSAGE FROM HONOLULU TO MONTEREY.
The moral pharos.—The Mormon ship.—Bible class.—The
sea-hen.—Our insane sailor.—Fourth of July.—Profaneness at
sea.—Evening prayer-meeting.—Funeral.—Target
firing.—Religious condition of the crew.—Anchor under
Monterey 367
CHAPTER XIV.—GLANCES INTO CALIFORNIA.
Sailors on shore as soldiers.—The bear flag.—Capt. Fremont and
armed band.—Departure of Admiral Seymour.—San
Francisco.—Aspect of the town.—Habits of the people.—Spirit
of speculation.—Gambling.—Effects of the gold mines.—Past
and present condition of the country 386
[Illustration: [Transcriber note: Map of voyage.]]
DECK AND PORT.
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE VOYAGE.
ORDERS TO THE CONGRESS.—PASSENGERS’ POOP-CABIN.—PASSING U. S. SHIP
PENNSYLVANIA.—DIVINE SERVICE.—WAITING THE WIND.—RIP-RAPS.—INTERNAL
ARRANGEMENTS.—LIBRARY OF THE CREW.—SHIP CHEERED.—DEPARTURE OF THE
PILOT.
To sea! to sea! thy soft shore life
Must wrestle on the deck,
Where winds and waters meet in strife,
To revel o’er the wreck.
While enjoying the luxury of sea-bathing at Sachem’s Head, I received an
order to report for duty on board the U. S. Frigate Congress, fitting
for sea at Norfolk. The order came as unexpectedly as thunder out of a
cloudless sky. But never having declined an order of the department
during the many years that I have been in the navy, I determined not to
dishonor a good rule on this occasion, and informed the secretary that I
should report agreeable to his instructions, but requested the
indulgence of a few days in which to make my preparations. The reply
was, that the ship was ready for sea, that the other officers were on
board, and I must hasten at once to my post. My trunks were immediately
packed, my books boxed, and in twenty-four hours I was on board the
Congress. Home, and all that makes that home dear, exchanged at once for
the bustle of a man-of-war! It was like throwing a bird from its nest
upon the whirlwind: not that I have any thing in common with a bird,
unless it be a sort of involuntary cheerfulness when the storm-cloud has
passed. I have never yet met with a picture all the features of which
were dark. There is a star even in the night of the grave.
I found the frigate nearly ready for sea. The honorable secretary, as if
to hasten our departure, paid us a farewell visit. We returned the
compliment in a parting salute. We were now ready to weigh anchor and
make sail, when an order came for us to take out as passengers a
commissioner and a consul to the Sandwich Islands, with their families,
twelve individuals in all. The question was, where shall they be
accommodated? Every part of the ship was already occupied. Another order
soon came for the construction of a poop-cabin. Some thirty carpenters
were immediately set at work, but its completion occupied three weeks.
In the mean time some of the officers, whose homes were less remote, had
an opportunity of visiting their families. I was enabled to finish my
preparations, complete my wardrobe, and take a decent leave of one from
whom I had been hurried away as the culprit,
“Who fitted the halter and traversed the cart,
And often looked back as if loath to depart.”
SATURDAY, OCT. 25, 1845. The poop-cabin being finished, commissioner,
consul, and families, quartered in it, stores laid in, the commodore on
board, an order was given to unmoor. In a few minutes our anchors were
up and we were proceeding under a light land-breeze towards the sea.
Passing the Pennsylvania, where she lay in her majesty and strength, we
gave her a parting salute, which she returned in thunder from her
frowning batteries. She frowned not on us; she seemed to grieve, “if
aught inanimate e’er grieves,” that she must lie there and rot, and we
be bounding over the billows. She seemed like a daring eagle that has
never been permitted to soar into its element and unfurl its strong
pinions on the storm. The Titan chained to the Caucasian rock stayed his
proud heart on his past triumphs, but this noble ship perishes without a
solitary achievement to relieve her indignant doom. On reaching Hampton
Roads the wind came out ahead, and we were obliged to let go our
anchors. An air of disappointment was visible among the crew. I once
started on a journey in a splendid carriage, broke down in sight of my
own home, and learned a lesson of submission that will never wholly
desert me. Calamities are our best instructors.
SUNDAY, OCT. 26. The wind still ahead. This being the sabbath, we had
divine service. The crew were attentive: not the rustle of a hand or
foot disturbed the stillness; the speaker’s voice only broke the silence
of the deck. The text was the injunction of the prophet, “Go up now,
look towards the sea.” The object of the speaker was to sketch the stern
magnificence of the ocean as illustrating the majesty of God; to exhibit
the effects of an ocean life on the social and moral character of man;
and to inculcate the great lesson, that into whatever climes we may
penetrate, through whatever seas we may pass, we cannot escape from the
presence of the Deity. The effects of our moral teachings may in many
instances never be revealed in this life, but the time will come, when
they will be fully recognised. They are like underground streams which
will yet rush to the light.
MONDAY, OCT. 27. Still in Hampton Roads. The day has passed with scarce
a breath of wind from any quarter. The sun has set in gorgeous splendor.
Evening has spread its purple light over sea and land. Only here and
there a cloud floats through the star-lit depths of heaven. The fortress
of the old Rip-raps lifts its giant form in savage grandeur from the
wave; and yet the moonlight sleeps upon it so lovingly, you half forget
its chained thunder. It seems as some submarine monster that had shoved
its head up through the sea, to glance at the wonders of earth. Gaze on,
thou Titan of the deep! Thou hearest not the death-knell which shakes
the heart of nations: thou seest only the verdure which waves in
fragrant life and beauty over the dust of ages. Thou heedest not the
sorrows of the millions that have sunk to the silent shroud. Earth is a
charnel-house, but thou knowest it not. It is death’s empire. Go look
into some world where sin hath not been, and where man has not marred
the works of his Maker.
TUESDAY, OCT. 28. Our ship still riding in the Roads, with forty sail
around wind-bound like ourselves. We went to general quarters at ten
o’clock, exercised the guns, passed powder, called away the boarders,
and went through all the forms of a real engagement at sea. It is
singular what an enthusiasm even a mimic battle can create; what then
must be the excitement of the reality! The sailors are proud of our
frigate; and well may they be; she is a splendid specimen of naval
architecture. For capacity, strength, and harmony of proportions, she
stands in her class without a rival in the world. She is so much a
favorite in the service that one old sailor travelled all the way from
Pensacola to Norfolk in the mail stage, and at his own expense, to join
her. We had our complement of seamen, but his was so strong a case he
could not be denied.
We number about five hundred souls, all told; have laid in provisions
and fuel for five months, with fifty thousand gallons of water, and
sails and rigging sufficient to replace what is now in use, should
emergency demand. How such a mass of life and material can be brought
within a frigate’s capacity, and yet leave “scope and verge” enough for
action and repose, is a mystery which can be comprehended only by those
who are versed in nautical economy. The housewife who grumbles over the
intrusion of an additional piece of furniture, should look into a
man-of-war, and she will go home with the conviction that she can sleep
quite comfortably in the cradle with her infant. How beautiful is an
infant waking out of its sweet slumber, and opening its soft blue eyes
upon the face of its mother! But what has this to do with our getting
under way?
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 29. Our anchors still sleep in the sands of Hampton
Roads—a slumber which we now think the morrow will break. The wind has
been light and varying, but inclining towards the right quarter, though
hesitatingly, as a diffident youth in his first declaration of love. How
the words on such an occasion will stick in a man’s throat!—worse,
indeed, than Macbeth’s prayer, trying to struggle up from the grasp of
his guilty conscience.
I have been occupied to-day in arranging in suitable cases the library
of the crew—a library comprising between three and four hundred volumes.
For many of the miscellaneous and religious books in this library I am
indebted to the Presbyterian Board of Publication, to the Sunday School
Union, to the American Tract Society, and to the liberality of Commodore
Stockton. My acknowledgments are also due to the American Bible Society
for a donation of Bibles adequate to the wants of the crew. No national
ship ever left a port of the United States more amply provided with
books suited to the habits and capacities of those on board. This
desideratum has been supplied, so far as the crew is concerned, with
comparatively little aid from the department. The government furnishes
the sailor with grog to burn up his body, a Christian liberality with
books to save his soul. The whisky-ration is a curse to the service, and
a damning blot on our national legislation.
THURSDAY, OCT. 30. The long looked for breeze came at last. It was a
south wester; and at daylight this morning we weighed anchor and got
under way. When we had cleared the capes of Old Virginia, all hands were
called, and Commodore Stockton delivered the following brief and
appropriate address to the officers and crew:—
“Captain Du Pont and officers—
“Your reputation in the service is a sufficient guaranty that the cruise
before us will enlist your highest energies and zeal.”
“Men—
“Your conduct since you have been on board this ship justifies the
strongest confidence in your fidelity. Above us floats the flag of our
country; to your patriotism and undaunted valor I intrust its honor,
dearer to me than life. We now sail for California and Oregon, and then,
where it may please Heaven.”
Then, turning to the chaplain, he said—
“You will offer up our prayers to Almighty God for his protection.”
This service performed, the broad pennant was saluted, the ship cheered,
and the band struck up “Hail Columbia.”
The whole ceremony was well calculated to inspire a jealous regard for
the honor of our flag, and impress sentiments of dependence on the
divine protection-so well becoming those who go down to the sea in
ships, who do business on the great waters, and who see the wonders of
the Lord in the deep.
Commodore Stockton invited the officers into the cabin to an elegant
entertainment. Sentiments connected with country, home, and those left
behind, passed feelingly around. The pilot now took his departure with
our letter-bag. How many affections, hopes, and fears, that little hasty
mail took back! If you would know how dear home is, start on a three
years’ cruise. How the heart clings to the living, recalls the dead, and
restores the forgotten! How all animosities die and give place to love!
I do not wonder the Greek and Roman dreaded exile more than death. What
is earth without a home?
Farewell! the shore is fading fast,
The wind is piping free,
The pennant, from our gallant mast,
Points to the dark blue sea.
CHAPTER II.
PASSAGE FROM NORFOLK TO RIO DE JANEIRO.
A CULPRIT.—CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS.—DIVINE SERVICE.—A BIRD.—A
GALE.—GRANDEUR OF THE GULF STREAM.—MAN MISSING.—TRACTS ON
BOARD.—WATER-SPOUT.—LIFE AT SEA.—AN ECLIPSE.—THE SICK-BAY.—MORAL
MECHANISM OF A MAN-OF-WAR.—SPEAKING A BRIG.—DEPARTURE OF MR.
BEALE.—DEATH OF SPILLIER.—ASTOR-HOUSE SAILOR.—UNIVERSALIST
CHAPLAIN.—A PETREL.—SPEAKING A SHIP.—DEPARTURE OF MR.
NORRIS.—CROSSING THE EQUATOR.—SOUTHERN CONSTELLATIONS.—A MAN
LOST.—LAND HO!
“The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,
And merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.”
FRIDAY, OCT. 31. A brilliant soft atmosphere; a light breeze from the
southwest; average log, three knots; sounded in thirty-six fathoms; a
sand and shell bottom; exercised the men at the guns from 10 to 12
o’clock; loaded the guns a little before sunset. One of the crew, after
nightfall, watched his opportunity and knocked down a marine. The
aggressor is one of those hardened fellows where the hope of reformation
seems to despair in its work. He was flogged but a few days since for an
aggravated offense. He has cruised before, and been notorious for his
bad conduct. The best thing that could be done with him would be to turn
him out of the ship, but the law don’t allow this. The next best thing
is to try him by a court-martial, and award him a punishment that will
linger with terror in his memory. I am opposed to severity when milder
measures will avail; but leniency to the incorrigible is destructive of
discipline.
Corporal punishments are opposed to the spirit of the age; but he would
be worthy a monument who could invent an adequate substitute on board a
man-of-war. It is easy to pull down a house, but not so easy to build
another on its ruins. Still the power to inflict corporal punishment is
so liable to abuse, and is so often abused, I do not wonder public
sentiment seems to demand its abolition. Could sailors be brought
thoroughly under moral influences, it might be easily dispensed with.
Virtue has motives and impulses to good conduct stronger than those ever
wielded by physical force. The best obedience is that which flows from
moral rectitude.
SATURDAY, NOV. 1. The high temperature of the water, which my boy
brought me this morning for bathing, indicated that we were in the Gulf
Stream. On inquiry, I ascertained that during the night we had
penetrated near to its centre. This great river of the ocean holds its
majestic course in seeming independence of the vast and violent elements
through which it moves. Storms may howl over it, and conflicting
currents fiercely assail it, but it moves on in the tranquil greatness
of its unabated strength. It never stops to parley with its adversaries,
proposes no terms, accepts none; but like a brave champion of truth,
moves steadily to its goal. In its equanimity, its fidelity to one great
purpose, and its triumph, the God of Nature utters a moral lesson in the
ear of nations.
Our coursers, topsails, top-gallant, and studding-sails are set to a
free, fresh wind from the southwest, and we are making ten knots the
hour. Our ship has been too much by the stern, but the removal of four
of her spar-deck guns from her after to her forward ports, has brought
her more by the head, and she sails better. Her constructor conjectured
that if deep, she would sail better by being at least fifteen inches by
the head. His conjecture turns out to be correct. She is now moving
through the waters as if she had an exulting pride in her occupation. I
do not wonder sailors regard a fast ship as a thing of life, and speak
of her with an affection applicable only to the higher attributes of
humanity. She is indeed the highest triumph of human skill—the noblest
representative of art.
SUNDAY, NOV. 2. The Sabbath. The force of the wind and the roll of the
ship might have excused divine service with those disposed to find an
apology for such omission. But we have commenced the cruise with the
determination to have service every Sabbath when it is at all
practicable. Regularity in this duty promotes regularity in every other.
The discipline of a man-of-war lies in the fact that nothing is omitted
that ought to be done. Besides what more appropriate for men, tost on
the howling waste of the ocean, than a recognised dependence on that
Being who binds the elements at his will; who can say to the rushing
storm and chainless wave, hitherto shall ye come and no further, and
here shall your proud strength be stayed.
Last evening a bird flew on board. He had been driven far out to sea in
a gale, and now timidly sought our spars as a place of rest. No one was
allowed to molest him for the night; in the morning, turning his eyes in
that direction where the land lay, though some three hundred miles off,
he bade us adieu and disappeared in the distant horizon. A safe passage
to him and a speedy return to those left behind. He too has his home,
and those there who make that home dear; and though but a bird of the
wild wood, he shares the benevolent regard of One whose care extends to
the falling sparrow, and who hears the young raven when it cries. If the
bird whose wing is thrown on the wind to-day, and is furled in death
to-morrow, may share the guardianship of the great Parent of all, much
more man with his boundless sympathies and immortal hopes.
MONDAY, NOV. 3. The wind last night hauled several points to the east,
and forced us north of our true course. We have been waiting for it to
haul back, but it seems to have settled down as if determined to make
itself at home in its new quarter. Well, let it stay there, if it will,
and I will ponder these lines which I find inclosed in my last letter
from home.
THE SAILOR’S WIFE.
Thou o’er the world and I at home,
But one may linger, the other may roam,
Yet our hearts will flee o’er the sounding sea,
Mine to thy bosom, and thine to me.
Thy lot is the toil of a roving life,
Chances and changes, sorrow and strife—
Yet is mine more drear to linger here—
In a ceaseless, changeless war with fear.
I watch the sky by the stars’ pale light,
Till the day-dawn breaketh on gloomy night,
And the wind’s low tone hath a dreary moan
That comes to my heart as I weep alone.
With the morning light, oh! would I could see
Thy white sail far on the breaking sea,
And welcome thee home, o’er the wild wave’s foam,
And bid thee no more from my side to roam.
TUESDAY, NOV. 4. The sun rose this morning with that look of darkness
and flame which the monarch of the seasons puts on when tempests are
abroad in his domain. Yet he drove his flashing chariot up the lowering
steep of clouds with a fleetness and force which indicated no
disposition to resign his sceptre. The glance of his eye kindled the
ridges of the black masses around into lines of fire, and revealed the
caverns of darkness which stretched away in their unfathomed folds. The
roused ocean threw up its howling billows as if in stern defiance. It
was evident we were to have a conflict of the giant elements. They
rushed into the battle like foes who neither give nor crave quarter.
The roar of the tempest above, the thunder of the sea below, the
careering squadrons of clouds, and the dark defiant waves, as they
rushed into combat, added sublimity to terror. Our ship was not an idle
spectator; she plunged into the thickest of the fight, and with wings
furled and a steady keel, presented her frowning mass of exulting
courage and strength; she trembled but not with fear, she wavered but
not from want of valor. Wave after wave of the great ocean rolled its
massive strength against her, but she met each successive shock with
dauntless intrepidity. Night at last closed over the conflict, and the
lightnings lit the watch-fires of the hostile squadrons. The moon broke
through a rift in the black masses, and cast her soft light on the
savage features of the scene. So rose she over Thermopylæ, and Waterloo,
and blushed at the havoc of human ambition.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 5. The gale of yesterday increasing at nightfall, we
sent down our fore and mizen top-gallant masts, and put our ship under
close-reefed main topsail, fore storm stay-sail, fore and mizen
try-sails. Thus she lay like a crouched lion. Darkness was on the face
of the deep, save here and there, where a falling meteor threw its
transient light on the foaming crest of some towering wave. As the
soaring billow combed over, sheets of lighted foam rolled down into the
intervening gulfs of night, and then succeeded a darkness that might be
felt. As the heavy bell struck the hours, the voices of the watch from
different parts of the ship came like broken tones from unseen sources.
The hollow sound of the storm through the rigging, made it seem as if
the very winds were pouring our death-dirge.
But a little after midnight the gale broke. It broke suddenly as the
hope of the wicked at death. But the driving waves still remained, dark
and tumultuous as the convulsions of guilt in despair. Our ship, without
wind or sail to steady her, plunged blindly about. She had scarcely a
dry foot of plank in her, and yet multitudes slept soundly that night.
Such is life at sea. The resistless gale and the dead calm follow each
other with the fickleness of an unweaned child over its toys. And proud
man submits, as well he may; for he cannot help it. We are always
reconciled to that which is remediless. Even death seems to lose its
terrors in its inevitability.
THURSDAY, NOV. 6. At quarters, this morning, one of the crew, John Amey,
was missing at his post. His name was called through the ship, but there
was no reply. All the decks and the hold were searched, but he was
nowhere to be found. He was last seen between seven and eight bells of
the mid-watch. He had not been well since we left Norfolk, had
complained of his head, of an oppression on the brain, and had evinced
at times, in the incoherency of his remarks, symptoms of insanity. He
had most undoubtedly, in a paroxysm of this disease, jumped out of one
of the ports, and perished. The watch might perhaps have heard him as he
fell into the water, but for the high sea that was running at the time.
He had shipped from Philadelphia, where he left a sister, of whom he
often spoke with tenderness and affection. He was prompt and faithful in
the discharge of his duties, and had been promised promotion. But he is
now where the frowns or caresses of fortune can never reach him. His
sister will long wait and watch for his return, and will long doubt in
her amazement and tears the story of his death. But he has gone to that
silent bourne from which nor wave, nor sail, nor mariner, has e’er
returned, nor one fond farewell word traversed the waters back. He will
reappear no more, till the signal trump of the archangel shall summon
the sea to give up her dead. He will then, wrapped in the winding-sheet
of the wave, appear at that tribunal where infinite rectitude will sit
in judgment on the deeds of men.
FRIDAY, NOV. 7. All hands were mustered this morning on the spar-deck by
order of the commodore, and the untimely death of poor Amey was
announced to the crew. The chaplain was called upon for such remarks as
the melancholy event suggested. After briefly sketching the
characteristics of the deceased, his fidelity to duty, his love for his
sister, the awful malady of which he died, he told the crew that the sad
event impressed one lesson with fearful force upon all, and that was the
necessity of a preparation for death and the scenes that await us
beyond, while life and reason remain,—that as no one knows the hour or
circumstances of his death, his only security lies in that thorough
preparation which no event can surprise. The crew listened with
attention, as they always do on such occasions; but impressions
connected with death are often transient with the sailor. His wild
adventurous life is so full of tragedy, that the dead drop through it
like pebbles through a stormy wave.
If you would see the most deep and wide impression that death ever
produces, go to a quiet country village. You will hear it whispered from
house to house, that Henry or Mary is dead! No long array of
mourning-carriages darkens the street; but a silent train is there,
moving in sympathy and grief to the grave. All gather around that narrow
cavern, and as the coffin rumbles down to its rest, tears from the aged
and the young fall thick and fast, and each, as he returns to his home,
feels that a joy has been extinguished, that a light has fled from his
own hearth.
SATURDAY, NOV. 8. Last evening, while a fine breeze was filling our
sails, and the white caps were dancing under the light of the stars, a
cloud was seen emerging above the bright line of the horizon. It sailed
steadily up the blue cope, and at last stationed its dark distended form
directly over our ship. All eyes were turned to it, expecting a storm to
explode from its folds. But its contents fell in a sheet of water that
instantly drenched us all, and utterly annihilated the breeze. The poor
dog-vane fell motionless, as if suspended in a grave. The cloud now
dissolved, the light of the stars streamed down through the radiant
depths of air, and the crushed wind, like an unhorsed rider, resumed its
career.
Man, when frustrated in his purposes, slowly, if ever, recovers his
courage and force; but nature instantly moves on again in her exulting
strength. What to her are crumbling temples and mouldering pyramids? She
spreads her verdure over the ruins of nations! In her august domain
empires rise and fall with as little sensation as leaves put forth and
perish. She hushes the great dirge of human sorrow. Her winds waltz over
the graves of ages. All are hers, and all, from the stars that tremble
in the blue vault of heaven to the groves of coral which wave over the
pavements of the unsounded sea, feel the pulses which throb in her
mighty heart. What, then, frail man, is thy pride amid these stupendous
attributes and achievements of nature?—a bubble that breaks amid the
eternal thunders of the deep.
NOV. 9. Sunday, and a soft breeze from the southwest. The sparkling wave
disturbs not the even tenor of our keel. Our ship swings only to the
slow and solemn undulations of the ocean. No flaping sail disturbed the
quietude of our worship. We sung “old hundred,” the band performing the
instrumental part. How impressive on the sounding sea is that old
majestic tune! It seems in harmony with the many-voiced waves around.
The organ-tones of the mighty deep roll it to heaven with a fullness and
power which no cathedral choir can pour from its melodious recesses.
Nature through all her vast domains awakens and sustains the devotions
of the human heart. Our pilgrim fathers worshipped in the sanctuary of
the forest. The aisles of the deep wood rang with their hymns of
gratitude and praise.
What to them were stately shrines,
Gorgeous dome or towering spire?
’Neath their sturdy oaks and pines,
Rose their anthems, winged with fire.
I distributed tracts to-day to the crew—to all who came to me for them;
and few remained behind. It would have encouraged the hearts of those
who supply these sources of salutary instruction, to have witnessed the
eagerness with which our sailors took them. In a few minutes there were
three or four hundred men on the decks of our ship reading tracts; each
catching some thought which lures from sin, and throws its clear and
tender light on the narrow path which leads to heaven.
MONDAY, NOV. 10. Our sweet southwest breeze still continues, and we are
moving on under an easy sail seven knots the hour. There is not a
greater folly on the ocean than for a man-of-war to be crowding on sail,
as if speed were the all-predominant motive. This will do for a
merchantman, when a market is to be reached as soon as possible; but for
a national ship, bound on a three years’ cruise, it is a miserable
exhibition of impatience. Indeed, in all the affairs of human life
moderation is true philosophy. Our energies will give way soon enough
without any forced action. A spirit of restlessness and discontent is
one of the most striking faults in the American character. We rush with
railroad speed even on ruin. It is as if a man on his way to the
scaffold were to put his horse into a gallop.
We have been for several days past in the vicinity of water-spouts. One
of them rose close upon our larboard bow. It towered through several
strata of clouds, preserving through each its columnar form till its
summit was lost in the sky. We attempted to near it sufficiently to
bring it within the range of a cannon-ball, but it seemed to elude our
approach as the rainbow the flying footsteps of childhood. Its apparent
vicinity was undoubtedly one of those optical delusions so common to the
phenomena of the sea. The wonders of the deep belong to their Maker. Man
may survey them as a worshipper, but when he attempts to appropriate
them, they fly his profane grasp, disarm him with their terrors, or
overpower him with their magnificence. We filled away and were again on
our course.
TUESDAY, NOV. 11. This has been inspection-day. Once a month each sailor
is required to exhibit his clothing to the officer who has charge of the
division to which he belongs. The object of this inspection is to see
that his clothes are in good condition, to see if he wants any thing
further for his comfort, and to see that every article of apparel is
marked with his name. In this respect sailors are to be treated as
children. They require the same constant care. They are the most
thoughtless, improvident beings in the world; and if left to themselves,
will be, in some instances, without a decent article of clothing, and in
others with their whole wages in their clothes-bag. There is no subject
on which officers of the navy should exercise so much patience, and such
sound paternal judgment. It is a work which brings its own reward in the
consciousness of the benefits conferred.
The life of a sailor is brief enough at best. Even with all the care
which you can bestow upon his habits, and with all the restraints you
can exert upon his headlong career, he soon reaches his goal. You seldom
meet with a grayheaded sailor. Long before age can have frosted his
locks, the icy hand of death has been laid on his heart. He dies in the
midst of his days, and often in his full strength. He perishes like his
ship, which the tempest hath cast on the rocks. Could the wave which
sepulchres his form be the winding-sheet of his soul, our solicitude for
him might be less; but he has a spirit that will sing in worlds of light
or wail in regions of wo, when the dirge of the deep sea is over.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12. Last evening we had another tropical shower. It fell
as if some atmospheric lake had burst its cloudy boundary. In a moment
all exposed to it were drenched. It passed, and the moon circled up out
of the sea full of mellow light. I love that orb on land, but more at
sea. On shore, other objects relieve your solitude, but on the ocean it
is all that seems to break the desolation which would else be universal.
I have seen sailors sit and look at it by the hour. Few of them
understand the laws which regulate its phenomena, but all feel its
influence. Nature unrolls her treasures to the simplest of her children.
This morning a fine breeze visited us from the northwest, the first that
has cheered us from that quarter. We have been on the starboard tack
ever since we left Norfolk. We who occupy the larboard state-rooms, now
congratulated ourselves that in the event of a blow, we should have dry
quarters, and our starboard companions would take their turn at leaking
ports. But this self-gratulation was hardly over, when the wind chopped
about to its old quarter, and our exultation, like most exhibitions of
selfish delight, proved premature. Our frigate, with a breeze that
scarcely crisps the sea, knots her hundred miles a day. This, before
steam began to annihilate space, would have been considered very fair
travelling. But now it is a tortoise by the side of an antelope. Four
bells have struck—my light must be extinguished, and I can either walk
the deck or turn in for the night.
THURSDAY, NOV. 13TH. I rise with the sun, and, like that stern old
monarch, from a salt bath. Like him, too, I take another on retiring to
rest. Here, I suppose, ends the resemblance between us, except that both
have some spots. They who go to sea for their health should rise with
the sun, bathe in salt water, and inhale the fresh atmosphere an hour
before breakfast. They should also bathe before they retire to rest.
Salt water, the chafing towel, and fresh air, are the restoratives most
to be relied on, and the very restoratives which a lazy invalid will
first neglect. Were I to omit these, I should hardly live long enough to
reach our next port. The invalid should confine himself to a spare diet,
and take no stimulants. His only tonic should be the pure salt
atmosphere of the sea. Wine, brandy, and porter are sufficiently
injurious on land, but at sea they carry disease and death in their
train.
We have had this evening an eclipse of the moon; only a narrow rim of
the orb escaped the dark shadow of our earth. Our sailors, not
anticipating this eclipse, could not at first account for the
disappearing light. They saw the slender spars and tracery of the ship
becoming momentarily less distinct and visible, but knew not from whence
the shadow fell. A few of them, better versed in lunar observations,
explained to the rest the phenomenon. They said the earth had shoved a
part of her black hull between us and the moon. But when asked why she
had done this, the reason assigned was, that the moon had probably got a
little out of her reckoning, and in attempting to tack had missed stays.
FRIDAY, NOV. 14. We have now been fourteen days at sea, and have sailed
eighteen hundred miles. A vast sheet of water spreads between us and our
homes, but a greater between us and our port of destination. Our fresh
provisions still hold out, but the appearance of a junk of corned beef
on our table every day indicates the gradual approach of short commons.
Still it will be some time before we reach that last dish of gastronomic
desperation—lobscouse. We have an experienced caterer, a provident
steward, and an ingenious cook. With the three we feel pretty safe. I
have been at sea in four or five national ships, and have never found in
any, after the second week out, a table so well supplied as ours. Still
our variety is effected in a great measure by the ingenuity of our
steward and cook.
The culinary art is forced into its highest degree of perfection, and
achieves its last triumph at sea. The cook, who, in a Parisian
restaurant, can make a palatable soup from the carcass of a crow that
has perished of inanition, is entitled to but little praise in
comparison with him who can raise a good soup at sea after the third
week out. The nautical cook has seemingly nothing left for his pot but
the recollections of his coop. Recollections make very good poetry, but
they simmer badly into a soup. The attenuation is too fine even for
homœopathic gastronomy. It would do, perhaps, for Bishop Berkeley’s
ideal world. I rather think the worthy bishop must have formed that
theory at sea after the third week out. It certainly suits man in that
condition. The unstableness of a thing entitles it to faith.
SATURDAY, NOV. 15. To-day our ship has been holystoned from stem to
stern. A person who has stood in the silent excavations of Herculaneum,
and heard the carriages rattling overhead, can have some idea of the
sounds which those rumbling stones produce on the decks of a ship. The
whole ship is converted into a floating Babel, and worse indeed, unless
the strokes of the gravel be comprehended in the vocal jargon of the
tower. But we shall have our compensation for this in decks so clean
that a handkerchief might be swept over them without soiling its
whiteness.
Nothing on board a man-of-war requires such unremitted attention as
cleanliness. It puts to the last test the most indomitable purpose.
Without it, a ship soon becomes intolerable. Without it, sickness would
ensue; some epidemic would sweep half the crew to the grave. And yet
nine-tenths of our sailors are so inconsiderate, that if left to
themselves they would exercise no precautions on the subject. This
renders the most careful supervision of officers indispensable.
Negligence in this department soils every laurel he can win on the deck.
It is like that louse which Burns saw climbing up a lady’s bonnet in
church. This allusion reminds one of an anecdote related of Lord Byron
and Lady Blessington. Her ladyship had taken something that the poet had
said in high dudgeon, but dismissed it with the fling that she “didn’t
care three skips of a louse for his lordship.” To which the sarcastic
poet retorted in the couplet—
“I forgive the dear lady what she has said,
A woman will talk of what runs in her head.”
SUNDAY, NOV. 16. The Sabbath has returned, and we have had divine
service. Last night we discovered a sail on our starboard bow, close
hauled upon her wind. This morning we tacked ship and brought her to.
She proved to be a brig from Norfolk, bound to Rio de Janeiro. She had
been fifty-two days out, with light head winds. We wished the captain a
pleasant voyage, and parted company. We were in hopes she might prove a
craft bound to some port in the United States, and that she would take
letters back from us. We were disappointed; our friends must wait for
letters from our port of destination. It will probably be six months
from our departure before they will get a line from us.
You who cannot leave your wives and children for a week, without
intelligence from them, go to sea with the prospect that we have, of not
hearing from them for a year. The truth is, none but old bachelors and
hen-pecked husbands should go to sea. The latter flies from persecution,
the former from that wretchedness which a sight of real domestic
happiness inflicts. The bliss of Eden made even Satan more wretched than
he was before. But the ocean is itself a rich domain. The treasures of
empires lie in its depths. The wrecks of the richest argosies are hers;
and her waves roll over the unsurrendered forms of matchless beauty. She
gives back nought that comes within her vast embrace. Her great seal of
proprietorship will be broken only by the thunders of the last trump.
MONDAY, NOV. 17. Our ship has been tantalized all day with a light head
wind—just one of those winds that are but little better than none; the
only advantage it has over a dead calm is the air it affords. As for
progress, we might as well be
“A painted ship upon a painted ocean.”
How dependent is a ship on the elements! Let the winds refuse to visit
us, and this noble frigate would never move from her present position;
she would rot down piece-meal where she is now lying, with the bleaching
bones of five hundred men on her decks. But the winds are at the bidding
of Him whose pavilion is in the clouds, and whose mandates are nature’s
resistless law. May we ever live in humble submission to His will, and
rejoice that He reigns; feeling fully assured that His measures are
dictated by infinite wisdom, and by an unerring regard to the happiness
of His creatures.
I found in the sick-bay to-day a patient laboring under a typhoid fever,
and apparently near his end. He spoke to me of his mother and his
sisters, and tears filled his eyes. The first being that rushes to the
recollections and heart of a sailor, smitten with disease at sea, is his
mother. She still clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all
the forgetfulness and hardihood induced by a roving life. The last
message he leaves is for her; his last dying whisper breathes her name.
The mother as she instills the lessons of piety and filial obligation
upon the heart of her infant son, should always feel that her labor is
not in vain. She may drop into her grave, but she has left behind
influences that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is
sped and will do its office.
TUESDAY, NOV. 18. Another day of light airs. Our sails hang as
pertinaciously to our masts as a veil over the features of one whose
imaginary beauty has touched your heart. We discovered another sail
to-day over our weather bow, hull down. Conjecture makes her the
Courier, which sailed from Hampton Roads two or three days before us.
There is an interest in speaking a vessel at sea, which they who dwell
on land can hardly realize. These nautical greetings are all that break
the vast solitude of the ocean. Without them a ship would be more lonely
than the solitary traveller on the desert of Sahara, for _he_ will now
and then encounter a gazelle.
A sailor’s life is one of constant privations. He makes his meals from
bread which the hammer can scarcely break, and from meat often as
juiceless and dry as the bones which it feebly covers. The fresh
products of the garden and the fruits of the field have all been left
behind. As for a bowl of milk, which the child of the humblest cottager
can bring to its lips, it is as much beyond his reach as the nectar
which sparkled in the goblets of the fabled divinities on Ida. When Adam
went forth from his lost Eden, under the frown of God, he had still a
confiding companion at his side, to share with him the sorrows of his
lot, and he still found some flowers amid the briers and brambles which
infested his path; but the sailor finds no flowers springing up along
the pathway of the sea, and he has no consoling companion there, except
in his dreams of some far-off shore.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 19. We have three sailors in the sick-bay to-day, in a
very critical condition. They are all good men, so far at least as ship
duty is concerned. Their death would make a serious breach in our crew.
Our intelligent surgeon and his faithful assistants are devoted to them.
They are not left night or day, for an hour, without a medical
attendant. Commodore Stockton went into the sick-bay to-day to see them.
He never forgets the sailor. He pities when others might reproach,
forgives when others might denounce, and never abandons him even though
he should abandon himself; and yet he exacts prompt obedience. His
discipline, and that of Capt. Du Pont, is derived in a great measure
from moral influences, the power of correct example and the pressure of
circumstance.
Make the moral mechanism of a ship like a piece of well-contrived
machinery, and but few blows will be required to keep it in order. But
this requires energy in the details. It is much easier to flog a man who
has committed an error, than it is to train him to avoid that error.
Indolence flies to the lash, enlightened activity to a system of correct
training, which is to be pressed at all points. And this training must
be consistent with itself. It will not succeed if it is to be broken in
upon constantly by brute force, or by language as disreputable to the
officer who uses it, as it is unjust and provoking to the men to whom it
is addressed. Profane or opprobrious epithets are a mockery of all
discipline, except that which is enforced by the lash. An officer
incapable of enforcing any other discipline, is a calamity to the
service.
THURSDAY, NOV. 20. We discovered, this morning, a brig on our
weather-beam, standing down for us, and hove-to with our main topsail to
the mast. She run up Danish colors, and in an hour hove-to at a cable’s
length under our lee-quarter. We lowered a boat and boarded her. She
proved to be the brig Mariah, forty days from Rio Grande, bound to
Hamburg. We inquired for fruit, but she had none. The captain wished to
correct his reckoning, and well he might, for he was seven degrees out
of his longitude.
Mr. Beale, our second master, took passage in her for the United States.
It was arranged between him and the captain of the brig, that he should
be put on board the first vessel that they might fall in with bound to
an American port, and if they fell in with none before that, he should
be landed at Dover, England. The captain must have had a very flexible
policy. When it was understood that letters could be sent back, pens
that had slumbered for weeks woke up. In half an hour the commodore had
finished his communications, our home-letters were written, and Mr.
Beale was passing over the side. In reaching the boat, a box of segars
and a revolving-pistol fell overboard. Strange as it may seem, the
pistol floated a moment, and was saved, while the segars were lost. I
watched the letter-bag, saw that safe in, thought of the satisfaction it
would give, and forgot the Havanas. Though the sea was running high, Mr.
Beale reached the brig safely, and our boat returned. The little vessel
then squared away, and we made sail; and thus we parted, the one for
Hamburg, the other for Rio. How the paths of life cross each other!
FRIDAY, NOV. 21. Poor Spillier, whose critical condition I have watched
for several days in the sick-bay, has passed beyond hope. His disease
has passed into pneumonia, and his lungs have already ceased, in a great
measure, to perform their functions. I told him to-day he could not
live. The sad intelligence brought tears to his eyes. He said it was
dreadful to die away from his friends, and be buried in the sea. I told
him his mother died a good Christian and had gone to heaven, and he
could go there and meet her. But he must bring all the errors and sins
of his life, and with sincere sorrow and contrition, lay them at the
foot of the cross, and implore divine forgiveness. He was silent for a
few minutes, and then uttered a brief and appropriate prayer, confessing
his manifold transgressions, and casting himself on the compassion of
Christ.
He was silent again, and seemed absorbed in thought. The expressions of
mental anguish and hope alternated over his pale features like cloud and
sun-light over a landscape. He now became composed, and opening his
large swimming eyes upon me, thanked me for my attentions to him, and
requested me to write his sisters; to give them his dying love; to say
that he died in Christ and hoped to go to heaven, where he should see
their mother. He told me that the dread of being buried at sea had left
him; that it was no matter where his poor body was laid, if his soul was
saved; that his blessed mother would know him and would be the first to
greet him. How the ties of a mother’s love fasten upon her child,
soothing the couch of pain and triumphing over the terrors of the grave!
SATURDAY, NOV. 22. We have a stiff wind to-day from the southeast, and
we are running, close hauled, under reefed topsails. The sea is high,
and every now and then a huge wave throws its curling crest through some
half-closed port, as a wolf pounces into a sheep-fold, or as the arch
adversary o’erleaped the green wall of Eden. Though we are any thing but
Eden, with its beauty and its bliss: our first parent would have had but
little cause of regret, if, in resigning Eden, he had relinquished only
the habitudes of a sea-life. A wigwam might have consoled him for his
loss. No Milton had sung—
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden.”
The truth is, man was never intended for a nautical being. He was made
perfect, but he has sought out many inventions; and this going to sea is
one of them. His pathway on the deep is hedged about with storms,
icebergs, water-spouts, and breakers. But, in the strange perversity of
his nature, he perseveres through the whole of them. He knows and feels
that he is a fool in his nautical obstinacy, and yet he clings to it, as
the inebriate to the cup that consumes his vitals. He seems to court
hardship for its own sake, and to court peril for the excitement which
it bestows. But for the indecency of the thing he would toll, in
advance, his own funeral-bell, that its fearful monotone might tremble
on his heart before it should be cold. And he would almost dig his own
grave, that he might hear his coffin rumbling down to its rest.
SUNDAY, NOV. 23. Another Sabbath morn has poured its holy light on land
and sea. On land, the stir of the village and the tumult of the great
city have ceased. Men walk softly in the prelude of that rest which
remains to the good. Sacred truth melts on their hearts like dew. No
community in a Christian land can be utterly bereft of moral influence.
If it has none from within, there is a pressure from without. The moral
as well as physical atmosphere tends to an equilibrium. Righteous Lot
may have fled from Sodom, but his warning voice rolled back upon the
wind to the doomed city.
But a ship is cut off by its position from all extraneous influences. It
is like a ball suspended in the centre of a hollow sphere. This
isolation has placed it beyond the reach, and seemingly beyond the
sympathies, of those who dwell on the land. They have regarded it as a
thing apart from themselves, a thing with which they had no common bond
of brotherhood, and they have abandoned it to its calamities and its
crimes. When guilt and misery have done their worst, when the
pirate-flag has been unfurled where the insignia of commerce streamed
before, instead of accusing their own apathy and negligence, they have
seemed to regard the terrible spectacle as some singular exemplification
of divine justice—as some malignant star accursed and made
“A wandering hell in the eternal space.”
MONDAY, NOV. 24. Yesterday morning, as the men left their hammocks, the
ominous whisper went round—“Spillier is dead!” He had died during the
night, while storm and darkness rested on the face of the deep. Last
evening, as the sun was going down, we consigned him to his floating
grave. The deep-toned call, “All hands to bury the dead!” went like a
knell through the ship. The body, wrapped in that hammock in which the
deceased had swung to the force of the wind, was borne by his messmates,
preceded by the chaplain of the ship, from the gun-deck up the forward
hatch, and round the capstan to the lee-side; the band, with muffled
drums, playing the “dead-march,” and the marine guard presenting arms.
The commodore, the captain, and officers of the ship, took their
position near the main-mast; the crew were stationed forward.
Then commenced the burial-service: “I am the resurrection and the life,
saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall
he live; and whosoever believeth in me shall never die.” When the solemn
sentence was uttered, “We commit this body to the deep,” the inner end
of the plank was lifted, and down its steep plane moved the hammocked
dead, and a hoarse hollow sound followed the heavy plunge. The waters
closed over the disappearing form—the ship glided on as before. Then,
with impressive effect, came in the words, “Looking for the general
resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through
our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose second coming in glorious majesty to
judge the world, the earth and sea shall give up their dead, and the
corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed, and made
like unto His own glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby
He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.” The benediction followed,
and the crew returned in silence to their stations.
Reader, when you die, it will be, I trust, in the sabbath calm of your
hushed chamber; but the poor sailor dies at sea between the narrow decks
of his rolling vessel. The last accents that will reach your ears will
be those of kindness and affection, such as flow from a mother’s care,
and a sister’s solicitude; the last sounds that reach the ears of the
dying sailor are the hoarse murmurs of that wave which seems to complain
at the delay of its victim. You will be buried beneath the green tree,
where love and grief may go to plant their flowers and cherish your
virtues; but the poor sailor is hearsed in the dark depths of the ocean,
there to drift about, in its under-currents, to the great judgment-day.
Alas, for the poor sailor! the child of misfortune, impulse, and error:
his brief life filled with privation, hardship, and peril; his grave in
the foaming deep! Though man pity him not, may God remember his
weaknesses and trials in the day of his last account.
TUESDAY, NOV. 25th. We have had for two days past a steady breeze from
the southeast, and have run an average of seven knots the hour. We are
now in the hope of making Rio in twenty days from this time. This will
make our whole passage forty-six days,—not a bad run. The Columbia was
ninety-three days making the same passage; but it was at the most
unfavorable season of the year. To take this as a specimen of her
sailing would be doing great injustice to that noble frigate.
WEDNESDA, NOV. 26th. We are to-day in lat. 18° 49′ N., long. 33° 46′ W.,
with a light steady breeze from the southeast. We are knocked off to the
west of our course. We ought to head east of south, even with the
variation in our favor. We are anxious to cross the line at twenty-seven
or eight, to avoid the head winds of Cape St. Roque. We are where we
ought to have the northeast trades, but we have not yet had a puff of
wind from that quarter. Unless our present breeze hauls or dies we shall
be obliged to tack, which will be about as agreeable as running back in
a railroad-car to make way for a locomotive ahead, when you are in haste
to get on. But we have one thing to console us, it is all in the cruise,
so let the winds blow as they list.
The hammers of our blacksmiths are heard this morning, the first time
for some days. They have been silenced on account of the sick; but they
are now going as if determined to make up lost time. Iron takes almost
every shape under their blows. A ship’s blacksmith has no such word as
can’t in his vocabulary. He takes his order, and tries to shape his iron
accordingly, though he may know it to be utterly impracticable. We had
on board the Natchez an old time-piece which had broken its main-spring.
The first lieutenant, for fun, told the blacksmith to take it to the
anvil and put a new main-spring in it. Hearing the puff of the bellows
and the click of the hammer, I went forward, where I found the old watch
taken to pieces, and the worthy representative of Vulcan, beating with
his full force a piece of iron. “What are you doing with this
time-piece?” I inquired. “Making a kinked-up sort of a thing, sir, to
make it go,” was the sardonic reply.
THURSDAY, NOV. 27. The wind hauled round into our teeth last evening. We
tacked to the east, and headed east by north through the night. But the
wind soon became too light for us to make much progress in any
direction. Instead of trade winds, these fickle puffs ought to be called
the variables. No coquette was ever half so inconstant. The only certain
thing about them is the lightning, which has been throwing its cables of
flame from its aerial craft. I have often thought a thunder-cloud might
be the chariot of the prince of darkness. But let that pass: digression
is my besetting infirmity.
This morning, large masses of cloud broke the horizon in the east with
their dark distended forms. The sun coming up behind them, converted
their jagged outline into fire, and poured over their steep precipices
torrents of flame. We predicted a strong wind from that quarter. But one
battlement after another tumbled from this cloudy fortress, till only a
few tottering bastions remained, and these soon dissolved,
“And like an unsubstantial vision faded,
Left not a wreck behind.”
We felt as much disappointed as a confident lover getting a blank
refusal. How singular it is that the enamored youth always ascribes the
first negative to female delicacy, and the second to the hostility of
some one of her friends. He still believes she loves him, and would say
so if her heart could only speak out. Perhaps this amiable weakness has
been placed in our nature to relieve disappointment, and suppress an
indignant tone from wounded pride.
FRIDAY, NOV. 28. This morning our vanished clouds reappeared on the
eastern horizon, and as they lifted, a strong wind streamed down from
that quarter, and we were able to lay our course. We shook the only reef
out of our topsails, and at seven bells set our top-gallant-sails. The
sky had that light haze upon it peculiar to the tropics. The sun melts
through it, instead of throwing its full burning beams. The appearance
of the atmosphere resembles in some respects that of the Indian summer
in other climes, but it is more humid and softer. In the afternoon the
wind became so stiff that our ship fairly staggered under it. Her lee
guns knocked the caps from the waves. We now took in our
top-gallant-sails. At sunset we took a reef in our topsails and courses,
but still plunged ahead sufficiently fast.
Our frigate returned from her last cruise with a brilliant reputation
for speed,—a reputation which she has not sustained thus far with us.
Some ascribe this loss of character to a foul bottom; but the three
thousand miles which we have run, must have pretty well scoured her
copper. Others ascribe it to her lying so deep; but this difficulty
every day is removing in the consumption of provisions and water. We
shall soon be able to settle the truth or fallacy of this supposition.
The truth is, a ship often loses her sailing and recovers it again
without any satisfactory reason. The United States, one of the best
sailors in the service, once lost her reputation entirely, but recovered
it again; and our frigate will, I doubt not, regain her laurels. Our
commodore and captain are studying her points as anxiously as a
gentleman of the turf those of a race-horse that has had the misfortune
to be beaten once.
SATURDAY, NOV. 29th. Our east wind still holds steady and strong; we are
running nine and ten knots on our course. This has put us all in fine
spirits, notwithstanding the wet condition of our frigate. Only give a
sailor a good ten-knot breeze on his course, and he wont complain, if he
wades in water to the chin. Some of us had a fine shower-bath to-day. We
were reading on the half deck between the weather guns, when we shipped
a tremendous sea through the ports, which half buried us in its surge.
Our chairs slipped up, and we were tumbling about like porpoises. One of
the crew, at least, laughed in his sleeve.
This reminds me of an occurrence on board the Vincennes. We had been in
a gale for two days, which at last broke suddenly, leaving a high sea.
Governor V. S., of Santa Cruz, whom we were taking out as passenger,
when the gale had broken, sent an invitation to the wardroom officers to
come to the cabin and take a glass of whisky-punch with him. Total
abstinence not being at that time the order of the day, we all went up.
The governor stated that he had one bottle of very old Irish whisky with
him, which would make a capital punch. Tumblers were ordered; the hot
water, whisky, and sugar, in due proportions, mixed and stirred. Now,
said the governor, please take your glasses, gentlemen, and I will
propose one sentiment; each lifted his glass, when a tremendous sea
struck us under the counter, and pitched us all in a mass together on
the floor. Whisky, glasses, and sentiment all came down in one crash.
The first thing I heard was the exclamatory inquiry of the
governor,—“Captain Shubrick, are we still afloat?”
SUNDAY, NOV. 30th. We were apprehensive that our sabbath worship would
be broken in upon, by a dash of rain from some of the clouds that were
driving over our ship. But only a few drops fell. Sailors have but very
little respect for fair-weather Christians. They believe the course to
heaven lies through a stormy sea, and that a man to get there must
battle with hostile elements. They like plain, direct preaching, full of
heart and strength. They cannot tolerate a display of literature, or
metaphysical acumen, in a sermon. They know they are wicked and unfit
for heaven, and they wish to be told so. The man who should tell them
otherwise would at once forfeit their confidence.
A gentleman of the Universalist persuasion was once appointed a chaplain
in the navy, and reported for duty on board one of our ships fitting for
sea. His creed soon became known to the sailors, and was freely
discussed in their messes. “If we are all so good that we are going to
heaven,” said an old tar, “what is the use in overhauling one’s sins? it
only gives a man a bloody sight of trouble for nothing.” “If we are all
on the right tack,” said another, “and must bring up at the right port,
what is the use in preaching and praying about it?” “If we trust this
doctrine, and it don’t turn out true, there’ll be hell to pay,”
exclaimed a third. These sentiments were shared in by the whole crew,
and soon became known to the newly-appointed chaplain. He resigned his
commission, and showed a considerateness in doing it which entitles him
to respect. Sailors, ignorant and wicked as they are, can never be made
to believe that the good and bad bring up at last in the same port.
MONDAY, DEC. 1. Our fine east wind, which has been shoving us on at the
rate of two hundred and thirty miles a day, was crossed this afternoon
by a squall from the south, and knocked under. We watched its overthrow
with grief, and expected for some time that it would rally and overpower
its antagonist. But victory remained with the foe, and we were driven
from our course. In the mean time, a tropical shower, falling without
premonition, has drenched all on duty to the skin.
These reverses fall hardest upon the _gentlemen_ among the crew. We have
one, an Englishman by birth, who was living a few months since at the
Astor-House, drinking the choicest wines the hotel could furnish, and
promenading Broadway in white-kid gloves, with gold-headed cane and
quizzing-glass. But suddenly, from some freak of nature, he threw
himself into our ship as a common sailor. He is about twenty years of
age, full six feet high, and extremely well proportioned. He has a small
foot and hand, an open cheerful countenance, large floating eye, and
hair that falls in showering ringlets. He is willing and prompt in the
performance of every duty. But what a transition! The Astor-House for a
wet rolling deck, its beds of down for a hammock, its rich viands and
desserts for salt junk and hard tack. The last London cut in coat,
pants, and beaver, for a blue roundabout, ducks, and tarpaulin, and a
gold-headed cane for a tarred rope! And yet he is cheerful, and
seemingly ambitious of excelling as a sailor. How nature accommodates
herself to circumstances!
TUESDAY, DEC. 2. Poor Lynch, one of our crew, from the state of Maine,
died last evening, and we have to-day, as the sun was setting, committed
his remains to the deep. He has left a pious mother, of whom he often
spoke to me in his last sickness. She seemed to be the strongest tie
that fastened him to earth. Her early lessons of piety awoke with
singular power as his end approached. They crowded thick and fast upon
his heart; he clung to them as something that could stay him, something
that could lift him above present suffering and future apprehension. He
died under the light of these sentiments, and in an humble hope of the
happiness which they promise to the pure and meek.
At the call, “All hands to bury the dead!” the officers and crew took
their stations. The body, wound in its hammock, and preceded by the
chaplain, was brought up the fore hatch and round the capstan to the
waist, the band playing the “dead-march,” and the marine guard
presenting arms. The service was read, and the hollow sound of the
hammocked dead descending through the sea, told that another of our crew
had left us for ever. This is the third that we have lost within less
than thirty days. The death of a man in a crowded town is little felt,
but in a ship’s crew it leaves a vacuum which all observe. Still, these
bereavements are so blended with the vicissitudes of a sea-life, that
they fail to make a permanent impression; they are felt deeply for the
moment and then glide away.
“As from the wing the sky no scar retains,
The parted wave no furrow from the keel,
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.”
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3. Our trade-wind has left us utterly. We have had a
regular Irishman’s hurricane—up and down. The rain fell in a perfect
avalanche; with all the scuppers open, the water became, in a few
minutes, almost knee deep on the spar-deck. The rolling of the ship
threw it over the combings of the hatches, and down it came upon the
gun-deck, and then took another leap below, flooding the wardroom,
steerage, and berth-deck. With the hatches covered, and the external air
excluded, the heat below soon became intolerable. Our choice lay between
being roasted or drenched. Most of us preferred the latter, and emerged
into the drifting sea above.
In the midst of these troubles, our cook came aft and informed our
caterer that the water came in such floods into the galley, that he
could not keep fire enough alive to light his pipe by. This was good
news for our last pig, who looked out from his gratings as one that has
another day to live. I always pity the last tenant of the coop and sty.
He looks so lonely, so disconsolate in the midst of that voiceless
solitude, which the untimely death of his companions has spread around
him, that I could never have the heart to kill him. It seems like
extinguishing the last of a race. Indeed, I would never take the life of
any thing, unless it was in the way in which the Irishman thought his
squirrel might have been killed. Two of them were gunning, and had treed
a large squirrel upon a very high limb. One of them, a little more
experienced at the business, lifted and fired his old Queen’s-arm; down
came the squirrel with a bone-breaking crash; when the other exclaimed,
“An’ faith, you might as well have spared your pooder, the fall itself
would ha’ kilt him.”
THURSDAY, DEC. 4. We caught, two days since, a stormy petrel. As the
bird was brought on board, the old sailors around shook their heads with
ominous looks of dissatisfaction. “We’ll have a blow for that,” said an
old salt; and sure enough, before the wings of the petrel were dry a
storm set in. “We’ll have no more fair weather,” said another, “till
that petrel is put back into the sea.” “I knew a ship,” exclaimed a
third, “that had a forty days’ gale for having killed a petrel; and if
that bird dies on board, we’ll escape a wreck by the skin of our teeth,
or we’ll rot down in a dead calm.” Our storm continued without any token
of abatement, and last evening the ominous bird was returned in safety
to its element. The clouds soon swept past, the sun emerged into a
bright sapphire sky, and a leading wind from the southeast sprung up.
How far the return of the petrel to the sea influenced this auspicious
change in the elements, I leave to the decision of those who have more
or less philosophy than myself. I must confess I was glad to see the
petrel go back. There is a sacredness attached to this bird that should
exempt it from violence. It is supposed to be the form in which the
spirit of some one, who has been sepulchred in the sea, still floats in
troubled light, and that when its penance is passed, it will be
translated to some higher form which the gale and the breaker can never
reach. This may all be superstition, but it is a glimmering of the great
truth of man’s immortality. He who believes that man can survive death
in the shape of a bird, is more than half way to the belief that he can
survive in the form of an angel.
It is a tranquil eve; our ship is gliding quietly on; my thoughts,
unoccupied here, run warmly back to those left behind—to the loved and
lost
CATHARA.
The evening star sleeps in the moon’s pale rim,
And slumber rocks the weary world to rest;
Nor wakes a sound except the vesper hymn
Of pines, that murmur on the mountain’s crest;
And now, at this lone hour, fond thoughts of thee
Melt o’er my heart as music on the sea.
But thou hast gone, hast winged thy silent flight
O’er Death’s dim waters to the spirit-land;
Thy faith discerned its hills of purple light
Ere yet thy footstep left our mortal strand;
As closed the shadows on thy farewell track,
A whisper of thy bliss came floating back.
It came too soft and low for Echo’s breath,
And died, with tender transport in its tone;
But ere it ceased, it reached the ear of Death,
And shook the sable monarch on his throne;
He knew the omen, which that whisper gave,
Would burst one day in thunder from the grave.
FRIDAY, DEC. 5. We are to-day in lat. 3° 23′ N., long. 28° 20′ W. We
have a steady but light breeze from the southeast, and are heading south
by southwest, with half a point westerly variation. We shall cross the
line if this wind holds, and there is now little prospect of change, at
30°. This is three or four degrees further west than most ships bound to
Rio de Janeiro venture to cross it at. Still, unless we encounter
westerly currents on the other side of the line, we expect to be able to
double Cape San Roque, and proceed directly to our port. Should we be
disappointed, we shall be obliged to make a long tack to the northeast,
which may keep us many days longer at sea. But we are going to make the
experiment, and must bide the consequences. Nothing can be less certain
than a ship’s progress. Even those winds deemed regular and almost
infallible by mariners, seem now and then infected with the last degree
of fickleness and perversity.
We have now been thirty-six days at sea without an isle or promontory to
break the dim horizon, or relieve the vast rolling waste of waters.
Harmony and good feeling prevail among the officers. There has not been
the slightest clash of feeling between our Captain and those who carry
on duty under him. And yet the most energetic forms of discipline have
been maintained. The crew are cheerful and active. Punishments have been
very rare. The cats have been used but once since we weighed anchor.
Efficiency has been secured by a thorough attention to details on the
part of Mr. Livingston, our first lieutenant, and the watch officers.
SATURDAY, DEC. 6. We are now within one degree of the equator. But the
wind having hauled round one point east of south, we have been obliged
to go upon our starboard tack to avoid crossing it too far to the west.
We shall probably have made sufficient easting by to-morrow noon to make
a dash over it. Then for a new hemisphere and new constellations. But we
have a splendid moon to-night, directly in the centre of the great dome
of heaven. Our masts cast no shadow. This position gives the moon a much
greater apparent distance than it has when near the horizon. It now
seems as some heaven-born sphere, that, having in vain tried to win you
from the cares of earth, has gone back with melancholy countenance to
its choiring sisterhood on high.
“There’s not the smallest orb, which thou behold’st,
But in his motion, like an angel, sings,
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubim.”
We had a visit, a few evenings since, from a whale. We were lying in a
dead calm, when this monster saluted us like a locomotive blowing off
steam. The column of brine which he threw up with his great
forcing-pump, fell in a sparkling shower. Man constructs his fountain
with great cost and pains, and when all is done, it can play only in
that one place: but the whale moves about, throwing up his brilliant
cascade at will in every zone. The springs may fail, the streams forsake
their channels, but this showering column still soars from a source
exhaustless as the mighty deep. Give me the whale and ocean for a
fountain, and you may do what you please with your drizzling pipes and
frog-ponds.
SUNDAY, DEC. 7th. At eleven o’clock, the tolling of the ship’s bell
announced the hour of worship. The officers took their accustomed
station on the starboard quarter; the marines on the poop-deck; the crew
on the larboard quarter, stretching back to the waist and circling the
main-mast to the opposite side; the band and singers between the
after-hatches; Mr. Ten Eyche and Mr. Turrel, with their families,
forming a group between the officers and marines. The commodore, being
informed by the captain that the crew were assembled for worship,
appeared and took his station on the left of the officers. The chaplain
then took his station at the capstan, which was covered with a large
flag, when the band played the impressive air to the words, “O come and
let us worship.”
We sung the missionary hymn—“From Greenland’s icy mountain”—a hymn for
which sailors have the greatest partiality. The splendid imagery of this
hymn, and the rich melody of the music, always take hold of the sailor.
It has something of the same effect on him, which the impassioned
eloquence of Peter the Hermit must have had, when he poured the
population of Europe, in tumultuous crusades, on the bosom of Asia. If
sailors could win their way to heaven with weapons of war, there is no
act of hardship or daring from which they would shrink. But when you
throw them back upon their own hearts, and confine them to the enemy
found there, they are too apt to make a truce; still, so far are they
from being unsusceptible of religious impression, that could I at all
times select my auditory and place of worship, I would take a ship of
the line with her thousand sailors on her spar-deck: and, if I failed of
making an impression there, I should despair of making it anywhere.
MONDAY, DEC. 8th. The watch in the main-top discovered this morning, at
break of day, a sail just peering up over the swelling sweep of the sea.
She was hull down; indeed, the little canvas that loomed to the eye
might easily have been mistaken for one of those small sheets of vapor
which seem blent with the spray of a wave. But sail after sail emerged
into vision till her hull broke with its dark mass the bright line of
the horizon. She came down to us before the wind, with her royals and
studding-sails set, and with the American ensign flying from her
mizen-peak.
She proved to be the whale-ship Jason, of New London; twelve days from
St. Helena; bound home. She had been out on her whaling expedition
seventeen months, and had secured in that time twenty-eight thousand
gallons of oil, and forty-six thousand pounds of whalebone. The second
mate, a noble tough tar, who came on board, told us that his portion of
the spoil would be eight hundred dollars. He wanted some powder and shot
to keep off the Mexicans. We told him there was no war with Mexico;
still he should be welcome to some ammunition, certainly enough to fire
a salute as he wound into the harbor of New London.
All pens were now put in motion to dispatch letters home. Go where you
would, fore or aft, nothing was to be heard but the scratch of these
pens. What surprised me most was the number of sailors who were driving
the quill. How they can carry paper in their clothes-bags unrumpled,
where every thing else is mussed up, is more than I can explain. But of
all beings the sailor is most fertile in expedients. He stows away every
thing in his clothes-bag, from a mirror to a marlin-spike, from a cable
to a cambric needle, and has plenty of room remaining.
The captain of the Jason kindly offered to take any officer to the
United States whom the commander-in-chief might wish to dispatch. Our
commodore fixed on Mr. Morris, his secretary, who was very desirous of
going; and having given him an outfit, in the shape of provisions and
funds, equal to all emergencies, instructed him to get the President’s
message, the proceedings of Congress, all the news of the day, with
letters for the officers of the ship, take the first packet to Chagres,
cross over to Panama, and join him at the nearest point practicable. The
letters now being bagged, a boat was called away, Mr. Morris took leave
of us, and was soon on the deck of the Jason. The sturdy whaler squared
round before the wind, we filled away, and when the sun went down were
once more alone on the ocean.
Each seemed lost in thoughts of the surprise and pleasure which the
letters he had thus unexpectedly been able to send back would awaken.
One of our best young sailors told me his mother would weep for joy over
his letter, and sleep for a month with it under her pillow. No eloquence
that ever flowed from human lips affected me half so much as the simple
remark of this dutiful sailor. There was a tenderness, a truthfulness, a
moral beauty in it, which made me forget the rough exterior of the being
from whom it came. He seemed as a brother whom I could take to my heart,
and whose hard lot I could most cheerfully share. That man who can
forget his mother, who can forget the sorrows and solicitudes which she
has endured for him, and the lessons of piety which she instilled into
his young mind, has sundered the last tie that binds him to virtue and a
reasonable hope of heaven.
TUESDAY, DEC. 9. Our painters commenced to-day painting our
gun-carriages black. They had a coat of white paint when we left port,
but it soon became dingy and defaced by the rough-and-tumble of sea
usage. Black paint can easily be restored; a few coats of varnish will
make it shine like a Congo under his native sun. The objects to be aimed
at in the use of paint on board a man-of-war are neatness, preservation,
economy in money and time. There is nothing fantastic, but all is
substantial and enduring. It is in harmony with the solid oak out of
which the storm-defying fabric is itself constructed.
I have been attached to ships where the belaying-pins, the
midship-stanchions, and even crowbars, were bright work. The amount of
labor bestowed upon them during a three years’ cruise, might, if
properly directed, have almost constructed another ship equal to that of
which these are mere blacksmith appendages. Were sailors merely
unthinking machines, it might do to keep them employed on such work; but
as it is, the idea will often force itself upon them that their labor is
a frivolous waste of time. This renders them impatient and remiss, and
this impatience and remissness soon extends to their other duties. Keep
sailors employed, but let them feel that their employment is working out
some adequate ends. No man will continue to roll an empty wheelbarrow,
however liberally paid for his services.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10. This morning, with our royals set to a steady
southeaster, we dashed across the equator at longitude thirty. That
great circle, cutting the continents, mountains, oceans, and islands of
the globe asunder, now threw its steep plane between us and the thousand
objects to which memory clings with affection and pride. The sunset
clouds on which we had gazed, the towering crags where morn first broke,
and the brilliant constellations which faith had peopled with the
spirits of the pure and meek, all went down in dying pomp over the dim
horizon. What now to us Niagara’s thunder, or the rush of the Alpine
avalanche! Even the polar star, that has poured its steady light for
ages on the ruins of pyramids, the wrecks of temples, and the graves of
empires, has left its watch-tower in darkness,—all are lost in the
shoreless ocean of night.
Old Neptune formerly saluted every ship that crossed the line. He
appeared in the shape of some tall sturdy tar, in ox-hide mail, with a
long beard of yarn falling far below his chin, and locks of the same
flowing in drenched ringlets down his shoulders. His trident was a huge
harpoon, his pipe the coiled hose of the fire-engine; thus accoutred, he
hailed the ship over her bows, and mounting a gun-carriage, was drawn
aft to the quarter-deck. Here he summoned the green horns to his
presence, and after lathering them from a tub of grease and tar, shaved
them with a ship’s scraper. Having thus introduced the novice into his
service, he returned in triumph to his watery realm. This ceremony was
found such an infraction of discipline, that it has been discontinued on
board our national ships. Our sailors were allowed to splice the
main-brace as a substitute.
THURSDAY, DEC. 11. A delicate question of discipline occurred to-day.
The master’s mate of the gun-deck, finding the captain of the main-top
behind the rest in lashing and stowing his hammock, ordered him to clean
the bell,—a menial service, and intended as a punishment. The captain of
the main-top, knowing the order to be illegal and derogatory to his
position, declined compliance. He was reported to the officer of the
deck and confined. All this had taken place without the knowledge of the
first lieutenant or the commander. When known to them, the facts were
promptly inquired into. I felt some interest in seeing how Captain Du
Pont would dispose of the question.
The illegality of an order, though it may mitigate the offence, cannot
for a moment justify disobedience. Such a doctrine would make every man
a judge in his own case, and overthrow discipline. He must obey the
order, and seek redress at its proper source. The offender saw his
error, as exhibited to him by Captain Du Pont, and said he should submit
to any punishment which the government of the ship required. That was
enough; he was one of our best men, this his first offence, and Captain
Du Pont very properly at once restored him to duty. Now what would have
been the moral effect of inflicting chastisement on that man, as some,
in a spirit of haste, might have done. It might have broken his
ambition. It would certainly have reduced him to a lash-level with the
hardened culprit. It would have relieved punishment of some portion of
the shame which attaches to it. The bad always exult when they see any
portion of their disgrace transferred to the good; therefore never
punish a good faithful sailor for the first offence into which he may be
betrayed, if there is any way of getting round it. Let his virtues
“Plead for him like angels, trumpet-tongued.”
FRIDAY, DEC. 12. We have had, for three days, the regular trade-wind
from the southeast, and have been running under royals and
studding-sails, from seven to ten knots the hour. The thermometer has
ranged at 75, the air has been balmy, and the sky free of clouds. What a
contrast to the weather of the line,—where a cloud gathered before you
could turn your eye, and where showers fell like water from some vast
reservoir, with the bottom suddenly knocked out!
A flying-fish, hard pressed by a dolphin, took refuge on the deck of our
ship. He might as well have remained in the sea, for he was instantly
secured by one of our sailors, and presented by him to a lady passenger,
who, with too little feeling, fried and ate him. It is true he had the
satisfaction of being eaten by a lady, which was perhaps preferable to
being swallowed by a dolphin. How many frantic lovers there are who
would like to be eaten up by their mistress! Besides, it is in much
better taste to dispose of one’s self in this way, than making a plunge
into the sea to feed a hungry shark. Still, for one, I should not like
to see a woman coming at me with a frying-pan.
Our batteries, in their black paint, look solid and uncompromising.
Their threatening strength reminds one of the terrific lines of
Campbell, in the Battle of the Baltic:—
“When each gun,
From its adamantine lips,
Spread a death-shade round the ships
Like the hurricane’s eclipse
Of the sun.”
SATURDAY, DEC. 13. A booby was seen last evening, at sunset, circling
around our masts. He was looking where he should light when it should
become sufficiently dark. He lives on what he can find in the sea, but
prefers a spar to a wave on which to roost. He has sense enough to know
that when asleep, the fish may avenge upon him some of the wrongs which
he inflicts. But he is, after all, a very stupid fellow. He secures his
prey often at the expense of his life, and that, too, when there is no
necessity for it. If a little billow casts a dead fish on a rock, he
poises over it for a moment to be sure of his mark, and then plunging
down, head first, dashes his own brains out; very much like a politician
who rushes so hard upon an office that he destroys himself in its
attainment. The senate is, in this case, the rock on which his little
craft splits.
We are now approaching the region of dolphins, porpoises, sharks, and
small whales. Our sailors are rigging their hooks and harpoons. It will
be difficult for any thing that comes near us to escape their glittering
steel. Their hostility falls mostly on the shark. They regard him as a
graver robber. He can expect no mercy. The loudest note of exultation I
ever heard on board a man-of-war, was when one of these fellows was
brought on board. “There,” said a rough salt, “you have been prowling
about here to get a nab at us, and have got nabbed yourself—you old
blood-sucker!” There are three beings that can expect no mercy in
misfortune,—a rat, a tyrant, and a shark. Of the three I would soonest
spare the rat; I always associated something respectable with his long
tail. But let that pass.
SUNDAY, DEC. 14. We have had the awning spread, and have held divine
service. All joined in, and sung Old Hundred to the hymn commencing with
the lines—
“God of the seas, thine awful voice
Bids all the rolling waves rejoice.”
The impressiveness of a service at sea is owing, in part, to the
isolation of those on board. There is nothing around to distract the
attention, or win a diverted thought. Around rolls or rests the
melancholy main—above stretches the blue heaven, and over all reigns
that Supreme Intelligence, at whose fiat resplendent worlds rolled from
chaotic night. All is vast and awful, like that state of being into
which we are ushered at death. It is this that makes the sailor
religious, and inspires him with respect for all the great truths which
throw their light through the night of the grave.
The errors and vices of the sailor seldom result from skepticism. I
never met with one who denied or doubted the existence of a God, the
wickedness of the human heart, or the realities of a future state. They
attach a much higher offence to a disrespect to the Bible, than the use
of profane language. They seem to think a man’s impulses may be wrong,
while in the main he is good. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak. They have a law in their members warring against the law of their
mind, and bringing them into captivity to Satan; and yet they are free
to denounce that captivity, and brand it as the source of all their
degredation and misery. Their loathing spirits, touched with a diviner
life, often exclaim, “Who shall deliver us from this body of sin and
death?”
MONDAY, DEC. 15. We were to-day, at 12 o’clock, in lat. 15° 46′ S.,
long. 36° 58′ W. We have run within the last five days a thousand miles,
and are now within six hundred and sixty miles of Rio. Three or four
days more, and we shall probably be at rest in one of the most
magnificent bays in the world. Our ship is in prime condition for
displaying her symmetry and strength. She is indebted for this to the
experience and activity of our captain and first lieutenant. They are
thorough in the details of ship duty, and are sustained by efficient
officers. To keep a man-of-war trig, taxes the profoundest patience and
energy. It requires an eye that sees every thing, and a fidelity that
neglects nothing.
I saw this morning, at daybreak, an old tar standing alone on the
forecastle. His stalwart form rose in bold relief on the brightening
sky. His dark locks flowed out from under his tarpaulin upon the wind.
His large deep eye was fastened on the sun as it came whirling up in
splendor out of the sea. His large sinewy arms were extended, as if to
welcome some being that inspired reverence and love; when Milton’s
sublime apostrophe to light rolled in solemn emphasis from his lips:—
“Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven, first born
Or of the eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light,
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright affluence of bright essence increate.”
TUESDAY, DEC. 16. This is beautiful sailing; a soft, balmy atmosphere, a
smooth sea, and a breeze that carries us seven and eight knots the hour.
We have not taken in our studding-sails for several days; while our
royals seemed to have entered into an agreement with our broad pennant
to stand or come down together. The day is not darkened by clouds, and
the night is filled with the soft light of the moon. The stars come out
from the blue vault of heaven, and blaze with a distinctness and force
that makes each one seem some central source of exhaustless and
unquenchable splendor. Of this high host Jupiter leads the way; to him
the eye of the sailor turns as that of the Moslem to the crescent that
glows on the minaret of his prophet.
An officer to-day, after reprimanding a sailor for some alleged neglect
of duty, told him to go forward; that he was such a perfect nondescript
that he did not know what to do with him. So forward Jack went,
muttering to himself _nondescript_—what does that mean? “Here, Wilkins,”
said he, “can you tell me what nondescript means? the officer of the
deck called me a nondescript, and I want to know what it means—something
bad, I suppose, for he was mighty angry.” “No,” said Wilkins, “I don’t
know what it means; call Tim Shades, he can tell you.” Now this latter
person was a sort of ship’s dictionary, and though perhaps as ignorant
as any on board, had a meaning for every thing, and a reason for it
besides. So Tim Shades came. “What does nondescript mean?” inquired the
aggrieved sailor. Our lexicographer seemed at first a little puzzled;
but soon settling his features into oracular solemnity,
replied:—“Nondescript means one who gets into heaven without being
regularly entered on the books.” “Is that all it means?” ejaculated the
offended sailor; “well, well, I shall be glad to get there any way, poor
sinner as I am.” Were there more of the spirit of this sailor among
sectarians, there would be less altercation about the right road, and
quite as much speed.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17. Another hundred miles of the distance that separated
us from Rio has been left behind. Four hundred miles more remain to be
traversed. The breeze is extremely light, directly aft, and our
studding-sails on both sides, below and aloft, are out. We are under a
cloud of canvas, which hangs over our frigate like the brooding wings of
the cherubim over the sanctuary of the ark. But here I fear the parallel
must stop. We have the sacred tables, it is true, and the commandments
inscribed on them, but where is the soul-absorbing reverence they should
inspire?
All hands are at work getting our ship ready for port. She is being
scoured from stem to stern, outside and in. Every soil on her paint is
obliged to yield to soap and clean water; and every weather-stain on her
rigging is removed. She will look neat as a bride approaching the
nuptial altar. What is there more beautiful on earth than a young and
guileless being thus timidly intrusting her destiny to the hands of
another,—leaving her home, her father, mother, brothers and sisters, for
a hearth which another love has lighted, and where other hopes are to
bud and bloom? He who can betray the confidence thus reposed in him, and
break the heart that has treasured its last trust in his, is callous
alike to crime and shame. But this is digression.
THURSDAY, DEC. 18. As we were exercising to-day at general quarters, our
ears were startled by the cry, “Man overboard!” The life-buoy was
instantly cut away, the ship hove-to, and a boat lowered. The missing
sailor had fallen from the steps of the lee gangway, and was discovered
before he had passed the ship’s counter, but immediately disappeared. He
was known to be a good swimmer; the cause of his sudden disappearance is
left to conjecture. His head may possibly have struck the ship’s side
with sufficient force to have stunned him, or he may have fallen a prey
to an enormous shark that has been hanging around our ship all the
morning. A protracted and most diligent search was made, but not a trace
of him could be found. The boat was at last recalled, and our ship
filled away.
The deceased was one of the most intractable and dangerous men we had on
board. He had knocked down one of the crew in the dark, and stamped on
the face of another at night, with the apparent intention of inflicting
a mortal wound. No punishments, no counsels had the slightest effect
upon him. Captain Du Pont had tried his utmost to reform him. He seemed
proof both to the language of kindness and rebuke. When it was known
among the crew that he was the one that was lost, not a sentiment of
sorrow or regret was evinced. But on the contrary, the crew seemed as if
relieved of a calamity by a mysterious Providence. This death carries
one moral lesson with obvious effect to all, and that is, to have the
sympathy and regret of others in death, we must command their friendship
and respect in life. No eloquence can proclaim this truth with half the
effect that this death has done. But the appearance of one at the bar of
God so utterly unprepared for his last account, is a thought
inexpressibly awful, and should strike the deepest alarm into a guilty
breast.
FRIDAY, DEC. 19. We were to-day, at 12 o’clock, in lat. 21° 36′ S.,
long. 38° 55′ W., 200 miles from Cape Frio, and 260 from Rio. The breeze
which for several days past has often died into a calm, has freshened
to-day, and is carrying us along with studding-sails below and aloft,
some six and seven knots. We may perhaps get in on Sunday evening, but
not before. We have seen nothing of the strong westerly winds which
prevail in the North Atlantic during the winter months, and very little
of the northeast monsoons found to the south of the equator. These
winds, like broken-down politicians, have blown themselves out.
A large ship, which, if our glasses speak truly, is armed, and bears a
broad pennant, is in sight. All hands have been called to quarters, the
breeching of the guns cast loose, the match-buckets stationed, cutlasses
and pistols belted, the magazines opened, and every thing ready for an
engagement. Our commodore will never be taken by surprise. His ship is
ready at any moment for action. To this subject he gives his personal
attention. Every division of the guns is exercised under his immediate
supervision. His presence, and the interest he takes in the exercise,
encourages and animates the men. He has an enthusiasm himself which he
infuses into others.
“Our bosoms we’ll bear to the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or crushed in its ruins to die.”
SATURDAY, DEC. 20. “Land ho!” This cry from the man in the fore-top sent
an exulting thrill this morning through our whole ship. We have been on
the ocean fifty-two days, and not an island or even desolate rock have
we seen. Our eyes have rested only on the sky and melancholy main. But
now a towering headland welcomes us to a new clime and the wonders of a
new shore. Mr. Morgan, our master, calculated that we should discover
land this morning at half past eleven, on our starboard bow. Within ten
minutes of the time, and bearing precisely as he had calculated, Cape
Frio was announced by the man in the fore-top. This, after an absence
from land of more than seven weeks, and the sailing of more than six
thousand miles, speaks well for our chronometers, and the scientific
accuracy of our sailing-master.
We have been running, for several hours past, twelve knots, with the
wind on our quarter. We shot past a Brazilian brig on the same course,
as if she had been at anchor. The line of coast is now but a few miles
distant, and heaves its soaring peaks into the sky. The sun is setting
in splendor. As the night deepens apace, sheets of moonlight descend
through the rifts of the floating darkness above, while a long train of
phosphoric light flashes behind our keel. The storm on the lofty coast
becomes still more grand and awful. Every mountain-peak becomes a
blazing fortress, and shakes with the heavy thunder. The very sea
trembles under this artillery of the sky.
“And this is in the night:—most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in your fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit wave shines a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black,—and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.”
CHAPTER III.
RIO DE JANEIRO.
BAY OF RIO.—SCENERY.—ASPECT OF THE CITY.—ROYAL PALACE AND
CHAPEL.—LANCERS AND BABY.—MISERACORDIA.—AQUEDUCT.—MORNING
RIDE.—BOTANIC GARDEN.—TEA-PLANT.—THE SABBATH IN
RIO.—MUSEUM.—NUNNERY.—JEALOUSY OF HUSBANDS.—A POMPOUS FUNERAL.—THE
PLYMOUTH.—HON. HENRY A. WISE.—SLAVE-TRADE.—MARRIAGES AND DOMESTIC
ARRANGEMENTS.—POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE BRAZILIANS.—TREATMENT OF
THE SLAVES.—RELIGION.—WASHER-WOMEN.—SAN ANTONIO.—CLIMATE.—THE
UNKNOWN COUPLE.—DIAMONDS.—FAREWELL TO RIO.
Land ho—from the mast-head swelling,
On the breeze its music throws,
Like the tones of angels, telling
Where the soul may find repose.
SUNDAY, DEC. 21. We found ourselves on Sunday morning off the harbor of
Rio. The first object that here arrests the eye is a rocky isle swelling
abruptly from the sea, and crowned with a pharos, that had thrown its
light some thirty miles to us the night before. Between this and the
main land on the left, soars another mass of rocks, while a
corresponding one rises with a savage aspect on the right. These
wave-encircled bastions resemble those posted by nature on either side
of the Dardanelles, through which the grim spirits of Europe and Asia
challenge each other.
[Illustration: RIO DE JANEIRO]
Within the entrance on the left rise the steep sides of Sugar-loaf
mountain, while on the right frowns the lofty fortress of Santa Cruz.
Further in looms the fortified isle of Lagem, commanding the central
passage, and throwing its protection over the romantic cove, from which
Bota Foga looks out upon the waters. As the eye wanders further up the
bay, it encounters the island of Cobras, buried under its frowning
batteries, and the Ville-Gagnon with its castellated summits; while on
the opposite side a giant rock has walked out into the waters, and taken
up its lofty, independent position.
The bay, studded with picturesque islands, circles up bold and beautiful
some thirty miles into the main land. The shore presents here a
glittering beach, which retreats into the green recesses of a deep
ravine, and is there overhung by some stupendous cliff, which throws its
dark shadows below. The whole bay is like a resplendent lake looking to
heaven amid Alpine pinnacles. High above all soars the steep Corcovada,
where plays the first blush of morn, and where the dying day lingers;
while the Organ mountains, with their sharp peaks, pour down the harmony
of the winds. All between these lofty barriers and the quiet bay
presents a forest of fantastic cones; while swinging depths of shade
wave over the glad rills that leap down their sides, and make music at
their base. It would seem as if some volcano had thrown up these hills
in a frolic; or as if some Titanic spirit, imbued with a love of the
wonderful, had been permitted to work out its conceptions in these wild
shapes.
The city descends from mountain coves to the strand of the bay, like a
spreading stream, which encounters here a rolling hill and there a
projecting bluff. Some of the elevations are crowned with public
edifices, but no princely palace, gorgeous dome, or glittering spire,
strongly arrests the eye. The architecture of man here is so inferior to
that of nature, it ought to make an apology whenever it shows itself. It
is like the tent of an Arab throwing up its dirty cone beneath the
magnificent umbrage of the palm. It is said the genius of a people is in
harmony with the scenery in the midst of which they have been reared;
but here is scenery that might almost throw sunbows over the dreams of
the dead, and architecture sombre enough to send even a Quaker to sleep.
Such is the aspect of the city as seen from our frigate, swinging at her
anchors in front of the imperial palace. A nearer view may possibly
bring out some concealed beauty. But cities, like fashionable women, are
very apt to betray their charms at the first blush.
MONDAY, DEC. 22. I visited the shore to-day, in company with Dr. Mosely
and Mr. Spieden, our purser. We landed in front of the palace-square. A
flight of broken wood steps took us to the top of the sea-wall, where we
found ourselves on a paved parapet, presenting an open area of several
hundred feet, which was broken only by the dark form of a fountain, from
which the water fell in profusion. We here encountered a swarm of
half-naked slaves, sufficiently diversified in their features to
represent every African tribe from which they were stolen. Some had not
lost their first look of wonder, while others seemed as those in whom
grief and hope had long since perished. They were engaged in
transporting merchandise, and seemed to be the walking drays of the
city. They carry these enormous burdens on their heads, and trot along
with a sonorous grunt, which works itself off into a sort of song. You
wonder how they can have so much wind to spare for their tune.
We next encountered a little carriage, with a child in it, drawn by a
diminutive pony. You might almost put the whole establishment into a
good sized market-basket. It was attended by some half dozen slaves, who
seemed extremely anxious about their charge. Where they were going I
know not; but the whole group presented a striking picture of the
extremes of human life. That child would have been just as happy in the
strong arms of its nurse; the globe would probably have turned on its
axle just as long; but parental pride and folly would not have been
gratified. This is a small outbreak of the aristocratic sentiment—a
sentiment not primitive.
“When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?”
The royal palace has no charms of architecture. It is a long, low, and
rather heavy-looking building, with ballustraded windows, and stuccoed
walls. Within the iron gratings of the court the form of a black soldier
moved to and fro, on guard; while others stretched at length on benches,
or sitting in the corners of the walls, were sound asleep. The whole was
a breathing type of that listlessness and slumber which falls on the
soldier guarding in a time of profound peace an empty palace. This
palace might be converted into a warehouse without ever awaking in the
visiter a suspicion of the regal use to which it had been put.
We passed on to the royal chapel, which stands near by, and which
communicates with the palace through the silent halls of a monastery.
The exterior of the chapel presents only its front to the eye,
surmounted by a cross, and relieved by a mimic crown which reposes in a
central niche. The interior is adorned with a profusion of gilding, and
contains several private boxes, where the occupants may conceal
themselves behind crimson curtains. We found in the oratory a dozen
priests or monks, chanting their devotions. Two of them were laughing
most immoderately. They seemed to make every effort to suppress their
risible impulses, and would now and then succeed so far as to present
for a moment a grave countenance, but the ludicrous would immediately
gain the ascendency, and the laughter burst out. I once saw the gravity
of a whole congregation in one of our largest country churches
irretrievably disturbed. An owl had perched himself on the key of the
arch directly over the choir; the clergyman had given out the hymn
commencing with the words,
“Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound.”
As the singers rose, and just as the leader was going to pitch the
pathetic tune, the owl, as if taking this duty on himself, gave a solemn
hoot! They who were troubled with a quick sense of the ludicrous,
couldn’t hold in for a moment, and the infection spread to the whole
congregation.
TUESDAY, DEC. 23. I came near being captured to-day by a troop of
lancers. They were riding at full speed before two carriages, in one of
which lay the infant emperor, in its nurse’s arms, and in the other
chatted the servants in attendance on the baby. The lancers had the
important bearing of Roman cohorts, ushering Cæsar into the imperial
city after the triumphs of his African campaign. How far the baby was
benefitted by this military display, or the lactant provisions of its
nurse increased, I was not informed.
Turning away, I soon encountered a woman with her infant lashed to her
back. The little fellow reposed in the bunt of a shawl, the corners of
which were fastened over the breast of his mother. He kept his eye on
me, as I walked behind him, but with no signs of fear; he well knew that
the love which carried him would protect him. His mother was still in
youth, moved with an elastic step, and evinced her cheerfulness of heart
in her animated face. How strikingly this group contrasts itself with
that in the imperial carriage! Pomp was there, but heart here. Between a
venal homage of soldiers and a mother’s love who could hesitate? The
last will live and throb with undying strength, when the other is a
breathless mockery.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 24. We visited to-day the Miseracordia, a noble monument
of Brazilian humanity. Hundreds, who would otherwise have died unnoticed
and unknown in the streets, have here experienced, in their last hours,
those attentions which religion and benevolence bestow upon the
destitute and helpless. A statue of the Emperor, in the finest Carrara
marble, is being executed by an Italian artist, for this institution, at
the private expense of a wealthy Brazilian.
Long may that statue stand on its pedestal, a true symbol of the
humanity of him whom it represents. One king in an hospital has more
true glory than a thousand on the field of carnage. It is a false view
of the moral characteristics of our nature, to find more honor in
killing a man than comforting him. It is doing homage to the thieves,
who robbed the traveller and left him for dead, instead of the good
Samaritan, who bound up his wounds and took him to an inn.
We passed on to the Aqueduct, which is brought over this section of the
city upon a succession of lofty arches, which sweep high over the
dwellings. This national work, constructed under the viceroyalty of
Vasconcellas, is in imitation of the Alcantra aqueduct at Lisbon, and
reflects lasting honor on its projector. It is supplied with water from
artificial lakes in the Corcovada mountain. The summit of this mountain
is covered with wild forest trees, which being cooler than the
surrounding atmosphere, condense the vapor, which falls in showers into
these lakes. To this beautiful law of nature Rio is indebted for that
refreshing element without which she would be but little better than a
desert.
In giving a community pure water to drink, you take from the tippler his
standing apology for putting rum in it. You reduce him to that pain in
the stomach from which he finds no relief except in the minted toddy.
When among the temperate, this perpetual colic will sometimes twist him
almost double. Poor fellow! to have such a pain, and no relief except in
rum, and even this very much embarrassed by the refusal of others to
drink it. What business has a man to stop drinking himself, if doing so
makes it disreputable in others? He should be held responsible for
bringing odium on that horn of poor human nature’s dilemma. Let whisky
be as plenty as water, and it would be a beastly disgrace to get drunk
on it. Can three cents turn vulgarity into gentility, shame into honor,
and guilt into innocence?
“O would some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us.”
THURSDAY, DEC. 25. Mr. Livingston, Dr. Mosely, Mr. Spieden, with myself,
chartered this morning a carriage-and-four for the day. Our first drive
was to the residence of the American minister, some three miles out of
the city, and in the centre of a vast variety of rural charms. We found
Mr. Wise listening to the grievances of two American sailors, who had
been unceremoniously thrown ashore by their captains. His action was
prompt and energetic, as it always is when there are rights to be
vindicated, or wrongs to be redressed.
We spent a very agreeable and entertaining hour with him, and called for
our carriage, when we discovered that our postillion had unharnessed his
steeds and put them very quietly to the manger, thinking, no doubt, that
as the fodder would cost him nothing, it was by no means best to let it
pass. While he was harnessing up, a servant connected with the imperial
palace came in for his Christmas token. He had called, it seemed, on the
morning of the happy day, and wished the American minister a merry
Christmas, and had now come for his fee. The same call, with the same
salutation, had been made on all the foreign ministers, and all were
expected to “shell out” very liberally on the occasion. Usage is law,
and the result is very expensive merry wishes. I intend next year to
wish the whole world a merry Christmas.
Seated once more in our carriage, we found our postillion whirling us
back to the city, instead of taking the rode to the Botanic Garden, to
which we were bound. We explained our wishes to him, thinking he labored
under a misapprehension; but a shrug of his shoulders convinced us that
he was acting from obstinacy. We then poured our remonstrances,
reproaches, and threats upon him, in half a dozen different languages,
creating quite a little Babel. Shaking his head like one whose purpose,
but not will, is broken, he turned into the right road, and drove his
horses, at the top of their speed, under a broiling sun, to Bota Foga,
about half the distance to the Garden, but then brought up in front of a
restaurant, declaring his horses could proceed no further.
We ordered for them a bucket or two of fresh water, and after resting a
few moments, directed the postillion to drive on; but not a step would
he budge. Here was a poser, a sort of crisis in our affairs, as
political leaders say when they wish to rally the strength of their
party. We gave our postillion one minute in which to decide whether he
would drive us to the Garden, or be ousted from his seat to make room
for another who would drive us there. He waited till the last second,
and then started off sulkily, as one in doubt whether to fight or yield.
At last we reached the little hotel near the Garden, where we alighted,
and directed the keeper to take the best care of the horses. In the mean
time, we pushed into a neighboring grove, where we indulged in the
luxuries of a lunch, which our provident purser had brought from the
ship, and for which our ride had given us a keen appetite. This
finished, and a few segars whiffed off, we directed a dinner, and
proceeded to the Garden.
This refreshing retreat from the heat and dust of the city, derives its
leading attractions from its location. Beyond rolls the sea, and over it
towers the lofty Corcovada. It occupies some fifty acres, and is
intersected by winding walks, which are overhung with forest shade.
Several of the plats are devoted to the cultivation of the tea-plant,
which had been introduced by the father of the present emperor. Although
the plant has never succeeded to perfection, it has approached it
sufficiently to have satisfied the good ladies of Boston, whose husbands
had thrown their Chinese dreams into the sea. What a scene such an
interference with the phlegathontic weed would create around our
hearths! Think you our ladies would so quietly have taken to spearmint
and sage? But let that pass.
In other plats we met with the cinnamon, the red pepper, and the clove,
all in fruit. But aromatics are the last plants that will consent to
carry their fragrance with them into foreign climes. The walks are
overhung with the mango, the orange, the marmosa, and dark olive, while
the croton and plantain cast in every coppice the deep umbrage of their
forest gloom.
On one side of the garden a silver-footed streamlet dashes down the
steeps of the Corcovada, like a girl escaping from a crabbed aunt for
Gretna Green. Near this rises an elliptical mound, crowned with a
beautiful bower of the arbor vitæ. This vivacious shrub allows itself to
be twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes, without a thought of dying.
In this bower, which is so thickly interlaced as to exclude the sun, I
sought a wicker couch, and, lulled by the lapse of the waters, and the
melody of a mourning bird, fell asleep, and dreamed of
“Groves, whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.”
We returned to the hotel, discussed a very indifferent dinner, ordered
up our carriage, and started on our return to the city. The evening came
in with a soft beautiful twilight. We passed many family groups seated
in the front yards of their houses enjoying the hour. Here and there was
one who had deeper thoughts than her younger sisters, and whose large
black eyes were often turned to the climbing moon.
We called on our return upon Mr. Furgeson, our naval store-keeper at
Rio, a situation which he fills with a fidelity and business tact, which
have the merited confidence of the department.
The evening had well advanced when we reached the city. We discharged
our postillion in the same sulky humor in which he had been all day. He
had the look and air of an old pirate, thrown by some freak of fortune
into livery, and upon the box of a coach instead of the scaffold. All
his ill temper arose from the fact that we had not promised him a
gratuity. We had engaged to give his employer twelve dollars for the
carriage, and we should not have forgotten him had he been civil and
obliging. His conduct, like that of most people when they get out of
temper, worked him only evil.
Ill fortune rides ill will where’er it leads.
FRIDAY, DEC. 26. The United States frigate Columbia, commanded by Capt.
Richie, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Rousseau, arrived
this morning from Norfolk. She has had, by a singular coincidence, the
same passage as the Congress—fifty-two days. I was right glad to find on
board of her, as chaplain, my esteemed friend, the Rev. T. R. Lambert. A
portion of her crew are down with the smallpox, which broke out in the
person of one of her marines several days after she had sailed. All
direct communication with her has been interdicted; but we met her
officers, who are very agreeable associates, on shore. We expected
letters by the Columbia, but her departure followed so fast on our own
that very few were sent.
The Columbia is a fine frigate, combining speed, strength, and grace of
architecture. Near her swings the frigate Raritan, under the command of
Captain Gregory. She has less beauty than her sister, is low between her
decks, and her spikes, with their black heads, disfigure her planks; but
she rides the water gracefully, and is a swift sailor. For this,
however, she may be indebted, in some degree, to the skill of her
commander, whose sagacity in detecting and bringing out the latent
qualities of a ship is seldom baffled. Her wardroom, though dark from
without, has light from within; not that which strays from a few dim
tapers, but from the spirit that is in man, and which will still stream
on when life’s taper itself is out.
SATURDAY, DEC. 27. Her Britannic Majesty’s frigate President, under the
command of Rear-Admiral Dacres, entered the harbor to-day, and let go
her anchors within a few cables length of us. She is the new-fledged
phenix of the old one, captured from us in the last war. The parent has
perished, but her memory still survives in the glorious triumphs of
Decatur, as well as in this fledgling which bears her name. The old bird
was captured by an overwhelming superiority of force; not by greater
tact or courage. No laurels were won or lost.
The offspring which has arisen from her relics, is now bearing the
pennant of one who was himself, while commanding the Guerrier, captured
by the Constitution, under Commodore Hull. But he fought his ship well;
it was no want of courage that allowed victory to perch on our flag. He
had no resource but to surrender, or sink in a dismantled hulk. The
English journals affected to prefer the last catastrophe; but this does
very well for those who are not themselves in the hulk. The bubbles
which brim the watery grave of the sailor may break and disappear as
other bubbles; but when they ascend from our own strangling gasps, they
carry with them agonies which should shake a world. The capture of the
Guerrier, and the triumphs which followed, broke the charm of British
invincibility. That dream of supremacy fled the ocean, never to return—
“That spell upon the minds of men,
Broke, never to unite again.”
SUNDAY, DEC. 28. Were a stranger to the religious habits of a Catholic
community thrown into Rio on the Sabbath, he would think he had mistaken
his sabbatical calendar. He would think he had arrived on some holiday,
in which the serious concerns of life yield to gayety. He would see this
spirit of social mirth pervading all classes. Even the bells would have
a glee in their tones. He would find the priests in the promenade
instead of the pulpit, with their large-rimmed hats rolled up over the
ear, and the solemnity of their sable gowns in singular contrast with
the levity that runs through their manner.
Such is the Sabbath where the principles of Protestantism have not
obtained, and where its spirit is not felt. It is a day of amusement and
recreation. Such it has ever been in every country where the genius of
papacy has been paramount. Such it is now in Italy, France, Portugal,
and Spain. Let the see of Rome roll its waves over the Protestant
institutions of the United States, and it would sweep the sanctity of
the Sabbath from the land. There would not be enough of its vitality
left to embalm the memory of our pilgrim fathers. To rebuke those who
abuse religion is not to disparage its spirit.
“All hail, Religion! maid divine,
Pardon a muse so mean as mine,
Who, in his rough, imperfect line,
Thus dares to name thee;
To stigmatize false friends of thine,
Can ne’er defame thee.”
MONDAY, DEC. 20. Visited the Museum of Natural History. Here the
beautiful birds of Brazil speak in dumb show, and her minerals seem to
mourn their mines. But the specimens are not extensive. The Public
Library, in another building, contains some twenty thousand volumes,
which slumber in dust on their shelves. The Academy of Fine Arts has a
few specimens in statuary and painting; but none that would kindle an
eye that has once gazed on the triumphs of a Phidias or a Raphael. The
Opera House has elegant and ample accommodations for spectators, but no
performers.
All these institutions were established by Don Pedro I., but have been
on the decline since his abdication. It was his ambition to make Rio a
second Lisbon; but his plans outran his means. Mafra Castle alone, with
its time-honored towers and their hundred and twenty bells, rolling out
their anthems on the airs of old Portugal, leave all that Rio can
present, like an afterpiece from which the auditory has escaped.
The great mass of the laboring classes in Rio subsist on the farina of
the jatrapha-plant, made into a coarse bread, called _pan de tierre
caliente_. It is manufactured from the same plant of which the tapioca
is obtained. This, with the black bean, which grows in great abundance,
is with them the staple of life. The more luxurious bread-stuffs are
imported. Even meat, amidst all this teeming vegetation, is scarce and
dear. Every thing here runs to coffee, of which a hundred and thirty
millions of pounds are exported annually, which goes to foreign markets,
and brings back, in the great circle of commerce, the products of every
other clime.
TUESDAY, DEC. 30. Visited the queen’s garden, which covers some six
acres, and lies within the environs of the city, between the
Miseracordia and Gloria Hill, and opens by a broad terrace on the bay.
The gravelled walks, which sweep around in every direction, are
over-arched by swinging masses of shade. The cassia waves here by the
side of the silver-leaved myrtle, and the imperial laurel—the shamrock
of Brazil—turns its green yellow-striped leaves to the sun; while two
small pyramids of granite stand as grim sentinels over the proprieties
of the place. A tough job, it is said, they have of it, when the young
of the city flock here in the evening, though their watch duties are
aided by conjugal jealousy and parental vigilance.
Not far removed from the garden, and in harmony with some of its
associations, stands a nunnery, which, considering the uses to which it
is put, might with propriety be called the bridal prison. Husbands,
leaving the country or the city for any length of time, are in the habit
of shutting up their wives and children in this nunnery. A beautiful
exhibition of conjugal love and confidence! But where are the confessors
all this time with their compulsory vows of celibacy, and that latitude
of conscience which compulsion always leaves? Better to trust a wife to
her own affections than the guidance of men whom superstition has
invested with the power to pardon the errors of human frailty, who can
commit sin one hour, and cancel it with all parties the next.
Ecclesiastical rules and regulations, which deprive any portion of the
community of the privileges of the marriage state, pave the way to
crime. They are a violation of the laws of nature and nature’s God.
On our return we stopped at the imperial chapel, where preparations were
making for a sumptuous funeral. The chapel was brilliantly lighted; the
priests were in their gorgeous robes; and the dark carriage of the dead
soon arrived, with four black horses, and postillions in sable plumes.
The body was placed near the great altar, candles were placed in the
hands of those who crowded the nave, and amid a shower of light the
chant for the repose of the soul began.
One of the candles set fire to the long locks of a fashionable youth
standing near the bier. The priest who was sprinkling the holy water,
dashed a shower of it upon his head, while a suppressed laughter shook
the whole crowd. The prayers finished,—the bier was removed to the
enclosure in the rear of the church, the body taken from the coffin, and
thrown up into a niche in the wall, resembling a baker’s oven. It was
tossed in head first, and the aperture being small and high, it required
no little tact in the swinging and cant to secure it a proper lodgment.
Lime and holy water were then cast upon it, and the orifice closed.
Sooner than have such a burial as this, with scorching hair, laughter,
an oven, and dissolving lime, let me glide from earth unnoticed and
unknown, as a flower falls in the pathless wilderness, and let my grave
be a sunless cave of ocean, only let me have there as mourner:—
The mermaid, whose elegiac shell
Shall pour its tender stave,
In many a wild and fond farewell
Around my sea-green grave.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 31. Visited to-day the Plymouth, under the command of
Capt. Henry. She is one of the most finished specimens of naval
architecture afloat; and the neatness of her internal appearance
corresponds with her outward grace and beauty. Her light spar-deck,
running flush fore and aft, unencumbered by a gun; her bulwarks sweeping
from stem to stern without a breaking beam, and clouded into the hue of
the pearl; her gun-carriages exhibiting through their hard varnish the
native grain of the oak, and the guns presenting the hard polish of
their cylinders; her stanchions of burnished iron, her sides and bends
without a weather-stain, and her hammocks rising above their netting
white as the snow-drift,—all have the finest effect. She reflects, in
every aspect in which she may be viewed, the highest credit on the taste
and professional skill of Captain Henry and his officers.
She came here from the Mediterranean, after having visited most of the
ports in that sea, and paid her respects to the grand sultan at
Constantinople. She was there, as she is here, the admiration of all who
visited her. Such a ship as this, with the soft clime of Italy, the
storied shores of Greece, and the classic associations of the Ægean
isles, would be the perfection of cruising with the scholar, and would
involve nothing incompatible with the sterner purposes of a man-of-war.
THURSDAY, JAN. 1, 1846. This is new-year’s day, and the anniversary of
the discovery of the bay of Rio by Salis. The Brazilian flag is flying
from the public buildings and the masts of all the vessels in the
harbor. Salutes from fortifications and national ships are pouring their
reverberating thunder among the hills.
Commodore Stockton has graced the occasion in the shape of a splendid
dinner to the Hon. Henry A. Wise. Many ladies and gentlemen of Rio, with
the officers of the English and American squadrons, were present. The
most perfect good feeling prevailed; many patriotic sentiments went
round; and many recollections of home melted their way into our hearts.
The honor of the occasion was for Mr. Wise; nor was it unworthily
bestowed. He has been a firm, devoted friend to the navy; he has stood
by her in her darkest hours, and found, in the triumphs of the past, a
bright prophecy of the future. He has been, at the court of Brazil, the
fearless champion of the rights and claims of humanity. He has shrunk
from no efforts and no responsibility in crushing the slave-trade. Where
selfish ease suggested silence, he has spoken; where timidity urged a
temporizing indifference, he has resolutely acted. His moral firmness
has made him the terror of every slaver, and of all connected with this
accursed traffic. If he resigns his present post, may his successor, in
this respect at least, tread in his footsteps.
FRIDAY, JAN. 2. A Brazilian lady was pointed out to me to-day who is but
twelve years of age, and who has two children, who were frolicking
around her steps. She was married at ten to a wealthy merchant of
sixty-five,—a spring violet caught in a curling snow-drift! But ladies
here marry extremely young. They have hardly done with their fictitious
babies, when they have the smiles and tears of real ones. Their parents
make the matches, as well they may at that age; and they ought in
conscience to retain still the spanking privilege, and exercise it down
to the third generation.
The evidences of consideration here turn upon a two or four wheeled
vehicle, which is kept in the basement story of the house, and throws
the sheen of its varnish on the eye of the passer. Whether there is a
horse to draw it or not, is a matter of comparatively little importance.
It answers its essential purpose without. It is a quiet indication of
rank, and all the better that its slumber is seldom broken.
In the parlors and apartments above, you find the transmitted furniture
of past generations. Antiquity has a charm against which novelty cannot
prevail. The same chair in which the departed ancestor trembled between
this life and the next, still stands by the verandah, where budding
beauty breathes and throbs. The same old harp, which was swept by a hand
that has long since forgotten its cunning, now wakes to melody under the
touch of one in whom life’s earliest pulses play. Its music ever floats
between the cradle and the grave.
SATURDAY, JAN. 3. This is a holiday at Rio, and the calkers from shore,
who are at work on our frigate, knocked off last evening, refusing to
come this morning unless their per diem should be raised fifty per cent.
As we are anxious to get to sea, their demand has been complied with.
Conscience, it would seem, has no concern in the matter, though it is a
saint’s day, and one of the most sacred in their calendar. How very
convenient when that little inward troubler can be tied up in a man’s
purse, and stowed away in his breeches pocket!
Rio is a city without chimneys, and strikes one as a regiment of
soldiers without caps. A vein of smoke is never seen circling up over
its red-tiled roofs. The mildness of the climate dispenses with all
parlor fires, except the gleam of the braséro. The houses, which rarely
exceed two stories, are built of fragmented stones and a species of
mortar, which the air indurates into the solidity of a cement. The
parlors are in the second story, and open out on a verandah. The
servants divide the ground-floor with the old spaniel, who looks out
from the dusky background like the lion of Agamemnon, still keeping
stern watch over his master’s gloomy shrine.
The domestic habits of the Brazilians, and their household economy, are
closely shrouded; yet now and then, like guilty love, they betray
themselves through their very disguises. They have but little confidence
in their own virtue, and still less in yours; and, as might be expected,
betray and are betrayed. Redress for such grievances is seldom sought
through the forms of law. The stiletto makes less noise, and is more
certain in its results. Don Pedro I. put his very throne in jeopardy by
his profligacies. He brought ruin and indignant shame into some of the
first families in Brazil. His victims were in every circle. The
conditions of office involved their marriage, without interfering with
this illicit relation. He was abusive to his wife, as false husbands
generally are, and went to his grave with but little which friendship
itself would not conceal.
SUNDAY, JAN. 4. The slave-trade is still carried on in the ports of
Brazil. The government, though committed by treaty against it, connives
at the traffic. From ten to fifteen thousand slaves are imported
annually. Of these the Mina, from the north interior of Africa, brings
with him the greatest force of character. He never trifles with the
misfortunes of his lot, and submits indignantly to a state of servitude.
He speaks his deep-sounding Arabic, and looks with contempt upon the
twattle of the other tribes. He has the bearing of one conscious of
resources in himself. His energy and industry often procure him his
liberty. His presence in Brazil puts the stability of her institutions
in peril. It is apprehended he may one day strike for unconditional
freedom. He is not a being who will crave quarter, or be very likely to
grant it. It will be with him a life and death struggle.
MONDAY, JAN. 5. The United States frigate Raritan has arrived from La
Plata, and reports that the English and French are still engaged
fighting their way up the Parana for the purpose of opening a permanent
communication with the interior provinces. The general opinion here is,
that Governor Rosas will be obliged to abandon the blockade of Monte
Video, and consent to the commercial communications demanded by England
and France. Popular opinion here runs strongly in favor of free trade
the world over.
The Brazilians do not like the interference of European powers in the
affairs of this continent, but they dislike anarchy and despotism still
more. They are the advocates of free constitutional government, and have
embodied its most essential principles in their political institutions.
The Emperor of Brazil has but little more power than the President of
the United States. Law take its shape from the national legislature, and
from that branch of it which expresses the popular will. This branch can
at any time force a joint vote with the senate, and carry a measure by
its numerical strength. This can indeed be vetoed by the emperor, but it
would be an exercise of prerogative seldom resorted to, and never, I
believe, where the popular will has been clearly expressed.
The condition of the slave population here is much less abject and
wretched than I expected to find it. Slaves are generally treated with
kindness and humanity by their masters. Their color operates less to
their prejudice than with us. Their freedom, in many cases, lies within
their reach, and may be obtained, as it often is, by industry and
frugality. The owner who should demand an exorbitant price for a slave,
who wishes to earn his freedom, would be severely censured. When free,
he goes to the ballot-box, and is eligible to a seat in the national
legislature.
Nor would anybody here go into hysterics should he marry a woman whose
skin should be a shade whiter than his own. It is for us Americans to
preach up humanity, freedom, and equality, and then turn up our blessed
noses if an African takes a seat at the same table on board a steamboat.
Even in our churches he is obliged to look out some obscure nook, and
dodge along towards heaven as if he had no business on the “narrow way.”
The misery is, that they who preach equality the loudest, are generally
the last to practice it. They are generally for levelling downwards; but
give me the man who tries to level upwards. Give me the man whose smiles
are like the rays of the sun—if they strike the loftiest objects first,
it is only that they may glance to the lowest.
TUESDAY, JAN. 6. The religion of the Brazilians, as seen in their
legislative policy, is less trammelled by superstition than in most
countries where Papacy prevails. The Pope, a few years since, sent a
legate to this court. It is expected, in such cases, that the salary of
the legate will be paid by the country to which he is accredited. But
the Brazilian legislature, not having the fear of the Vatican before
their eyes, voted that his holiness might pay his own representative. He
was of course recalled. Such has been the abuse here of ecclesiastical
supremacy, such its interference in political affairs, and such its
onerous pecuniary exactions, that there has been a sweeping reaction,
and the civil power of the Pope is openly set at defiance.
As for the priests here, should they attempt to set up any secular
authority, they would only expose themselves to derision. There is
vastly more reverence for the decisions of the Papal see among the Roman
Catholics of our country, than there is among the Brazilians. Were a
bishop here to interfere at an election, it would cost him his
episcopate. It is for us Americans to submit to such an outrage on the
sanctity of the ballot-box.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 7. I encountered to-day, on a large public square within
the environs of the city, a washing-scene, which was rather primitive.
The square is carpeted with green grass medallioned with flowers, and
shaded here and there by clusters of forest trees. In the midst stands a
fountain, from which the water falls in light showers into an immense
basin. In this basin some two hundred females, of every age, clime, and
color, were dashing their clothes, and rubbing them on the great sweep
of the curb-stone. Their apparel, what little they had on, was fastened
above the knee; the water in the basin was a pool of foaming suds, and
they were jumping about in it like the Nereids of the Nile. The younger
ones were full of mischief, and displayed their agility in tripping each
other up. The fall of one into the suds was followed by a general shout.
How they escaped having their clothes inextricably mixed up in this
general melée of the great wash-tub, was a mystery to me.
On the green were hundreds of others occupied with their clothes. Some
were snapping them in the wind; some spreading them on the grass to dry;
some folding them up and depositing them in baskets, to be transported
on their heads home; and others were under the shade of the trees
asleep. Some trick, however, such as a dash of water from the bowl, was
sure to await the dreamer; and then another laugh would be thrown on the
wind. As twilight came on, all this panorama of life, with its breathing
forms, its triumphs in laundry, and its merriments, disappeared. Nothing
but the whisper of the leaf, or the bubble which still floated on the
fountain, remained to tell where such a bustle had been.
What a magnificent wash-tub one of our great western lakes would make!
It would hold all the clothes, clean and unclean, which cover the human
race. There is only one difficulty in the way of this arrangement: it
would be a little awkward to have the lake freeze over in the dead of
winter. This, however, might be prevented by introducing under it the
volcano of Vesuvius, which is of no use where it now stands. This done,
and Whitney’s railroad to the Pacific finished, and we shall truly be a
great nation. But our women will never consent to have the _small
clothes_ perilled in Lake Superior; so there is an end to the whole
business.
THURSDAY, JAN. 8. Rambled on shore to-day with Lieut. Gray, and returned
several calls. Every family in Rio, where superstition asserts her sway,
has two things, an image of St. Antonio and a whip. If the saint, after
being duly invoked, still refuses to grant the boon craved, he is taken
down from his niche and soundly whipped. This chastisement is repeated
till the prayer is answered, or some priest interferes, and consoles the
disappointed with the persuasion that the blessing sought has been, or
will be, conferred in some other form. This compulsory process with a
saint, accounts for the maimed state in which you always find poor
Antonio here. There is something unique and interesting in this mode of
obtaining benefactions. If a saint wont shell out, when he has the
power, why should he not be whipped as well as a sinner?
We encountered to-day a Brazilian lady of rank in her palankeen. She was
carried by two sturdy slaves, and followed by a retinue of servants. She
was evidently bound on a visit to some female acquaintance, with whom
she expected to spend the day. Her attendants must also be provided for.
Such an arrival in a quiet family would turn the whole house
topsy-turvy. The further we get from the heart, the more bustle we make.
The forms of fashionable etiquette, like feathers in a lady’s bonnet,
are full of flare and flutter.
FRIDAY, JAN. 9. On shore to-day with Lieutenant Tilghman, rambling
through the environs of the city, and on the green hills which overlook
the bay. Capt. Wilkes, in his history of the exploring expedition, calls
this place St. Salvador. The Brazilians laugh at the misnomer, and enjoy
it the more as the captain’s comments are deemed by them censorious and
unjust. It was an unfortunate slip of the pen to write St. Salvador for
St. Sebastian, and still more unfortunate to stereotype it into
immortality.
The primitive name of this splendid bay is Nitherohi, which means
concealed water, and is beautifully significant of its phenomena, as
they unroll their wonders on the eye. And what a liquid name is that
Nitherohi! it fairly melts on the tongue. It is Indian in its origin,
and should never have been dropped for any saint in the calendar. But in
Catholic countries, Eden itself would soon cease to go by its proper
name.
I do not wonder the Brazilians are deficient in enterprise and energy.
No physical force can withstand the enervating influences of this
climate, and that listlessness which it induces. Not one exhilarating
pulse heaves the heart. You feel as one walking in a half-exhausted
receiver. The heat at this season is intense; the atmosphere often
humid, and your whole frame yields to lassitude. How can a man attempt
any thing great, when the least exertion throws him into perspiration,
and even to dream seems an effort! It is as much as I can do to muster
up resolution enough to pen this feeble page; and as for the reader he
will probably fall asleep over it.
SATURDAY, JAN. 10. We had to-day a forcible specimen of Rio showers. We
were in Rua d’Ouvidor, which is lined with the most fashionable shops in
the city, when a black cloud, sailing down from the Corcovada peak,
rolled out the lake, which lay in its bosom. The street was immediately
filled with a flood of sufficient depth to float a family canoe. The
inclined plane of the street carried it off in a rapid torrent. The sun
again struck the pavement, and we were at liberty to renew our walk.
Were such a flood to rush down Broadway, our New Yorkers would think
their Croton reservoir had burst its last boundary. But here it creates
as little commotion as the breaking of a bubble on the public fountain.
The fruits of Rio are delicious; richer oranges and bananas the houri
never shook from the blooming boughs of Mahomet’s horticultural heaven.
But the milk here, or the liquid sold under that name, has less of the
lacteal element in it than water filtered through the “milky-way.” For
this attenuated dilution our steward pays twenty cents the quart. Rumor
says it is procured from the maternal functions of a tribe of slaves,
who are wonderfully endowed in this particular, and who act as a class
of wet-nurses to the community. Be the rumor true or not, it was very
difficult to use it after this idea had once entered the imagination. It
was hurrying one rather too fast into his second childhood. Would it
bring back our first infancy, with its innocent glee, it would do. But
life’s current has no refluent tide.
SUNDAY, JAN. 11. Mr. Wise and family, with several other ladies and
gentlemen from the shore, attended divine service on board. We assembled
on the spar-deck under an awning that protected every one from the sun’s
rays. The leading points in the discourse turned on the value of the
soul, as asserted in the nature of its powers and capacities, and in the
humiliation and sufferings of the Son of God in its behalf. At the close
of the service we all joined in singing the missionary hymn; the sacred
music swelling up full and clear from so many deep-toned voices, floated
far and wide over the still waters of the bay.
The Protestants in Rio have but one place of worship—the English chapel.
They have been very unfortunate in the appointment of their chaplains.
These appointments, and those of a diplomatic and political character,
emanate substantially from the same source. Warm, devoted piety, in its
unobtrusive meekness, seems to be overlooked in the glare of other
qualities, or the erring partialities of private friendship. The last
chaplain who served here for a time and left, went into one of the West
India islands and set up a gaming table. The English chaplain at
Trieste, as I had occasion to observe, was one of the most accomplished
waltzers in the place. Such men have their place, perhaps, in this
varied world, but it is not in the missionary field. He will bring very
few sheaves home with him who has converted his sickle into a
fiddle-bow; and he will find even these few made up mostly of those
tares which the devil sowed while he frolicked or slept.
MONDAY, JAN. 12. A Brazilian gentleman of some note sent his card over
the side of our ship this morning, and was invited on board by Capt. Du
Pont, who received him and his lady at the gangway. He was tall, well
proportioned, and in his carriage combined dignity with ease. His dark
locks rolled out from under his chapeau in rich profusion. His face had
that calmness and strength in its features which express force of
intellect and benignity of heart. His dress was rich, but not gaudy;
sable in hue, and well fitted to his stately person. He spoke in French,
with a slight Brazilian accent. His questions were relevant and shrewd;
his admiration of our frigate undisguised.
His lady was slightly below him in height, and more delicate in form.
There was something peculiarly feminine in her air, and yet something
which betrayed strength of character. Her small foot rose and lit on the
deck with precision and airy lightness. Her countenance constantly
changed in the tide of its expressions. The features were extremely
regular, but you forgot their well-defined lines in the harmony of the
whole. Her eyes were large, soft, and floating, and were shaded by long
silken lashes, from which light and darkness seemed to fall. When some
thought of deep animation struck her, the emotion flushed in her cheek
like the blush of morn on a soft cloud. Her voice, though not deep, was
musical, and flowed like the low sweet warble of a bird. Such was she,
and such the one in whom her affections confided. They left the ship as
they came, without ostentation. I have been told since that he is one of
the first statesmen in Brazil.
TUESDAY, JAN. 13. Visited the shore for the last time, as we are to
weigh anchor to-morrow morning. Walked through Rua d’Ouvedor, the
Broadway of Rio, which displays in its fancy shops the fabrics and
fashions of foreign capitals; and where you can purchase every thing
from a camel’s hair shawl to a shoe-string, and from a Damascus blade to
a toothpick.
Crossed into the Rua d’Ourives, which flashes with all the jewels of
Brazil. Their rays bewilder the eyes, and sometimes the wits. Doubloons,
that are wanted for bread, are here parted with for a little pebble,
that has nothing to recommend it but its light, and even that is a
stolen ray. When Franklin’s niece wrote to him at Paris to send her some
ostrich feathers for her winter bonnet, the republican minister wrote
her—“Catch the old rooster, my child, and pull the feathers out of his
tail, they will do just as well.” What is true of the rooster’s feather,
in comparison with the plume of the ostrich, is equally true of the
common pebble by the side of the diamond. The brightest ray is that
which flashes from intellect; the warmest that which melts from the
heart.
Of the hotels in Rio the best is the Pharoux—an extensive establishment,
under Parisian arrangements, and evincing a great want of cleanliness.
If by good fortune your tester-bar keeps out the mosquito, you fall into
the hands of a still worse enemy in the shape of the flea. Besides these
annoyances, the night tubs, emptied on the beach of the bay, waft to
your window odors which make you prefer heat to air. The goddess
Cloacina ought to visit this place and order her altars under ground,
where they belong, instead of having them transported on the heads of
negroes, under the shadows of night, and sending up their exhalations,
which are enough to make the man in the moon hold his nose. But let that
pass. Flowers spring from corruption. Man pollutes, but nature purifies.
A spirit of freedom is gradually working its way into the heart of the
Brazilians. They have made a vast stride in constitutional liberty
within the last twenty years. Their government has ceased to be a
despotism. Its functions now embody the energies of the public will; its
measures look to the welfare of the great masses. The throne merely
holds in check the leaders of factions, without wantonly impairing the
freedom of the patriotic citizen. Should the period arrive, when
monarchical forms can safely be dispensed with, and the public will
tranquilly work itself out in the shape of law, Brazil will take her
station among free republics.
As the old cathedral clock struck eleven, and the lights in the
balconies grew dim, the barge of our commodore, in which we had been
invited to take a seat, parted from the strand of Rio. Again on deck, a
farewell look was thrown to its hills, sleeping in the soft moonlight.
On those hills a Byron, a Cook, a Magellan have gazed. The morn still
breaks over them, but they know it not. The world may still retain a
faint echo of their fame, but where are they? and where, in a few years,
shall we be? where are the millions, whose voices rang through the past?
Death has hushed their exulting tunes, and their monuments have crumbled
under the footstep of time. And we are passing to the same silent shore.
As the furrows of our keel pass from the face of the deep, so will the
strife, the sorrows, and the triumphs of our being, glide from the
memory of man.
“What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
PASSAGE FROM RIO TO CAPE HORN.
GETTING UNDER WAY.—THE LETTER-BAG.—RUNAWAY SAILOR.—ISLE OF ST.
CATHERINE.—PAMPEROES.—THE SHOTTED GUN.—LOSS OF OUR COON.—THE SAILOR
AND SHARK.—GENERAL QUARTERS AT NIGHT.—FIREWORKS IN THE SEA.—THE
PHANTOM SHIP.—PATAGONIANS.—THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.—THE CAPTURED
ALBATROS.—TERRIFIC GALE.—CONDITION OF OUR FRIGATE.—THE SAILOR’S
BURIAL.—THE CAPE OF STORMS.
All hands unmoor—the captain’s brief command;
The cable round the flying capstan rings,
The anchor quits its bed, the sails expand,
The gallant ship before the quick breeze springs.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 14, 1846. This morning as the first rays of the sun lit
the Corcovada peak, we tripped our anchors, and, under a light land
breeze, stood down the bay of Rio. It being understood that we were to
take our departure at this hour, the officers and crews of the national
ships, which lay moored around us, were on deck to see us get under way.
This being the first time we had gone through with these evolutions on
the cruise, a slight solicitude was felt, lest some awkwardness in
executing the orders, some want of perfect harmony and dispatch, should
be evinced. The liability to those errors which we wished to avoid, was
perhaps only enhanced by the presence of so many professional eyes. But
the successive orders were executed with admirable promptitude and
accuracy. We left our berth with the grace of the swan gliding from the
place of her cradled sleep.
We left at anchor the U. S. frigate Columbia, bearing the broad pennant
of Commodore Rousseau, bound to La Plata; the U. S. sloop-of-war
Plymouth, bound to the same place; and the U. S. frigate Raritan, bound
to the Mexican gulf. To each and all we waved our adieu, and filled away
for Cape Horn. What a contrast between what lay around us, and what lay
before us! We were exchanging a quiet harbor for a tumbling
ocean,—zephyrs too soft to ruffle the cheek of beauty, for storms which
the sturdy ship can hardly withstand,—a clime of perpetual sunshine and
flowers for one of eternal ice.
THURSDAY, JAN. 15. We were to-day at 12 o’clock two hundred and sixty
miles from our anchorage at Rio, a very good commencement of our run
south. We have been looking out all day for some vessel to heave in
sight, that we might throw on board her our last letter-bag, which, by a
singular inadvertence, had been brought off to sea with us. It had been
made up during our last night at Rio, and contained our last words of
affection and remembrance; and here it was going with us towards Cape
Horn, instead of our homes. This was vexatious, and required that
philosophy which the heart is slow to learn. They who can write their
friends every twenty-four hours, will let months perhaps roll away
without penning them a sentence. But take away this facility, spread an
ocean between them and their kindred, and they will look for a vessel
bound home as eagerly as a condemned culprit looks for a reprieve or
pardon.
FRIDAY, JAN. 16. Our wind still continues directly aft; we have all
studding-sails out below and aloft. The weather is extremely warm; the
thermometer ranging at 87. The night is quite as oppressive as the day,
and perhaps more so, as we are then in our state-rooms. The wind-sail is
a great comfort; without it the berth-deck would be almost intolerable.
But we are like frogs jumping out of the sun into the frost, and then
out of the frost into the sun.
Our sailors while at Rio behaved extremely well. They were constantly
passing between the ship and the shore, and frequently without an
officer in charge of the boat, and yet but one or two instances of
intoxication occurred; only one deserted, and he was so worthless a
creature that no efforts were made to recover him. We all felt quite
relieved when it was known that he had run; our only fear was, that he
would relent and come back. Captain Du Pont might have said to him with
some propriety, “I shall punish you, not for running away, for that was
relieving us of a bad man, but for coming back.” Our Rio runaway did
not, however, return; if this was the result of an unwillingness to ask
further our charity and forbearance, he is certainly entitled to some
praise.
SATURDAY, JAN. 17. The weather still continues close and sultry. The sky
is filled with a dull haze, the sea is smooth, the breeze very light and
directly aft, where it has been for the last eight-and-forty hours, and
yet we have sailed between 12 o’clock yesterday and the same hour to-day
105 miles. Four knots the hour is slow sailing by the clock, but in the
aggregate for the day extends over a wide space of water. You would
think so, were you doomed to swim it, though you might have three months
to do it in. No man should complain of a horse or a ship that carries
him faster than he can carry himself.
Besides, why should we be in haste to reach our port? We are out here on
a great ocean, exempt from all the troubles and perplexities of the
shore. Realms may be revolutionized, capitals shaken, dynasties
overthrown, and we feel and know it not. We are as secure as Mahomet’s
coffin, swinging high and serene above the careering sirocco. If the
world wearies you, if its frivolities sicken or its crimes overwhelm
you, proceed to sea, get out on the broad ocean, and hold communion with
the stars and the free billows. Here you are not a slave to custom, you
are not trammelled by party, you have not to coin your cheek to smiles.
The ocean exacts no such homage; but impresses on her children a portion
of her own grandeur and strength.
SUNDAY, JAN. 18. We have had divine service on a very unquiet deck. The
fall of the barometer through the first watch, last night, indicated a
change in the weather. It came, during the mid-watch, in the shape of a
strong blow from the southeast. This is the first pampero that we have
encountered, and if the rest are like this, the fewer we have of them
the better. They knock you off your course, raise a tumbling sea, and
then leave you like a culprit escaping from the scene of his outrage.
We have passed the Brazilian island of St. Catharine, unable to gratify
our curiosity by any stay there. This small island has many attractions;
its fruits are unrivalled; its scenery is wild and picturesque; its
inhabitants are mild and amiable. The climate, though warm, is so
modified by a sea breeze that the heat is never oppressive. The birds of
this island are remarkable for the sweetness and brilliancy of their
music. The fertility of the soil is seen in the rich verdure which waves
in a mass of living green over its steeps and glens. Could Eden have
taken its departure from the east in the shape of an island, I should
think it had anchored itself here under the name of St. Catharine.
“How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle!
Oft, in my fancy’s wanderings,
I’ve wished that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bowers,
Were wafted off to seas unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
And we might live, love, die alone—
Far from the cruel and the cold—
Where the bright eyes of angels only
Should come around us, to behold
A paradise so pure and lonely.”
MONDAY, JAN. 19TH. The wind is still out of the south and in our teeth.
It has taken up its stand there like the indignant angel heading off
Balaam’s ass. This reminds me of an anecdote not more out of place here
than the graceless animal that introduces it. A man who stammered to
such a degree that he was under the necessity, when journeying, to have
an interpreter with him, encountered on the road a clergyman, mounted on
rather a sorry-looking horse. Before the parties met, the stammerer told
his interpreter that he was going to pro-pro-pose to the par-par-parson
a certain question, and then explained, in his broken dialect, what the
question was. As the clergyman came up, the stammerer saluted him with
“Good morning, Mr. par-par-parson: can you tell me wha-wha-wha”—Here the
interpreter came in to his relief, and, with a satirical leer in his
look, told the parson that his companion wished to ask him—what made
Balaam’s ass speak. The clergyman instantly replied, “Why, Balaam was a
stammerer, and his ass spake for him.” This is not the only instance in
which a wicked wag, attempting an impudent witticism upon a
simple-hearted man, has fallen into his own snare. Wisdom is justified
of her children.
But I forget the ship and our destination. The last we might well forget
till the wind hauls. Nothing conduces more to resignation than losing
sight of your objects. We are always in the greatest fever nearest our
goal. Youth may indeed pursue interests which can be reached only in
age; but enthusiasm and anticipation overleap this gulf of years,
leaving action and reality to come along afterwards. Love lights its
lamp long before it reaches its shrine; so long, indeed, that it often
goes out on the road; and when once quenched, there is no Promethean
spark that can rekindle it. But what have lamps and love, or ladies
either, to do with our getting to Cape Horn?
TUESDAY, JAN. 20. The wind has hauled to the west at last, and we are
now laying our course. But such a change in the temperature! our
thermometer fell fifteen degrees in almost as many minutes, and remains
there like a broken-down politician. A day or two since, and we were
panting with heat even in our thinnest dress; now we are in winter
apparel, and cold at that. Our crew are barking all over the ship. It is
a little singular that the two animals which withstand these changes of
climate the best, are man and the hog. I always had some regard for this
last animal till he was introduced into Congress to help out a metaphor
of party animosity; since that, I have seen him roasted without
compunction. Every thing is known by the uses to which it is put.
We have had for some time past a shot in one of our spar-deck guns,
which we found it impossible at Rio to dislodge, to make room for firing
a salute. Every other expedient having failed, it was decided to-day to
fire it off. The danger lay in the gun’s bursting. It was trained to one
of the forward ports, the crew ordered below, and a slow match applied
to it. It went off, and the ball with it, into the infinity of space,
harming nothing save the air through which it passed, and which closed
up again as suddenly as Europe restored itself to its old landmarks
after the battle of Waterloo. This was a tragedy running foul of a
counterplot in the very last scene. It was a triumphant wave just
sweeping the shore, and then suddenly thrown back by a rock to whence it
came.
“Thanks for that lesson: it will teach
To after warriors more
Than high philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.”
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21st. We met this morning with an irreparable loss in
the death of our coon. He took, passage on board our frigate at Norfolk.
The great presidential election having just closed, and there being no
further occasion for his distinguished services, till another campaign
should open, he determined to spend a portion of the intervening time in
studying the habits and customs of coons in other lands.
He had been extremely occupied at Rio with the objects of his mission,
and probably neglected those precautions observed by coons in a torrid
zone. He was seized with a malady beyond the sagacity of the profession,
and which suddenly unrove his life line. This evening he was silently
consigned to the deep, by the boatswain’s mate, who committed a great
breach of propriety in not piping him over. But he probably thought that
one who had been so honored in his life could dispense with ceremony at
his death. My Ariel, however, who loved the coon, and will long lament
his loss, has penned the following:
ELEGY ON THE COON.
Thou meek and melancholy moon!
Smile sweetly on yon curling wave,
For ’neath its foam our gentle coon
Is in his grave.
No more he’ll leave his woodland hole
To frolic with the fox,
Or meet the Whiggies, cheek by jowl,
At ballot-box:
No more will stir the Locos’ bile
By his provoking pranks—
To think that he, who lead their file,
Should quit their ranks.
In grand processions he stood out,
High o’er the gaping crowd,
As if to him arose that shout,
Full thunder loud.
He knew to chasten his desires,
To curb all selfish wishes,
And left to those who worked the wires
The loaves and fishes.
The flowing waves will softly wreath
A chaplet on his breast,
The sighing winds a requiem breathe
Above his rest.
We are to-day nearly past the broad mouth of the Plata. The wind for the
last twenty-four hours has been extremely light, but we have made about
a hundred miles on our course. At this rate we shall soon be beyond the
reach of the pampero. This wind gives no admonition; it springs upon you
like a serpent from the brake, striking with its fang before it springs
its rattle. This is foul play, but we must put up with it, or make
ourselves ridiculous over a wayward element.
THURSDAY, JAN. 22d. We caught our first shark this morning. The rogue
had been following in the wake of our ship for some hours. The sailors
baited a large hook with a piece of pork, and let it trail by a long
line from the stern. The shark nabbed it, and finding himself caught,
attempted to break the line by his vigorous plunge, but it was too
strong for him. He was soon brought on deck, cut up, and on the fire
broiling for dinner. The sailors ate him with that savage glee which
often attends an act of retributive justice. But for eating him, they
felt quite sure he would in the end eat some of them. The way to
_finish_ an adversary is to eat him up. He will then give you no further
trouble save in the digestion. Anthropophagy is greatly abused. It is
much more innocent to devour a man’s body than his character; yet the
latter is done every day; while even a vague rumor of the former will
fill a whole community with consternation. But what has this to do with
getting to Cape Horn?
FRIDAY, JAN. 23d. Fresh meat at this rate will soon cease to be a dainty
with us. One of our crew harpooned a huge porpoise this morning. He
shared the fate of the shark, on coals and the gridiron. He makes very
good eating; rather dry, as the Irishman said—picking the bones of an
owl, which he had shot for a grouse.
We went to general quarters this afternoon; all fire and lights having
been first extinguished. The crew went through with the evolutions of an
engagement with an enthusiasm that would not dishonor the reality. On
these exercises depends in a great measure the efficiency of a ship when
the crisis comes. But there is one feature of the arrangement not quite
to my liking. I am stationed at the capstan to take notes of the action;
very cool business when balls are flying around you like hail! If there
is any fighting to be done I wish to do my part of it, but not with a
goose-quill. That weapon does very well when there are no cutlasses,
powder, and shot about, but it is not quite the thing with which to
protect your own deck or board the enemy. It is said the chaplain of the
Chesapeake, who wielded a cutlass instead of a goose-quill, gave the
commander of the Shannon, as he attempted to board, the wound of which
he ultimately died: so much
For one whose courage cut him loose
From weapons furnished by a goose.
SATURDAY, JAN. 24. We were to-day at 12 o’clock full half way from Rio
to Cape Horn. The wind is on our starboard quarter, the sea smooth, and
we are slipping along six and seven knots the hour. The atmosphere has
that smoky appearance which is characteristic of our clime when the
autumn has set in. An albatros has been circling around our ship to-day.
He is a large white bird approaching the swan in size, but with shorter
neck and longer wings.
Last night, on the eve of the mid-watch, the drum rolled all hands out
of their hammocks. We sprung to the deck, and went to general quarters.
The guns were cast loose, and we went through with the evolutions of a
night engagement. Hardly a loud word was heard, though the manœuvring of
our ship, and the management of her batteries, would have signalized us
in the battle of the Nile. If we are to have a fight, we shall know how
to go at it, whether it come at noon or midnight. What would have
surprised a stranger most, was the quickness with which every one
appeared on deck, when the call was beat. From the first tap of the drum
not more than three minutes elapsed before the last hammock was stowed,
and its roused occupant was ready for action. The marine officer, who
occupies the state-room adjoining mine, must have jumped into his
clothes without the time to draw them on:
Ere you could open well your eye,
He stood in arms prepared to die.
SUNDAY, JAN. 25. We have had no service to-day, in consequence of a cold
which I had taken, and which rendered speaking extremely difficult. Our
wind still holds, without having veered scarcely a point, and is now
carrying us onward ten knots the hour.
We had last night a splendid exhibition of aquatic fireworks. The night
was perfectly dark, and the sea smooth; and you might see a thousand
living rockets shooting off in all directions from our ship, and,
running through countless configurations, return to her, leaving their
track still bright with inextinguishable flame. Then they would start
again, whirling through every possible gyration, till the whole ocean
around seemed medallioned with fire. The fact was, we had run into an
immense shoal of porpoises and small fish. The sea being filled at the
same time with animalculæ, which emit a bright phosphoric light when the
water is agitated, the chase of the porpoises after these small fish
created the beautiful phenomena described. The light was so strong that
you could see the fish with the utmost distinctness. They lit their own
path, like a skyrocket in a dark night. Our ship left the track of its
keel in flame for half a mile. I have witnessed the illumination of St.
Peter’s and the castle of Michael Angelo at Rome, and heard the shout of
the vast multitudes as the splendors broke over the dark cope of night;
but no pyrotechnic displays ever got up by human skill, could rival the
exhibitions of nature around our ship. Give me a phosphoric sea and a
shoal of porpoises for fireworks: out on man and his vanity; he is
outdone, even with the thunders of the Vatican at his command, by the
ocean hog!
MONDAY, JAN. 26. We have been engaged to-day in stumping our
top-gallant-masts, and striking below some six of our spar-deck guns.
The gales often encountered off Cape Horn render these precautions
expedient on board a man-of-war. She is not like a merchantman, with the
great bulk and weight of her cargo down in the hold; her heavy
batteries, the strong decks which support them, her lofty masts, solid
spars, and immense field of canvas, are all above water-mark. She feels,
therefore, more than her mercantile sister, the strength of the wind,
and rolls more fearfully to its force.
It is seldom indeed that a man-of-war is lost. But her safety lies in
her precautions,—in the fact that she has not the same motive for
carrying sail as a merchant-ship rushing to a market,—and in the great
amount of living force which she can throw upon her yards in any sudden
emergency. Her crew is necessarily sufficient not only for managing her
sails, but for working her batteries, and can at a moment be summoned to
this duty or that, as the occasion requires. In this lies her safety in
storms and her strength in battle.
TUESDAY, JAN. 27. We were at twelve o’clock to-day within six hundred
miles of the Cape. We had a ten-knot breeze, and the prospect of a fine
run, when a black thunder-storm careered into the sky directly ahead. We
had only time to shorten sail before it was upon us. It swept past,
throwing back its forked lightning. I regretted its departure about as
much as I should that of a savage disappearing in the thicket, and
throwing behind the sheen of his tomahawk.
But one evil the storm has wrought us: it has destroyed our good wind,
and left us to look out for another, like a widow for a second husband.
No lady should marry a second time. If her first husband was a good one,
she should cherish his memory; if bad, he should serve as a beacon.
Gentlemen may marry again; for they were once allowed as many wives as
they wished, and it would be a pity if under any circumstances they
couldn’t have one. But somehow the ladies outdo us entirely in these
second marriages, and in most other things which require tact and
management. But what has this to do with getting to Cape Horn?
A large number of black whales are plunging about our ship. They have a
long heavy motion, and move over a swell like a lubberly Dutch
merchantman. How the lazy rascals ever secure their food is
unaccountable. I should suppose every thing would drift out of their
way. They move in Indian file, and their uneven backs, rippling above
the water, so closely resemble the bumps of the sea-serpent, that I
began to suspect we had got into the neighborhood of Nahant, or that the
commanders of her fishing-smacks had lost forever their great marine
fiction:
“Our army swore terribly in Flanders.”
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28. Our good wind, which the thunder-squall knocked down
last evening, has not yet recovered itself. It occasionally sends out a
breath, but it comes faintly, as from some dying thing. I fear we shall
have to part with it. Let its grave be in the clouds, and let the
softest sun-light rest upon it. May the thunder which has killed it be
compelled to roll its funeral dirge.
Our thermometer has stood to-day at 60. The sky at the zenith has been
brilliant, but on the horizon full of mist. The refraction of the sun’s
rays in the latter, has the effect to lift the distant line of the sea
into a circular wall. We seem to float in the centre of a magnificent
basin, the rim of which soars into the circumambient line of the sky. It
is an amphitheatre of waters, and as daylight darkens over it, the stars
hang in the blue dome their lamps of gushing light. No human
architecture can rival its beauty and grandeur. The Coliseum, which
exhausted the genius and wealth of Rome, dwindles into a cock-pit at its
side. Nations might be seated here as spectators, and the navies of the
world float in the arena. How nature pours contempt on the vanity of man
wherever she encounters it! From the fathomless depths of the rolling
ocean to the dew-drop that trembles on the thorn, she sends out her
challenge, and covers the presumptuous competitor with humiliation. She
is the mirror of her Maker, and images forth his power; and chiefly
thou, great ocean, ever rolling, ever free and full of strength!
“Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.”
THURSDAY, JAN. 29. We discovered this morning, on our weather bow, a
small white cloud, skimming along the undulating line of the horizon.
Its shape, its whiteness, in contrast with the dark background of the
sky, and its horizontal movement, all gave its appearance a singularity
that arrested our attention, When first seen, it was going east, but it
soon tacked, and stood west. It was distinctly visible, as it rose on
the crest of a long sweeping wave, and then seemed lost behind its
tumbling foam—
“A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it near’d and near’d:
As if it dodged a water sprite,
It plunged and tack’d and veer’d.”
But it proved to be no water sprite—no phantom ship, but a good and
substantial whaler, of New Bedford, bound home after a successful
cruise. Right glad were we to fall in with her on this frozen realm of
waters. We saluted her with “Hail Columbia!” She sent a boat alongside,
and her mate came on board. She had just doubled Cape Horn, where she
fell in with several vessels waiting for a change of the wind. She had
been out eighteen months, and was in good condition. In half an hour our
letter-bag was ready, the mate took it on board, and she filled away.
She is again but a speck on the slope of the ocean, and is now beneath
its blue verge.
FRIDAY, JAN. 29. Our wind, which the thunder-storm had crushed, has at
last sprung up again with renewed vigor, like truth overpowered for a
time by falsehood. As if to make up for its temporary overthrow, it is
now overdoing the business. We have been obliged to take in our
top-gallant-sails, and fetch a reef in our topsails. We are now between
the Falkland islands and the Patagonian coast, some three hundred miles
from the Cape. We are heading, close hauled, for the Strait Le Mair. The
sea is pretty rough, but we are tumbling over it at the rate of nine
knots the hour. The air is cold and searching, sleet and hail are on our
deck. What a transition from the melting rays of Rio! A leap from a
lightning cloud into an iceberg!
The wind has hauled, and we are now heading in for the Patagonians. We
shall find them, says one of our mess, who has been among them, not a
diminutive race, as is generally represented, but tall, well formed, and
possessing great muscular power. They live in huts, which resemble gipsy
tents, are clad in skins, and subsist on seals, guanacoes, and birds.
The women dress like the men, plait their long hair, but wear no
ornament in the ear or nose. They have all a bronze complexion, smooth
skin, and one accredited evidence of nobility, small hands and feet. The
men are fond of the chase, and are dexterous in the use of the lance and
bow. The women are attached to their children, but are kept in vassalage
to the other sex. Their religion is that of nature, and its spirit
partakes of the wild and dreary elements which prevail around them. Let
those who prefer the savage state embark for Patagonia,
And rid themselves of ills and ails
With every meal they make on snails.
SATURDAY, JAN. 31. We gave up the Patagonians as soon as the wind
permitted, and are steering again for the Strait Le Mair. The wind is
fitful and uncertain, and the air cold enough to make you snap your
fingers; but the sky, which through the morning was overhung with
clouds, now throws its blue and brilliant lake on the eye.
The Falkland Islands lie on our larboard quarter, and serve as huge
ice-breakers to the coast. Nothing can be imagined more terrible and
sublime than the rush of a steep iceberg against these towering masses
of rock. The tumult and roar of an Austerlitz or Marengo might pass
unheeded. So much does nature outdo man, even when he rouses in flames
and blood.
The Falkland Islands serve one important purpose in the economy of the
nautical world. They are a resting-place between two great confluent
oceans. Here ships in want of water can find it bubbling up as freshly
as if it had never felt the chain of winter. Wild cattle are leaping
among its rocks free and unfettered as goats among Alpine crags. Wild
geese and ducks swarm in the bays; snipe are so tame, you can knock them
over with your gun if you have not skill to shoot them, a circumstance
that would suit me. The eggs of the penguin, albatros, and gull, as they
return from the sea to rear a new generation, cover acres, as thick as
hailstones; while the teaplant, unlike its delicate Chinese sister,
blooms out amid eternal frost.
SUNDAY, FEB. 1. Lat. 53° 56′ S., long. 64° 49′ W. We are now within
forty miles of Staten Land, that huge barrier-rock of the American
continent, around which raves the Antarctic sea. It is the very throne
of Eolus, the centre of storms which never slumber. One of them struck
us a few hours since, and carried away our fore-topsail. It was an old
sail, and we bent another in its place, which will prove true to its
trust. We have sent down our top-gallant yards, and set our try-sails.
Sleet and hail are falling, and the night has closed over us in starless
gloom.
Against the night-storm, you who dwell on the land can close your
shutters, and retire in safety to repose. That storm summons the sailor
from his hammock to the yards. There, on that giddy elevation, with his
masts sweeping from sea to sea, the tempest roaring through his shrouds,
the thunder bursting overhead, the waves howling beneath, and the quick
lightning scorching the eyeballs that meet its glare, the poor sailor
attempts to reef sail. One false balance, one parting of that life line,
and he is precipitated into the rushing sea. A shriek is heard; but who
in such a night of tumult and terror can save? A bubbling groan ascends:
the billows close over their victim, and he sinks to his deep watery
bier. His poor mother will long wait and watch for the return of her
orphan boy; and his infant sister, unacquainted with death, will still
speak his name in gladness. But they will see his face no more! He has
gone to that dim bourne—
From which nor wave, nor sail, nor mariner
Have e’er returned, nor one fond, farewell word
Traversed the waters back.
MONDAY, FEB. 2. As we were close hauled, with Staten Land on our
lee-bow, we carried during the night only sail enough to steady the
ship. But as day began to glimmer, we shook a reef or two out of our
topsails, and set our courses. The sun came up with a cold beam out of
an horizon of heavy haze. Light clouds, in the southwest, began to shoot
up into the zenith, and were followed by a fierce blow, accompanied with
dashes of sleet and hail. Our courses were hauled up, and we were soon
under close-reefed topsails, main spencer, and fore-staysail.
2 o’clock, P. M. The indications of a still severer blow are gathering
around us. The scud drives over the sky with lightning speed, throwing
out here and there its wild black flukes. The sea is running high, and
our ship is plunging into it like a mad leviathan. We have bent our
storm-sails for the worst that may come. Among small matters, my books,
in a heavy roll of the ship, have just fetched away, and lie in every
possible position in my state-room. I have more literature under my feet
than I shall ever have in my head.
7 o’clock, P. M. The sun has just burst through the heavy clouds that
hang on the horizon, and thrown into light a bark on our
weather-quarter. She is visible only as she comes over the combing
summit of a mountain wave, and is then lost in the hollow of the sea. So
long indeed she disappears, you half believe she is gone forever, when
up she comes, hanging upon the plunging verge of another wave. The sun
has set, and night is on the deep.
TUESDAY, FEB. 3. Lat. by alt. near noon, 55° 17′ S. Long, by dead
reckoning, 61° 32′ W. Distance from Staten Land, 85 miles, bearing N. W.
by W. ½ W. (true) heading W. by S., and making no better than W. N. W.,
allowing two points variation, and one for the heave of the sea. Such is
our position, such our prospect for doubling Cape Horn: a head wind, a
high sea, and dashes of rain and hail. Still we take matters very
quietly. Our dead-lights are in, our hatches hooded, and our ship under
close-reefed topsails. When the wind has blown its blow out, where it
now is, we expect it will change its quarters like a spendthrift without
cash or credit left.
We looked out this morning for the little bark thrown into vision last
evening by a gush of sunset light. But she is now nowhere to be seen.
She relieved for the moment our sense of utter dreariness, and will
again if she comes within the dark line of our vision. It is not good
for man to be alone; and this is as true of a ship at sea as of Adam in
Eden. There is only one exhibition of social solitude so dreary as that
of a single ship at sea, and that is the condition of an old bachelor.
A large number of the albatros and stormy petrel have been following us
for hours to pick up the crumbs which the cooks of the different messes
throw over. The albatros gets all the larger bits; the little petrel
darts about under its overshadowing wings, and looks up for permission
like an infant to its mother’s eyes. The night has closed over us; not a
star looks out through the thick mass of clouds above, and only the
combing billow flashes through the darkness beneath.
Night, and storm, and darkness, and the ocean,
Heaving ’gainst their strength its sullen motion.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4. Our gale which had held out three days broke down
last night in the mid-watch, but the fragments of its strength have had
sufficient calcitrating force to prevent our making any perceptible
progress to-day. We are this evening within a few miles of where we were
at the last sunset, and the wind, which comes in occasional puffs, is
still in our teeth. This is doubling Cape Horn.
There is no mistake about this cape. It has shoved itself out here for
no idle or mistaken purpose. It always has, and always will, exact
homage from seamen. It may now and then, from some whim, allow a ship to
pass without these tokens of fealty, just as the pope may permit a
subject to come into his presence without kissing his great toe. But
then it may put the very next ship into a quarantine from which she
would be glad to escape into a Spanish lazaretto.
Our little bark is again in sight, hovering like an unquiet cloud on the
horizon. She bears up with right good heart against the winds. Steady,
my little ocean friend! Keep up thy indomitable courage; thou shalt yet
weather this cape of ice and thunder. To-day we harpooned a cape
porpoise. It differs widely from those found in other zones; is more
lithe and slender; seems formed for speed, and has beautiful black and
white stripes running from head to tail; the flesh is less dry, and the
liver might almost tempt a piscivorous epicure.
THURSDAY, FEB. 5. At 4 o’clock P. M., lat. 56° 27′ S., long. 61° 57 W.
In the last fifty-two hours we have made but a little more than one
degree of latitude, and less than half a degree of longitude. It will
take us a long time at this rate to get around Cape Horn.
The wind during the morning came in cold gusty puffs from the south. At
noon the whole southern horizon seemed tumbling up in black jagged
masses into the sky. This was a signal for reefing, which none could
mistake. But the men had hardly got into the tops before the storm was
upon us. It came charged with hail and sleet, and lasted some three
hours. The masses of cloud then broke asunder, and through their rift
the sun-light streamed like a torrent from a forest-covered steep.
Two enormous whales have been plunging about us to-day. Their huge backs
as they crossed the hollow of the sea might have been mistaken for a
reef of rocks. They blow like a locomotive puffing off steam. Every puff
sends up a shower of spray which may be seen at a great distance, and
which guides the Nantucketite with his glittering harpoon. But who would
trust his vessel in such a sea as this with a dead whale at her side? I
should as soon think of lashing to an iceberg.
8 o’clock, P. M. The cold sun has just set; and our barometer has fallen
to 29.44—lower than it has been since we left Norfolk. It has never yet
deceived us, and if true now, we shall have a stormy night. But let it
come—
The earth will on its glowing axle roll
Though billows howl and tempests shake the pole.
FRIDAY, FEB. 6. Our barometer vaticinated correctly last evening. The
storm which it predicted came punctually as an executioner to his
condemned culprit. It lasted through the greater part of the night, and
left us with a heavy head-sea. Going on deck this morning I found it
extremely difficult to preserve my balance, and brought up in the
scuppers, though I have been on sea-legs between fifteen and twenty
years.
A long line was floated astern this morning, with hook and bait, for an
albatros. Several of these noble birds were sailing in our wake. One of
them took the hook, and as he was drawn slowly towards the ship his
female companion followed close at his side. When lifted in she looked
up with an expression of anxiety and bereavement that would not dishonor
the wife of his captor in a reverse of circumstances. We found in his
shape some resemblance to the wild-goose, but much larger in head and
body, and with a longer wing. The hook had not injured him, and though
his wings, which measured twelve feet between their tips, were pinioned,
he walked the deck with a proud defiant air. His large eye flashed with
indignation and menace. His beak was armed with a strong hook like that
of the falcon, his plumage was white as the driven snow, and the down on
his neck soft as moonlight melting over the verge of an evening cloud.
[Illustration]
He was captured by one of our passengers, who now proposed to kill him
for the sake of his wings. But the sailors, who always associate
something sacred with this bird, interfered. They predicted nothing but
head winds, storms, and misfortunes if he should be killed; and
unlocking his wings, gave him a toss over the ship’s side into his own
wild element. His consort, who had followed the ship closely during his
captivity, received him with outstretched wings. She sailed around him
as he lighted, and in her caressing joy, threw her soft neck now over
this wing and now over that. In a few moments they were cradled side by
side, and he was telling her, I doubt not, of the savage beings he had
been among, and of his narrow escape.
Live on ye bright-eyed pair; the deep
Is yours, each crested wave shall keep
Its vigils o’er your cradled sleep.
SATURDAY, FEB. 7. We have made but very little progress during the last
two days. A slant of wind has occasionally favored us, but with the
counter-current, it has been about as much as we could do to hold our
own. What we gain when the wind hauls we are sure to lose when it
returns to its old position. It is in our teeth, and has been there,
with brief variations, for the last six days. Unless it changes we may
box about her till doomsday.
Out on Cape Horn! Had it shoved itself between Pandemonium and Paradise,
Milton would never have expected Lucifer to weather it. He would have
sent him across the Isthmus of Panama. There ought to be a ship-canal
there; not for demons, but for men. If Cheops could build himself a tomb
which the rays of the new-risen sun should greet before they touched the
lyre of Memnon; if Brunell could arch a pathway under the Thames for the
multitudes of London, with navies on its bosom; and if Whitney can run a
railroad from the Atlantic board to Oregon through the Rocky Mountains,
surely the civilized powers of Europe, and those of America combined,
can cut a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. I only wish all who oppose
the project were obliged to double Cape Horn; they would give in before
they got round, if not, a jackass might take lessons from their
obstinacy.
I have swept, with the telescope, the whole horizon to find our little
attendant bark, but not a vestige of her is to be seen. We parted with
her two days since at nightfall. But she is still, I doubt not, afloat,
and will again loom to light. Courage, my little fellow; you may outdo
us yet—
“The race is not—to be got
By him what swiftest runs,
Nor is the battell—to the peopell
What’s got the longest guns.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
PASSAGE FROM CAPE HORN TO VALPARAISO.
GALE.—HABITS OF THE ALBATROS AND PENGUIN.—THE SEA OFF CAPE HORN.—SLEET
AND HAIL.—FAREWELL TO THE CAPE.—DIRECTIONS FOR DOUBLING THE
CAPE.—GALE IN THE PACIFIC.—APPEARANCE OF THE STARS.—A
RAINBOW.—DIVINE SERVICE.—THE RAZOR AT SEA.—THE LITTLE
BARK.—PLUM-PUDDING AND TRIPE.—THE CORDILLERAS.—ARRIVAL AT
VALPARAISO.
Amid the storm, an iceberg’s form
Came tumbling through the ocean,
So like the cape in hue and shape
Our crew, who watched its motion,
While rounding-to beneath our lee,
Declared the Cape had put to sea.
SUNDAY, FEB. 8. The severity of the weather and the heave of the sea
prevent our holding divine service to-day. May each heart silently erect
within itself an altar on which to offer the oblations of contrition,
gratitude, and faith. Religion is a mission from Heaven to the heart of
man; and when taken away from that heart, and shrined in stately temples
and sumptuous altars, it loses its vitality and power. No floating
censer or pealing organ can have the moral efficacy of that still small
voice of the Deity, which speaks in the whispers of the human
conscience.
The gale which we have had for several days veered last night, and
brought the heave of the sea under our quarter. It was enough to make
our ship roll her masts out of her. Every thing not secured by strong
lashings fetched away. Even the shot were thrown from the combings of
our main-hatch. As for repose in our berths, the Countess of Nottingham
had as much of it under the death-shakings of her indignant queen,—till
that last sleep overtook her which grief and rage reach not. I write
this with my inkstand fastened down, my chair and table secured to the
deck, and my paper presenting a plane at every heave of the sea steep
enough, if it were covered with snow, to tempt the sledge of the truant.
7 o’clock, P. M. Our barometer is now down to 28.44, and is still
falling. The gale has become truly terrific; the sea and sky seem
rushing together. We can only carry our storm try-sails; and even their
strength is tested to the last thread. The whole ocean is white with
foam, which falls in cataracts from the crests of soaring waves. It is
terrible and sublime to watch one of these huge combers heaving up
within the horizon, and rolling mast high upon you. Niagara gazed at
from the boiling abyss, is its only parallel. The hail is driving upon
our deck, the sea breaking over our bows, and a starless night closing
in. Yet a spirit of cheerfulness and alacrity in duty animates all.
Captain Du Pont, with his thorough experience and sound judgment, leaves
the deck only to return to it again. Our first lieutenant is exercising
that vigilance which never fails him through the ship, and our watch
officers meet the emergency with great firmness. But our trust is in Him
who can say to the chainless wave, hitherto shalt thou come, and no
further, and here shall thy proud strength be stayed.
MONDAY, FEB. 9. The gale still continues with unmitigated force. Our
ship has a good character for steadiness, but last night she plunged and
rolled like a leviathan in his death-throes. At every heave of the sea
she rolled her lee guns under. The water which was forced through her
ports lay on her gun-deck ankle deep, and rolled in sheets over the
combings of her hatches. Her lee scuppers could not be opened to carry
it off; and in opening her weather ones there was great danger of
admitting a torrent to let out a rivulet.
In the mid-watch my library, secretary, mirror, and washstand, fetched
away. The books and looking-glass rushed together into my cot. I was
half asleep, and thought for the moment our guns were tumbling below. In
extricating myself I cut my hands with the fragments of the mirror. I
felt for my clothes, and found them on the floor, covered with the wreck
of my wash-bowl and pitcher, and well drenched. I hauled on a few
articles and groped out to the gun-deck to get a light. The watch on
deck had just been relieved and were crowding below, covered with sleet,
stiff with cold, and wading through water ankle deep to reach their
hammocks; there to turn in and sleep in these drenched frozen garments.
What are my petty griefs compared with this? I got my light, and
dividing my berth with my books, shivered mirror, manuscripts, inkstand,
razors, chessmen, and broken flasks of casash, turned in—abundantly
satisfied with the romance of sea-life.
TUESDAY, FEB. 10. Lat. 57° 34′ S., long. 61° 32′ W. We are very near
where we were a week ago. Seven days of the roughest sea-service and in
_statu quo_! Our progress resembles that of Ichabod’s courtship, who
being asked, after seven years of devoted attentions, how he got along
in the business, replied that now and then he thought he had a little
encouragement, and should feel quite sure of it were it not for the
rebuffs.
The gale broke down last evening. The remnant of its force hauled round
to the south and enabled us to lay our course, but a heavy head-sea has
prevented our carrying sail. By the time the sea goes down, and we have
shaken a few reefs out of our topsails, it may whirl back, and then we
shall have to fight the battle over again, as the whigs said when
President Tyler suddenly took up his old democratic position. But _nil
desperandum_, the whigs will in time come into power, and we shall in
time double Cape Horn. But the Cape and the democracy are both hard to
weather.
Our little bark is once more in sight. She has survived the gale, and is
now, with good heart, struggling forward to double the Cape. Our stormy
petrels still follow us. They are ever on the wing, close to our stern,
to pick up the crumbs which are thrown overboard. Capt. King, of the
British navy, states that having caught one of these birds and fastened
a piece of ribbon to it, to designate it, he ascertained that it
followed his ship over five thousand miles. A lesson to all good wives
with wayward husbands.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11. The wind, as we predicted, has gone back to its old
quarter, like a wolf to his jungle. We have only been able to hold our
own. Sunset leaves us where the flushing day found us.
We have the albatros still about us, but we have missed the penguin. The
habits of these birds are peculiar, especially when they get up their
annual rookery. They select for this purpose, as one informs me who has
been among them, a plot of smooth ground, covering two or three acres,
and opening on the sea. From this they remove the sharp pebbles, piling
them on each side into a miniature stone-fence. The ground is then
plotted off into little squares, with paths intersecting each other at
right angles. In each corner of the square a penguin scoops out a nest;
while the albatros takes, by common consent, the centre, raises a small
mound and constructs a nest on the top, so that each albatros has four
penguins around him. The paths, which resemble gravelled walks, are used
for promenading and exercise, except the broad one, which runs around
the whole encampment, and where sentries are constantly patrolling.
These sentries give the alarm at the approach of danger, and are
relieved at regular intervals. The watch is kept up night and day, and
is always under the command of the albatros.
When the eggs have been laid, the strictest vigilance is exercised by
the albatros to prevent the penguin from stealing them; for the penguin
lays but one egg, and, as if ashamed of making all this ado for the sake
of that one, tries to get another from the nest of the albatros. But the
latter has no idea of gratifying the domestic ambition of its neighbor
in that way. There is of course little need among them of a foundling
hospital.
The eggs are never left or exposed to a breath of cold air during
incubation. The male bird, who has been at sea seeking his repast,
returns and takes the place of his faithful consort. He always allows
her the most favorable hours out of the twenty-four in which to secure
her food, and often brings it to her, especially when the infant progeny
requires her more delicate maternal attentions. He never ill-treats his
mate, or goes off at the dead of night serenading other birds. He may
have indeed his little domestic troubles, but he overcomes them by
kindness and affection. His partner always greets him, on returning from
his brief excursions at sea, with the liveliest expressions of gladness.
Ye who prate of incompatibilities, and fly to a legislature for an act
of separation if a little jar occurs at your hearth, look at these
birds, and if there be shame or compunction in ye, go find your divorced
mates and resolve not to be outdone in forbearance and attachment by an
albatros.
When the little ones get sufficiently strong to endure a change of
element, the penguins and albatros break up their encampment, and young
and old take to the sea, that great harvest-field where the reapers of
earth and air, under a beneficent Providence, gather their food. But
what have penguins to do with our getting round Cape Horn?
THURSDAY, FEB. 12. The lion-wind still roars from its old lair. That
lair lies directly in our path. If we attempt to escape it on the right,
the breakers of Cape Horn lift their thunder; if we try to avoid it on
the left, tumbling icebergs present their steep fronts. So here we are,
hemmed in like the hero of Marengo, amid the black battlements and keen
hail of Russia’s capital and clime. Patience, thou meekest virtue in
man, still pour on us thy soft, submissive light.
10 o’clock, P. M. The wind went down with the sun, leaving only the
long, low undulations of the sea. The moon is forth, placid as if this
were no region of storms. The stars, without an obscuring veil, blaze in
the deep blue vault of heaven. A flood of diamond light melts down
through the depths of air, and pours itself in radiant softness on the
sea. There it lies unbroken and still, save where the sleeping ocean
gently heaves, like one who should breathe in his shroud. Such a night
as this in the region of Cape Horn! It is as if a nightingale were to
pour its liquid melody through the interludes of the forest-shaking
storm.
But our anxiety is to know where, amid this serenity of the sea, the
wind will next wake up—where the slumbering storm will first howl on the
waste. The rising sun will not find us in that repose on which he shed
his parting glance.
A change will come, like that the sculptor throws
In lines of life, on marble’s cold repose.
FRIDAY, FEB. 13. In the night, our old frigate beginning to stir herself
complainingly, like one troubled with bad dreams, I asked the officer of
the deck, as he came below from the mid-watch, about the wind. “In gusts
from the northwest,” was the reply. From the northwest! then we are
laying our course—that will do; and I relapsed back again into slumber,
and dreamed we had rounded Cape Horn. I saw it sheer astern, storming
like a savage at the escape of his intended victim.
The wind favored us during the morning, and we shot ahead with high
hopes of success. But by noon it began to haul round towards the south,
and in an hour or two more reached its old quarter, the southwest. It is
now blowing a gale, and we have all sails furled except our close-reefed
main-top and storm try-sails. The sea is running high, and the huge
combers, shaking the foam from their crests, are rushing down upon us
like a host of cavalry frothing at the bit. The sun is sinking in cold
dim light, and seems to abandon the ocean to the lashing tempest.
Such is the life of the sailor: one hour is full of sunshine, the next
of storms. He lives between hope and disappointment: they alternate
through his whole existence. Nothing but the most indomitable resolution
could endure the vicissitudes of his lot. He is cheerful when others
would despond, and triumphs when others would despair. He elicits sparks
of joy from his hard lot, as you strike flashes of fire from flint. Ye
who sigh over the tales of fictitious bereavement, bestow one glance on
this real tragedy of life. Here are woes which no illusion paints,—a
death-knell rung by no unseen hands.
SATURDAY, FEB. 14. The passenger who caught the first albatros, and
which was liberated by the crew, caught another the day following and
killed it to get its wings. It would probably have been rescued by the
sailors had they been aware of the cruel intention of its captor. They
associate a sacredness with this noble bird which invests it with the
privileges of a charmed life, and regard a violation of this sanctity as
an outrage, which will be followed by disastrous consequences. Dark
ominous looks fell on their faces when the wild whisper went round among
them that the beautiful albatros had been killed. We had been for
several days in thick foul weather—
“At length did cross this albatros;
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
“And a good north wind sprung up behind;
The albatros did follow,
And every day for food, or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo.
“And he has done a hellish thing,
And it will work us woe;
For all averr’d, he had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.”
“And it will work us woe”—and so it has proved, for we have had ever
since head winds, gales, and storms. These, in the simple creed of the
sailor, are the penalties through which expiation is to be made for the
crime of having killed the albatros.
SUNDAY, FEB. 15. Lat. 58° 39′ S., long. 68° 41′ W. We are at last some
forty-five miles west of Cape Horn, and about one hundred and sixty
south of it. This position we have gained in spite of the elements, by
taking prompt advantage of those slight variations which will occur in
winds of remarkable constancy; still we are not round the cape; for the
wind is dead ahead, and is blowing almost a gale. We are on our larboard
tack, close hauled, and shall be obliged this evening to wear ship and
stand off to the southeast, where the heave of the sea alone, if the
gale continues, will soon throw us back into the meridian of the cape.
Such is life at sea; gaining, losing, persevering, and finally
triumphing.
8 o’clock, P. M. The cutting gale still continues. The sun has set in
gloomy grandeur. As he plunged below the horizon, a flood of flame
flashed up through the masses of cloud which overhung his descent. This
soon vanished; and now thick darkness settles on the sea. The light of a
full moon cannot struggle through it, and the brightest star glimmers on
it faintly as the glow-worm on the pall of the coffined dead. Our
sailors have had to-day very little of that comfort and rest which
belong to the Sabbath. Though sent aloft as seldom as the condition of
the ship would allow, still they have been often on the yards, with the
rain and sleet driving in their faces. Nor have those on the deck fared
much better. When off watch and allowed to reach the berth-deck, they
have found their Bibles and tracts. May these scattered rays of heavenly
light reach their hearts, and point their hopes to that shore where
clouds and storms come not.
MONDAY, FEB. 16. Our southwest gale went suddenly down last night, and
this morning a fresh wind rose in the northwest. We are now laying our
course with a fair prospect of getting clear of Cape Horn. I have no
desire of ever coming near this cape again. I would give it a berth
world-wide.
Here and there a navigator, it is true, has doubled the Cape without
encountering the gales which we have experienced. But his good fortune
was an exception to a general rule. A man may escape death under the
gallows by the breaking of the rope; but then the fifty, who come after
him, will swing till dead. This cape has acquired its stormy reputation
by its acts. Had nautical theory only invested it with difficulties,
they would long since have been dissipated by experience. But what
navigators found the Cape a century ago, their successors find it now.
It is as true to its stormy character as a lion to his savage instincts.
You may as well trifle with the shaking mane of the one as with the
awaking tempest of the other.
A distinguished naval commander—the late Commodore Porter—who had
cruised in almost every sea, inserted in his journal this significant
paragraph: “The passage round Cape Horn, from the eastward, I assert,
from my own experience, is the most dangerous, most difficult, and
attended with more hardships than that of the same distance in any other
part of the world.”
TUESDAY, FEB. 17. Lat. 58° 10′ S., long. 73° 33′ W. We are at last round
Cape Horn. We have left its stormy steeps astern, and are holding our
course, with a stiff northwester, for more congenial climes.
FAREWELL TO CAPE HORN.
Cape of clouds, of hail and thunder,
Towering o’er a savage sea,
Let the earth’s wide circuit sunder
Our departing keel and thee.
On thy scalp the keen hail dances,
At thy base mad breakers roar,
’Neath thine eye the iceberg glances
From its steep antarctic shore.
’Mid thy billows’ wild commotion,
In thy sea of tumbling foam,
Scaly monsters of the ocean
Share this undisputed home.
Ships of oak, with storm-sails riven,
From thy plunging combers reel,
Like the war-horse backward driven,
From the serried ranks of steel.
Morn in smiles hath ne’er ascended
O’er thy summit stark and drear;
Day and night are dimly blended
In thy sunless atmosphere.
Cape of clouds, of hail, and thunder,
Sinking o’er the ocean’s swell,
Rallied hope and chiding wonder
Shout to thee their stern farewell.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18. Our northwest wind, which we feared would fail us
before we had made sufficient westing, began to awaken this afternoon
apprehensions of a very different character. It suddenly rose into a
gale of terrific energy. It seemed to pin the men to the shrouds as they
tried to draw themselves up into the tops. Such was its roar through the
rigging, you could hardly hear a man at the top of his voice six feet
off. It rivalled in force the hurricane which we experienced off
Tortugas, in 1831, and the sea it raised ran much higher. Our
quarter-boats were in danger of being rolled under.
3 o’clock, P. M. We have had to sail under close-reefed main-top, and
fore and mizen storm try-sails. It seemed almost impossible for a ship
to live in such a sea as now roared and heaved around us. Each comber in
its towering height, seemed to bring with it the plunging force of a
Niagara. It was as if the steep side of a mountain, with torrents
foaming down its crags, were thrown against you by the earthquake. Had
it struck us full on the broadside it would have dashed us into
fragments. But our ship, with buoyant energy, rose up steadily over it,
and descended again into the abyss, to encounter another just like it.
This continued till near sunset, when the gale gradually subsided, and
now, at midnight, is scarcely sufficient to give us steerage way.
THURSDAY, FEB. 19. The sun came up clear, over a calm, cold sea. We
waited impatiently for the wind; it came at length in broken gusts from
the north, and so continued through the day. At sunset we had a dash of
hail from a group of passing clouds. The troubled twilight died away
into a dark, cheerless night.
In doubling Cape Horn from the Atlantic, experienced navigators, who
differ in almost every other suggestion, agree in this—the expediency of
keeping near the land, and especially so if the passage is made with the
sun south of the equator. In this period of the year westerly winds
prevail. They often rise in the northwest, yet in their sweep around the
Isles of Diego Ramirez, take a westerly direction. Near the land you are
within their circle, and can take advantage of every eddy to make
westing, but further south you get their full force, and directly in
your teeth.
Besides, there is very little danger of being driven on the cape. It is
a weatherly shore. The heave of the sea is counteracted, close in, by
the strength of the current, which sets with great force to the east.
This current will carry a vessel off towards the Falkland Islands with
the wind from the southwest and even south. And should it veer into the
southeast, the reacting force of the current, close in, renders the
position of your vessel comparatively safe, even when she is bound into
the Atlantic. This provision of nature against being driven on the cape,
is one of the few alleviations which she has thrown into the hardships
of the mariner’s lot.
In rounding the cape from the Pacific the summer months are the best,
for then you have short nights and westerly winds. In rounding it from
the Atlantic you have a choice of evils in the different seasons. In the
winter you have long nights and icebergs, but favorable winds. In the
summer you have head winds, but short nights and no ice. Captain King,
of the British navy, who has spent several years in the vicinity of the
cape, prefers the winter months. But Basil Hall, as the result of his
experience, recommends the summer season. My own opinion is, that any
man who has a log-hut on land, with a corn cake at the fire, and who
will consent to leave them to double Cape Horn for any purpose whatever,
is a proper subject for a lunatic asylum.
FRIDAY, FEB. 20. Lat. 59° 51′ S., long. 80° 12′ W. The wind having
veered this morning into the southwest, we tacked ship and stood north.
The weather through the day has had all the extremes incident to high
latitudes; an hour of bright sunshine, and then a squall. We have not
had at any time since we came off the cape, a smooth sea and a steady
wind. We have now the long, sweeping waves of the Pacific. They image,
in their majesty, the grandeur of the ocean over which they roll. Nature
never impairs the sublimity of her works by blending the trivial with
the vast. The shout of her torrents fills with solemn echoes the old
ancestral wood. The many-voiced waves of her oceans shake the green
isles with their stately anthems.
But nature has, in this portion of her mighty domain, sources of the
beautiful and sublime in the constellations which light her heavens.
Each star burns out from the blue vault with the brilliancy and force of
an independent sun. It has a breadth of circle and an intensity of light
which opens on you like the flame from the eye of the volcano. And then
there is the Southern Cross, a constellation hanging serene and
beautiful over the troubled night of the grave. To it not only the
Christian pilgrim turns in his path to heaven, but the weary traveller
of earth seeks his late repose by its inclined beam.
“’Tis past midnight; the Cross begins to bend.”
SATURDAY, FEB. 21. Our westerly winds still hold; we are braced up
sharp, and steering north. But we have had to-day a strong current
setting us east, and trying to drive us back again off Cape Horn. We
have lost by its force one degree of the westing we had made. If it
continues, and the wind remains in its present quarter, we shall be
obliged ultimately to tack ship and stand off to the southwest; a
gloomy, discouraging result. It is the fate of Agag after congratulating
himself on his escape. But He whose steps are on the clouds, and whose
pathway is in the mighty deep, will order all things right.
We had to-day, at sunset, a sudden shower. It fell from a cloud
travelling east upon an upper current of air, and which carried on its
front, as it passed down over the swelling arch of the ocean, a
magnificent sun-bow. A moment before all had been cloud, darkness, and
storm—
“When overhead this rainbow, bursting through
The scattering clouds, shone, spanning the dark sea,
Resting its bright base on the quivering blue:
And all within its arch appeared to be
Clearer than that without, and its wide hue
Waxed broad and waving like a banner free.
It changed again; a heavenly chameleon,
The airy child of vapor and the sun,
Brought forth in purple, cradled in vermilion,
Baptized in molten gold, and swathed in dun.”
SUNDAY, FEB. 22. Though the sea is rough, and the roll of the ship deep,
we have had divine service. Even a brief service is much better than
none. It is a recognition of the sanctity of the Sabbath, and of our
obligations to that Being whose guardian care is our defence.
If dependence can awaken the voice of supplication, the sailor, of all
men, should be the most devout. His poor frail bark floats between life
and death. A sudden tempest, a latent rock, or a spark of fire, and he
sinks into a strangling grave. He may emerge, but it is only to strike
his strong arms in wild despair. No drifting plank floats between him
and the “pale bourne.” Prepared or unprepared, he must appear at once
before the dread tribunal and answer for the deeds of his erring life.
He should live with these awful realities ever present to his thoughts.
Like the bird of the stormy peak, his pinion should be ever ready to
unfurl itself. But from _his_ flight there is no return; he is off into
the boundless unknown.
This is the anniversary of the birthday of Washington. Its sacredness is
in harmony with his serene virtues. Too pure for corruption, too
disinterested for ambition, he lived for his country and his God. The
entire energies of his being were surrendered to those great interests
which will quicken the hopes of man when the marble that guards his dust
has crumbled. He has left an example which throws its steady light on
the fetters of captive nations and into the pale recesses of kings.
Millions who sit in darkness will yet hail its auroral splendors.
MONDAY, FEB. 23. To save ourselves from being carried back among the
Patagonians, we have tacked ship and are standing southwest by west.
This, with two points variation, and the current in our favor, will
enable us to make a nearly west course. With the first material
variation in the wind we shall be able to go upon our larboard tack and
make a stretch up the coast.
The high sea and heavy roll of our ship made the use of the razor this
morning a delicate operation. I had strapped the instrument and laid it
on my bureau, when away it went into the wash-bowl. Having fished it up
and made it secure, I got out my china box of shaving-soap, but laying
it down for a moment to find the brush, crash it went on the floor.
Picking up the fragments, I managed to raise suds enough for the present
occasion; when looking around for my razor, to my astonishment, it could
nowhere be found. It had fetched away again, and brought up in one of my
boots. But I had no sooner recovered it, than my candle, having caught
the moving infection, rushed into my cot and scorched my pillow-case.
All things being righted again, and a little fresh suds applied where
the old had evaporated, I took the razor, and watching for the ship to
get on an even keel, gave a clip; but it so happened the ship plunged
instead of rolling, and this brought the point of the razor in contact
with the extremity of the nose, where a severe cut proclaimed itself in
a gush of blood. But stanching the wound, I managed at length, by a clip
here, and another there, to disencumber the chin of its stubble. Such
are some of the advantages for shaving at sea. Man was made perfect, but
has sought out many inventions, and this of shaving at all is one of
them.
TUESDAY, FEB. 24. Lat. 53° 35′ S., long. 78° 56′ W.
“It comes resistless, and with foaming sweep,
Upturns the whitening surface of the deep;
In such a tempest, borne to deeds of death,
The wild-weird sisters scour the blasted heath.”
The black clouds which hovered in the western horizon last evening, hung
their banners of darkness over the descending sun, as if impatient of
the presence of that orb in the frightful work which they purposed.
Before his level rays had left the ocean, their waiting squadrons began
to rally. One black cohort after another filed into the ranks, till they
presented a solid mass of impetuous strength. Thus compact, they moved
down upon the plane of the trembling sea. When opening to the right and
left, a tempest rushed forth, which seemingly nothing but the stable
mountains could withstand.
Our ship had been put under storm-sails for the encounter; and yet, even
with this precaution, she rolled down before its force like a crushed
foe; while the crested waves howled over her as savages in a death-dance
over their victim. It was some minutes before she could recover herself.
She was overpowered, but her courage was not broken. At every pause in
the storm she came up, and then plunged into it as if for life or death.
The conflict closed about midnight, and our ship won another laurel for
steadiness and strength. This was the most violent gale that we have
experienced.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 25. We had this evening one of the most beautiful
phenomena connected with sunset at sea. The flaming orb had been for
more than an hour below the horizon, when the long, dark bank of clouds,
beneath which he had disappeared, lifted, disclosing a lake of golden
light, which poured its melting radiance far and wide over the sea. It
seemed as a rosy morn rising out of the bosom of night.
Not a star lit the blue vault, and yet the spars and tracery of our ship
became visible in the soft effulgence of the departed sun. When the
beautiful of earth die, they carry their pale charms with them to the
shroud; but when the brilliant orbs of the sky depart, they light their
very pall with their surviving splendors. The light even of the Pleiad,
lost in the infant world, still circles around her choiring sisters, who
have poured for ages her sweet melodious dirge.
Our long-lost, little bark peered to light this morning on our lee-beam.
We had parted with her in a storm off the Cape, and had relinquished all
expectation of falling in with her again. But here she is, within three
miles of us, with the American ensign flying at her peak, in answer to
ours. We may yet speak her. She is, we conjecture, the Charles, which
sailed from Boston on the first of November, bound to the Sandwich
Islands. If she stops at Valparaiso she will probably find us there. We
outsail her, though she has managed, by keeping close in, to double the
Horn with us.
THURSDAY, FEB. 26. Our west wind continued through yesterday and carried
us some eight knots the hour towards our port; but this morning it has
veered into the north and compelled us to go upon our starboard tack.
This steering due west, when our port lies due north, is reaching our
destination by right angles. But there is no angle, that ever yet shaped
itself in the wildest mathematical dream, which is not described by a
ship at sea. The path of the boa constrictor is not further from a right
line.
Our nights are beginning to lengthen as we approach the sun. Off the
Cape we had only a brief dip of darkness. The day was sixteen hours,
twilight three, and the night five. Our fowls lost their reckoning, and
were clucking and crowing when they should have been asleep. What could
be done in our country with only five hours of night? Before the élite
of our city got to a party it would be daylight; and as for the rural
swain, who does all his courting on Sunday night, the sun would be up
before he had got half way to the all-important, yet very awkward
question. He would have to begin anew each Sabbath eve, and stop where
he left off before. A sailor would settle the whole business in fifteen
minutes, and what is more, he would then stick to his bargain for better
or worse. He never troubles a court or legislature for a divorce. If he
cannot make good weather on one tack he tries another; but he never
throws his mate overboard, nor scuttles his own ship. But let that pass.
FRIDAY, FEB. 27. It is now forty-four days since we left Rio. We had a
splendid run to the Cape, but since that we have wrenched every league
from the elements by the hardest. We sailed two thousand miles off the
Cape to make four hundred on our course. We literally beat round it. A
feat that has been deemed almost impracticable. We have hardly been for
an hour without a head wind and a head-sea. We have the latter to-day,
but a wind from the west that is driving us on in spite of it nine knots
the hour.
We are rapidly reaching more genial latitudes. The transition is like
that from Lapland to the Line. The severity of the cold off the cape is
inexplicable. The thermometer never fell below the freezing point, and
yet no amount of clothing we could put on, would keep us warm. We
shivered in double flannels and over-coats; our feet, had they been
chiselled from ice, could scarcely have been colder; and all this in a
temperature that would not crisp a pool of sleeping water. Hail fell, it
is true, with great force and frequency, but it was from upper strata of
air. The currents nearer the sea would not have congealed vapor.
It will be said we felt the cold more, coming, as we did, from a torrid
clime. But the system does not cool down so rapidly. The rigors of the
first northern winter are felt least by those born nearest the sun. The
Italian division in the Russian campaign suffered less than any other.
The Poles fell like icicles from a tree shaken by a winter storm, while
the Neapolitans seemed to melt the very snows in which they bivouacked.
The cold we experienced is to be ascribed to the absorption of
electricity from the system by the condition of the atmosphere.
SATURDAY, FEB. 28. Lat. 45° 10′ S., long. 80° 24′ W. We are now making a
good run towards our port. If our west wind holds we shall in a few days
let go our anchors in the harbor of Valparaiso. Fresh meat, vegetables,
and milk will be a luxury. Our last pig and fowl went some days since to
the cook. Our potatoes still hold out, but they are not larger than
bullets, and are as full of water as a tick of blood. Our hommony is in
the kernel, and will not soften sufficiently for use short of a week’s
boiling, which is hardly practicable in a ship’s economy of water.
The only fresh article of the flesh kind that comes upon our table, is
salmon, which has been preserved in air-tight jars. Our bread is baked
on board; by what process it is attempted to be raised I know not; but
well would it be for human nature were its vanity as little puffed up.
We attempted a plum-pudding to-day, but every plum was as soundly
imbedded as marine fossils in primitive rocks. We have some tripe left,
but I understand the leader of our band wants it for a drum-head, and
our blacksmith is anxious to get it for an apron. If its aptitudes
determine the disposition to be made of it, no connoisseur in gastrotomy
can save it from the anvil or the drum. Well dried it would ring a good
tattoo,
Or shield a Vulcan, while he shapes
The form his bolted thunder takes.
SUNDAY, MARCH 1. Divine service on the spar-deck; officers and crew
present; the air balmy; the broad Pacific heaving in silent majesty
around, and a soft cloud, loaded with the incense of nature, soaring
into the great dome of heaven. Lead me for worship—
Not to the dome, where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to the fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned:
To that cathedral, boundless as her wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;
Its choir, the winds and waves; its organ, thunder;
Its dome, the sky.
Found in the sick-bay to-day a sailor, who spoke feelingly and well on
the subject of religion. He is a member of the Methodist church, and
carries a warm, devoted heart under his rude exterior. It is not the
smoothest cloud that has in it the most of summer’s balmy breath. It is
a great comfort to me to find among the crew here and there one of
earnest piety. His example flashes out like a star from a sky of cloud
and storm. God grant these lights may be multiplied till our whole
horizon shall be lit with their steady splendors.
Mrs. Ten Eyke, the wife of our consul on board, whose health has been
for some time delicate, is gradually sinking. How cold the grave to one
so young, to whom the earth seems so fair, and life so full of joyous
pulses! O death! to thy unbreathing realm glide silently away the
beautiful and the beloved.
“They hear a voice, we may not hear,
Which says they must not stay;
They see a hand we may not see,
Which beckons them away.”
MONDAY, MARCH 2. We fidded our top-gallant-masts; crossed our royal
yards; rousted up and mounted the eight spar-deck guns, which had been
struck below off the Cape; unbent our heavy topsails and courses, and
bent lighter ones; holystoned our decks; scrubbed our paint-work;
cleaned our brass rails; finished our new side-ladder; and repaired the
whaleboat stove in the gale. A good day’s work all this, and a wide
stride in our preparations for port. Our band in the mean time is
practising some brilliant airs, with which we expect to captivate the
Chilanos. But of all the music that ever melted on mortal ear, give me
The lay of streamlets, and the trill of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.
The cœlebs may turn away from these earliest words, for they have a
music which he understands not. There is not a string in his soul which
they can touch—not a chord to vibrate as their pulses play over it. But
should he wed, and a sweet miniature of life reflect his own features,
lisp with his voice, and smile with his eyes, he would hang over it as
the Peri over the long-sought secret that was to admit her to celestial
bliss. Its faintest note would breathe a sweeter strain than ever
trembled from the strings of the Orphean lyre. The earth might be full
of loudest harmonies, but he would still turn his ear to that slender
note of piping infancy. But let that pass.
TUESDAY, MARCH 3. Our studding-sails, which have lain undisturbed for
several weeks, have been out to-day, below and aloft, to a light breeze
from the south. The sea has been smooth, presenting only its long,
majestic undulations. The ocean never rests. From the day morn first
broke over its silent depths, it has been rolling on to the present
hour. Capitals have crumbled on its shores, thrones and dynasties
perished, but it still rolls on in the majesty of its unabated strength.
Our preparations for port are still going on. Our standing rigging has
been tarred; our masts, yards, booms, and hull have received a fresh
coat of paint. Our guns are beginning to throw back the sun-light from
their polished surface. You would hardly suspect such volleyed thunder
could sleep in their recesses. Our cutlasses have been furbished, our
boarding-pikes sharpened, and our carbines made true to their trust. We
bear the olive-branch and the sword.
Our albatrosses have left us. They followed us to the verge of the
summer’s clime, and then, wheeling on their bold, arching wings, sped
back to their wintry domain. They were our only companions off the Cape,
and something like a sentiment of bereavement fell on us, as they took
their departure.
The heart will doubly feel alone,
When that which served to cheer hath flown.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4. Our sick list, which ran up to forty, in consequence
of the hardships and exposures off the cape, is rapidly diminishing.
Commodore Stockton, who has been quite ill, is convalescent. We should
regret extremely any circumstance that would deprive us of the pleasures
and advantage’s derived from our present relations to him. Mr. G., one
of our watch officers, has been for some days confined to his berth. But
he is gathering strength again, and will soon be able to resume his post
on the quarter-deck.
As for myself, I am a slender reed, easily bowed before the blast, but
coming up again as soon as its force is spent. I entered the navy with a
constitution impaired by sedentary habits, and have perhaps derived some
advantage from the recreations and adventures involved in a sea-life. I
have been in every variety of climate, but I doubt much if these changes
have been promotive of health. My advice to invalids is, never go to sea
with the expectation that ship-board is to restore you. A change of
climate may be of benefit, but the passage in nine cases out of ten will
begin in seasickness and end in debility. If you have a comfortable
home, stay by it; if your digestion is bad, stop eating; if your nerves
are deranged, bathe in cold water; if you have children, romp and frolic
with them. This is much better than sucking sugar canes in Cuba, or
going to Rome to kiss the pope’s toe.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5. Our hawse bucklers are out, our chains bent, and we
are now ready to let go our anchors; we are still seventy miles from our
port, but the first breeze, which breaks the calm of the sea, will
probably take us in. We are now fifty one days out from Rio, and more
than half of them have been passed in storms. We have been at sea since
we left the United States, one hundred and three days; and have sailed,
in that time, twelve thousand two hundred and twenty miles. We have yet
some twelve thousand miles more to sail before we circle round into the
port where we may look for repose. Our ship is another dove over the
unsubsided waters of the deluge.
Several of the stormy petrels, which joined us before we reached the
Cape, are still skimming along in the wake of our keel. They follow us,
as little politicians their leader, for crumbs, not of office—they are
too sensible for that—but of Jack’s tablecloth; and in doing this they
never displace or disturb their betters. Between a stormy petrel and a
little party politician I should not hesitate a moment where to place my
regard. We have had about us to-day a flotilla of whales, sharks, and
porpoises. Their gambols stirred the sleeping sea into foam. They seemed
to be trying their speed. The whale was quickest to the goal, but
slowest in doubling it. His head is entirely too far from his tail. I
commend his case to the Owenites at their next world-convention.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6. The light breeze which fanned us along faintly through
the night, has left us in the morning-watch within twenty miles of our
port. The coast on our starboard beam lies full in view, with its deep
indentations, and its bold bluffs, against which the Pacific rolls its
surge. Far in the background rise the stupendous steeps of the
Cordilleras, throwing their shadows a hundred miles at sea. On their
summit, glittering with the icy hail of centuries, the morning star
furls its wing of flame. Beneath such a vision, what is man? He
disappears, and his shadow, as if ashamed to linger, goes with him.
The breeze, for which we have been waiting and watching, has come. Our
studding-sails, below and aloft, are out to catch its first breath. We
are again moving up the coast. Fifteen miles of it are passed, but no
headland appears which we can identify with those designated on the
chart. Seven more, and still no evidences of a harbor. We begin to think
our master, like a Millerite, has left out some figure in his reckoning.
At last we discover, upon a slight swell in the coast, a little
lighthouse, but no bay, and nothing that indicates one. Doubling this
projection, we catch our first glimpse of Valparaiso, nestled among the
fissures and shelves of a steep ascent of rocks. It seems one of those
wild nooks in which pirates might have sought a perilous home. Taking in
our studding-sails, and hauling up our courses, we have rounded to
handsomely, and anchored in thirty-two fathoms.
All eyes are directed to the shipping. A French man-of-war has already
saluted us; a national courtesy which we have promptly returned. But we
are looking for the American flag; only one can be seen, and that is
flying over a merchantman. No national vessel holds out any hope of
letters from home by the Isthmus. Our disappointment is confirmed by our
consul, who informs us that no dispatches have been received from the
United States of a date subsequent to our departure, except a copy of
the President’s message, which was brought in the English mail, and
which was considered quite belligerent in its tone. The news of the
resignation of the Peel ministry greatly surprises us, and has in it, as
we fancy, quite a little war-cloud. A national ship abroad catches every
premonition of hostilities as quickly as a barometer the approach of a
storm.
So, here we are at last in front of Valparaiso, with a continent and an
ocean between us and our homes; another ocean still to be traversed, and
to roll us yet wider asunder; and then this war-cloud on the horizon!
But there is one separation, one which awaits us all, still wider than
this—the chasm of the grave. Over that no signals extend, and no
messenger-bird hath winged its way. I have walked in its pale light for
years, hovering between the sun and a total eclipse.
“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: VALPARAISO]
CHAPTER VI.
SKETCHES OF VALPARAISO.
ASPECT OF THE CITY.—GROUPS ON THE QUAY.—CHILIAN HORSEMANSHIP.—THE
WOMEN.—HUTS OF THE NATIVES.—AMERICAN AND ENGLISH
SOCIETY.—OPERA-HOUSE.—THE TERTULIA.—MODE OF TRAVELLING.—POLICE OF
THE CITY.—VISITS FROM THE SHORE.—FEUDAL SYSTEM.—THE CLERGY.—THE
BIBLE IN CHILI.—THE CONFESSIONAL.—BURIAL-GROUND.—THE INDIAN
MOTHER.—POLITICAL CONDITION OF CHILI.—FAREWELL TO VALPARAISO.
Where Valparaiso’s cliffs and flowers,
In mirrored wildness, sweep
Their shadows round the mermaid’s bowers,
Our steadfast anchors sleep.
SATURDAY, MARCH 7. Valparaiso, at a first glance, instead of justifying
the name it bears—the vale of Paradise—might rather be called some
outpost of purgatory. Its wild crags, its scorched hills, and dark glens
might well be supposed to lead to that intermediate abode of condemned
spirits. You are puzzled to know why a city should be there. Without
encroaching on the sea, there is hardly room enough, between the base of
the steep acclivities and the surge, to set up a fisherman’s hut. The
harbor is but little better than an open roadstead. A norther is an
admonition to all vessels to slip their cables.
Yet Valparaiso is a city, and one which, having once seen, you will
never forget. It will stand alone in your after-dreams like Jacob’s
ladder. Like the rounds in that airy vision, its buildings ascend, roof
over roof, till they seem to topple in the sky. One violent shake of an
earthquake would precipitate the whole into the sea. And yet these
terrible visitations are constantly throwing out their premonitions.
There is not a building whose walls have not vibrated to their force.
There is not a rock on which they rest, but is of volcanic origin. The
soaring peaks of the Cordilleras, which overhang them, rest on craters
that may at any moment throw them heaven-high. And yet who does not
sleep sound in Valparaiso? Such is peril, when it has become an old
familiar acquaintance.
We landed from our boat on the jetty, which has been thrown out from the
beach to prevent the necessity of debarking in the surf. The quay was
alive with boatmen, cracking their jokes over their water-melons and
coarse bread. A fat friar was seen straying among them, willing to
shrive the most wayward for a large melon. One fellow, who looked as if
he had obliquities enough to justify some effacing process, made light
of the proffered shrift. He thought a green melon would pay.
Near by sat a Chilano on a stone, which swelled up from the pavement,
tantalizing the strings of a guitar, while a little cloud of
tobacco-smoke curled up around the high cone of his felt hat. The only
accompaniment was the sharp creak of a file, with which a muleteer was
sharpening the rowel of his spurs, which resembled a circular saw,
except that the teeth were much longer.
Here a beggar, who had lost a leg, hobbled up to us, wearing around his
neck a label, showing that he had the permission of the police to
solicit alms on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Poor fellow! if his limb was
lost in a good cause, he ought to be allowed to solicit charity when he
can get it. And if it was lost even in a scuffle, it would not be in my
heart to deny him a penny. What a world is this in which we dwell! How
is it filled with paupers, spurs, tobacco, guitars, water-melons, and
absolving monks; all jangling and jargoning along together to dusty
death! What an incongruous mass the grave covers!
SUNDAY, MARCH 8. Divine service on board; a large attendance of
Americans from the shore. Subject of the discourse—cause and criminality
of indecision in matters of religion. The state religion of Chili is the
Roman Catholic. Protestant forms of worship are tolerated, but in a
private way. The erection of churches for the purpose is not permitted.
A hall may be used, if it has no symbols of consecration. Think of that,
my dear Papal brothers in the United States, kneeling in your sumptuous
cathedrals, while your vesper-bells summon from their lofty steeples the
faithful to prayer. And you talk to us Protestants about toleration!
Why, there is more toleration in my Uncle Toby’s teapot than can be
found in the whole Papal See.
Before you assey the ballot-box again, because the Bible, without note
or comment, is permitted in our public schools, look abroad and see what
privileges you extend to Protestants. In those countries where your
religion and laws are all paramount, you do not tolerate the
consecration of the humblest chapel; and as for a steeple and bell, they
would not stand long enough to knell their own ruin. And yet you talk of
toleration, and lecture the whole world on Christian charity! The
language of forbearance and fraternal love melts from your lips softly
as dew on the flowers of Hermon. One would think, from your professions,
Protestants must have a perfect elysium in your lands. But somehow it
strangely happens that they are disqualified for holding any office of
civil trust; and are denied even a consecrated place of worship. They
are fortunate if allowed the sanctity of a grave.
In Chili, intolerance flows purely from the mandates of the Papal
hierarchy. Legislators, as a body, are well disposed, but they cannot
carry their liberal measures without putting the stability of their
civil institutions in peril. An act of religious toleration would be
followed by ecclesiastical denunciations and appeals to the passions of
the mass, which would result in revolution and blood. Come here, my
bishop of New York, with your smooth doctrines about the rights of
conscience, and talk a little to your brother bishops in this quarter.
If these doctrines are good when proclaimed to American Protestants, let
us see how they will sound in the ears of Chilian Catholics. Do a few
leagues of salt water destroy their force and propriety? Do they cease
to be orthodox the moment they leave a Protestant shore and enter a
Papal domain?
Come, my dear bishop, set down here in Chili with me, and let us talk
together a little. You tell us the rights of the human conscience are
sacred. What rights of conscience have Protestants in Chili—or even in
Rome? You go there once in three years to report in person to the holy
Father, you see Protestants filing off on the Sabbath through a narrow,
dirty street, to a little, obscure chapel, without steeple or bell,
where they may worship, if they won’t speak above a whisper. And then
you return to New York and talk to its corporation about the sacred
rights of conscience! Your toleration, my dear bishop, is much like the
Yankee hunter’s division of game with his Indian companion—all turkey on
one side and all buzzard on the other.
MONDAY, MARCH 9. I encountered, in my rambles to-day, a specimen of
Chilian horsemanship. The costume of the rider was in wild harmony with
his occupation. His hat rose in a high cone, like that of a whirling
dervish in Turkey. His poncho, resembling a large shawl, fell in
careless folds around his person. His gaiters rose to the knee; his
heels were armed with a huge pair of silver-mounted spurs, while a brace
of pistols peered from the holster of his saddle-bow. He was mounted on
a powerful animal, impatient of the bit, and sure of foot as the
mountain roe. The strong muscles betrayed their swelling lines in his
limbs; the dilating nostril was full of panting force, while his arching
neck seemed clothed with thunder. He was such a steed as you would
choose for that last decisive charge, in which a Waterloo is to be won
or lost.
[Illustration]
His rider knew him well and gave him the rein; on he dashed, over hill
and vale, with the speed of the wind. Now shaking the toppling crags
with his iron hoof, now plunging down the steep ravine, now leaping,
with frightful force, the sudden chasm; never missing his foothold,
never throwing his rider. Both were safe where the neck of neither
seemed worth a farthing. I have seen the Tartar ride at Constantinople,
and witnessed, with silent admiration, the Grand Sultan’s horsemanship,
but he is outdone by the Chilano.
A company of circus-riders, from Europe, came here a few years since to
astonish the Chilians. But they soon found they had brought their ware
to a wrong market. The Chilanos took the business out of their hands;
and so far outdid them that they suddenly disappeared, and have not been
heard of in these parts since. It was like a buffalo entering a herd of
deer to astonish them with his fleetness, or like a bull attempting a
race with one of Baldwin’s locomotives.
The Chilian women betray their Spanish blood. It is seen in their
stately forms, their firm elastic step, their nut-brown complexion,
their large black eyes, and their earnestness of manner, which is full
of silent, significant force. They wear their hair in two plaits, which
are sometimes coiled into a turban and interlaced with flowers, and at
others flows from a slight fillet, quite down to the heel. They use no
stays; the tide of nature ebbs and flows without constraint. The rich
shawl which covers the neck and shoulders, neglects at times its
occupation, and the silk stocking forgets now and then that it has taken
the veil.
They are fond of attentions, and will much sooner excuse a liberty,
which flows from admiration, than a neglect, which results from
indifference; still they are not considered as very exacting. What they
want is the homage of the heart. Civility that has no soul in it, they
consider a mockery. Love is consequently with them a passion. As
daughters, they are wild and thoughtless; as mothers, fond of their
children and attached to their homes. The most sober flower will often
blossom from the bud that has danced the most lightly in the sunbeam.
TUESDAY, MARCH 10. I encountered to-day in the environs of Valparaiso, a
long string of donkeys, laden with vegetables and fruit from Quilota,
some forty miles distant. The little hardy fellows were plodding along
in single file, covered up under their huge panniers, and turning this
way or that to the cry of their driver, who brought up the rear. I never
could encounter one of these creatures without a sentiment of pity and
even respect. He seems as one doomed to drudgery, merely because nature
has wronged him in making him up. And then his patience—it is a model.
He has long ears it is true, but then he never, like those who consider
themselves his betters, tries to conceal them. He is an honest ass!
The markets of Valparaiso are supplied from valleys in the interior. The
grounds in the immediate neighborhood are, for many months in the year,
parched up with drouth. Large tracts of land, well suited to the harrow,
are herbless from want of means to irrigate them. Springs have been
hunted, and rocks bored almost halfway to the earth’s centre, but in
vain. Even the monks have tried their miraculous charms, but nature’s
great Nile obeys no such incantations. Their fleece, unlike that of
Gideon, remained dry. No snow falls on these vallies, and no rain,
except in the three winter months. The earth becomes baked and broken
into deep fissures. When the winds are abroad the dust is driven over it
in clouds thick enough to bury a Gipsy encampment.
The huts of the native peasantry are built of reeds, plastered with mud
and thatched with straw. They have seldom more than one room, and are
generally without a floor. Here the inmates sit, sleep, and work in
wigwam-life. They seldom look beyond their present wants. Their industry
ebbs or flows as plenty or penury prevail. Out of these murky cabins
beauty sometimes emerges in a combination of charms that might stir the
chisel of a Praxiteles.
The females are generally pictures of health and animation. Their diet
is coarse bread and fruit. They know nothing of the luxuries of the
table, and seem to care as little. They are fond of music and dancing,
and throw an energy into their motions which would astonish even a
Shaker. The quadrille has not sufficient action in it. They prefer the
fandango. The old are grouped around the broad circle in which the young
couple spring to the vibrations of the guitar or violin. The short dress
of the female, and the prurient motions of both, are at war with all our
sentiments of propriety. Still, unless nature libel herself, the mothers
who witness these exhibitions in their daughters, must be influenced
more by a false taste than a lubricity of disposition. This is as true
of savage as civilized life—of the Chilian mother as the Roman matron.
Nature has thrown her most beautiful iris in a mother’s look over the
wave which flows from the depths of a daughter’s unsullied soul.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11. The features of Valparaiso, which strike the
stranger with the greatest force, are perhaps the elegant articles of
ornament which are presented in the fancy shops. They seem as much out
of place here as a jewel in a swine’s snout. And yet they are not out of
place; for higher forms of fashionable life are seldom encountered.
Those little cottages, which gleam from the toppling crags, are
garnished with furniture on which the Parisian artist has exhausted his
skill. From the balcony rolls out upon the wind the most exquisite music
of harp and voice. Such strains from amid such a savage scene! It is
like Proserpine, crossing the gloomy Styx, crowned with the flowers of
paradise.
The English and Americans here are singularly free from those rivalries
and jealousies, which are the besetting sin of foreign residents. They
flow together with a congeniality of spirit, which is the source of a
thousand pleasures to them as well as the stranger. Their society is the
all-redeeming charm of Valparaiso. Their hospitality is open as the day,
and warm as their soft clime. You forget in their company the rude rocks
and barren hills around you. The earth without may be covered with
brambles, but you feel for the time in a sort of Eden whose flowers have
escaped the primal malediction. I do not wonder that this is the
favorite port with the officers of the Pacific squadron. They always
leave it with regret, and cherish for it the most affectionate
remembrance.
Who would expect to find among these wild cliffs an opera-house, vying,
in the elegance of its decorations and the richness of its music, with
some of the most liberally endowed establishments in Europe? yet such is
the fact. Of its merits I speak from the representations of others, as I
have not myself been within its precincts. I declined going, not from an
apprehension of moral taint, conducted as the opera is here, but from
motives of expediency. I would not indulge even in an innocent
amusement, that had assumed a doubtful shape in the imaginations of
others. But still I would not be a slave to mere whims, which have no
reasonableness and force. I admire an enlightened, sober, independence
of opinion and action.
I believe the opera, if introduced thoroughly into the United States, if
performed in suitable edifices, and under suitable restrictions, would
promote, indirectly at least, the cause of morals and good taste. It
would attract to it a thousand young men, who now spend their evenings
in grog-shops and at gaming-tables. The opera has its evils, but what
human institution has not. If every thing is to be denounced which is
not an unmixed good, then every thing emanating from man must go by the
board. People will have amusements, it is a law of their social being,
and it is your duty as a friend to virtue to look out and encourage the
most innocent. You may deride this counsel and persevere in trying to
put human nature into a straight jacket; but you will never succeed, and
if you could, you would find that jacket any thing but a garment of
righteousness.
THURSDAY, MARCH 12. I accompanied last evening several of my wardroom
companions to a Chilian tertulia. A broad flight of stairs took us to a
large and brilliantly lighted saloon, where we were met by the lady of
the mansion who gave us her hand, and welcomed us to Valparaiso. It
would have been a little embarrassing to encounter the flash of so many
eyes, but for the ease and tact of our accomplished hostess. Instead of
taking us around the saloon and introducing us, amid a general
suspension of conversation, to the company, which would have embarrassed
all parties, she went to talking with us, and in a few minutes managed
to introduce us to several ladies, as unceremoniously as if there had
been no design in it. This artless tact continued till we were
introduced to every lady and gentleman present.
All were at ease and full of talk, though some of us had but a limited
range of Spanish at our command. But a great deal of conversation may be
made out of a few words, when the heart is glad. The ladies never
corrected the wrong word, and affected to understand it just as well as
if it had been the right one. Some of them attempted English with the
amiable purpose, no doubt, of relieving our blunders by making as many
of their own.
“’Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes * * *
They smile so when one’s right, and when one’s wrong
They smile still more.”
I asked one of the ladies if she would gratify us with a piece of music;
she instantly took my arm to the piano, beckoned her sister to her side,
and gave us a duett which called back my recollections of poor Malibran.
What melodies were quenched for ever when that sweet singer died. Her
strain still lingers in the hearts of thousands, but where is she! As a
bird from its bower, as a rainbow from its cloud, she has passed away.
Spring will call back its little minstrels, and the summer sun rebuild
its airy arch. But she, who charmed the world, will come back no more.
Her melodious lips are sealed in silence, and the shadow of death is on
her eyelids.
“Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north-wind’s breath,
And stars to set—but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death!”
But to return to the tertulia. The costume of the ladies differed but
little from what you meet with at evening parties in the United States.
The hair, which betrayed great care in its arrangement, was ornamented
with natural flowers. The dress, generally of a light airy material, had
short sleeves, rather low in the neck, with a short, full skirt. The
reason assigned for this is, that the wearer may be less embarrassed in
dancing, but, perhaps, the pride of a well-turned ankle is an additional
motive. The gentlemen were more sedate than the ladies, but their
conversation had not half the versatility. At twelve o’clock the
tertulia broke up. The lady of the house gave us her hand at parting
with a _beuna noche_.
FRIDAY, MARCH 13. Went on shore to-day to take a ride. This has to be
done either on the saddle, or in a vehicle resembling our chaise, but of
much ruder construction. The latter is preferred for long distances. One
horse trots within the shafts, another at his left, on which the
postillion is mounted, while half a dozen others accompany the vehicle
to act as relays. If these give out, the lasso is resorted to, and some
half-wild horse, who a few moments before snuffed the wind in freedom,
is within the traces. The postillion seldom troubles himself with the
question whether the animal has ever been thoroughly broken to the
harness. The wilder, the more speed, and therefore all the better for
his purpose. He is master of his business, and seemingly of every thing
in nature that can conduce to its success. His driving is like that of
Jehu. You expect every moment the old quill-wheel, in which you are
embarked, will fly into a thousand pieces. But like the hurdle of the
doomed, it still holds together, hurrying you, if not to the gallows, to
the grave.
If you take to the saddle you will probably find your stirrups of wood,
resembling in shape and size the large beetle with which a New-England
farmer splits his rails. Their weight is seemingly relieved by grotesque
carving; in the side is a sharp excavation, sufficiently deep to admit
one-third of the foot. The saddle is made of raw hide, and a frame which
an Indian’s hatchet might have shaped. It rises up before and behind
like a well-horned half-moon. The bridle has one recommendation, a
tremendous bit. But with all this you are on a horse, wild as he may be,
that is sure of foot. You can no more get a stumble out of him, were you
so disposed, than Lucifer could a defection from duty out of Abdiel, or
a whig a bank-vote out of a democrat.
The police of Valparaiso, which once seldom protected the innocent, or
punished the guilty, is now unrivalled in efficiency. Its vigilance
reaches your person and property through every hour of the day and
night. You are safe even in spite of your own negligence. If, for
instance, you leave your shop with the window unbolted, you will find
the next morning a padlock on it, and one which you cannot remove
without paying a fine of three dollars. If you dine out, tarry late at
the wine, get tipsy, and can’t find your way home, a watchman picks you
up, puts you into a chaise, finds out by some means where you live,
takes you to your door, and delivers you to your waiting wife, with the
good-humored remark that you are a little indisposed. What a capital
arrangement for those who have more wine than wit in them!
If you wake up in the night, find one of your family sick, and want a
physician, you have only to hand his name to the watchman near your
door, who passes it to another, and he to another still, till it reaches
its destination, and you soon have the physician at your side. His
prescription must perhaps be taken to an apothecary; it is handed to the
watch, passed on, and in a few minutes back comes the medicament
required. What bachelor might not venture to get married in Valparaiso?
SATURDAY, MARCH 14. The governor of Valparaiso, with his suite, visited
our ship this morning. He is a man of some sixty years of age, with no
very brilliant qualities, but possesses sound sense. He expressed
himself delighted with our frigate, examined every part of her, and
received, as he went over her side, the salute due to his rank.
Our ship has been the constant scene of visits from the Chilians. A
party has just left us who came all the way from Santiago. They make
themselves quite at home on our decks. When the band strikes up, they
call for a waltz, or fandango, and commence dancing with just as much
freedom as if they were on their own village green, beneath the light of
the moon. On leaving they urge us to come and see them, promising us
horses to ride, music, and the smiles of a thousand glad eyes. Their
invitations are full of sincerity and heart; and for my own part I would
much sooner avail myself of them, than the august condescension which
should open to me the palace of a king.
The inequalities of the feudal system, introduced from old Spain, still
survive in Chili. The lands are owned by the privileged few, and their
succession secured by the right of entail. An effort was made a few
years since to break up this system, and distribute the lands among the
heirs, without reference to any advantages of primogeniture. But the
great number of illegitimate children, who came in and urged their
claims, rendered the measure a dangerous experiment. It was waived for
the time; but unless republicanism here be a farce, it will come back
again with augmented force. Freedom and equality are twin-born: they
breathe the same air, and share the same destiny. Besides, there is no
good reason why a natural child should not share in his father’s
estates. It is a hard case, indeed, if he must be made a beggar, merely
because his parents have made him a child of sin. Let those who thus err
pay the penalty. They have planted the tree, and now let them partake
its fruit,—apples of Sodom though they be.
The elective franchise involves no property qualification in Chili. All
go to the ballot-box; but few, however, deposite thoroughly independent
votes. One portion is overawed by the will of their landlords, another
by the will of their priests. The ecclesiastics have every thing at
issue in the stability of the existing order of things. A revolution
would result in a triumph of the Liberals, and a suppression of all
monastic institutions. Even the connection of the church with the state
could not long survive. The papal hierarchy would have to provide for
its maintenance through voluntary contributions.
The ecclesiastics therefore exert all the influence which their position
gives them, to uphold the present government. They look to each man’s
vote, and follow it with a blessing or malediction, which throws its
ominous shadow beyond this life. This ecclesiastical power is the most
fearful feature in the present condition of the Chilians. Instead of
being a wall of defence, it is a wide magazine, laid under its
foundations, with a train reaching to Rome. One spark from the Vatican,
and Chili sinks in flame and blood!
SUNDAY, MARCH 15. We had to-day at our service a very large attendance
from the shore. The weather was remarkably fine; the awning was spread,
and we assembled on the spar-deck. After prayers, we sung a hymn in
Hamburg, with the band for an orchestra. The sermon turned on the
condition of the soul out of Christ: its guilt, its wretchedness, its
ruin. Plain and practical sermons are the only ones that do much good.
When a preacher forgets the simplicity and meekness of his office, and
throws himself, though in a blaze of eloquence, between his hearers and
the Cross, he is in a miserably false position. He may win perishing
laurels to his fame, but not immortal souls to Christ.
The clergy in Chili exert, through the confessional, an influence which
reaches the most private transactions of life. Every communicant is
required to confess at least once a year. A refusal to do it is followed
by the severest pains and penalties which the church can inflict. Some
two years since, a daughter of one of the most prominent members of the
legislature of Chili was grossly insulted at the confessional. She told
her mother, who, in grief and consternation, related the circumstance to
her father. He excused her from going again to the confessional. The
year rolled round, and she was summoned to a compliance; the father
peremptorily refused his assent. Three of the inferior officers of the
church were dispatched to bring her by force. Her father planted
himself, armed, on the door-sill of his house, and told them if they
entered it would be at their peril. They retired and reported their
ill-success to their superior. The next Sabbath she was publicly
excommunicated, and her candle at the altar blown out, to signify that
her hope of heaven was extinguished.
The father, indignant at the attempt to undermine the virtue of his
daughter, and the cruel injustice done her in the act of
excommunication, introduced a bill into the national legislature for
abolishing entirely the confessional. It produced the most intense
excitement; the pulpits of Chili rang with denunciation; the archbishop
dispatched a messenger to Rome for the Pope’s anathema. Many husbands
and fathers, whose wives and daughters had been insulted at the
confessional, and who from motives of prudence had remained silent, now
began to speak out. But a repugnance to innovation in ecclesiastical
affairs, and the combined influence of the clergy prevailed, and the
contemplated law was defeated. But it still survives in the breast of
its projector, and will yet speak out in thunder-tones.
Instead of attacking the confessional, the domestic evils which it
inflicts would perhaps be more thoroughly remedied by abolishing the
coerced celibacy of the clergy. This is the prime source of those
immoralities which have sapped virtue and overthrown the peace of
families. Its abolition would contribute alike to the virtue of the
ecclesiastic, and the safety of the communicant. The best-informed
writers on Chili, those whose observation has been the most thorough,
agree in the fact that many of the clergy live in a state of the most
shameful profligacy. These disclosures force upon you the painful
conviction, that their illegitimate offspring are found in every circle
in the community, and fill every grade of ecclesiastical preferment.
Abolish, then, the forced celibacy of the clergy. Blot out at once and
forever this apology for crime. Human nature is sufficiently slippery
even when it has no excuse for its lapses. In saying this, I intend no
sectarian reproach. I would not confide to any religious persuasion the
consequences of a forced law of celibacy. Our safety lies not only in an
upright conscience, but in freedom from temptation.
MONDAY, MARCH 16. I have been passing an agreeable evening in the family
of Mr. Hobson, our former consul at this port. The amenity and
intelligence of Mrs. H. lend an unfailing charm to her conversation. Her
daughters have been educated with great care, and are adorned with many
intellectual and social accomplishments. It is singular what encounters
will occur in one’s travels. I met here a lady whom I last saw in the
Naval Asylum at Philadelphia, and who had come out there to hear one of
my poor sermons. This was a year since. She is now here, and the wife of
one of the most enterprising merchants in Valparaiso.
I dined to-day with William Ward, Esq., an American gentleman, who is
the senior partner in one of the largest mercantile houses here. His
ample mansion and costly furniture are in keeping with the taste and
liberality displayed at his table. I met there Mr. Barton, another
American gentleman, who is engaged in surveying the route of a
contemplated railroad between Valparaiso and Santiago. I passed the
morning with the Rev. Mr. Trumbull, from the United States. He is out
here under the patronage of the Foreign Evangelical Society. His labors
as yet have been confined mostly to seamen; but he has every prospect of
having within a short time a congregation on land. Mr. Dorr, our consul,
has, with a praiseworthy spirit, interested himself in the objects of
his mission; and other Americans have pledged their aid. Such are the
stars of hope which are yet to throw their rays through the extremities
of Chili.
I visited this afternoon the Protestant burial-ground, which occupies a
portion of one of the hills which overlook our anchorage. The situation
has been selected with good judgment, and the ground evinces taste and
propriety in the arrangement. Here rest many sailors far away from their
native shores. A humble slab, erected by their messmates, gives you
their names and that of the ship to which they were attached; and
sometimes a nautical epitaph, like the following:
“Here lies the rigging, spars, and hull
Of sailing-master David Mull.”
This to a landsman seems trifling with our poor mortality; not so to the
sailor. His technicalities have with him a meaning and a force which, in
his judgment, more than sanction their use on the most grave and
melancholy occasions. He would pray in this dialect even were life’s
taper flickering in the socket, or his soul trembling on the verge of
despair.
In the Catholic burial-ground, which adjoins the Protestant, stands the
beautiful monument of Portales. The genius of History is recording his
glorious deeds, Grief lamenting his early doom, and Hope pointing to a
fruition in the skies. Near this monument I encountered a youthful
mother in weeds, leading her little orphan boy. She carried a bunch of
flowers in her hand, and as she came near a new-made grave, kneeled down
at its head, and planted them there. Her child kissed them, but when she
attempted it her silent tears fell fast on their tender leaves. A bird
lit on the tree, which cast its shadows on the grave, and poured a wild
sweet strain as if to wean the mourner from her grief; but she heeded it
not. Her child turned and listened; her eye fell on his; she heard the
bird. Nature triumphs over bereavements through those we love and who
still survive.
[Illustration]
TUESDAY, MARCH 17. The Indian mother still adheres to the primitive
method of carrying her child. Instead of supporting it in her arms, with
the unhealthful inclination of person which a burden there will always
induce, she tosses it on her back, into the bunt of her shawl, and walks
off erect as the Indian’s tree, which stood up so straight it leaned
backward. When hunger overtakes it she will feel a slight pull on one of
the long braids in which her hair falls over its form; and when she
takes it out of this travelling cradle to nurse it, there is something
new and fresh in its first look: true, it has not been out of her sight
for more than an hour, but this with a mother is a long time. But her
heart is now running over with happiness,
So deep and vital is the joy
That thrills a mother’s breast,
Clasping her infant, blue-eyed boy
From out his cradled rest.
Many attempts have been made to introduce the Bible into Chili. Our
countryman, Mr. Wheelwright, who now has a flourishing school in
Valparaiso, succeeded in distributing a number of copies in the Spanish
language among the people of Quillota. But the priests forbade their
being read, and doomed them to the flames. They were brought out and
burnt in presence of the assembled multitude. They were without note or
comment, and left the sectarian bigotry, that decreed the sacrilegious
act, without an apology. What would my venerable friend, Bishop Hughes,
say were the Protestants of New York to collect his Douay Bibles and
burn them in the Park? Would that, my dear Bishop, be freedom of
conscience?
The population of Chili is estimated at about a million and a half. Her
commerce is steadily on the increase. Her silver and copper mines richly
repay the labor bestowed in working them. Her southern plains yield an
abundance of the finest wheat. Her people in the mass are hardy, frugal,
and ardent lovers of freedom. The course of education, under her new
constitution, is receiving fresh impulses, and gradually emerging into
popular favor and national importance. Her public debt amounts to about
ten millions of dollars, which is owned mostly in England. Her military
establishment, which has burdened her treasury, and sometimes perilled
her peace, is melting away under her civil institutions.
In breaking the Spanish yoke, and establishing her independence, she has
had to pass through a fiery ordeal. The virtues that could achieve so
much, will yet win farther triumphs. No nation or state ever rose at
once from vassalage and ignorance to freedom and intelligence. She may
emerge into disorder, but that will be more tolerable than the despotism
from which she has escaped. To meet the consequences of a revolution, to
restore order where it has been broken up, to consolidate the elements
of national existence, and settle them on a new and permanent basis,
requires all the time which this republic has enjoyed since she
proclaimed her independence. There is nothing in the present condition
of Chili which should fill the advocates of free institutions with
distrust. She has clouds on her sky, but most of them are skeletons from
which the storm has long since passed.
But I have no space for a disquisition on Chili. A labored essay is
beyond the scope and purpose of this diary. I have only time to wave my
adieu to
VALPARAISO.
Sweet Valparaiso—fare thee well!
Thy steep romantic shore,
And toppling crags, where wildly dwell
The echoes, which thy billows pour
As o’er the rocks their anthems swell—
Shall greet my pilgrim steps no more.
When they whose tread is on thy steep,
Have down to death’s dim chambers gone,
Where harp and lute in silence sleep,
Thy sweet sea-dirge will still roll on.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
PASSAGE FROM VALPARAISO TO CALLAO.
FLARE UP OF THE PACIFIC.—SONGS OF SEAMEN.—SAILORS ON SHORE.—LOSS OF
THE SAMSON OF OUR SHIP.—THE SETTING SUN AT SEA.—OUR ASTOR-HOUSE
SAILOR.—THE MAD POET OF THE CREW.—LAND HO!—ASPECT OF
CALLAO.—APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES.—THE BURIAL ISLE.
“Our pennant glitters in the breeze,
Our home is on the sea:
Where wind may blow, or billow flow,
No limits to the free:
No limits to the free, my boys,
Let wind and wave waft on,
The boundless world of waters is,
My merry men, our own.”
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18. We tripped our anchors this morning and stood out
to sea from the bay of Valparaiso. While getting under way, a boat from
the British ship Daphne came alongside with dispatches for Admiral
Seymour, in command of the Collingwood, on the coast of California. No
sooner were these received, and orders given to make sail, than three
other boats were seen starting from the shore at the top of their speed.
Our ship was hove-to till they came up. Two of them had communications
to merchants in Callao. The third had in her two of our runaway sailors,
who had been picked up by the police, and whom we were very sorry to see
again; for they were notoriously the two most worthless fellows on
board. But we were not, it seems, to get rid of them in this way. So
true is it that a bad penny always comes back.
THURSDAY, MARCH 19. Before coming into the Pacific, our imaginations
were filled with dreams of its majestic tranquillity. But if the
exhibition it made of itself last night be a fair specimen of its
character, it is a living libel on its own name. It flared up like an
enraged maniac, and stove in our cabin windows, which even Cape Horn had
spared. Its rage seemed wholly unprovoked; for the sky was almost free
of clouds, and even the few which did darken its face, moved on lazily
as those in which the winds have fallen asleep. The moon looked down on
the uproar in perfect calmness. Her light fell on the crest of the wave,
soft as dew on the death-foam of the savage.
One of our boys ran away at Valparaiso. He had but just recovered from
the effects of a fall down the main-hatch. He probably thought the best
method of escaping the chances of another fall, would be to give the
hatch the widest berth possible. But the poor lad will find worse
hatches on land than he ever yet stumbled through at sea. Here he broke
only a limb, but there he may break his peace of conscience, and his
hope of heaven. But sailors are of all beings in the world the most
thoughtless. The monitions of the future are lost in the impulses of the
present. They have been known, for some temporary gratification, to run
from a ship with two years pay due them, and to forfeit the whole by
that act of folly. This running commences in rum and ends in ruin.
FRIDAY, MARCH 20. We have the wind directly aft. Our fore studding-sails
are out like the wings of a bird on the breast of a gale. We have run
within the last two days four hundred and forty miles. This is good
sailing considering we have six months’ provision on board, and lie
consequently too deep for the greatest speed. The air is balmy, and the
songs of our sailors, at sunset, rose exultingly into its blue depths. A
sailor always sings with heart. His music rolls out like a dashing
stream from its mountain source. It is never gay; it always has a deep
vein of melancholy. If a few more lively notes mingle with the strain,
they come only at intervals, like flakes of moonlight between the
cypress shadows which mantle the marbles of the dead.
He is a gay being when he gets upon shore; but he is then no longer on
his own element. Give him a day’s liberty, and he will commit more
follies than he would in six months at sea. If he charters a hack, he
will ride out on the box with the driver and make the hold, as he terms
the interior, welcome to any one who may be disposed to use it. If he
hires a horse, he will ride him at his utmost speed, though he knows no
more than you do where he shall bring up. He goes to church on the
Sabbath, and if no one offers him a seat, brings in a huge billet of
wood, or a stone, and moors ship in the middle of the aisle. He sits
there grave as a deacon, never once nods during the sermon, and when the
contribution box comes along for sending missionaries to the heathen,
drops in the last dollar which his fiddler has left him.
SATURDAY, MARCH 21. We lost at Valparaiso the Samson of our ship. He was
from Bremen, and of German extraction. He stood seven feet in his
stockings. His arm was as large as the leg of an ordinary man. He could
carry a water tank, which any two others among the crew could only lift.
He went with the rest upon shore on liberty, fell in with a few of his
countrymen, drank too freely, and stayed beyond his time.
He would have returned on board, but he shrunk from the disgrace of
corporal punishment. He had the finest sensibilities, and looked upon a
blow, inflicted in the shape of a chastisement, as a brand of indelible
infamy. To escape this he had no resource, as he supposed, but to
conceal himself till after our ship should sail. Every effort was made
to recover him, but without success. His conduct had been
unexceptionable. He had never fallen under censure. His fidelity to duty
had won the regard and confidence of all. His loss was the more
regretted as it flowed from a misapprehension on his part. He would not
have been punished had he returned on board. His next liberty day might
have been withheld, and that would have been all.
He would have been a tower of strength in an engagement. He could have
wielded a sky-sail yard as a boarding-pike. But in the centre of all
these giant energies gushed a fountain warm and fresh as that in the
heart of a child. He carried with him his mother’s picture, and hung
over it with that fondness which absence cannot wean or age chill. Keep
that picture, thou noble tar! all is not lost while the love of that
remains.
SUNDAY, MARCH 22. The sky covered with a soft haze, the air balmy, our
ship moving four and five knots; divine service at 11 o’clock. The
subject of the discourse, the power of evil habit; the progress of crime
traced; its incipient insignificance, its tremendous results; the
stealing an apple leading to highway robbery; an irreverent word paving
the way to profaneness; a play of chance for amusement leading to the
hazards of the gaming table; the social glass ending at last in delirium
and death. But a future state revealing the more full effects of an evil
habit. Here the traces of guilt dimly apparent on the man, there deep
and indelible on his soul; here an outcast from the community, there an
outcast from heaven; here suffering the loss of a transient temporal
good, there an immortality of bliss. God grant these admonitions may
arrest some poor sailor in his career of folly and ruin.
MONDAY, MARCH 23. The wind has been faint and directly aft through the
day; still we have made a hundred miles in the last twenty-four hours.
We have just had a splendid sunset. The whole western horizon was a sea
of cloud and flame.
The setting sun is beautiful at sea,
And throws a richer splendor on the eye
Than when on land beheld; the cause may be
A brighter, bolder amplitude of sky.
And then the fathomless immensity
Of waters, and the twilight clouds, which lie
Along the west, and which at sea appear
As islands in a golden atmosphere.
But then there follows this resplendent sight
An hour of deeper beauty to the shore;
The glowing west has darkened into night,
The stars are out, and from their cisterns pour
On tree and tower a flood of mellow light,
Through which the crags in sheeted silver soar;
While caverned cliffs the billows’ dirge prolong,
And roll it back a murmuring tide of song.
And this is rapture—thus alone to stray
Along the moon-lit shore, and hear each wave
Repeat its dying anthem round the bay,
Or rush exulting down some sparry cave
With death-defiant roar; though on its way,
With all its swelling peans, to the grave.
And then ’tis hushed again, except the song
Of breaking billows, which the cliffs prolong.
Oh, you may talk of banquetings and balls—
Of wit and merriment at masquerade—
Of revels held in old baronial halls—
Or music murmured in the serenade:
Give me the lay of distant waterfalls,
The song of May birds in the forest shade,
And that deep anthem, which the choiring waves
Of ocean roll from her melodious caves.
TUESDAY, MARCH 24. What ups and downs there are on board a man-of-war!
The young Englishman who left the elegancies of the Astor-House, and
shipped as a common sailor on board our frigate, continued to win upon
the friendship of the crew. He was hail fellow well met with the whole.
He was always at his post, and prompt and cheerful in duty. No weather
ever sent him below, when it was his watch on deck. He struck out so
strongly, that he soon gained a position aloft, and had his eye on being
captain of the main-top.
But on reaching Valparaiso his _nom de guerre_ took flight. He was
recognised as the son of a wealthy broker in Manchester, England; and
the important intelligence had just reached here that his uncle,
recently deceased, had left him twenty thousand pounds. The correctness
of this intelligence was ascertained from sources which left no doubt;
and still he hesitated about applying for his discharge, and declared he
had never been so happy as since he turned sailor. He brought on board a
letter of credit on a large banking-house in New York, but had never
availed himself of it. He at last yielded to the importunities of his
friends at Valparaiso, and applied for his discharge, which Captain Du
Pont, with the sanction of our commodore, ordered to be made out. He
shook hands with his shipmates, wished them stiff breezes and snug
harbors, and in his tarpaulin and roundabout, left his station on the
main-yard for a London coach.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25. We have among our crew a youth who is touched with
insanity. The hallucination takes every variety of shape, and every
degree of force. A few days since he fancied that he had but one friend
on board, and wanted a lantern at noon, with which to look him up.
To-day his conviction has been that he shall not see the sun rise again?
As the glorious orb went down, he stationed himself on the steps of the
accommodation-ladder to take his farewell look. There was as much poetry
in his fine wild features as in the tragical idea that had brought him
there. He poured his mournful adieu to the sun in the lines of Manfred,
which seemed more his own than the guilty misanthrope’s who uttered
them:
“Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown—
Who chose thee for his shadow. Thou chief star!
Sire of the seasons! monarch of the climes,
And those who dwell in them! for near or far,
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects;—thou dost rise
And set in glory. Fare thee well!
I ne’er shall see thee more. As my first glance
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take
My latest look: thou wilt not beam on one
To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been
Of a more fatal nature. He is gone!”
THURSDAY, MARCH 26. We discovered a sail this afternoon on our starboard
bow, and stood down for her. As our noble ship, with her heavy batteries
frowning death, neared her, she run up the American ensign at her peak.
We captured her in mimic war. She proved to be the Balæna, a whale-ship,
or, as our sailors term it, a spouter, from New Bedford. She had been
out five months. She had two men at her main, two at her fore, and one
at her mizen top, looking out for whales. Success to them. I would as
soon seek a tree-top in a thunder-storm. The mimic fight took place
after she had shown her colors, and was gone through with merely to
accustom our men to some of the evolutions of a real engagement.
Our crew is composed in too great a proportion of young men. They have
not that solidity and strength of muscle which our heavy guns require.
But they are very active, and would pour themselves, as boarders, in a
living tide on the enemy. Our best crews are those enlisted after war
has been declared. Thousands who now seek our civil marine, would in
that event rush to our armed decks.
The Balæna must have been christened by some lady of New Bedford who has
a touch of Latinity about her. The name, it is true, signifies a whale,
but no vulgar vandal spouter, but an elegant Roman balæna—such as might
have danced on the harp-strings of a Lucretius, or streamed in the
insignia of Cleopatra’s barge, as it rocked on the amber waves of
Cydnus, and threw back the sun’s rays from its decks of burnished gold.
Give me that lady who can throw a classic charm around a whale-ship. A
cabbage in her hands would soon take the colors and perfume of the rose.
FRIDAY, MARCH 27. Our slumbers were broken this morning by the cry of
land ho! from the watch in the fore-top. We had been under shortened
sail through the night for fear of shooting too far ahead. But we made
an excellent landfall. As day glimmered, the barren isle of San Lorenzo
loomed into the light on our starboard bow. It was sufficiently near to
throw its jagged outline full on the eye.
The sea breeze soon sprung up, when we made sail, and doubling the
northern extremity of San Lorenzo, the harbor of Callao opened upon us.
We moved up its ample expanse with our top-gallant sails set, and came
to in handsome style with our starboard anchor. We were welcomed by
clouds of gulls and pelicans, which floated around our ship and cast the
sea into shadow. Had they possessed anthropophagous propensities, we
might have felt some solicitude for our personal safety.
Our sails were hardly clued down when our vice-consul, Mr. Johnson, came
on board. Our first inquiry was for letters from home. Deep was our
disappointment when told there were none. Almost six months from the
United States and not a single mail yet,—not even a straggling letter!
Think of that, ye who cannot leave your homes for a week without a
letter each day. We may have children born without knowing it, and find
them, on our return, some three years old. It is no wonder they timidly
stare at their strange fathers, and take refuge in their mothers’ arms.
SATURDAY, MARCH 28. Callao falls immeasurably short of the picture which
my imagination had painted. It is a collection of low, dingy dwellings,
occupying the rippling verge of a vast sand-plain. The only beings which
give to it an air of life are buzzards; or here and there a fisherman
hawking the trophies of his hook; or an Indian woman on a donkey, riding
straddle.
We encountered on reaching the landing two immense piles of wheat, which
had been shipped from Chili. Each pile must have had in it not less than
twenty thousand bushels. Neither had any covering, and needed none, as
it never at this season rains or snows here. Nature allows man to be as
lazy as possible, and he seems to have availed himself of the privilege
to the utmost extent. Even the dog which slumbers on the trottoir will
sooner hazard your heel than break his dreams. The children run half
naked; and the women, too indolent to hook the tops of their dresses,
throw a loose shawl over their shoulders, and nurse their infants as
publicly as they would take out a pocket-handkerchief.
The fort, a place of great strength in its day, has been dismantled. It
had become the rallying point of the disaffected. A few revolutionists
could here set the arms of the whole republic at defiance. The
government, standing in greater dread of domestic than foreign foes,
issued a decree for its destruction. The government must be weak indeed,
which is obliged to consult its safety in the destruction of the
defences of its territory.
SUNDAY, MARCH 29. We are lying in the bay of a Roman Catholic country
where no place of worship is allowed to Protestants. There is not a hall
or chapel within the limits of Peru where they who differ from the papal
see can assemble on the Sabbath. Repeated efforts have been made to
obtain permission to erect such a place, but as yet without success. The
archbishop of Lima, who gets his instructions from Rome, has set his
face against it, and the government is at present too weak, were it so
disposed, to set his ecclesiastical authority at defiance.
It would not be amiss for some of our Catholic bishops to come here and
preach up a little toleration to their brethren; and, before they go
away, I wish they would pass over to the barren isle of San Lorenzo. On
this bleak, herbless rock, which is frequented only by pelicans and
vultures, they will find the graves of nearly all the Protestants who
have died in Peru for centuries past. Not one of those who lie here
could have procured himself a grave on the mainland.
But we have one resource on board ship which no proscription can reach.
We carry our chapel with us on the open deck. Our capstan is a pulpit
which has never been overawed. We have our worship on the Sabbath, in
whatever port we may lie, without consulting the authorities on shore.
Our privilege is wide as the ocean, and the shores which it laves. Would
it were so with every denomination of Christians. The faggot which
bigotry kindles may burn the recusant first, but is pretty sure in the
end to consume those who light it.
Our forefathers were driven out of the old world by the intolerance of
an arbitrary authority, attempting to enthrone itself on the human
conscience. I seem to stand once more beneath the wintry trees which
threw their bleak shadows on the rock where they first knelt, in their
wild inhospitable home. Their memory stands apart, as a thing by itself,
sacred and imperishable in the reverence and love of millions. Hail to
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
They were men of giant soul,
Men of faith and deeds sublime;
Men whose acts will reach their goal
In the mighty depths of time.
They resigned, at God’s behest,
Kindred, home, their fathers’ graves—
Pilgrims o’er the ocean’s crest,
Mid the thunder of its waves.
Here—where pathless forests frowned,
Wailing torrents rolled their foam,
Wolves and wild-men prowled around—
Rose their altars and their home.
What to them were stately shrines,
Gorgeous dome, or towering spire?
’Neath their sturdy oaks and pines
Rose their anthems, winged with fire!
When oppression reached the coast,
With the tyrant’s purpose flushed,
They to peril’s deadliest post
For their God and country rushed.
As the steep volcano throws
From its burning breast the rock,
They o’erthrew their columned foes,
In the battle’s fiery shock.
All that consecrates their fame,
All that sanctifies our hearth,
All that freedom here can claim;
In their noble minds had birth.
By their dead, on Bunker’s steep!
By their bones, in Monmouth’s plains
We their faith and trust will keep,
While their blood rolls in our veins!
Thou who heard’st the Pilgrim’s prayer—
Nerved him for the doubtful field—
Made his sacred cause thy care,
O’er us cast thy mighty shield!
CHAPTER VIII.
SKETCHES OF LIMA.
INCIDENTS OF THE ROAD.—THE GRAND PLAZA.—SHOPS AND HOUSES.—THE SAYA Y
MANTO.—AMERICAN LADY.—MIXTURE OF RACES.—DEMEANOR OF GIRLS AND
BOYS.—PROCESSION ON PALM SUNDAY.—CONVENT OF THE FRANCISCANS.—DOCTORS
OF LIMA.—GOOD FRIDAY.—THE LAST SUPPER.—PILATE’S COURT.—GARDEN OF
GETHSEMANE.—CLOSE OF LENT.—JUBILATIONS.—CLIMATE.—AN OFFICER IN
PRISON.—LAWYERS.—THE INDIAN’S EYRIE.—THE LOTTERY.—BULL-FIGHT.
In Lima’s streets a stranger stood,
Who wrapp’d his thoughts about him
So close, that they who watched his mood.
But deemed the place without him.
MONDAY, MARCH 30. We were off this morning at an early hour for Lima.
The distance is only seven miles, and is travelled by a line of
omnibuses, drawn by six horses, three abreast. Our companions were
lieutenants S. and L. of the Congress, two Peruvian officers, a Spanish
lady with a lapdog, a creole girl smoking a cigar, and a quadroon in
white-kid slippers.
We passed on the right an obelisk surmounted by a cross, designating the
spot to which the sea was thrown, in the great earthquake of 1746. A
little further on we passed the neglected dwellings of Bellavista,
projected as the new Callao, and built further inland, that it might
escape the terrible fate of its predecessor. But fear soon yielded to
the suggestions of commercial convenience, and Callao went back again to
the strand of the sea.
After dragging along for nearly an hour, with our old vehicle buried to
the axle in sand, we reached the halfway station, which consists of a
dilapidated church and a grog-shop. In the ruined turrets of the one the
martins had built their procreant nests; at the bar of the other stood a
bare-headed monk, soliciting the change which the glass of toddy might
leave. His large feet were protected by sandals, and his Roman nose was
so red that one of the passengers got out a cigar.
Having breathed our steeds, we started again, when a fierce quarrel
arose between the Spanish lady and her poodle. The little fellow had wet
her pocket-handkerchief, and had his ears soundly boxed for the
indiscretion. The quadroon took the part of the poodle, and the creole
girl smoked on. We now passed several huge tumuli—the burial mounds of
the aborigines. The heroic virtues which they entomb have perished. No
Homer has swept his lyre in their giant shadows. The road, as we
approached the city, presented on either side double rows of poplars,
beneath which the Limanians take their twilight promenade. But at this
time only a few donkeys were winding their way through them, buried up
in grass, which they were taking to market. You saw only the burden; the
animal was concealed under it, like a tortoise beneath its shell, or a
mouse under a crow’s nest.
We found at the gate a sentry posted with as much solemnity as if the
old bastion could still thunder out its defiance. We rattled up a broad
street into the heart of the city, where we were emptied from our crazy
coach into an office surrounded by boys, who vociferously claimed the
privilege of transporting our baggage. The urchins had hold of it before
we could even tell them where we were going. The lady with her repentant
poodle, and the creole with her cigar, went their way, and we brought up
at Morin’s hotel on the grand plaza. The keeper met us in the hall,
welcomed us to Lima, and allotted us our apartments. Here we were then
at last in the “city of kings,” and in the most sumptuous hotel which
its ambition and luxury could furnish. What a transition from the
storms, the sleet, and whales off Cape Horn!
TUESDAY, MARCH 31. The heart of Lima is occupied by a great public
square, in the centre of which stands a fountain, the showering waters
of which fall into a wide marble basin. Beneath the verandas which open
on this square are the fancy shops of the city, while the Cathedral
towers over all in its solemn magnificence. Around the fountain, instead
of marble statues, you find donkeys, waiting to have the tanks, which
are swung across their little pack-saddles, filled with water. As soon
as this has been done, off they start on their destination, without
leader or rein. For these two kegs of water the owner gets a real, or
twelve and a half cents. Thus is Lima supplied with water; when it might
be conducted by pipes through every street of the city.
In the shops, which line three sides of the grand square, are found
almost all the elegant products of art and mechanical ingenuity. The
long colonnades which protect them from the sun, are paved with smooth
pebbles, and are sufficiently wide for several persons to walk abreast.
Here you encounter, at all hours of the day, the indolent and the
active, the grave and the gay of Lima. A more motley crowd in color and
costume cannot well be conceived. The language of almost every nation on
the globe throws its peculiar accents on the ear. The poorest have on
them generally some article of luxury or refinement. The Spanish lady is
seen in her _saya y manto_; the mestizo in her gayly-figured shawl, and
the quadroon in her white-kid slippers.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1. Since the great earthquake of 1746, the houses in
Lima have generally been confined to one story. A few families of
wealth, who consulted their pride more than their personal safety, have
run their dwellings a little higher. The walls are uniformly of
sun-baked brick, and the roofs flat. The more pretending houses have an
open court between the heavy gate and the main building. The front of
the dwelling, with its fresco paintings, and gilded window-frames,
glimmering through the evergreens which fill the court, has a fine
effect; every thing looks inviting and cool, well suited to the
climate—but a dash of snow would ruin its attractions.
Almost every house betrays the Moorish origin of its architecture in its
veranda. This appendage resembles a long, capacious bird-cage, fastened
to the wall; it is composed of lattice-work, and is painted green. Here
the inmates can observe the passing crowd without being themselves seen.
But all the buildings in Lima have about them the evidences of decay.
Many of the mansions of the rich have passed into the hands of foreign
merchants, and are used as counting-houses; while others have been
converted into hotels and restaurants. Many families of distinction,
after the revolution, returned to Spain; and not a few of those who
remain are slowly exhausting the remnants of their once splendid
fortunes. A Spaniard with the most diluted drop of noble blood in his
veins, will about as soon starve as work. He regards labor as a
degradation.
[Illustration]
THURSDAY, APRIL 2. The novelty in costume, which first strikes the
stranger in Lima, is the _saya y manto_ of the ladies. At a distance
this dress looks like two petticoats; the one hanging down where all
petticoats should hang, and the other drawn up over the head, as if
lifted by a little whirlwind in mischief. But the lower garment proves
to be a rich silk skirt, so plaited and arranged as to betray the
swelling outline of the person and fall in wooing drapery around the
limbs, while the upper one combines the advantages of the hood and
mantle. It is fastened at the bottom within the band of the skirt, and
falls over this cincture in a flowing wreath; while the top is gathered
over the head and face, and so held by the hand within as to expose but
one eye. The disguise is complete; no husband could recognise his own
wife in such a dress.
The apology attempted for this dress is, that it enables a lady to go
out in the morning, to mass or shopping, before she has made her toilet.
The objections to it lie in the facilities which it lends to purposes of
a very different character. It veils a love intrigue from all but the
guilty. The jealous care of the husband, and the sleepless vigilance of
the duenna, are alike baffled by its impenetrable folds. With the young
it often paves the way to ruin and a life of crime. No virtuous
community would tolerate its presence for a moment. It has been
relinquished by some of the better families in Lima, and was once put
under the ban of a legislative statute; but it still survives, and is
still in extensive use. The Evil One, could such a thing be, might drop
tears over its fall.
How the heart turns from such a picture as this, to that of one whose
breathing features throw at this moment their unveiled sweetness on my
eye. Born in other climes, she blooms here in all her native modesty and
grace. There is an air about her, a delicacy, and a heart that speak the
truthfulness of her nature, and her freedom from those affectations
which vanity and a false taste induce. My Ariel, who loves these
qualities in woman, has thrown into a few simple stanzas a faint outline
of the original.
THE AMERICAN LADY.
She moves among us, but apart
From folly’s empty din;
The smile that lights her silent heart
Flows from a fount within.
The incense of the flatterer’s tongue,
Which each in turn may share,
She lightly deems as bubbles flung
Upon the empty air.
And when a flash of anger’s force
Would light resentment’s flame,
She only pities more the source
From which the menace came.
There’s not a throb which sorrow brings,
Or sigh of the oppress’d,
But pours its pulses o’er the strings
Which tremble in her breast.
There’s not a smile which hope bestows,
Or light in memory’s dream,
But o’er her changing aspect throws
Its warm reflected beam.
Her bright thoughts greet us as the rays
Of some sweet star at even,
Seen o’er the twilight’s misty haze,
Climbing the verge of heaven.
FRIDAY, APRIL 3. Slavery is near its extinction in Peru. No one can be
born a slave under its new constitution, and the introduction of slaves
from other provinces or states is prohibited under penalties which
involve a loss of citizenship for life. Any slave can obtain his freedom
for a few hundred dollars, or by taking refuge among the Indians who
inhabit the glens of the Cordilleras. It is unlawful for any master to
strike his slaves. If they misbehave, he can increase their task, but
cannot inflict corporal chastisement.
Nothing puzzles the stranger here so much as the singular mixture of
races. The Spaniard, the Indian, and the African run together like the
hues of the dying dolphin. It is impossible to tell where one color
ceases and the other begins. Even in the same family, complexions
frequently differ wide enough to embrace both extremes. The African in
other countries can be traced; but here, after a few generations, he
becomes so bleached by the climate that you lose sight of his origin.
Even his hair, that almost infallible indication, straightens out into
the texture of the European’s. Add to this the results of intermarriage,
and you may well be in doubt where to class him.
Some of the best-looking females in Lima are of this description. They
resemble in hue and form the Circassian, and would be regarded at
Constantinople as extremely beautiful. They are soft and engaging in
their manners, amiable in their dispositions, excel in music, and are
often married to gentlemen of distinction and wealth.
SATURDAY, APRIL 4. The college boys in Lima look like little military
captains. They strut about in cocked hats and laced coats; the sword
only is wanting. The last thing with which you would associate them
would be a severe ancient classic. You would as soon look for Greek
among the matadores at a bull-fight. Peru will produce no Porson while
these cocked hats and gilt buttons continue in vogue among the boys.
[Illustration]
But all the little boys belonging to families of note are dressed here
like gentlemen. Your first impression would be, that you had arrived
among a race of Lilliputians. But a closer observation shows you that
these little well-dressed gentlemen are infantines, let loose from their
nurses’ arms. They are but little more than knee-high; but wear, with
singular gravity, their black beaver hats and long-tailed coats.
The same holds true of the little miss of eight and nine. Her hair, of
singular length for that of a child, instead of falling in ringlets or
plaits, is done up with a comb like that of her mother’s. Her silk
dress, with its close bodice, depends gravely to the instep; her
mantilla falls down her shoulders with the precision of that of a nun;
while her hands and arms are adjusted with the utmost composure. Her
whole air is that of a lady over whom some thirty years have passed, and
she expects you to address her in the same respectful terms. She is the
pocket-edition of a precise spinster.
SUNDAY, APRIL 5. This being Palm Sunday, all Lima turned out to witness
a procession intended to convey an idea of the last entrance of our
Saviour into Jerusalem. On a platform, borne forward on the shoulders of
six stout men, stood a donkey, on which a wax figure was mounted, while
the staging was strewn with leaves of the palm. As it passed, hosannas
broke from the lips of the spectators.
On the staging which followed this, stood the Virgin, in glowing wax.
She wore a sparkling diadem, and a robe of purple velvet, gorgeously
inwoven with gold, and flowing off into a magnificent train, supported
by angels. As she passed, the crowd fell on their knees and whispered
their Ave Marias, while the swinging censers of the priests sent up
their curling cloud of homage.
The third and last staging supported a tree, high in the limbs of which
clung a little wax cherub, intended to represent Zaccheus. He was
looking down with an expression quite removed from one of reverential
curiosity. The children shouted, and it was as much as their mothers
could do to hush them into silence. Thus passed this religious pageant;
when the crowd broke up in much the same humor with which they would
leave their seats at a theatre. Were the historic symbols of our
religion intended to amuse mankind, this spectacle might possibly answer
its purpose. But here the awful reality so overpowers the
representation, that it cannot leave in the imagination even the
solemnity of a religious delusion.
MONDAY, APRIL 6. We visited to-day the Franciscan church and convent.
They cover seven acres of ground, and combine a degree of architectural
grandeur and cloisteral luxury singularly at variance with the mendicant
virtues of the fraternity to which they belong. The church, indeed, is
one of the most sumptuous in Lima, and showers its rich gilding upon you
from pavement to dome. In its niches, and over its altars repose
statues, on which art has bestowed the highest expressions of its
ambition.
In one of the altars we recognised St. Benedict, holding a black infant
Saviour in his arms. The existence of this representation has been
denied by a distinguished prelate of the Roman Catholic church in the
United States, but of its truth I have the testimony of my own eyes. The
idea originated, undoubtedly, in a wish to conciliate the African. Rome
becomes all things to all men, and I hope for the purpose of saving
some.
The convent has four hundred cloisters, which open on stately corridors
that circle around central courts, where fountains play among
evergreens, fruits, and flowers. Who would not gaze on a skull and a
life-glass only an hour or two a day to enjoy such a residence as this?
These gloomy emblems of our mortality might almost be forgotten in the
deathless bloom of the amaranth. Give me a monk for exigencies; he can
make solitude social, and convert a golgotha into a garden. He lives in
affluence without a ready penny, and is sainted without an active
virtue.
TUESDAY, APRIL 7. To die regularly in Lima the patient must be
admonished of his approaching end by his physician, and receive extreme
unction from his priest. The physician who should let his patient die
without this timely warning, would receive the severest censures of the
relatives of the deceased, and be required by the church to pay for
masses for the repose of his soul. He is consequently faithful in this
last sad office. With us the sick often die in glowing dreams of life.
The pale shadow flits before their glassing eyes, but is not seen.
The medical profession here, in dignity and respect, ranks far below the
pulpit, the bar, and the camp. It involves too many cares, too many
vigils, too many humble offices to suit the indolence and pride of the
Spaniard. It is consequently exercised mainly by those of African or
Indian descent, and a thankless office they have of it. If their patient
survives, it is ascribed to some miraculous intervention of the Virgin;
if he dies, it is attributed to an unpardonable want of skill: so that
between the imputed miracle in the one case and inevitable death in the
other, he gets but little credit for his professional sagacity. His only
resource in all critical cases is to call in half a dozen consulting
physicians, and share with them the responsibility of the issue. I
always pity a consulting physician; he must approve what has been done,
though in so doing he often gives the lie to the change of treatment
which he directs. But let that pass.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8. The great cathedral was crowded at an early hour
this morning to witness the ceremony of the “Banner.” As the organ
commenced a low, mournful air, a tall priest, robed in black, took his
station in front of the high altar, where he unfurled from its staff a
large sombre banner.
After having waved it for a few minutes in front of the lights on the
great altar—knocking over one of the candles, which I suppose went for
Judas Iscariot—he faced about, and with his long train, supported by
three pages, marched down, with a slow stately step, into the centre of
the cathedral. Here twenty-four priests, through whose files he passed,
and who were in sable robes, with dark crowns on their heads, fell flat
with their faces upon the pavement. The banner continued waving over
them for several minutes, while the low tones of the organ died away on
the silent air. Several of these prostrate functionaries, when their
eyes met each other, found it almost as difficult to preserve their
gravity as Cicero’s augurs.
The banner now disappeared through one of the side chapels; the priests
got up, replaced their crowns, and the spectators departed. Not a word
was spoken during the whole ceremony; what it meant, is more than I can
say. I made repeated inquiries of those present, but no one could give
me any information beyond the fact that it belonged to Holy Week. I
must, therefore, refer the reader to those better versed than myself in
symbolic worship or an interpretation of the vision.
THURSDAY, APRIL 9. At twelve o’clock to-day all the bells in Lima rung
out a simultaneous peel, and were then sent to Rome to be blessed by the
Pope. They will return again, it is understood, on Saturday, and
announce their arrival from their respective steeples. Their visit to
the _pontifex maximus_ must of course be taken in a metaphorical, or
Picwickian sense. It is a constructive journey, such as our honorable
senators take at the inauguration of a new president.
As the bells left for Rome every shop in Lima was closed. No public or
private vehicle was seen in any street. Even the donkeys, with their
water tanks, disappeared from the city fountains. Every man, woman, and
child suspended their amusements, labors, and secular cares. The
dominoes lay untouched, and the cue of the billiard-table stood
unmolested in its rack. Men passed each other in the streets without the
customary salutations. It was as if the whole city had been suddenly
struck into a speechless awe and reverence.
This was intended to portray an appropriate sense of the scenes which
occurred in Jerusalem, when redeeming Love underwent the agonies of the
Cross. Its significance lay in the exhibition of a seeming sympathy with
the sorrows of the sufferer. It was a silent allegorical tragedy, in
which each one found himself an actor. To me no other exhibition in the
ceremonies of Holy Week had so much moral force. Silence often makes
itself felt, when thunder passes unheeded.
FRIDAY, APRIL 10. All good Limaneans, with the president and his cabinet
at their head, made last night the circuit of the principal churches. In
each was a representation, in effigy, of some scene connected with the
Crucifixion. In San Lorenzo was the Last Supper. The table was spread
within the chancel in front of the high altar, and was loaded with the
richest viands and fruits, while each plate had its bottle of wine and
roll of bread. A profane epicure might have forgotten the sacredness of
the symbols in the culinary skill and taste which they displayed.
In the church of San Domingo was represented the accusation before
Pilate. Beneath the high altar sat the Roman governor, with his court on
either hand; before them raved the accusers, while within stood in
silent meekness the divine Victim. Near Pilate knelt a page, with a bowl
of water in one hand, and a napkin in the other, that this arbiter of
life and death might cleanse his hands of guilt. The whole scene
betrayed an extravagance in attitude and emotion better suited to the
drama than the solemnity of the occasion.
In the church of San Francisco the slender trees of Gethsemane cast
their still shadows over the kneeling form of the Son of God. By his
side stood an angel with that cup which might not pass away. In the
great Cathedral, the summit of Calvary, with the cross and the crowd,
rose in solemn gloom. In San Pedro, the Roman guard, with drawn swords,
kept their grim watch over the tomb. The moral effect of all these
exhibitions in a Protestant community would be to impair the awful
reality; and even here they appeared to inspire but a qualified
reverence. The mass gazed as a curious child stops in its play to look
at a picture that has momentarily caught its roving eye.
SATURDAY, APRIL 11. The great band of musicians, connected with the
army, passed through the principal streets of Lima last night, playing a
funeral wail. The subdued strains rose through the silent air mournful
as melodies from out the grave. This was intended to be significant of
the anxious sorrow which watched around the tomb where Death had
temporarily asserted his empire over the Prince of Life.
At an early hour this morning the church of San Augustine was filled to
overflowing with the beauty of Lima. A large choir and orchestra had
been brought together on the occasion. The music commenced in strains of
lamentation and grief; and at last burst into expressions of the most
triumphant joy. At this moment the bells in all the towers of the city,
and which had been silent since Thursday, rung out an exulting peel.
This was the announcement of the Resurrection! The whole assemblage fell
on their knees and joined in the Hosanna which seemed to shake the
pillars of the great edifice.
The whole scene was now changed. Throughout the city gladness lighted
every countenance, and the gayest attire took the place of the gloomy
sables. The confectionaries, the fruit-stalls, the wine-shops, the
billiard-tables, were all thrown open, and were filled by crowds giddy
with the excitement of the joyous transition. Mothers played with their
infants; maidens twined jessamine-flowers in their locks; children fired
off their crackers; cripples neglected their crutches; creditors forgot
their insolvent debtors; and even the barefooted monk passed you without
soliciting charity. He strode on, independent as a lord.
SUNDAY, APRIL 12. The jubilation continued through the whole of last
night. Evening found the living tides of the city upon the great public
square. Here every species of trick and merriment, with the humor of the
hour, convulsed the crowd with laughter. All distinctions and all
restraints were cast aside. All classes and all colors mingled together
like leaves of the forest in the whirl of the autumnal winds.
Some were fiddling, some dancing; some singing, some shouting; some
niggling, some nudging; some declaiming, some drinking; some pilfering
nosegays, and some picking pockets; some making mischief, and some
making love. Here a harlequin turned somersets, and there a half-naked
rope-dancer figured on the suspended cord. Here a Punch and Judy played
off their pugilistics, and yonder a puppy and porcupine bristled and
barked. Here a broken-headed drum flapped its roll, and there a cracked
guitar squeaked its discords. Here wit ruled the hour, and there rum.
Thus passed the night till the Sabbath morn threw its broad light on the
scene. Thus closed Lent, and thus commenced Easter-Sunday. Thus
terminated the ceremonies of Holy Week,—begun in penance and prayer, and
ended in frolic and fun. That such a celebration can substantially
promote the cause of piety and the proprieties of life, must surpass the
belief of any one whose faith has not lifted the ceremonies of his
church above the reach of human fallibility.
MONDAY, APRIL 13. The climate of Lima has no extreme variations. The
mercury on Fahrenheit’s scale rarely rises in summer above eighty, and
rarely falls in winter below sixty-five. The prevailing temperature is
about seventy-five. But there is a surprising sensitiveness in the
inhabitants to these slight variations. Let a cooler current of air
sweep from the Cordilleras, and you will encounter everywhere the ample
cloak and heavy shawl. You hardly feel the change yourself, and think
for the moment you have got among invalids.
The effect of the climate on the constitutional habits of the European,
soon betrays itself in a relaxation of his energies. He loses his
enterprise, enthusiasm, and flinty endurance, and sinks into that dreamy
listlessness which pervades the great mass. His descendants dwindle in
intellect, and are dwarfed in person. If white, his complexion becomes
bronzed; if black, it is bleached into hues less sable. The climate acts
like the crucible which fuses the different metals which it contains
into one mass.
The climate acts with the same softening and subduing effect on the
force and ferocity of animals. The dog becomes spiritless, the tiger
ceases to spread dismay and terror when he leaves his lair, and the wild
bull brought within the arena, has to be goaded to the combat by a
system of refined cruelty and torture. No animal fights save in his own
defence, and the men, if roused and forced to action, rarely pursue an
enemy beyond the limits of the field where fortune has favored their
arms.
TUESDAY, APRIL 14. We visited again to-day the Franciscan convent. This
magnificent establishment had once some four hundred inmates, and an
income suited to the easy and sumptuous style in which they lived. But
in the Revolution its funds disappeared, and the monks sought an asylum
elsewhere. We encountered in its vacant halls but one, and he darted out
upon us seemingly to frighten away an American lady whom we had in our
company. He appeared, as he flitted along the silent corridors, more
like a dusky ghost than aught of flesh and blood. His long robe draped
his person; his cowl half concealed his wan features; his thin hands
held a crucifix; and his steps glided over the pavement noiseless as his
shadow. He was here, and there; now in the faint light; now in the
shadow of the wall; now in his cell; now in the chapel, and then
sweeping the long, dim corridor. You saw no motion of any limb; you
heard no sound; and if the glance of his eye fell on you, it was but for
a moment.
“Beware! beware of the black Friar,
Who flits through these halls of stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
’Tis shadow’d by his cowl,
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.”
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15. The most intolerable feature of a legal process in
Peru grows out of the “law’s delay.” A foreigner may be imprisoned for
weeks, and perhaps months, without being able to secure a hearing before
the proper tribunal. If he applies to the functionary, who represents
his country at this court, his case then takes a diplomatic character,
and wanders back and forth, in shadowy shape, while moons wax and wane.
His case is loaded with all grievances, piques, and prejudices, which
have agitated the parties, who have the management of it, through a
series of years. Till at last he finds it quite as difficult to get out
of the diplomatic net of his minister as the clutches of Peruvian law.
Now our commodores have a very brief mode of settling these
difficulties. They man their batteries and demand the release of the
prisoner in twenty-four hours. He is then held amenable to the laws,
which it is alleged he has offended. If innocent, he is rescued from
false imprisonment; if guilty, he pays the penalty. There are here no
stately forms of court etiquette, no subscriptions of having the honor
to be, with high consideration, your excellency’s most humble
nincompoop. Instead of this a demand is made, founded in humanity and
justice, and enforced by argument which the wise will not and the timid
dare not resist. Such is one of the advantages of having a navy. Disband
it and our citizens go to prisons and our commerce to pirates.
In the general tumult of Saturday night one of our junior officers came
in conflict with an irregular detachment of the military police. Weapons
were drawn; the leader of the file was disarmed by him, and several
others received slight wounds, when he was overpowered by numbers, and
led off to the guard-house. His liberation was promptly demanded by
Capt. Du Pont, but his amenability to the laws of Peru, of course,
recognised. The demand, after the responsibility of the case had been
shuffled from the intendente to the prefect, and from him to the
criminal judge, was complied with.
As soon as it reached the lawyers of Lima that a case of this kind had
got into their courts, they gathered around the young officer like forty
rival lovers for the hand of the same lady. Some proffered their
services for half the usual fee; some for what he might please to give,
and several said they should charge him nothing except for stationery.
Some pressed their pretensions through the legitimate character of their
diplomas; some through their relationship to the judge; and one quoted
half the Justinian code, as evidence of his qualifications.
But they were all a little too disinterested; and it was determined to
let the case go by default; and pay such damages as the court might
decree. The result was that every rascal who had received a scratch, no
matter from whom, on Saturday night, came in for damages. The sagacity
of the judge set the claims of most of them aside; but enough succeeded
to mulct our young officer in several hundred dollars, though his sword
had as little to do with most of their wounds and bruises as the pen
with which I write this. An offence here connected with a foreign
officer, has as wide a responsibility as the magic of a Salem witch.
Hardly a hen can miscarry, but the loss of her egg is traced in some way
to this military Achan.
But yesterday the captain of an American merchantman was imprisoned at
Callao. Commodore Stockton immediately inquired into the circumstances,
which were these:—The captain had come down to the Landing to go on
board his vessel, when he found his boat’s crew in conflict with a party
on shore. The difficulty originated with a midshipman in the Peruvian
navy, who had struck one of the Americans. The captain made a resolute
effort to detach his crew from the engagement, when the whole were
overpowered by the military and lodged in prison.
These being the facts. Commodore Stockton called in person on the
governor of the port and demanded the captain’s release. His firmness,
and his ability to back his demands with the guns of the Congress, had
the desired effect. The captain was liberated. This was done, not to
rescue the captain from just amenability, but from unjust imprisonment.
When the case was examined into by the proper authorities he was
acquitted of all blame: still his innocency would not have saved him
from a vexatious confinement but for this resolute proceeding on the
part of the Commodore.
THURSDAY, APRIL 16. The Indian’s eyrie, on the summit of some steep and
lofty mountain, says a traveller, may be easily passed many times
unnoticed by the stranger. But he will one day encounter a swift-footed
Indian, closely followed by a person on a well-accoutred mule,—whose
geer is all laden with silver ornaments; and the rider, who sits at his
ease in a saddle of the country, with a rich pillion, wears a large
brimmed hat, with a black silk cap emerging to view at the ears and
temples. He has on a couple of ponchos, well decorated and fringed:—his
brown stockings are of warm Vecuña wool; and the heel of his small shoe,
half concealed in a clumsy, though costly wooden stirrup, is armed with
a prodigiously disproportioned silver spur, with a large tinkling
roller, used to keep his noble animal in mind that she is but the
harbinger of death, and carries on her back the keeper of the sinner’s
conscience.
This minister of peace to the miserable hurries to shrive the soul of a
dying Indian, whose abode, like the falcon’s, overlooks the paths of the
ordinary wayfaring man; and which, when descried, seems to the sight of
the observer underneath to be, indeed, the loftiest earthly point
between the ground he himself stands upon, and the heaven for which, it
is believed, the anxious and fluttering spirit of the dying man only
waits the curate’s absolution and blessing to wing its immortal flight.
When all is over, when the absolving benediction has been pronounced,
and death has triumphed where life took its last stand, the pale
pulseless form, wrapped in its most costly vest, is dressed for burial.
Wild-flowers are strewn on the dead by the Indian maiden, while the
cliffs around mournfully echo back the funeral dirge. How true is human
instinct to the awful mystery of the grave!
Observing an immense concourse on the grand plaza, I elbowed my way
among them, and soon ascertained the cause of the rush to be the drawing
of the public lottery. On an elevated ample platform were seated the
judges, before whom revolved three hollow globes. The first contained
the billets representing the prizes, the second the names of those who
held tickets, the third the numbers of these tickets. When the globes
stopped revolving, the lads stationed at each drew, through a small
aperture, simultaneously, a billet. One contained the prize, another the
number of the ticket, the third the name of the owner. Every heart was
now in a terrible flutter till the number and name were announced; and
then a shadow fell on many faces that were bright a moment before.
The largest prize was a thousand dollars; the least was a silver
pitcher, or a silver _unmentionable_, belonging to chamber furniture,
and which was displayed without the slightest sentiment of mirth. A more
motley crowd than those whose dreams of wealth were here dashed,
delusive hope never brought together. They assembled in noise and mirth,
and separated in silence and sadness. Such a scene as this the grand
plaza presents on the afternoon of every Wednesday. The proprietor of
the lottery pays the state annually forty thousand dollars for his
privilege. The tickets are one real, or twelve and a half cents each.
They who cannot buy ten, twenty, or a hundred, can buy one. In this lies
the secret of its success and mischief. It finds a dupe wherever it can
find a fool with a penny. The venders of these lottery tickets hawk them
through every street and lane, and from the stepstones of every church
in Lima. The pious signature assumed by the purchaser, shows that he
connects his hopes of success with the assurances of his religious
faith. No one here would pit a cock without a prayer to his patron
saint.
FRIDAY, APRIL 17. On the Sabbath which succeeded Holy Week I went to the
cathedral to attend worship, and found it closed; continued on to the
church of San Pedro, and found that closed; turned off to the church of
San Augustin, and found that also closed. Observing the streets full of
people, who were moving towards the broad bridge which crosses the
Rimac, I concluded that there must be some great religious festival in
that quarter, and followed on.
The crowds continued to move over the Rimac, but instead of entering any
church, wound off, in solid column, through the rows of trees which
shade its left bank. I at last inquired of an intelligent looking man
who was walking at my elbow, to what sacred spot they were bound. When,
with a look of half wonder at my ignorance, he replied, To the _corrida
de toros_!—the bull-fight! I turned on my heel and threaded my way back,
with some difficulty, through the crowds who were pressing onward to the
savage spectacle. Among them were groups of children from the
schools,—boys in gay frocks, and girls in white, with wreaths of flowers
around their sunny locks, headed by their teachers. Monks with their
beads, mothers with their daughters; infancy at the breast, and old age
with one foot in the grave; all chattering and laughing, and jostling
and shouting, and pressing on to the bull-ring, on the Sabbath!
Upon inquiry, I found that these bull-fights formerly took place on
Monday, but that the Archbishop of Lima, to enable the laboring classes
to attend them, had changed the day to the Sabbath. They are a horrible
spectacle at best, utterly revolting to every sentiment of refinement
and humanity; and the social and moral evils which they inflict would be
sufficiently revolting were they confined to secular occasions, but they
become doubly pernicious when they involve such an outrage on the
sanctity of the Sabbath, under the sanction, too, of the highest
ecclesiastical functionary in the state.
Bull-fights, as conducted here, involve very little peril and suffering
except to the poor beast. His antagonists are pretty safe, or he would
drive them out of the arena. It is an exhibition of craft and cowardice
on one side, and courage and despair on the other. Of the two, the bull
sustains much the nobler part, and would have much the larger share of
my sympathy and respect. If men must fight for the amusement of their
fellows, let them fight one another. If the death of one don’t furnish
sufficient, excitement, then let the other be shot or hung, as the taste
of the spectators shall suggest. But let them not catch a poor beast,
torture him with fagots and fire, skulk themselves, and pick him to
death with their long weapons, and then insult the intelligence of the
community by calling the dastardly act an exhibition of chivalry and
valor.
It is no wonder the ladies in Lima are deficient in delicacy and moral
refinement, accustomed as they are from their childhood to such savage
spectacles. It is but justice, however, to say, that there are some
mothers here who will not permit their daughters to attend them; nor
will they allow them, for this, or any other purpose, to disguise
themselves in the _saya y manto_. There was one righteous man in Sodom,
and there is more than one good mother even in Lima.
[Illustration: LIMA]
CHAPTER IX.
SKETCHES OF LIMA.
EDUCATION OF FEMALES.—MARRIAGES.—LAPSES FROM VIRTUE.—THE SUNSET
BELL.—SILK FACTORY IN A CONVENT.—HABITS OF THE INDIANS.—THE HALF
WEDLOCK.—BLIND PEDLER.—PROTESTANT YOUTH IN LIMA.—RELIGION OF THE
LIMANIANS.—INTRIGUES AT COURT.—MODES OF LIVING.—THE
ZAMPAS.—CHURCHES.—INDIAN DOCTORS.—FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY.—OLD SPANISH
FAMILIES.—MASSES FOR THE REPOSE OF THE SOUL.
“I say in my slight way I may proceed
To play upon the surface of humanity;
I write the world, nor care if the world read,
At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.”
SATURDAY, APRIL 18. A girl here at the age of ten or eleven is as far
advanced in her social and matrimonial anticipations as she is with us
at seventeen. She expects in her fourteenth year to sway hearts, as the
moon the troubled tide. For this period she trains herself with an
ambition far beyond her years; and when it arrives, she is armed with
all the brilliant weapons of beauty, wit, repartee, and a lively
self-possession. Her wit never wounds, her repartee never gives offence.
She is thoroughly amiable in all her sallies, she means to make you
think well of her, and is equally anxious that you should think well of
yourself. She understands how to inspire self-complacency without any
broad flattery. She is sportive, but it is with dignity; and will sooner
excuse a liberty than a slight.
When this hey-day of life has been sufficiently enjoyed, she marries,
not from having fallen in love, but for the sake of an establishment. If
her husband devotes himself to her, she is generally faithful; but if he
spends his nights in clubs, at the billiard and card table, she is apt
to permit the intimacy of some one whom she ought not to love. This is
rarely, if ever, followed by a domestic explosion. She feels secure of
all that forbearance and silence which the most jealous regard to the
peace and reputation of the family can suggest. With us, the injured
party, though first himself in the fault, yet in his resentment often
turns his own hearth-stone into a tomb. Guilt never fails to carry with
it, in the end, its own punishment. There is a serpent in the cup of
guilty pleasure, whose fang will inflict wounds on which the tears of
repentant anguish will yet fall big and fast.
SUNDAY, APRIL 19. There is one religious observance in Lima which
reminds the traveller of the call of the muezzin from the minarets of
Constantinople, when he summons the Mussulman to prayer. When the bell
of the great Cathedral tolls the departing sun, every one, whether on
foot, in his curricle, or on horseback, and whatever may be his speed,
stops and takes off his hat. The gayest look grave, and the serious
whisper a brief prayer. The shopkeeper suspends his bargain, the
billiard-player lays down his cue; the gambler folds his cards and
reverently rises. In a minute the bell ceases: the horseman dashes on,
the cue and cards are resumed, and Heaven seems again forgotten.
Many of the simple artisans ply their trades outside their shops. You
will encounter twenty or thirty shoemakers driving the awl in a single
court, and as many tailors pushing the needle in another; while a third
is filled by milliners, bleaching and trimming gipsy-hats for Indian
girls. The Limanian lady seldom wears a bonnet; she prefers the manto;
with that she can conceal her face, save the peeping eye, and pass
unrecognised. The saya or skirt of this disguising dress is not the work
of her own sex; it is always cut and made by the same hands which fit
and seam the coats of the gentlemen. What can be expected of a nation
where the men are engaged in making petticoats for the women?
Enterprises of pith and moment are not achieved through the stitches of
that garment. But let that pass.
MONDAY, APRIL 20. The convent of San Pedro, an extensive, costly
edifice, has been converted into an establishment for raising and
twisting silk. The few monks who still lingered in their cloisters, when
they saw the worms slowly winding themselves up in their continuous
thread, as if the sole object of life was to secure an undisturbed exit
from it, concluding that two of a trade could never agree, picked up
their rosaries and relics, and departed. The worms work on, and wind
their silk sepulchres as industriously as if the monks who have gone had
left behind them their ghastly mementoes of life’s brevity.
How strangely sounds that steam-engine as it turns the twisting
machinery, and throws its ceaseless echoes around among these chambers
once dedicated to the spirit of silence! And the thread, as it reels
itself off from the cocoon, seems as if it unwound the quiet existence
of some recluse, whose life was here “rounded with a sleep.” These
threads are to be woven into a rich tissue, beneath which the bounding
heart and glowing limb will but faintly indicate the penance and vigils
which once reigned in these gloomy chambers, from which they stream to
the light. Such are the strange mutations to which the enterprise of the
age brings us. A convent is converted into a factory, its skulls into
steam-boilers, and its beads into bobbins! It is enough to wake St.
Anthony out of his sunless sleep!
A relic can no further dwindle
Than when ’tis reeled from spool or spindle.
TUESDAY, APRIL 21. I have encountered no class of persons in Peru that
have awakened the same degree of sympathy and interest as the native
Indians. On them have been piled misfortunes that would have crushed a
less enduring race. Their lands, their forests, and their streams have
been wrenched from them through treachery and force. The mounds in which
the bones of their forefathers were entombed, have been violated, and
these sacred relics exposed to the gaze of a profane curiosity. These
are wrongs against which his untutored nature rebels, and which he
partially avenged in the frightful scenes of the Revolution. The power
of Spain in Peru went down like a wreck, over which the whelming wave
rushes in remorseless triumph.
The Indians on the coast, born among Europeans, have still something of
that sedateness which is characteristic of their race, when reared under
the influences of civilization. But those from the interior, whose
cradles were swung among the stupendous steeps of the Andes, have a
stern, wild force, which shows where their home has been. They look with
scorn on the tricks of the toilet. They may indeed wear plumes in their
dark hair, but they are from the pinions of some daring bird that has
battled with the mountain storm, or whose rush has been over the
cataract’s plunging verge. Still, they are in a great measure free from
ferocity and disguised revenge. They are magnanimous as conquerors, and
patient as captives. They never lose their equanimity in good or ill
fortune.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22. Flowers here play an important part in love
matters. If a lady presents a gentleman with a rose in the morning, it
is significant of the fact that he has not yet, at least in her
imagination, passed into the yellow leaf. But if she presents it to him
in the evening, there is no hope for him, unless he can rejuvenate
himself. These floral gifts at the anniversary of the lady’s birthday,
fly about thick as Cupid’s arrows. They are graceful advances when
presented by gentlemen, and delicate responses when given by ladies.
The Indian girl has less reserve in her love recognitions. She sends a
pretty doll on a nice little couch, covered with white jessamine
flowers. This is a broader intimation than that given through the rose
by the Spanish lady; but it proceeds from a heart quite as guileless and
chaste. If I must confide in the purity and fidelity of either, let it
be in the one who thus embodies the instincts of her sex in these mimic
miniatures of life. Yet with all this seeming delicacy in an affair of
the heart, the Spanish lady indulges in a latitude of speech that would
quite disturb female modesty with us. Her allusions are as broad as are
the exhibitions of folly and vice. She speaks of a man’s mistress, or a
woman’s paramour, just as freely as she would of their carrier-pigeons,
and with just about as little surprise or virtuous indignation. She
seems to consider it neither a high crime nor a pitiable weakness; but
one of those fortunes which mysteriously connect themselves with the
conditions of humanity. When she weds, she will probably need the same
charitable construction, and she will be pretty sure to receive it from
her family and friends. They will deprecate and resent as suicidal
folly, any public demonstrations of domestic disquietude. The husband,
if a foreigner, is told that these are the habits of the country; if a
native, he needs no such information.
THURSDAY, APRIL 23. When a young female consents to become the mistress
of a man here, she requires of him a certificate that he will not marry
without her consent. This certificate she deposites with the Bishop of
Lima, and purchases a dispensation for the irregularity involved in the
compact. Should the man, from weariness or any other motive, attempt to
effect a marriage arrangement with another person, without her consent,
she calls at once on the bishop, who threatens the delinquent, if he
perseveres, with the highest pains and penalties of the church.
He is thus reduced to the necessity of either making an adequate
settlement on the person with whom he entered into the illicit
arrangement, or of foregoing entirely his matrimonial purposes. The
object of the bishop in this matter is to prevent a dishonored female,
with perhaps three or four children, from being thrown on the world
without any means of support. Whether this motive, even when its object
is achieved, can justify the semi-official sanction of the compact, is
another question. But this I may say, it often prevents the heartless
libertine from selfishly abandoning one for whose guilt and ruin he is
measurably responsible. If he don’t like the conditions, then let him
decline the arrangement; it is at best only a passport to guilt and
sorrow.
FRIDAY, APRIL 24. I encountered to-day a blind pedler, of whom there are
several in Lima. He carried two baskets, the one filled with elegant
toys, the other with ribbons, thread, needles, and pins. He knew where
to find each article, and the price which he should get for it. Even the
quality of the ribbon could not deceive his delicate touch; nor could
the coin which he received in exchange, palm itself off for more than
its value. Heaven guide and protect thee, thou poor blind pedler! We all
feel our way through this dim world in the hope of reaching a brighter
and better.
There are a great many families in Lima who have no cooking done in
their houses through the year. They send out to the cook-stands which
are sprinkled all over the city. They thus save the expense of extra
servants and fuel. It is another mode of disguising poverty, and of
avoiding the necessity of breaking up their establishments. When a
Spanish family of some pretension becomes reduced, and it is necessary
to sell the carriage, the coat-of-arms and every clue to its previous
owner, are, as far as possible, effaced. As a last resort, the household
servants are allowed to hire themselves out, and bring back a portion of
their earnings to their owner. When these die, or desert, the last
string in the old harp is broken. If a tone lingers still, it is so sad
you would not hear it breathe again. There is something in the condition
of a man who is now poor and who has seen better days, with which only
the most callous levity can trifle. It was only out of Eden that Adam
felt in its full force his irreparable loss.
SATURDAY, APRIL 25. Foreign youth who come to Lima from Protestant
countries to engage in business, often disappoint the fondest
expectations of their friends. Cast adrift from the moral and religious
restraints which they felt at home, and having no respect for the solemn
pageantries of religion which they encounter here, they fall easy
victims to the vices of the metropolis. Hardly one in ten escapes the
giddy maelstrom, down which they are whirled from light and hope. Their
ruin would at least be retarded were the institutions of the Protestant
faith permitted here. But the Roman hierarchy, which cries aloud for
freedom of conscience in the United States, here tramples it down with
Bastille ferocity. If the masses in the Catholic church here are bigoted
and intolerant, their spiritual superiors have made them so. The depth
of the forest wakes or sleeps with the tempest that walks over it.
The frailties of the Limanian female seem not to extinguish her
sympathies with distress. She is often at the couch of pain with that
tender assiduity which we can hardly dissever from a virtuous life. Her
watchful care is not denied to the stranger, or to those utterly
incapable of rewarding it. This surviving virtue, amid the wreck of
others, is to be ascribed perhaps to that forbearance which her
frailties experience. With us she would be abandoned by her relatives,
and delivered over by her former associates to irremediable crime and
shame. The result of this is a fearful proclivity in guilt and ruin.
Whether virtue is best vindicated by a denunciation which never relents,
or a forbearance which tries to save, is a question which would not long
hold me in suspense. No heart is wholly bad; it has some string in it
that will vibrate if rightly touched. He who suffered on the cross died
to _open_ the door of mercy, not to shut it.
SUNDAY, APRIL 26. The religion of the Limanians is entitled to a
charitable judgment. The mass of the people are not responsible for the
pageantries with which it is invested. Their uninformed faith may be
perplexed among shadows, but it often penetrates to the substance. Among
the frivolous there are not a few with whom religion is an earnest
reality. Among the skeptical, many may be found who have cast the anchor
of their hopes within the veil.
We may denounce the proscriptive polity of their church, but we should
not denounce them. They worship in a temple which the zeal of ages has
reared to their hands. They found its doors barred to other religious
persuasions, and it is requiring too much to expect that they will at
once throw back its bolts. This can be realized only through the
influence of that higher light which the Bible is now pouring into the
recesses of every sectarian shrine. Even our own Protestant altars are
now visited by rays which have long been shut out, or permitted to fall
in only faint fragments. The spirit of intolerance which has pervaded
our churches, has been a source of vast moral mischief. The road to
heaven is covered with the footprints of thousands, who have been won to
it by the accents of Christian love.
MONDAY, APRIL 27. When a political intrigue explodes in Lima, the first
inquiry is for the woman that sprung the mine. She is generally found to
be some courtesan, whose success lies more in the power of her personal
charms than her force of intellect. Her carriage in Lima and her rancho
at Chorillos, sufficiently attest her means, and the honor of those
favors through which she beguiles the unwary statesman into her plans
and purposes.
If the plot fails, her coadjutors may atone for their political
profligacy with their lives; but she lives on, and may yet ensnare the
judges that doomed them. She has a tact that eludes sagacity, and a
perseverance that seems to challenge obstacles. She makes her way where
the maturest counsels are disconcerted, and triumphs where the most
daring courage is foiled. She detects at a glance the unguarded point in
the most crafty, and turns his weapons against himself. Her intrigues
sometimes result in benefit to the state. The same mysterious hand, that
traces in ominous characters the doom of the obnoxious or incapable
minister, often executes its own sentence.
All this indicates a truth, which a thousand other facts corroborate,
that the women of Lima are far in advance of the men in sagacity and
force of purpose. In the frightful conflicts of the Revolution, when
men’s hearts failed them, they were in disguise on horseback among the
troops, nerving the timid, and rallying the brave. No political party
can long maintain its ascendency in Peru that has not their confidence
and support. They will make it ridiculous with their raillery, or odious
with their denunciation.
TUESDAY, APRIL 28. Out of Lima, the masses in Peru subsist mostly on a
vegetable diet. The flour of maize, wheat, peas, beans, barley, rice,
and arrowroot, are made into a soft pap, or mush, which is sweetened
exceedingly with sugar or molasses. This is the great Peruvian dish
called “masamora,” and which is the edible staple in every family. It
produces sleekness without strength, and fatness without fire. They who
subsist upon it retain their flesh till they pass forty; then begin to
dwindle away; at sixty they are extremely thin; and at seventy have
hardly substance enough to cast a shadow.
A mother here never nurses her child when she is angry, for fear of
imparting to it a choleric temperament. If unable to perform herself
this agreeable maternal function, she procures a black nurse, but never
an Indian. The vital tide from a red skin she feels assured will give it
a fiery irascible disposition. She considers the milk of the black cow
cooler than that of any other, and anticipates a mild and amiable temper
in her children as she pours it into their porringers. I like this idea
of not nursing a child when angry. It is another check on peevishness
and passion. It would not be amiss were the superstition universal. Of
all objects in the world the most painful to me is, a mother nursing and
scolding at the same time. It is worse than thunder out of a soft April
cloud.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29. There are in Lima two associations which are very
attentive to strangers. A member of one is called a pillo, a member of
the other a pillofero. The first is a genteel loafer, the second a
dexterous gambler. So you have your choice between a good-humored
graceless uninvited guest, and a refined cheat. The one is satisfied
with your table and floating change, the other goes for your purse and
its entire contents. The one plunders you through your vanity, the other
through your bad fortune.
Priests here not only guard the prerogatives of their order, but the
purity of their Spanish blood. A high ecclesiastic, of Indian or African
descent, is not to be found in their ranks. Such a lineage would debar
him the sacred functions of the altar. Those who exercise them are as
jealous of the Castilian blood which flows in their veins, as an old
Hidalgo furbishing his family coat-of-arms. They inculcate equality
among their communicants, and make them kneel together on the same stone
pavement, but they stand aloof in the immemorial privileges and dignity
of their order. They have inferiors who mix with the masses: some of
these are devoted men; they encounter incredible hardships in
propagating their faith. Their self-denying zeal may well be a lesson to
Protestants.
The most amusing being in Lima is the mestizo—the offspring of the
European and Indian. His wit and humor never fail him. He will convulse
you with laughter, and be himself quite sedate. It puzzles you that a
bird of such dazzling plumage should fly out of the shadows of such a
sombre tree. The zambo, half Indian and half African, has a broader
humor. His allusions are under no restraints from sentiments of
delicacy, or respect for the presence of the other sex. I have seen one
of them keep a street crowd in a roar by the hour.
Zambos are generally employed as household servants. The children
naturally fall into their care, and become early accustomed to the
language suggested by their prurient imaginations. Love intrigues are
with them a never-failing source of entertainment. Even the
“peccadillos” of their parents are sometimes made a subject of mirth.
The adventures of the mother are thus made known to the daughter. Her
prudent counsels, after that, sound hollow indeed. It is not to be
wondered at that she should turn away from the precept to imitate the
example. Many families, and among them some of the first in Lima, have
thus been plunged in irretrievable humiliation and grief. The cause may
be, and generally is, carefully concealed. But an unseen wound may
rankle as deeply as that which has no covering. The light which a mother
should depend upon to guide the steps of her daughter, is that which is
reflected from her own example. If shadows rest on this—if it falls only
in transient flakes, seen one moment and lost the next, like the
firefly’s fitful beam—it will only serve the more to bewilder and
betray. What the mother would have her daughters, she should be herself.
It is her example, and not her precepts, that shapes their social and
moral being.
THURSDAY, APRIL 30. In the native Indians is found the productive
industry of Peru. The products of their gardens and fields roll in a
ceaseless tide into the markets of Lima. Their jewelry and ponchos,
wrought with little aid from machinery, rival in elegance some of the
most finished productions of art; while their sturdy arms fill with
ceaseless echoes the deep silver mines of the Andes. The roads which
they constructed under their Incas still run along the jagged steeps of
the Cordilleras; their swinging gardens still throw their fragrance on
the wind; and through their aqueducts still rolls with refreshing force
the mountain stream. But many of their richest plains and glens, Spanish
rule and indolence have turned into sterility.
An Indian boy from the interior, domesticated in a European family in
Lima, will at first show some alacrity in duty; but when he enters the
summer of youth, he flies back to his mountain home. And the Indian
girl, who has little else to do than carry a mat to church, on which her
mistress may kneel at mass, when the levities of childhood are passed,
turns an earnest eye to the picturesque glades of the Andes. The
sequestered hut, the wild fruits and flowers which bloom around it, the
stream that ripples past the door, the lama-skin couch, and one by whom
she can be loved and protected, float through her young dreams, and off
she flies for the reality of this romantic vision. Her mistress, the
next time she goes to mass, looks for her Indian girl, and begins to
think
“That love in simplest hearts hath deepest sway.”
FRIDAY, MAY 1. The most tender and melancholy associations here are
those which crowd upon one, seated at twilight by the burial mounds of
those who were once sole possessors of the soil. The yellow-leaved
willows wave in the still moonlight; their whispers are in mournful
unison with the dirge of the Indian, which still floats over the graves
of his fathers, and melts into harmony with the voice of the cuculi,
that responds in plaintive notes from the guarango grove. Every thing
around you breathes of the past, and of the ruins which time and
disaster have left behind.
“Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
Far in thy realms withdrawn,
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone,
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.”
The swinging hammock is the sofa of the Limanian lady. This airy couch,
twined of beautiful grass, and died into the varied hues of the rainbow,
swings in the cool corridor, while flowers of loveliest tint throw
around it their fragrant breath. In the midst of these odors the fair
one takes her siesta, while her cheek is flushed with the triumph that
floats along her rosy dream. Sleep on while yet thou mayest; a morrow
comes when these visions of pride and happiness will take to themselves
wings and fly away. Care and sorrow will cast their shadows upon thee,
and thou must walk in their gloom down to the dreamless sleep of the
grave. But there are visions which will not depart; there are flowers
that will never die; but they belong to the spirit-land.
SATURDAY, MAY 2. The cathedral, and indeed all the principal churches of
Lima, impress you more through the magnificence of their proportions
than any richness of architecture. They are generally built of a coarse
freestone, stuccoed and painted. Their domes and towers rise on the
distant eye, in gaudy grandeur, but betray their poverty on a closer
vision. The statues which adorn them are generally coarse and frail in
the material, and without taste in the execution. Over every altar is a
statue of the Virgin in the hues of life. Her costume is light or dark,
as the occasion is merry or sad; but the skirt of her dress always
spreads to the right and left like a great fan. This depression is given
it, so that the priest officiating at the altar, when he looks up, may
see her benignant face.
SUNDAY, MAY 3. In the church of San Domingo is a statue, in which there
is an attempt to represent, under the similitudes of the human form and
countenance, the Supreme Jehovah. The idea is taken from those ancient
sculptures which embody the attributes of the Olympian Jove. The analogy
between those statues which Christianity has been made to sanctify, and
those which she cast off with the mythology of paganism, is painfully
true. We have here the Venus of the Greeks in the likeness of the
blessed Virgin, and the Jupiter of the Romans in the representations of
the Supreme Being. Mercury, in the character of the Angel of the
Annunciation, brings tidings from heaven; and Pluto, under the
thunder-scarred front of Satan, reigns over hell. The unpurified,
instead of wandering on the gloomy Styx, now wander in purgatory, till
some Charon, in the person of an absolving priest, ferries them over to
the fields of purple light. I know the force of visible symbols, and the
facility and seeming advantage of impressing man through his outward
senses; but something is due to the dignity of truth and the sanctity of
that spiritual revelation which God has made of himself, and above all
to that fearful mandate—“Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven
image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in the heaven above, or in
the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow
down to them nor worship them.”
MONDAY, MAY 4. The aborigines of Peru still wear a bean at the temple as
a charm against disease, and still adhere to their herb doctors. These
simple disciples of Esculapius, laden with their barks, balsams, roots,
and herbs, traverse the steeps and glens of the Andes, descend into the
plains of Chili, and the pampas of Buenos Ayres. If they seldom cure,
they have the satisfaction of knowing that they never kill. But as the
legitimate province of medicine is to amuse the patient, while nature
cures the disease, perhaps the result of their practice will not suffer
by a comparison with that of their more learned brethren. It is much
wiser, in ordinary cases, to hang a bean to the temple, than to put a
pill into the stomach. Nature never complains of the bean, but she is
often very much puzzled to know what to do with the pill. Were the
ghosts of those who have fallen victims to medicine to appear on this
earth, there would be a more terrible shaking among the medical
profession, than there was in the valley of Ezekiel’s vision of dry
bones.
TUESDAY, MAY 5. The winds in Peru prevail for nine months in the year
from the south. These cooler currents, mingling themselves with warmer
airs, produce what is called the Scotch mist. It instils itself into
your garments slowly, but in a continued exposure will completely
saturate them. It is experienced most at night, and disappears beneath
the slanting rays of the sun. Strangers are apt to disregard it; but the
natives put on their ponchos.
The traveller from a northern zone finds the seasons quite reversed
here. Spring opens with September. When the farmer with us is gathering
in his last harvest, the seeds of the first are sown here. When the
birds forsake our groves for winter quarters, they are here selecting
their vernal mates. When the flowers with us perish, they are here just
opening their bright eyes to the sun. Nature never leaves herself here
without a witness, nor society without its signals, as seen in this monk
and Peruvian farmer.
[Illustration:
Monk. Peruvian Farmer.
]
I encountered two things in the markets of Lima rather peculiar in their
way. The first was a chicken quartered as if it had been a sheep or
bullock, and sold in parts to suit purchasers; each part bringing the
price of a whole one with us. The second was a monk carrying a little
tray, with a crucifix embossed upon it, which every one was invited to
kiss, and pay for the privilege what he might please to put in. One cast
into it a biscuit, another a sausage, a third a potatoe; so the monk
went off with quite a breakfast, and will be back assuredly to-morrow
morning to have it filled again in the same way. It was the first time I
ever saw the privilege of a kiss purchased with a potatoe. But a monk is
seldom at a loss for an expedient.
Of all the fruits in Peru, the most esteemed is the chirimoya. It grows
rather larger than our pippin, has a rough exterior, but is filled with
a soft pulp, which resembles in taste our strawberries and cream. It is
scooped out with a teaspoon, melts in the mouth, and gushes over the
palate in a luscious tide. The tree which bears this fruit requires
seventeen years before its seminal buds ripen into their precious
burden.
Next comes the granadilla, the fruit of the passion flower. It
resembles, in shape, size, and smoothness of texture, the egg of our
domestic fowls. You break the shell, and swallow the rich mucilaginous
pulp with its delicate seeds. The taste has no analogies in any other
fruit. At first it seems to want character or palatable emphasis, but it
wins upon you, till that which appeared a defect becomes an excellence.
It is just such a fruit as the seeming sacredness of its origin would
lead you to expect. It brings you back in your sensations to that fount
which nursed your infant life.
Close on this follows the palta-pear, with its large central stone
resembling that of the peach. This fruit, which is protected by a hard,
thin rind, has the consistence of thick cream, and, with salt sprinkled
on it, is used upon bread as an excellent substitute for butter. I do
not wonder that the epicurean monk, in his desire to lift the flagging
imaginations of his hearers to the fruitions of the better land,
represents the chirimoya, the granadilla, and palta, as nodding over its
crystal streams. They have that which never entered even the imagination
of Mahomet, when he spread the verdant lawns and wove the ambrosial
bowers of his pictured heaven.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6. The therapeutics of the Limanians are as peculiar,
when applied to their tempers, as their bodies. They never drink cold
water when angry, from an apprehension that it conduces to hepatic
diseases. In their opinion it chills and contracts the biliary
excretories, prevents a natural flow of the bile, and leads to
congestion. The physician often attributes the death of his patient to
this fatal indiscretion. He would sooner give an angry man alcohol, than
a glass of iced-water.
The old Spanish families, who were swept away by the Revolution,
resembled the Mussulman in many of their characteristic habits. They
were remarkable for their commercial probity, their love of ease, their
hatred of innovation, their intolerance of the slightest indignity,
their pride of lineage, and their indulgence in sensual gratifications.
Their dwellings were stately castles, where the indolent lounged, the
gay revelled, the sad were beguiled of their sorrows, and the poor
forgot their poverty. But they have passed away, save a few who remain,
like the sturdy trees of a forest, which the hurricane hath swept. The
few who remain are rarely engaged in any important enterprises. What
capital they have is often locked up, where they forego the interest for
the safety of the principal. There is one old Spaniard who has now, and
has had for years, eight hundred thousand dollars packed away in the
vaults of a large commercial house here. An interest of twenty per cent.
would not draw it from its stronghold. Revolution and rapacity have
wrecked his confidence; and he is in this respect only one among
thousands. The result is, the commerce of Peru has fallen mostly into
the hands of the English and Americans. Their daring spirit will carry
it on, though revolutions succeed each other strong and fast as the
breaking waves of ocean. But the storm is past, and the great deep is
rocking itself to rest.
The Spanish lady has but little book-knowledge, but a most observant
sagacity. She has no acquirements in letters, but reads character as by
intuition. She never essays an argument, and is never at a loss for a
pertinent reply. She is ardent in her temperament, and yet rarely loses
her equanimity. She is alive to adulation, and is never overawed by
menace. She is punctilious in all the forms of religion, and persevering
in all the perils of an intrigue. Her mornings are spent with her
confessor, her evenings with her lover.
Masses for the repose of the soul are inculcated by the clergy as an
indispensable religious duty. They are a source of vast revenue to the
curate, and often involve the relatives of the deceased in ruinous
expenses. It is considered worse than cruel to leave in purgatory the
soul of a relative, which might be relieved through the efficacy of the
mass. The dictates of religion and nature are therefore both enlisted in
securing a punctual performance of this pious obligation. It is an
expensive duty, and the burden often falls where it is least able to be
borne.
The poor widow, believing, as she is taught, that masses can relieve the
condition of her deceased child, mitigate its sufferings, and hasten its
transit from purifying flames to perfect bliss, parts with her last
shilling, as well she may, and even sells her mourning weeds for this
purpose. The author of “Three years in the Pacific” says:—“I saw in
Pisco an Indian boy, who had been sold by the curate in one of the
interior provinces, to pay for the requisite number of masses for the
rest of his father’s soul!” There is a company in Lima, instituted under
the sanction of the archbishop, which engages, for the consideration of
a real a week from any poor family, to purchase, at the death of a
member of the household, a sufficient number of masses to liberate the
deceased from the pains of purgatory. This company has a hundred
applicants where the life-insurance corporation has one. Masses for the
dead, claiming as they do to reach the condition of the departed soul,
cast into insignificance every thing this side of their object, and
leave nothing for a superstitious faith to desire beyond it. The human
imagination cannot conceive of a more tremendous ecclesiastical engine.
THURSDAY, MAY 7. The pleasures of our visit to Lima were not a little
enhanced by the arrangements and hospitalities of Commodore Stockton. He
took ample apartments in the elegant hotel which opens on the grand
plaza, where he had his own table and attendants. We met here not only
the officers of the Congress, but the first gentlemen in Lima. These
entertainments were free of ostentation, and that parade in which the
heart is lost in the forms of etiquette, and were on a scale in keeping
with the rank and ample means of the individual who dispensed them. They
have had the effect not only to strengthen friendship among ourselves,
but to win the good opinion and favor of those whose prominent position
here gives them an influence over the character of our foreign
relations.
The gentlemen connected with the Alsop House have also contributed
largely to the pleasures of our visit here. We shall long remember in
connection with this hospitable mansion the kind attention of Mr.
McCall, Mr. Foster, and our worthy Consul. Their liberality, ample
means, and sterling integrity are a rock on which the American name may
safely repose at Lima.
The time had come for me to leave Lima, and take up my quarters again on
board the Congress. I took a seat in the diligence just starting for
Callao, and which was already pretty full with other passengers. But I
had the advantage of not requiring a great deal of room, and so squeezed
in. Opposite to me sat a fat Peruvian lady, whose huge fan, which
threatened my nose as much as her broad face, was in a constant dash to
create a breath of air, while her flesh shook at every jar as if it
would break from its moorings. Two lap-dogs, one under either flank,
pushed out their panting noses with many ineffectual attempts to
extricate themselves from the heat of their smothered condition; but
were rebuffed by a slap from the lady’s hand, which was too fat to hurt
them but for the massive rings on her fingers, in which flashed gems
enough to stud a sultan’s snuff-box. She wore no bonnet or broad gipsy
hat to protect her from the rays of the sun, which broke through the
open crevices in the roof of the diligence; and indeed she needed none,
for the heavy puffs of her cigar rolled up there, and hung over her head
in a thick floating cloud.
On one side of me sat an officer of the Peruvian army, in full uniform.
His chapeau, tasselled, plumed, and covered with gold lace, rested on
his knees, and exposed the heavy black wig, in which each hair had been
made to take its particular place. His thick coat, with its massive
embroidery, was buttoned, notwithstanding the heat, so close over his
chest and up to the neck, that it seemed to dispute with his stock the
office of supporting the chin. His pantaloons, down which flowed a broad
stream of gold lace, were straightened and stretched in every thread by
the short straps under the boot, which might have lifted his feet from
the floor, but for the ponderous spurs which projected far behind the
heel in a shaft, at the end of which rattled a roller in the shape of a
circular saw. Not a smile or emotion of any kind once disturbed the
fixedness of his bronzed features. He sat crank and motionless as a
statue, save the bony hand which now and then gave another twist to his
moustache, which curled its horns into the corners of his mouth. But for
this slight motion, he might have been taken for one of those old heroes
whom Egyptian art more than three thousand years ago embalmed into
immortality.
On the other side of me sat a middle-aged native, in a white fringed
poncho, a large Guyaquil hat, and figured trowsers. An old-fashioned
ring was conspicuous on his finger, and the remnants of a gold mounting
still lingered on the top of his cane. His features were sharp and
prominent; and he had a remarkable strabismus of his eyes, which seemed
to be trying to look into each other across the bridge of his nose. On
his knees he carried an article of chamber furniture, which, though
manufactured of silver, shall be nameless here.
Having occasion to light a cigar, which required the use of both his
hands to manage the flint and steel, which he carried in his pocket, he
placed the _unmentionable_, without saying a word, in the lap of the
passenger next him, who happened to be the captain of an American
merchantman, and who as quickly thrust it back on the knees of its
owner, with the ejaculation, “Carry your own teapot.” The eyes of the
proprietor flashed fire into each other, but not a word was said. The
officer gave his moustache another twist, the fat lady fanned herself as
before, but the two other lady passengers seemed to be not a little
surprised at the rudeness of the American; neither of them smiled, nor
seemed to perceive the least impropriety, or the slightest shade of the
ludicrous in the conspicuous position which the unmentionable occupied.
With us, two ladies so situated, would have jumped out of the stage, if
not through the door, then through a window.
Better at once to fly the sight,
Than stay to perish with affright.
FRIDAY, MAY 8. We were all again on board, and watching for the
appearance of the steamer from Panama. Seven months had elapsed, and we
had received no intelligence from home, and could expect none now
through any government mail. Indeed, our government has no mail
arrangements in the Pacific. Once in two or three months a packet is
dispatched to Chagres with a mail, which finds its way over the isthmus
to Panama, and there goes soundly to sleep. For matter of reaching its
destination, it might as well be in the moon.
Commodore Stockton had dispatched Mr. Beale and Mr. Norris to the United
States, with instructions to join him by the nearest practicable route
in the Pacific. The line of steamers between the West India islands and
Chagres, and between Panama and Callao, had not then been completed, and
it was therefore extremely doubtful whether they would attempt to reach
us by this route. The probability seemed to be they would take the route
by New Orleans, and across the continent to Mazatlan, and thence to
California.
In the midst of these doubts, the steamer threw her black mass within
the bright line of the horizon. “There she comes!” ran in quick whispers
through the ship. As she neared us, the all-absorbing question was,
whether the secretary of the commodore was in her. On this depended our
last and only hope of letters from home. She passed us at no great
distance; but we tried in vain to discover, through our glasses, the
individual for whom we were looking. No sign of such a person appeared
among the few passengers who paced her deck. I went below; I had seen
enough of steamers, and never desired to see another. The third cutter
was called away, and directed to proceed to the steamer; but that seemed
only blotting out the last ray of possibility.
In twenty minutes, an officer rushed below with the surprising
intelligence that the secretary of the commodore was in the boat
alongside. I was not long in reaching the deck, and could hardly credit
my own eyes when I saw him come over the gangway; and still less when he
placed in my hands some twenty letters from my family and friends. Our
advices were within about thirty days from the United States. The
commodore received a large mail; Capt. Du Pont, and nearly all the
officers, got letters from home. For this intelligence, with files of
papers from the press, we were indebted to the arrangement of Commodore
Stockton, carried through at his private expense. We spent the greater
part of the night in reading our letters and penning answers to them, as
we were to sail the next day for the Sandwich Islands. These details may
not be interesting to some, especially those who have not been absent
from home a week without intelligence; but let more than half a year of
their brief life circle round without any information, and they will
appreciate the significance of such seeming trifles. The surest source
of sympathy is found in an experience of the same calamity.
The Incas of Peru, who invested their imperial sway with the mandates
and sanctions of a supreme theocracy, are in their graves. Their palaces
and temples remain; and in these vast monuments are shrined the
evidences of their departed grandeur and power. The solid blocks of
porphyry which pave the great public way from Quito to Cuzco, and the
table-land of Desaguadero, still invite the footsteps of the moving
masses, and still roll back the sunbeams in showering gold.
The dominion of the usurper who entered this peaceful realm with the
cross and chain, has at length been broken. It lies in ruins, amid
penitent tokens of guilt and sorrow, around the sacred ashes of the
Incas. The fiery deluge of revolution which has swept this fair land
since, has also passed away. The calm hearts of two millions of freemen
remain. They bend the knee to no iron despotism, no consecrated pageant
of power. They have rights which they assert in the unrestricted freedom
of the elective franchise. Their progress to constitutional freedom and
repose has been tumultuous and wild, but they are within sight of their
goal, and will reach it as assuredly as the wave of the rolling deep its
destined strand.
But our anchors are up, our courses set, and we are away for other
shores.
Land of the Incas, fare thee well!
For thee my fancy twines
A rarer, richer coronel
Than glitters in thy mines,—
A circlet where each jewel flings
A ray that blasts the hope of kings.
CHAPTER X.
PASSAGE FROM CALLAO TO HONOLULU.
DEPARTURE FROM CALLAO.—THE RUM SMUGGLER.—SUNSET.—SEA-BIRDS—A SAILOR’S
DEFENCE.—GENERAL QUARTERS.—SPIRIT RATION.—THE SAILOR AND
RELIGION.—THE FLAG.—SAGACITY OF THE RAT.—THE CLOUD.—CALMS AND
SHOWERS.—RELIGIOUS TRACTS.—CONSTELLATIONS.—TRADE WINDS.—CONDUCT OF
THE CREW.—MOON IN THE ZENITH.—LAY SERMON.—FUNERAL.—LAND HO!
“Huzza! for Otaheite! was the cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by,
The breeze springs up, the lately flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale.”
SATURDAY, MAY 9. We rousted our anchors this afternoon from the bed in
which they have slumbered for the last six weeks, and stood out to sea
from the bay of Callao. The breeze freshened as the sun set, and before
our mid-watch was out, only the rock of San Lorenzo was seen lifting its
naked peaks into the light of the moon.
Farewell, Callao! I have seen quite enough of your destitution and dirt,
your pickpockets and parrots, your fish and your fleas, your brats and
your buzzards. I wonder not that nature in sore disgust sunk your
progenitor from the light of the sun; and unless you reform, you may
expect to share the same fate. Through your chambers the dolphins will
sport; your forsaken harps will thrill beneath the wild fingers of the
mermaid, while, far above, the hoarse wave pours on the rocks your
death-dirge. The sea-gull only will know the place of your rest, and
only the poor pelican mourn that you are not.
SUNDAY, MAY 10. Divine service: officers and crew all present. Subject
of the sermon, the temptations of the sailor. A chaplain in the navy has
one advantage over his brethren on land. He has his parishioners in the
most compact of all possible forms, and every one present when he
officiates. In making his official visits he has not to ride around
among five hundred families located at all points of the compass. He
cannot stir without coming in contact with them. But he has this
disadvantage; in the vicissitudes of a sea-life they are extremely apt
to break away from his constraining influence. They may be brought back
again, but it is too often through the deepest self-inflicted
humiliation.
I was called down from Lima to see a sailor who was supposed to be
dying. As I came to the hammock in which he was lying, he told me he did
not think he should live, and that he felt unfit to die. He made a free
and frank confession of the errors of his life, and desired me to pray
that he might be forgiven. I tried to lead his thoughts to the cross and
to the fountain of Christ’s blood. To these his contrition and
solicitude quickly turned. He seemed not to doubt, in his infinite need,
their full sufficiency. I prayed with him; he earnestly responded, and
so did his messmates, who stood silently grouped about his hammock.
Sailors well know what is involved in that awful transition which we
undergo in death. They never trifle with the event itself, however
heedless they may be in the indulgences which lead to it.
MONDAY, MAY 11. We have a fine, steady wind on our larboard quarter. It
has carried us, with the aid of a strong current, during the last
twenty-four hours, two hundred and sixty miles. This good fortune,
however, cannot last. We must part with the wind as we approach the
equator, and perhaps before. But sufficient to the day is the evil
thereof. It is much wiser rightly to enjoy the blessings of the present,
than to yield ourselves to anxieties about the contingencies of the
future.
We have a beautiful sunset. The air is serene, and the blue circle of
the sky rests in tranquil softness on the utmost verge of the ocean. The
whole realm of waters seems cradled in its limitless sweep. The rays of
the descending orb lie along the gently heaving billows in lines of
level light. The clouds which o’ercanopy his couch of repose, are robed
in purple and gold; while the long vistas which open through them, seem
as soft avenues to the spirit-land.
“Methinks it were no pain to die,
On such an eve, when such a sky
O’ercanopies the West.
To gaze my fill on yon calm deep,
And, like an infant, fall to sleep
On earth, my mother’s breast.
“There’s peace and welcome in yon sea
Of endless blue tranquillity.
The clouds are living things;
I trace their veins of liquid gold,
I see them solemnly unfold
Their soft and fleecy wings.
“These be the angels that convey
Us weary children of a day—
Life’s tedious journey o’er—
Where neither passions come, nor woes,
To vex the genius of repose
On Death’s majestic shore.”
TUESDAY, MAY 12. We have now leisure to look back as well as forward.
Our crew conducted themselves remarkably well at Callao. Our boats were
in constant communication with the shore, without an officer in them.
And yet, during six weeks, no disturbances took place; and only one or
two cases of intoxication occurred. One attempt was made by a hand in
the third cutter to smuggle off a skin of rum. It was discovered by the
officer who overhauled the boat as she came alongside. An effort was
made to find its owner, but no one would acknowledge the ill-gotten
thing. As the crew of the boat must have been cognizant of the fact,
they were informed by Capt. Du Pont, that unless the name of the
offender was given up, they would all be punished. They were given an
hour to decide what should be done. Before its expiration three of the
crew gave in the name of the smuggler; and he paid the penalty, which
involved a loss of the contraband article and the infliction of a severe
chastisement. We have no laws with us which are a dead letter.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13. Our wind has veered still further aft, and
consequently fills fewer of our sails; but we are running before it at
the rate of nine and ten knots the hour. The sky is covered with light,
fleecy clouds, through which the sun’s rays melt without any intensity
of light. The ocean has a long, undulating swing, like that of some vast
mass which has been seeking for ages to rock itself to rest, but is
prevented by some invisible power that has decreed against its repose.
Thirty more of the crew to-day voluntarily relinquished their spirit
ration. They considered it a source of mischief. A sailor attached to
one of our frigates was court-martialed for an attempt to break open the
spirit-room. His defence before the court was ingenious, to say the
least of it. The government, he said, had given him two tots of grog
during the day, and a third by way of splicing the main-brace. The
wardroom steward had given him, for some service he had rendered, two
more, and these five had made him crazy. It was not him, he said, but
the _whisky_ which was in him that had made the assault on the
spirit-room. And now, as the government had administered to him more
than half of this whisky, the government should bear half the
responsibility of the offence. He therefore prayed that one half of the
lashes which this offence merited might be given to the government, and
the other half he would take himself.
There is a volume of argument, in this defence, against the
whisky-ration. It is a shame for the government to render a sailor half
intoxicated, and then punish him for becoming wholly so. It is the
_first_ glass, and not the last, on which your indignation should light.
This whisky-ration has done evil enough in the service; let it be
consigned to perdition, where it belongs.
THURSDAY, MAY 14. The birds which followed us from the coast have
returned; but several boobies, who had probably lost their reckoning,
circled around our masts at sunset. As twilight deepened, they perched
on our yards, and were in a few minutes sound asleep. They might have
been easily captured, but sailors are not very partial to such trophies.
There is something in their name which they do not like, and which seems
to react on the valor of the captor. Give them a tiger, and they will
storm his jungle with only such weapons as they can pick up on the way.
But a booby, that can harm no one, and whose stupidity seems to have
suggested his name, is allowed to go unmolested. The weakest man in the
community has generally the fewest detractors, while an intellectual
giant will always have a pack at his heels. There is more honor in
striking _at_ a lion, than there is in killing a monkey.
FRIDAY, MAY 15. The sick sailor whom I came down from Lima to see, has
passed the crisis of his disease, and may recover. He fluttered for some
time between life and death. The vital flame seemed to come and go as a
thing apart from him. But now its ray is more bright and steady. He is
an orphan, without father or mother; but has a sister, to whom he is
much attached. The idea of being permitted to see her again, is almost
too much for his exhausted state. If you would get at the true character
of the sailor, you must visit him in his sickness. His better feelings
then gush out over the asperities of his lot, like a spring from amid
the tangled shrubs of the wildwood.
SATURDAY, MAY 16. We went to general quarters this morning at three
bells, and exercised the guns. Those on the main-deck are so heavy, they
require a prodigious outlay of strength to work them. Any irregularity
in the application of the force frustrates all dexterity of movement;
each man must forego all individual volition, independent action, and
become a part of the mechanism which is to be tasked to the utmost as a
whole; and yet he must have all that enthusiasm which is felt in freedom
from constraint, and when the strong impulses of the soul throw
themselves off in resistless action. It is much easier to slash away
gallantly with the sabre, than to train quickly and accurately on the
enemy a forty-four-pounder. This requires self-possession, and
indomitable firmness. Sailors have no retreat. They must conquer, die,
or surrender. The last they would seldom do, were it not forced upon
them by the laws of humanity. They would sooner die, as boarders, on the
deck of the enemy, than survive, as captives, over their own keel.
SUNDAY, MAY 17. Divine service: subject of the sermon, the influence of
religion on a man’s intellectual character. The object of the speaker
was to show that religion aids mental development,—that while it strikes
down pride, it imparts true dignity. Nothing can be more absurd than the
idea, that religion impairs strength of character. It invests even the
timid with a firmness and force which stand undismayed amid dungeons,
racks, and flaming stakes.
To possess the religious character seems to the sailor such a vast
stride in advance of his ordinary habits, that he is extremely diffident
in preferring his humble claims. He will pray when peril presses, for he
thinks a wicked man may do that, but he connects a worthy profession of
personal piety with a degree of sanctity hardly compatible with the
infirmities of his nature. He has rarely enjoyed the advantages of a
religious education; no moral training has gradually introduced him to
the sanctities of the Christian life. The utmost that he feels himself
fit to do is, like the poor publican, to smite upon his breast, and
exclaim, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” But to take his place among
those whose piety is to guide and animate others, is to him as if a lost
star were to spring out of the depths of darkness, and take its station
among the burning constellations of heaven. When therefore he does avow
his religious faith and hopes, it is generally with him no halfway
measure; no decent compromise between conscience and inclination. He
takes with him his all for this world and the next.
MONDAY, MAY 18. The phrase “fickle as the wind” is not applicable to the
trades of the Pacific. The wind before which we are running has hardly
veered a point for the last week. I commend its steadiness to those
politicians who find it necessary every few months to define their
position.
We have had about our ship this afternoon several sea-birds, to which
sailors have given the name of boatswains. They have a long feather in
their tail; which streams behind them like the train of a duchess at
court. But it answers a much wiser purpose, for instead of embarrassing
motion, it acts as a rudder, and steadies the bird in navigating the
aerial currents. Nature never bestows any useless appendages. These are
the achievements of human vanity; and sorry achievements they are. They
even enter the grave, and mock with their tinsel its awful reality.
TUESDAY, MAY 19. We have had through the day a soft, hazy atmosphere. At
sunset these light, floating vapors gathered themselves into more
substantial clouds, and promised a shower. But after hanging on the
horizon for a time, they seemed to sink below its rim. The moon came up
late; her soft light fell on the sea, but the wings of the clouds, if
touched by the effulgence, were invisible. The wind, though of
sufficient force to carry us on some eight knots, scarcely agitated the
breast of the ocean. It seemed as something intended to move over its
level plain and not to disturb its depths. It was like a shadow gliding
over the tops of a vast sleeping forest.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20. Our gun-carriages, with their black paint on a white
ground, could never be made to look neat for any length of time. The
white was perpetually working itself through its sable covering, like an
inborn levity of heart through an assumed gravity of demeanor. Our
captain and first lieutenant, who have an acknowledged taste in every
thing that belongs to the appearance of a man-of-war, ordered the
carriages thoroughly scraped of every particle of paint. A dark stain
was then given to the wood, through which the grain shows itself in its
native strength. Over this a thin varnish of spirit and oil was spread,
imparting to the wood a beautiful polish, and blending itself with its
texture. The battery of a frigate, especially as you come upon her
gun-deck, is that which first strikes the eye. Like the pulpit of a
church, if forlorn in its appearance, elegance elsewhere will not
retrieve the error. A rough pulpit may have thunder in it, but the
thunder don’t lie in its roughness.
THURSDAY, MAY 21. One of our quarter-masters has just finished a new and
splendid flag, which we shall display at the islands. How profound the
love and reverence of the sailor for his flag! He connects with it, as
it streams in freedom and light on the wind, a thousand glorious
memories. It points to crimson waves where his comrades of the deck have
triumphed or sunk overpowered to their rest. He holds the deepest crime
to be that of treason to its obligations and sacred hopes. He would
surrender it only to the King of kings.
The last words of the late Commodore Hull were addressed to the stern
majesty of Death.
“I STRIKE MY FLAG.”
I strike not to a sceptred king—
A man of mortal breath—
A weak, imperious, fickle thing;
I strike to thee, O Death!
I strike that flag which in the fight
The trust of millions hailed,
The flag which threw its meteor light
Where England’s lion quailed.
I strike to thee, whose mandates fall
Alike on king and slave,
Whose livery is the shroud and pall,
And palace-court the grave.
Thy captives crowd the caverned earth,
They fill the rolling sea,
From court and camp, the wave and hearth,
All, all have bowed to thee.
But thou, stern Death, must yet resign
Thy sceptre o’er this dust;
The Power that makes the mortal thine,
Will yet remand his trust.
His signal trump shall pierce this ear
Beneath the grave’s cold clod—
This form, these features reappear
In life before their God.
FRIDAY, MAY 22. I was sitting at a late hour last evening on the
gun-deck to catch the breeze, which came freshly through the larboard
ports, when a large, sleek, long-tailed rat, with a slow, aristocratic
step, approached the combings of the hatch, which he mounted, and then
deliberately descended into the steerage among the junior officers. What
his errand was there, I know not; but there was a dignity and
self-possession in his demeanor which was admirable. He seemed as one
conscious of his rights, and not at all disposed to waive them. I have
always felt some regard for a rat since my cruise in the Constellation.
We were fitting for sea at Norfolk, and taking in water and provisions;
a plank was resting on the sill of one of the ports which communicated
with the wharf. On a bright moonlight evening, we discovered two rats on
the plank coming into the ship. The foremost was leading the other by a
straw, one end of which each held in his mouth. We managed to capture
them both, and found, to our surprise, the one led by the other was
stone-blind. His faithful friend was trying to get him on board, where
he would have comfortable quarters during a three years’ cruise. We felt
no disposition to kill either, and landed them on the wharf. How many
there are in this world to whom the fidelity of that rat readeth a
lesson!
SATURDAY, MAY 23. We have now been out fourteen days from Callao, and
have sailed two thousand eight hundred miles, making an average of two
hundred miles a day. Not a squall, nor a threatening cloud, have we
encountered; nor have we once furled our royals, or taken in our
studding-sails. The wind has been, with scarce a point’s variation, dead
aft; and has maintained an equanimity which the most serene
philosophical temper can scarcely hope to rival. Contentment,
cheerfulness, and alacrity have been everywhere visible among the crew.
Not an offence has been committed which has received or merited
punishment. Such is our condition in the midst of the Pacific—under the
influence of its balmy airs—and under a discipline in which justice and
humanity are admirably blended. We have yet to sail some twenty-eight
hundred miles before we make our port. The distance between Callao and
the Sandwich Islands is about twice as great as that between New York
and Liverpool. Yet we all remember the time when a man bound to
Liverpool, or London, took leave of his friends with a sadness and
solemnity, which augured a dismal doubt of his return.
SUNDAY, MAY 24. Though we are near the Equator, where the weather is apt
to be variable, yet we have had a delightful day, a brilliant sky, a
smooth sea, and a mild aft wind. We had divine service at six bells. The
subject of the discourse was, the example of the primitive
Christians,—their faith, their zeal, their constancy, their sufferings,
their triumphs. They are a cloud of witnesses who have gone before us to
heaven, but they have left their footprints on the shores of time. The
example of their faith and constancy remains for our imitation.
Every man, however humble his sphere, may be, and ought to be, in his
own life a preacher of righteousness. A religious example, wherever
found, is invested with a prodigious moral power. Such an example is
within the reach of every one on the decks of a man-of-war; and there is
no situation where its effects would be more certain. We are as
responsible for the good which we can do, as the evil which we have
done. The man who had one talent was condemned, not because he had only
one talent, but because he hid that talent in the earth.
MONDAY, MAY 25. We crossed the Equator last night in our first watch, at
longitude one hundred and twenty west. We crossed it first on our way to
Rio de Janeiro; since that we have sailed through one hundred and twenty
degrees of latitude, and almost as many degrees of temperature. At Rio
we were melted down with the heat; off Cape Horn our fingers were
stiffened with the cold; and now the most grateful gift in the world
would be a glass of ice-water. Such extremes of temperature are the more
felt in the exposures inseparable from a sea-life. We have on board ship
no forests into which we can rush from the heat; no glowing grates,
around which we can gather from the cold. We must take the elements,
whatever they may be, in their full force. They shatter the
constitution; and sink a grave in the sailor’s path, over which he
rarely passes to a green old age.
TUESDAY, MAY 26. Clouds hung in thick masses on the eastern horizon this
morning. They had not that jagged outline, which in other seas indicates
a severe blow. They loomed up lazily, as if they knew not themselves for
what purpose their dark forms had been shoved between us and the
splendors of the breaking day. We supposed they were charged with
showers, and watched their motions with some interest. But the higher
they ascended, the thinner they became, till at last they gradually
melted away, and left only the soft over-arching sky. But they may
gather themselves another morn, each take a distinct shape, and utter
its satirical soliloquy, like the cloud of Shelley:—
I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and the sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27. We have been becalmed all day between the northeast
and northwest trades. The ocean has slumbered around us with scarce a
ripple. A large shark was seen hanging around our ship through the
morning. A strong hook, attached to a rope and baited with a pound or
two of pork, was drifted astern. He nabbed it as a famishing politician
an office. He was a monster in strength as well as size, and made the
sea foam with his struggles to break away. It required four or five
sailors to draw him in; and when on deck he cleared a pretty broad
circle by his ferocious sweep. But he was soon overmastered, deprived of
his head and tail by the axe, and cut up into pieces accommodated to the
sailors’ culinary apparatus. Many, as they ate him, derived their
keenest relish from their inherited antipathy to his species.
THURSDAY, MAY 28. We have had through the day scarce a breath of wind;
the thermometer has ranged at 85; the heat below has been quite
insupportable. The sun set through a thick, stagnant atmosphere; our
sails hung motionless, save an occasional flap against the mast, given
them by the sluggish swing of the ship. This continued till six bells of
the first watch, when the rain fell in a perfect deluge. The water
formed an instant lake between the bulwarks of the spar-deck, fell
through the hatches, and flooded us below. It was some minutes before
the hatches could be hooded; and when they were, our last breath of
fresh air was shut out. We continued in this situation through the
night. The sun rose into a dim, murky haze, in which his beams were
quenched long before they reached our position.
FRIDAY, MAY 29. The most gorgeous sunsets I have ever witnessed at sea
have been near the equator. We have just been watching one from the
deck; all eyes were fastened upon its magnificent phases. The whole west
appeared at first as if it had lost its steep wall, and seemed to
stretch away like a limitless prairie in conflagration. It changed and
presented itself as a wild, picturesque landscape; mountain forests were
on fire, throwing their lurid flames upon the rushing torrents, and into
the deep ravines, and upon the sleeping lakes. It changed again, and
poured its splendors upon the bastions, domes, and turrets of a vast
city. Princely palaces, columned temples, and monumental pyramids,
soared into a crimson atmosphere. A rushing wind swept the aerial
structures, and over their gigantic ruins rolled an ocean of flame. If
this be sunset, what will that conflagration be which will at last wrap
the world!
SATURDAY, MAY 30. We have been in a calm the greater part of the day.
The mirror of the ocean has been broken only by the plunges of a huge
whale. He rose at times within a few fathoms of our ship, blowing the
brine almost into the faces of our crew. They would, if permitted, have
retaliated with their harpoons; though the result would have been only
the loss of their weapons, for the monster would have carried them off
with as much ease as Samson the bodkins of Delilah. He tumbled around us
for several hours, as if measuring his size and strength with that of
our frigate. At last, with one great heave, made as if in pride and
scorn, he plunged and disappeared. Long life to him. I like his
independent bearing.
One of our seamen got tipsy to-day, and raised a disturbance on the
berth-deck. How he managed to get a double dose from the grog-tub is not
known. And yet he alleges his liquor came from that nuisance which the
law has sanctioned. I have taken some pains, during the long period that
I have been in the navy, to ascertain the causes of the offences which
have called for punishment; and from these inquiries I am clearly of the
opinion, that these offences, in nine cases out of ten, are connected
with ardent spirits; and are committed, in almost every case, by those
who draw the whisky-ration provided by the government. I am clear in the
conviction, that any statutes intended to restrain or punish
intoxication in a national ship, must be without moral force so long as
our legislation panders to this appetite in the sailor. The government
presents itself before the seaman with a cup of whisky in one hand and a
cat-o’-nine tails in the other. Here, my good fellow, drink this; but if
you drink any more, then look out for these cats. It is amazing that
such a flagrant violation of every principle of justice and humanity
should escape the reprobation and even oblique animadversion of the
department, and be left to the remonstrances of those who hold no
official relation to the navy.
SUNDAY, MAY 31. Ill health has disqualified me for performing service
to-day. Indeed it would have been difficult had I been well, as the rain
has been falling in frequent and copious showers, attended by squalls,
which have obliged us to take in our lighter sails about as soon as they
were set. I gave tracts to the crew who called for them, and nearly all
applied. Every chaplain should supply himself with a good store of these
silent preachers. They help him on in his good work. They will be read
by seamen when more labored efforts would be neglected. Many a sailor
owes his conversion to the modest tract. They have poured a steady light
around his dying hammock which had else been wrapped in darkness. The
brightest triumphs of religion are found nearest the grave. Its last
great triumph will be over death itself.
There has been for some weeks past a growing seriousness among our
sailors. The indications are too obvious to be mistaken. Two or three of
them I have reason to believe have experienced religion. They meet every
night and pray for the conversion of others. This little cloud may yet
extend itself, and its drops may fall in a copious shower. Let us have
confidence in the power of God’s grace.
MONDAY, JUNE 1. The northern constellations which have been lost to us
for several months, now that we have recrossed the equator, begin to
emerge into vision. They come back like old, tried friends, whose
fidelity time cannot chill or distance impair. Man may change, but
nature never. The same look of love which she cast upon our cradles she
will cast upon our graves. The same exulting streams, whose melodies
charmed our childhood, will at last roll among the echoing hills our
loud requiem; while the gentle dews steep with tears the flowers which
spring shall sprinkle around our place of rest. But yonder streams upon
us again the constellations of our youth.
“The northern team,
And great Orion’s more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, turns his golden eye.”
TUESDAY, JUNE 2. The northwest trades brought us on briskly till within
a few degrees of that point where we crossed the equator. We there fell
into calms, light baffling winds, and tremendous falls of rain. We were
several days working our way through these to the seventh degree, north
latitude, where we took the northeast trades, and we are now running ten
and eleven knots the hour. These trades blow obliquely to the equator,
and prevail with a surprising regularity and force. A ship bound to the
Sandwich Islands, as we are, should make the shortest cut across the
variables. When the northwest trades leave her, in consequence of her
proximity to the line, she should take advantage of every puff of wind
to make northing, till she gains the northeast trades. She may run a
little further, it is true, by this course, but she more than makes it
up by her ultimate speed; and she escapes, by the shortest route, the
extremely disagreeable weather which prevails near the equator.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3. A large flying-fish flew this evening into the cabin,
through one of the side ports. It was rather a difficult achievement, as
we were running ten knots. The little fellow had been attracted by the
light, and flew at it, as the mullet in our southern streams leap at
night into the lighted canoes of the negroes. Our flying-fish made a bad
exchange, not out of the frying-pan into the fire, it is true, but out
of the water into the frying-pan. But then he was dazzled, captivated by
a floating light, gave chase, and came to ruin. It is ever thus with
man; his life is an eager chase after some false light, some ignis
fatuus of his imagination, which leads him on till at last he drops into
his grave and disappears forever.
THURSDAY, JUNE 4. We have the chart used by the frigate United States in
her passage from Callao to Honolulu, on which her route is designated,
and the distance which she ran each day dotted down. Up to the equator,
we ran neck and neck with her. In the variables she got ahead of us; but
we have now left her some three hundred miles astern. We have been
making an average of two hundred and forty miles a day, without motion
enough to shake a dew-drop from its level leaf. We have not had, except
for a few days near the equator, occasion to take in our top-gallant
studding-sails. The thermometer has stood pretty steady at about
seventy-five, and the air is pure and bracing. If we reach our port on
Monday next, which we have now a fair prospect of doing, we shall have
made our passage from Callao in twenty-nine days; one of the very
shortest passages on record. Five thousand four hundred miles in
twenty-nine days! That will do.
FRIDAY, JUNE 5. We have the moon again directly in the zenith; she hangs
there like a resplendent orb in the centre of a magnificent dome. The
stars gleam out with timid auxiliary light; while soft clouds float with
incense from earth’s thousand altars. The dome, beneath which the
turbaned representative of the Prophet kneels, and that which bends in
grandeur over the supplicating form of the papal hierarch, are poor when
compared with this. The walls of St. Sophia will crumble, and the
pillars of St. Peter’s give way, but nature’s great dome will still
stand, brilliant and undecaying, as when it echoed the song of the
morning stars over the birth of our planet; and it will stand the same,
“Till wrapp’d in flames the realms of ether glow,
And heaven’s last thunder shakes the world below.”
SATURDAY, JUNE 6. We have in the sick-bay a sailor, James Mills, who
must die. He may survive a few days longer, and must then go. He is in
the prime of life, and a few months ago ranked among the most athletic
on our decks. He is now but the shadow of the past, and hovers dimly on
the verge of life. The night of that narrow house is not all dark to
him; some rays of light reach it from the Cross. These are now all that
can cheer him; they are all that can cheer the descending footsteps of
the proudest monarch. Into death’s domain the honors and friendships of
earth cannot enter; they leave their possessor in the hour of his utmost
need. But there is One whose love will remain with the meek, when these
depart; One whose smile will kindle up a morn even in the night of the
grave.
SUNDAY, JUNE 7. Commodore Stockton, who has always taken an interest in
our religious exercises, having occasion to speak to the crew to-day, I
induced him to extend his remarks to topics more sacred than those which
lay within his original purpose. He spoke of the Bible as that crowning
revelation which God has made of himself to man, of its elevating
influences on the human soul, of the priceless counsels which it
conveys, and the immortal hopes which it awakens. He contrasted the
gloomy condition of those tribes and nations which were without it with
that of those where its steady light shone, and found in this contrast a
vindication of its divinity, which none could gainsay or resist. He
commended its habitual study to the officers and crew as our only
infallible rule of duty, as our only safe-guiding light in the mental
and moral twilight of our being here. He rebuked the idea that religion
was out of its element among sailors, and told them that of all classes
of men they were the one that most needed its restraining influences and
glorious promises, and denounced as insane a disposition to trifle with
its precepts. He commended the good conduct of the crew on the Sabbath,
and expressed the earnest hope, that they would continue, in the event
of probable separation from them, the same respectful and earnest regard
for the duties of religion.
Such remarks as these, coming from the commander of a ship or squadron,
will do more to sustain a chaplain in the discharge of his difficult
duties than any privileges which can be conferred upon him through the
provisions of law. They honor the heart from which they flow, and their
influence will be felt in the moral well-being of hundreds, when that
heart shall have ceased to beat. The tree you have planted will grow,
and its fruit come to maturity, though you see it not.
MONDAY, JUNE 8. At seven bells of our forenoon watch the call of the
boatswain, “All hands to bury the dead!” rolled its hoarse, deep tones
through the ship. The remains of the deceased—wrapped in that hammock
from which he had often sprung as his night-watch came round—was borne
by his messmates up the main-hatch, and around the capstan, to the slow
measures of the dead-march, played by the band. In the starboard waist,
and on a plank, one end of which rested on the sill of an open port, the
relic reposed, till in the funeral service the words were announced, “We
commit this body to the deep;”—the inner end of the plank was then
lifted, and the hammocked dead, with a hoarse, rumbling sound, glided
down to his deep floating grave. Thus passed poor Mills from our midst
in the morning of his days, with broken purposes and blighted hopes.
Though the wave rolls over his form, and none can point to the place of
his rest, his humble virtues still survive in the recollections of those
who knew him.
“The departed! the departed!
They visit us in dreams,
And glide above our memories
Like shadows over streams.
The good, the brave, the beautiful,
How dreamless is their sleep,
Where rolls the dirge-like music
Of the ever-tossing deep!”
TUESDAY, JUNE 9. Last evening, while it was yet some three hours to
sunset, the cry of “Land ho!” rang from mast-head. It was the island of
Hawaii boldly breaking the line of the horizon over our larboard bow. We
were now near our port, but not sufficiently near to reach our anchorage
by daylight. We were running ten knots, and orders were given to take in
sail, that we might not shoot too far ahead.
Night, and the hour of slumber came on, and our dreams were filled with
the flowers and fruit of sunny isles. Day broke over the steeps of Oahu,
and threw its light into the port of Honolulu. Here at last we let go
our anchors, and once more clewed up our sails. We had made one of the
shortest passages on record from Callao. We had run for the last seven
days an average of two hundred and thirty-five miles. We had sailed
about six thousand miles, and had hardly disturbed a royal or
studding-sail, and the sea had been smooth as the slumbering surface of
an inland lake. Give me the Pacific and the trade winds. You have here a
quiet ocean, a steady breeze, and an even temperature. In the Atlantic
you are in squalls or calms; in the one you plunge about, and in the
other you sleep.
Here we are to part with our passengers, Mr. Ten Eyk, our commissioner
to the Sandwich Islands, with his lady, children, and Miss J——; and with
Judge Turrell, our consul to these islands, with his lady, children, and
Mr. H. They have been with us since we sailed from Norfolk. Their
society has helped to relieve the monotony of a sea-life. They have
manifested no impatience at our delays, and have cheerfully conformed,
in all respects, to the usages of a man-of-war. The consequence has
been, an uninterrupted harmony between them and the officers, and an
interchange of all those civilities on which the happiness of our social
condition depends. They are to be landed under the salute to which their
rank entitles them. They carry with them our esteem and our best wishes.
May a kind Providence be their guardian and friend.
“Farewell! a word that may be and hath been,
A sound that makes us linger—yet, farewell!”
CHAPTER XI.
SKETCHES OF HONOLULU.
BAY OF HONOLULU.—KANACKA FUNERAL.—THE MISSIONARIES.—HUTS AND HABITS OF
THE NATIVES.—TARO-PLANT.—ROAST DOG.—SCHOOL OF THE YOUNG CHIEFS.—RIDE
IN THE COUNTRY.—THE MAUSOLEUM.—COCOANUT-TREE.—CANOES.—HEATHEN
TEMPLE.—KING’S CHAPEL.—RIDE TO EWA.—FATHER BISHOP.—HIS SABLE FLOCK.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10. The bay of Honolulu is only a bend in the shore.
About a mile from the strand, a coral reef emerges, over which the
rollers pour their perpetual surge. Through this reef, nature has left a
narrow passage, which admits smaller vessels, but a ship of our depth is
obliged to anchor outside, and nearly two miles distant from the shore.
The right extremity of the bay, as you enter it, is guarded by the steep
cone of an exhausted volcano, which has taken the less terrific name of
Diamond Hill. The left is defended by a bold bluff, which shoulders its
way, with savage ferocity, into the roaring sea. The town of Honolulu
stretches along the interval, while close in the background soars the
wild crater of another extinguished volcano, under the bewildering name
of the Punch-Bowl. The steeps beyond are broken into deep ravines, which
wind off in rich verdure into the heart of the island. On its mountain
crags the boldest eagle might build; in its glens the callow cygnet
slumber.
While I was inquiring for a good hotel, the Rev. Mr. Damon, seamen’s
chaplain at this port, came on board, and invited me to take quarters
with him, an invitation which I cheerfully accepted. Months of boxing
about at sea give a charm to the land-berth, which only they can fully
appreciate who slumber over keels. On landing, my trunk was claimed by
some twenty boys and porters. In the general strife I gave it to the one
who appeared to need a shilling the most. His fellows took their
disappointment in good humor. A short walk brought me to the domicile of
my friend, where an agreeable lady welcomed me in.
THURSDAY, JUNE 11. I had only seated myself in my new abode, when Mr.
Damon invited me to accompany him to a funeral. The deceased was a
foreigner, of some popularity among the natives, who attended his
remains in large numbers to his grave. They were all on foot, moving in
silent, but tumultuous order. There was no solemnity in their motions,
but a subdued air in their faces. Some were helping along those who were
bowed with the infirmities of age, and others were carrying piping
infants in their arms, lashed to their backs.
The burial-ground is a mile, or more, from the town, on a slight
elevation, fenced in and shaded with native trees. Here the procession
halted, and gathered in dark, silent masses around a new-dug grave. The
coffin was lowered; a few words of appropriate admonition addressed to
those around; a prayer offered; the earth returned to its place; a
slight mound raised; flowers and sprigs of evergreen cast upon it, and
the crowd wound their way back in the same silent disorder in which they
came. Here was no pomp, no trappings of grief, but that simple homage of
the heart, which bespeaks a sentiment of bereavement and respect. Let
others have, if they will, a funeral pageant, but give me rather that
flower which grief gathers and affection plants, or that tear which
trembles in the eye of the untutored child of nature.
Before the missionaries introduced a change of customs, the natives were
in the habit of expressing their grief, at the death of a favorite
chief, by knocking out two or more of their front teeth. The strength of
their attachment was evinced by the extent of this dental devastation,
which sometimes involved the destruction of every tooth. This is the
reason that so few of the older inhabitants have their teeth entire. The
missionaries substituted for this act of self-inflicted violence, the
innocent tokens of bereavement, and that tribute of respect which is
conveyed in casting on the grave a sprig of evergreen, as a type of the
soul’s immortality. Humanity and religion always go hand in hand.
FRIDAY, JUNE 12. The morning has been passed in receiving calls from the
missionaries. They are plain in their apparel, easy in their manners,
and intelligent in their conversation. They have none of that rigid
solemnity, which a sectarian puts on, who would throw his religion into
his looks; and yet they are free of that lightness and triviality which
are incompatible with a high and earnest purpose. They have cheerfulness
without levity, and sobriety without sternness. They are far from being
men of one idea; their mental horizon is broad. They have impressed
their genius upon all the social habits and civil institutions of the
islanders among whom they dwell. Indeed, all that exists here, upon
which the eye of the Christian philanthropist can dwell with
complacency, has risen from a weltering tide of barbarism, through their
agency, as the islands themselves have emerged from the ocean through
the action of the volcano.
SATURDAY, JUNE 13. The huts of the natives dot with a cheerful aspect
the broad plain on which Honolulu stands, and stretch away into the
green gorges of the mountains. They resemble in the distance ricks of
hay, and you half persuade yourself that you have arrived in a community
of thrifty farmers. This impression almost flashes into conviction, when
you see herds of cattle reposing in the valleys, and goats bounding
among the cliffs. But the rush of children from the interior of these
hay-stacks, and their prattle and laughter among the vines which trail
their porches, soon dispel the illusion. You find them human
habitations, and possessing, in many instances, an air of surprising
neatness and comfort.
True, you find in them no chairs, tables, or ordinary cooking utensils;
nor do the habits of the inmates render these articles necessary. But
you find thick mats, on which they sleep and sit, as Adam and Eve did on
the leaves which the autumnal wind shook from their bowers. They need no
fireplaces, no glowing grate, or crackling hearth,—a broad, bright sun,
wheeling up in splendor out of a quiet ocean, reigns monarch of the
seasons, and tempers the air aright. Their apparel extends but little
beyond the simplest requirements of the nursery. It is a garment
seemingly thrown on for the sake of modesty, as drapery is sometimes
attached to a statue. But the proportions still swell in their roundness
and strength on the eye. It was with no little difficulty the
missionaries could persuade them to assume even this scanty garment. It
seemed to them a superfluity, suggested neither by the characteristics
of the climate, nor sentiments of delicacy. They would have gone without
it as readily to a church as to a carousal. Such is habit impressed on a
people by the force of barbaric ages.
Near each cot you encounter an oven, not obtruded on your eye as if to
mock your hunger, but modestly sunk in the earth. The cavity is lined
with stones, in which a fire is kindled; when sufficiently heated, the
embers are removed, a few taro-leaves thrown in, and on this the taro
itself and meat. The whole is then covered over with taro-leaves and
earth. The meat thus preserves its juices, and has an advantage in this
respect over all modern inventions. This primitive process of cooking is
called the lua.
The most esteemed roaster, that undergoes the lua, is one of the canine
species. It is a dog resembling the larger-sized poodle, with smooth
hair and soft flesh. It is nursed at the breast of the women, and never
allowed to eat animal food. It is baked entire, like the pig, and is
said to taste very much like that little grunter. This is considered the
most choice dish which an epicurean chief can present to his
distinguished guests. I was earnestly invited to partake of one, but the
little fellow’s once cheerful bark, his wagging tail in token of
recognition, his love of children, his participation in their sports,
his gratitude and unsuspecting confidence, were all too warm in my
imagination to permit the deed. I would never take life for the sake of
animal food, and least of all the life of one that is
“The first to welcome, foremost to defend.”
In another hut which we entered, we found the mother and her children
seated around a large calabash, which contained poi. This is the dish on
which the natives mostly subsist. It is made of the root of the taro
plant, which resembles in shape the large beet. A plat of low ground is
thrown up into little hills like a potatoe-patch, and water let in
sufficient to fill the furrows. In these hills the taro grows, shaded
only by its own luxuriant leaves. At maturity, which it reaches in a few
months, the men and women dash into it, and, with the water ankle deep,
commence pulling. The bottoms, which are intended for consumption, are
conveyed to the earth-oven; being baked, they are then pounded, and
water added till the mass assumes the consistency of paste. In this
state it undergoes a partial fermentation, and is then in prime order
for eating. It is conveyed to the mouth by the two forefingers, which
are dipped into it, and to which it adheres in a pendulous globule,
which a slight shake detaches.
This was the dish to which the mother invited us, and which it seemed
almost discourteous to decline. Her little daughter exclaiming, “Mili,
mili—good,” coaxed me to let her drop a globule of it from her small
fingers into my mouth. Down it dropped, and down it went, leaving only a
sour taste. I tried to keep up a look of relish, but the effort must
have betrayed itself. This was the last time I attempted poi. On this
the natives live, and their physical developments sufficiently attest
its nutritious properties. Some of them, who are exempted by their means
from labor, attain a giant stature. They become extremely fat, and roll
along as if bone and muscle were hardly equal to the task of locomotion.
What think ye of that, ye carnivorous tribe, who judge of a man’s bulk
by the amount of roast beef which he consumes! The Hawaiian outdoes ye
on paste!
SUNDAY, JUNE 14. I have exchanged to-day with Mr. Damon; he taking the
capstan of the Congress, and I the pulpit of the mariners’ chapel. The
audience both morning and evening has been large, leaving hardly a
vacant seat. It is composed of foreign residents and sailors in port.
The music, led by a seraphine, would have been creditable in any place.
I could hardly persuade myself that I was in an island of the Pacific,
where but a few years since the homage of man rose only in howls to a
pagan idol.
The attendance at this chapel is the best evidence of the success with
which Mr. Damon performs the duties assigned him by the American
Seamen’s Friend Society. But his sphere of activity is not confined to
these walls; it extends to the moral wants of the different ships
entering the harbor, and embraces also the management of a periodical
devoted to seamen. This publication was eagerly sought by our crew. To
sustain it a subscription was proposed, which was headed by a liberal
donation from Commodore Stockton, Captain Du Pont, and the officers.
MONDAY, JUNE 15. There are two large churches for the natives in
Honolulu. The services in these are conducted in the native language by
the Rev. Mr. Armstrong and the Rev. Mr. Smith, both intelligent and
devoted missionaries. These men and all their brethren occupy a
difficult position in these islands. It is made so, less by the
fickleness of the natives than the interference of foreigners. The very
men who, coming as they do from civilized and Christian lands, should be
the first to countenance and sustain them, are those from whom they
experience the most opposition. It seems impossible to avoid their
cavils. If the missionaries devote themselves exclusively to their
spiritual duties, the complaint is, that the temporal interests of the
community are neglected. If they interest themselves in the
encouragement of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the cry is, that
they are interfering in secular matters which do not belong to them.
Between these two rocks no ship can pass without having her copper raked
off on one side or the other.
The truth is, the missionaries are pursuing the only plan which can
produce decisive and satisfactory results. They are inculcating the
precepts and obligations of the Bible on all classes, and educating the
young. Their schools embrace hundreds of native children, who will
themselves become teachers. In one of these schools, which is under the
superintendence of Mr. and Mrs. Cook, I found the children of the high
chiefs, and among them the heir-apparent. They spoke the English
language with entire freedom, and wrote it with surprising accuracy.
Their acquirements, in all the branches of a useful education, would
have done credit to youth of the same age in any country. In mental
arithmetic, I have never seen them surpassed. They multiplied five
decimals by five, named at random, and gave the result, with perfect
accuracy, in less time than any one could possibly have reached it on a
slate. We now adjourned with the scholars to the parlor, where Mrs. Cook
placed one of the misses at the piano, while another took the guitar,
and they all struck into a melody that might have gratified a more
fastidious taste than ours.
Now these are the children of the chiefs—their sons, and their
daughters; those whose intelligence and influence are to shape the
destinies of these islands. If this is not beginning at the right end of
the business, I should like to have some one tell us where the right end
is.
TUESDAY, JUNE 16. My kanacka brought me his horse this afternoon
punctual at the hour. This horse, a noble animal, is all his capital. I
give him a dollar a day for the use; can have him at any and all hours,
though I seldom ride but once. This is enough, unless the showers hold
up more than they have; for they now fall as easily as a hasty word from
a heated heart; or a blow from the ferule of a vexed pedagogue; or a
yellow leaf from the twig of a blighted tree; or a false smile from the
eyes of a cunning coquette; or a hollow nut from the teeth of a
squirrel; or a silver eel from the hand of a fisherman; or any thing
else, which escapes very easily from its confinement.
My fair companion being firmly in her saddle, we started, at an easy
canter, over the plain, which stretches away from the eastern section of
the town. We passed on the right the royal mausoleum, lifting its sombre
roof over the coffins of barbaric kings. Before Christianity, with her
silent rites, reached these islands, the death of a monarch or sachem
was followed by a wail that poured itself over hill and vale, in a
roaring tide. Then followed a scene of promiscuous licentiousness, from
which the orbs of heaven might have withdrawn their light. Over these
obscene orgies Christianity has spread her influences, and the dead now
go quietly to their rest, and the living lay it to heart.
Further on, we passed through a cocoanut-grove. This singular tree
shoots up some fifty feet, without seeming to know for what purpose; it
then suddenly branches out, and is so eager in this spreading business
that it seems to lose its soaring ambition; and there it stands, like a
naked shaft, with its umbrella-shaped top. Its broad leaves hang down as
if to conceal its blushes. It is naked as sin driven from its last
subterfuge. It fain would reconcile you to its deformity by its milk;
but this is as insipid as its own look is foolish. This tree, with a
half-naked kanacka climbing its shaft, is the most effective picture of
poverty with which I have ever met. It is, if possible, worse than a
monkey on the sign-post of a groggery, beckoning to his fellow-topers to
come in. But the decoy, in this case, wiser than the dupe, never drinks.
We passed near the shore a large number of canoes, in which the natives
were engaged in fishing. They keep them pointed towards the sea, and one
person vigorously at work with the paddles, so that the rollers, which
set in here with great force, may not heave them high and dry on the
beach. They show great skill in the management of these treacherous
canoes. A novice would upset one before he was well in. They are often
themselves capsized, but it costs them only a ducking; the canoe is
instantly righted, and they are back again in its hollow. As for the
water, it is almost as much their element as that of the fish for which
they angle. They can dive from ten to fifteen fathoms, and bring up
shells; or swim many miles without apparent fatigue. There is a native
woman, now living in Honolulu, who, being wrecked at sea, swam twenty
miles to the shore of a neighboring island. Her husband, of feebler
constitution, gave out; she buoyed him up, swimming with him till they
had come in sight of the shore, when he sank overpowered. Still she
clung to him, and brought the lifeless form to the beach. Give me a
kanacka wife in a gale.
Winding around a bay which circles up, with a rippling verge, into the
mainland, we arrived at the blackened ruins of a celebrated heathen
temple. The rude foundations only remain; the superstructure has been
swept away with the savage rites which it enshrined. The smoke of human
victims here appeased the violated tabu, and the putrid exhalations of
decaying beasts cancelled the turpitude of human guilt. But Revelation
has poured its clear light into its dark recesses. The sorcerer has
fled, the victim been unbound, and the guilty have gone to that
mercy-seat where penitence never pleads in vain.
High over these fearful ruins soars the steep crater of an extinguished
volcano, to which a capricious fancy has given the appellation of
Diamond Hill. It still stands in all the stern ruggedness which its
adamantine features assumed, when, ages since, its burning torrents of
lava stiffened into rock. It is now the beacon of the mariner; the first
that greets his glance, and the last that fades upon his eye. Against
its base the broad Pacific heaves its swelling strength; but it will
stand unshaken till the pillars of nature’s vast fabric fall.
We passed, on our return, the king’s chapel, a spacious edifice, of one
hundred and fifty-four feet by seventy-eight. It is reared of coral
rock, hewn into uniform blocks, and impresses you with its architectural
sobriety and strength. The interior of its high walls is relieved by a
substantial gallery, while the ample area of its floor presents to the
eye, in the form of seats, the varied means and ingenuity of their
occupants. The pulpit is the same which once gravely dignified the
central church in New Haven, Conn., but which a more fastidious taste
recently set aside. It answers its sacred design very well here. Sinners
are converted under its droppings just as readily as if the marbles of
Carrara gleamed from its panels. The truth of God falls with the same
power in the sumptuous shrine of the prince and the wigwam of the
savage. The towers of the triple crown, and the tent of the Arab,
tremble alike beneath its force.
The sun had set before we reached our home. The bustle through many of
the streets had subsided; but the loud words and laughter of the crowd
that had gathered to witness the approach of a strange sail, came
floating on the wind. The hour of ten is announced by a gun from the
fort,—a signal for the keepers of pulperias and places of amusement to
close their doors. The king himself, if abroad, though engaged in a game
of chess, would forego the triumph of a checkmate, and return to his
palace. He aims, in this particular at least, to maintain a wholesome
regulation through the influence of his own example. Prouder potentates
may laugh at this punctilio of his Hawaiian majesty, but were they to
imitate it, their thrones would be quite as safe and their subjects
quite as virtuous. A good example is like a guinea, which shines just as
bright, however deep and dark the mine from which it came. Our wisest
lessons often come from our inferiors, as the choicest fruit is
frequently found on the humblest shrub. The condor may dwell in the
lofty steeps of the mountain, but it is to the modest thrush or
meadow-lark that we turn for a gush of music.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17. Mr. Damon and myself took horses this morning for
Ewa, lying in a valley, which opens on the sea, and distant some twelve
miles. Our horses were in fine spirits, and started off at a
hand-gallop, across the broad lagoon, which skirts the western extremity
of the town. Over this fertile interval swell many round knolls, crowned
with kanacka huts, and surrounded with thrifty taro patches. Ascending
the spur of a mountain range, a deep, green valley opened on the right,
through which a winding rivulet babbled, and where herds were seen
cropping the grass, or ruminating in the shade. From its bosom rose the
walls of a spacious enclosure, into which the cattle, horses, and sheep
are driven at night,—to protect them, as one would suppose, from
ravenous beasts; but there are none in the island: the object is to keep
them from straying off among the mountains, and becoming too wild for
domestic purposes; for every thing here runs instinctively to wildness.
Further on, we passed upon the left a lofty rock, over the steep stern
face of which a convolvulus had spread its verdure, throwing out its
green leaves and delicate blossoms, like smiles on the face of a
hypochondriac. Here we met a native driving two large pigs to market,
and carrying a third lashed to his back. I expected to hear a squeal at
least from his living knapsack; but the mouth had been tied up, leaving
only room through the nostril for air. When the pig is to be killed, no
knife is drawn, no blood taken; but this cord around the nose is
tightened till respiration ceases, and death ensues. Rather a hard end
awaits the poor pig, whether it come by knife or cord; and yet no other
animal, in his last struggles, has so little sympathy. That he is
uncomely, is most true, but he did not select his own shape; and true it
is, that his habits are not quite neat, but he has been turned out of
doors, and left to shirk and shack for himself. It was not his fault
that the devil once got into him, and run him down a steep ledge into
the sea. The devil leads his betters to a much worse place. I see not
therefore why all feeling should be denied the pig in death. But let
that pass.
Proceeding on, we soon reached the precipice which overhangs the deep
ravine, through which the Pearl river holds its exulting course. Here we
might have stopped; but our horses, which well understand these
difficult paths, and are as sure of foot as the chamois, wound down the
steep, and hurried, with clattering hoof, over the bridge which spans
the rushing stream; and then swept up the opposite elevation at the top
of their speed. Ewa now broke on the eye, swelling from a wide verdant
plain, embowered in shade, and looking out on the sea. A winding path,
which obeyed the curve of the shore, took us into the heart of the
little village, where we alighted at the door of our venerable host, the
Rev. Mr. Bishop.
This devoted missionary was at the time with his sable flock in the
church, where he meets them once a week, independent of the Sabbath.
They look up to him with feelings which only goodness can merit and
reverence inspire; and well may they pay him these tokens of love and
respect. He has been long with them, restraining their wild
propensities, training them to habits of industry, and leading them to
the path of immortal life. This is with him a labor of love. The stipend
allowed him by our Board of Foreign Missions is all spent in maintaining
schools and destitute places of worship. He lives on the proceeds of a
dairy, which his good wife manages. If this be not Christian
benevolence, will some opponent of the missionary enterprise tell me
what is.
The house of Father Bishop, as he is familiarly called, is a plain,
one-story building, with a rude porch running around it, covered with
the vines of the creeping-grape. It stands in the midst of fruit and
shade trees, which throw their shadows to the verge of a garden, where
the varied plants of a tropical clime are in luxuriant bloom. Yet every
thing seemed as free of display and mechanical arrangement as if its
growth had been spontaneous. The family consisted of Mrs. B., two
sprightly native children, whose mother had recently died, and a kanacka
domestic. At two o’clock we sat down to dinner, which consisted of
mullet, presented our host by a native chief, and a turkey of his own
raising. Then came figs and milk, with the fruits of his garden. All
presenting a pleasing specimen of pastoral life.
After a siesta, to which the climate here inclines one, we rambled over
the parsonage, among the neat huts of the natives, and, at about two
hours to sunset, took our departure. We soon fell in with a herd of
cattle, which two or three noisy kanackas on horseback were driving to
their enclosure for the night. When a beast attempted to break away, one
of these started in pursuit; and instead of heading off the animal,
brought him up with the lasso, which he threw, with surprising
dexterity, over his horns. In one of the narrow runnels which crosses
the last lagoon, we found a horse, which had missed his step on the two
logs which compose the bridge. The channel was only broad enough to let
in the length of the horse, and on each bank stood a kanacka, the one
hold of the bridle, the other hold of the tail, trying to lift the
animal out. We told one of them to jump in and turn the head of the
horse up stream, and the other to drop the tail and take his whip. These
orders obeyed, the animal gave a spring, and was soon out of his
difficulties.
We reached home before dark: we had rode twenty-four miles on a road
running over steep ledges, across deep ravines, and around toppling
crags: I was bruised and fatigued, and determined to try, before
retiring to rest, the bath and the “lomi-lomi.” The latter is a kind of
shampooing much resorted to here to relieve fatigue. A kanacka who
understood it was at hand, and, on my coming out of the bath, commenced
his kneading process. He used me much as a baker would a lump of dough.
He worked me into this shape, then into that, then into no shape at all.
My limbs became flat, or round, or neither, at his will. My muscles were
all relaxed, and my joints seemed to have lost a sense of location. He
put me back into the shape in which I came from nature’s mould, and I
sunk to sleep softly as an infant in its cradle. Ye who take to anodynes
and inebriating potations to relieve a sense of pain, restlessness, or
fatigue, try the lomi-lomi.
CHAPTER XII.
SKETCHES OF HONOLULU.
THE KING AND COURT.—AMERICAN COMMISSIONER.—ROYAL RESIDENCE.—THE SALT
LAKE.—SURF SPORTS OF THE NATIVES.—GALA DAY.—THE WOMEN ON
HORSEBACK.—SAILOR’S EQUESTRIANISM.—THE OLD MAN AND THE CHILDREN AT
PLAY.—ADDRESS OF COM. STOCKTON.—CAPT. LA PLACE.—HIS JESUITS AND
BRANDY.—LORD GEORGE PAULET.
THURSDAY, JUNE 18. To-day, at twelve, the officers of the Congress, and
Captain Harrison, of the schooner Shark, assembled at Commodore
Stockton’s rooms, and proceeded in a body to the royal palace. The
object was the installation of Mr. Ten Eyk in his new functions as
United States Commissioner at this court. We were received, on our
arrival, by a small guard posted at the palace, and conducted into a
spacious central hall. From this we were ushered into a large saloon,
rather plainly furnished, but light and airy. In front of us stood the
king, with the heir-apparent and high chiefs on the right, and his
cabinet on the left.
Ex-commissioner Brown advised his majesty of his recall, and introduced
his successor, Mr. Ten Eyk, who presented to the king an autograph
letter from the President of the United States, which he accompanied
with some appropriate remarks. These were followed by a brief address
from Commodore Stockton, in which he expressed the earnest hope that
uninterrupted amity might prevail between the two countries. He assured
the king of the lively interest felt in the United States for the
successful issue of all his majesty’s plans and purposes for the benefit
of his people, and pledged the cordial support of our government in any
aggressive emergencies, which might threaten the tranquillity and
integrity of his realm.
To each of these addresses the king made a brief and pertinent reply.
Not having sufficient confidence in his English, he spoke in the native
language,—his minister of finance, Mr. Judd, acting as interpreter.
There was no parade, or affectation of court phraseology in what he
said. His language was remarkable for its directness and simplicity. His
reply concluded with these words: “Commodore, I thank you for your visit
to our islands; your words will long be remembered; may you be happy.”
The king is about thirty-four years of age, of a stout frame, dark
complexion, and with good humor, rather than strength of intellect,
betrayed in his features. He wore a blue military uniform, with gold
epaulettes and sword. The prince and chiefs were without any badge of
distinction, except a star worn on the breast. Their costume was all in
the European style. The cabinet, consisting of the minister of finance,
the minister of foreign affairs, the minister of instruction, and the
attorney-general, all of whom, except the second, are Americans, were in
plain garb. You see more parade at Rome in five minutes, when the Pope
steps from the Vatican into St. Peter’s, or a red-stockinged cardinal
enters his carriage, than you would here in six months.
The king confides the affairs of government very much to his ministers.
Succeeding to power at an early age, without a political education, or
established principles of action, his policy would be inconsistent and
wavering, but for the steady influence of those around him. He evinces
his moderation in foregoing the dictates of an arbitrary will, and
consulting the judgments of those whose intelligence and experience have
given them a broader scope of vision. The foreigners who have settled in
his island, and who seek to undermine the influence of his counsellors,
are the most subtle and dangerous enemies with which he has to contend.
Their selfish and mischievous dispositions are masked under professions
of friendship. They talk of changes for the better, but they aim at
revolution. They are willing to run the hazard of the great political
earthquake, for the chance of being hove into stations of emolument and
power. But if the present social fabric falls, they will be buried in
its ruins; and there they may lie, sepulchred under the horrors of a
betrayed people, and the execrations of the civilized world.
Preparations are making for the erection of a royal residence, which
shall be in keeping with the progress of the arts in these islands. The
mansion at present occupied by the king, is the property of one of his
chiefs. It is built of coral; a graceful portico adorns the front, and
the whole is surmounted by an elegant belvidere. The grounds are ample,
tastefully laid out, and shaded by beautiful forest trees. No splendid
coach dashes through its avenues; no train of servile retainers lounge
in its shades; no throng of parasites disturb its domestic quietude and
social ease.
The amusements of the king are with the bow and arrow, in his
bowling-alley, and at his billiard-table. In these pastimes he is cheek
by jowl with his chiefs, and any well-bred gentleman. He was inclined in
his youth to habits of dissipation; and often drained, at the expense of
his dignity, the inebriating bowl. But he is now at the head of a
national temperance society. He is perhaps the only monarch, civilized
or savage, who has abjured, in his own example, all intoxicating drinks.
Go, ye potentates of prouder thrones, and take a lesson of practical
wisdom from this sable brother.
FRIDAY, JUNE 19. Our ride to-day has been to the Salt Lake, which lies
some five miles west of the town, on the margin of the sea. It is
cradled in the crater of an old volcano. You reach it by a steep ascent
of one hundred feet, and rapid descent of as many more. It is the third
of a mile in circuit; and, standing by its breathless margin, the
rock-bound rim of the hollow cone soars above you in wild grandeur.
The lake is on a level with the sea, and is undoubtedly fed from it
through unseen fissures. The salt is crystalized out of the water,
through a rapid evaporation, occasioned by the intense heat to which it
is subjected. It steams up as if the central fires, which once found an
escape here, were again seeking for a vent. Should they burst forth,
this lake will be thrown sky-high; and not only the geologist be
bereaved of a rare curiosity, and the king deprived of an important
source of revenue, but the kanacka will be obliged to eat his poi and
fish without salt.
Nothing here has amused me more than the surf sports of the young
chiefs. Each takes a smooth board, of some eight feet in length, leads
it over the coral shallows far out into the sea, and when a tremendous
roller is coming in, jumps upon it, and the roller carries him upon its
combing top, with the speed of an arrow, to the shore. A young American,
who was among them, not liking to be outdone in a sport which seemed so
simple, thought he would try the board and billow. He ventured out a
short distance, watched his opportunity, and, as the roller came, jumped
upon his plank, was capsized, and hove, half strangled, on the beach.
“There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung
Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,
From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,
Should suck him back to her insatiate grave.”
The young females are as fond of the water as the men. We passed in a
boat yesterday a group of them sitting on the coral reef a mile out at
sea. They were enjoying the surf, which broke over them with each
successive billow. Now and then a stronger wave would sweep some of them
from their perch, and bear them to a great distance in its whirling
foam. But they would soon swim back again amidst the laughter of their
companions. They were without covering, and plunged under the water till
our boat had got past, and then recovered their position on the reef;
and there they sat like mermaids,
Serene amid the breakers’ roar,
Their dark locks floating on the surge,
Attuning shells, through which they pour
The solemn ocean’s mimic dirge.
SATURDAY, JUNE 20. Saturday here is a gala day, especially the
afternoon, when the natives give themselves up to amusement. Every horse
is in requisition; and though often without saddle or bridle, has a
rider on him, who is dashing about like an adjutant at a regimental
training. The great plain at the eastern end of the town is alive with
groups that have collected to witness or participate in the fun. The
variety of colors, which blended their hues in Joseph’s coat, hold no
comparison with the motley dyes which flare up here in the costume of
the crowd. They resemble the tints of the forest, when the autumn’s
breath has touched its leaves with frost; the foam of ocean breaking
over their coral reef is not more tumultuous than the roar and rush of
these living tides.
Here streams away a valetudinarian, whose puny frame has been borne to
this shore like a bubble from some foreign clime. His light horse, fleet
of foot, heeds his weight as little as if he were an elf that had left
the forest to frolic on the green. His thin legs lie in the shadow of
his stirrup-straps, while his sharp face peers up between the high
pommel and stern of his saddle like a famished owl, watching between two
old turrets a lunar eclipse.
Near him dashes on the wife of a chief, whose vast bulk shakes over the
plunge of her strong horse as if the fat would fall from her sides in
living flakes. The broad leaves of the koa tremble in the chaplet that
encircles her head; her great shawl floats on the wind like a topsail,
while the vast sweep of her garments rolls down over her courser’s sides
like the folds of an Arab’s tent. By the side of her puny attendant she
shows like the full-orbed moon with a little star twinkling near her
rim; or like a giant oak with an alder in its shade; or like a
ship-of-the-line with a cockle-boat under her lee.
Here sweeps past a compact figure on a horse half wild from the woods.
His white trowsers, his blue roundabout, and tarpaulin with its yard of
black ribbon streaming over the right ear, show him to be a tar fresh
from the deck. His hammock-blanket, with its nettings for a girth, serve
him for a saddle; while his bridle is a rope bent on a small anchor,
which is wreathed with leaves and flowers, and which he can let go, when
he would bring up his unkeeled craft. A shout follows wherever his
unmanageable horse dashes,—unless it be among the crowd, and then there
is such a scattering as there would be among sheep at the pounce of a
wolf, or among pigeons at the swoop of the hawk.
Foremost in a gazing group bends an aged chief, who has come out to see
one gala day more before he descends to the land of shadows. He erects
his tall stature, but not in pride, and half forgets the tufted wand
that has long sustained his tottering years. He thinks not of the
feathered mantle which falls from his shoulders, or the badges of rank
which glitter on his breast. His eyes are on a group of children wildly
at play. Fourscore summers have shed their vernal honors since he was
young as they, and yet their glee this day makes his pulses fly as if he
were again a child. He watches their light footsteps, their laughing
eyes, and timid hands as they garland with flowers the arching horns of
the old patriarch of his flock.
[Illustration]
“A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers;
While peaceful as if still an unweaned lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow as if in act to butt, and then,
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.”
SUNDAY, JUNE 21. I exchanged with Mr. Damon this morning; he officiating
on board the Congress, while I took his place in the Seamen’s chapel.
The frigate had the advantage in the arrangement, but I intend to look
out for my floating parish. In the afternoon I was, by appointment, in
the pulpit of the king’s chapel. The spacious edifice was crowded. His
majesty, the court, and chiefs were present, and an auditory of some
three thousand. They had assembled under the vague expectation that
Commodore Stockton might address them, for a report to that effect,
without the commodore’s knowledge, had been circulated through the town.
I felt, in common with the missionaries, a desire that they should not
be disappointed. But as the commodore was wholly unprepared, and averse
to any arrangements that might seemingly trench upon proprieties, it was
no easy matter to have their wishes realized.
Backed by the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, I made a bold push, and, having
addressed the audience for half an hour, through him as interpreter, on
the religious enterprises in our own country, which were throwing their
light and influence into other lands, stated that I was aware of their
desire that Commodore Stockton should address them, and that I would
take the liberty of expressing the hope that he would gratify their
wishes. He was sitting at the time by the side of the king; and while
the choir were singing a hymn, Mr. Armstrong descended from the pulpit
and urged with him the public expectation. He finally assented, and
taking the platform under the pulpit, commenced a train of pertinent and
eloquent remarks.
He spoke of the previous condition of those around him,—of the dark and
cruel rites in which their ancestors were involved,—of the humanizing
and elevating influences of that Christianity which had reached them,—of
the philanthropy, faith, and devotedness of their missionaries,—of the
destruction of nations where the true God was disowned, and of the
stability of governments and institutions founded on the precepts and
moral obligations of the Bible. He adjured them, by all the hopes and
fears which betide humanity, to persevere in their great and good work
of social, civil, and moral improvement. He urged upon them systematic
industry, wholesome rules and regulations in their domestic economy, a
respect for law and order, the advantages of education, the importance
of the Sabbath-school system, the necessity of temperance; and assured
them, that in all their good endeavors they would have the sympathy and
support of the Christian world.
Such was the tenor of his remarks, which were delivered with as much
freedom and force as if they had been well-considered and arranged.
Their effect was obvious in the eager attention which pervaded the great
assemblage. At the conclusion, the king and the chiefs came up, and,
with undisguised emotion, thanked the commodore for his address. The
commodore may win laurels on the deck, but none that can bloom more
lastingly than these. If there be consolations in death, they flow from
efforts made and triumphs won in the cause of humanity and God.
MONDAY, JUNE 22. The forcible introduction of the Roman Catholic faith
into these islands was artfully disguised under the plea of religious
toleration. The manifesto of La Place, acting under the authority of the
French cabinet, sets forth, that, “Among civilized nations there is not
one which does not permit in its territory the free toleration of all
religions:” therefore he demands, under the batteries of his frigate,
that the Roman Catholic faith shall have ample scope and verge here.
The basis of this demand is an assumption, contradicted by the most
glaring facts. In countries no further removed than Chili and Peru, the
organic laws of the land declare that “no religion except the Roman
Catholic shall be tolerated;” and these laws are enforced. So much for
universal toleration, in those countries where that religion is
predominant, which La Place comes here, under the sanction of his
government, to shoot down into the consciences of this people. A very
expeditious mode this of making converts, and quite consonant with the
theological tactics of a military propagandist. If you cannot reason
your religion into a man, why, shoot it into him. You may, it is true,
in doing this shoot his life out; but what of that, if you shoot your
creed in. A dead man with your creed in him, is perhaps better than a
living one without it.
This demand of La Place was accompanied by another, which would
disparage the most petty prince in Christendom. It required the Hawaiian
king to place on board the French frigate twenty thousand dollars, as a
guarantee that Roman Catholic priests shall in future be undisturbed in
propagating their faith. These priests, it was well known, were Jesuits,
belonging to an order which France herself was at the time endeavoring
to suppress. Perhaps she intended the Sandwich Islands as a sort of
Botany Bay for these men, whom state policy had proscribed from her own
soil. They had given the French monarch trouble enough, and it was time
his Hawaiian majesty should take his turn.
Another demand, forced under the disguise of a treaty, was that French
brandies should be admitted into all the Hawaiian ports, with only a
duty of five cents on the gallon. It seemed to be thought that this
liquor, among all its other wonderful achievements, would promote
Christian charity, and open the way for the Jesuits among the natives.
Brandy is good in cases of colic, but I never before heard of it as a
specific against the evils of religious intolerance. But the French are
a very sagacious people; and if they have found in it an antidote to
bigotry, they ought not to be deprived of the honor and advantage of the
discovery.
All these demands of the French government were compulsorily complied
with under the batteries of an armed ship. The king had no alternative;
he must either submit, or suffer Honolulu to be levelled with the
ground, and its helpless inhabitants driven into the mountains. On the
one hand lay rapine and massacre; on the other, Jesuits and brandy. Of
the two evils, the king submitted to the latter. Mahomet propagated his
religion with the sword; but he did not force on those whom he
subjugated the elements of intoxication. It was reserved for the French,
it seems, to discover this new ally, and give to shame its last blush.
The American missionaries were arraigned, and denounced by the French,
on the charge of having stimulated the king and regent of the Hawaiian
islands to measures of hostility against the introduction of the Roman
Catholic faith. This accusation is met and annihilated by the well-known
fact, that they who came here to preach that faith were supplied by
these very missionaries with the books through which they obtained a
knowledge of the native language. Fanatics, filled with intolerance,
never supply their opponents with the means of propagating their faith.
They may surround them with fagots, but never with books.
The truth is, the king and regent apprehended that the introduction of a
new religion might produce dissensions among their people. They could
not comprehend why a Protestant should not be permitted to marry a Roman
Catholic, and very naturally dreaded the introduction of a system which
set up such exclusive pretensions. Their untutored sagacity discovered
the discord which this marriage prohibition must of itself create.
Before Roman propagandists raise the cry of proscription, let them
accommodate their antiquated faith to the more liberal and enlightened
spirit of the age. Let them lift the ban from the sacred rights of
marriage, and admit the possibility of a Protestant’s getting into
heaven, or at least of throwing his shadow in; that will save the
Swedenborgians!
But the king and regent were also apprehensive that the images used in
the forms of the Romish worship might lead their people back again into
idolatry. They could not see clearly any difference between praying to
an image, or praying to a spirit through that image. They could not
detach the substance from its seeming shadow, and worship the latter
without an obtrusion of the former. My venerable friend, the bishop of
New York, with his metaphysical acuteness, can undoubtedly accomplish
this; but a poor kanacka here would be very apt to commit a blunder; and
this, too,
In that dread creed, in which a truth and blunder
Are deemed as wide as heaven and hell asunder.
The crowning act of shame perpetrated here by La Place, was in his
communication to the American consul, in which he informs that
functionary, that in the havoc which will follow a non-compliance with
his demands by the government, the missionaries, with their families,
will not escape. They are singled out as objects of special vengeance.
Their houses are delivered over to rapine, their wives and daughters to
pollution. This communication our consul should have returned
indignantly to its brutal author, and our government should have visited
the insult which it conveyed with the rebuke and chastisement which it
merited. If we would have our consular flag respected, we must not allow
its sanctity to be trampled upon by every insolent bravado of the sea.
La Place, having achieved these triumphs, having bullied an unarmed
government, menaced with massacre a helpless people, intimidated the
wives and children of the missionaries, forced on a reluctant community
his Jesuits and brandy, and filched all the small change in circulation,
took his departure, much to the relief of all good men, and to the great
disappointment, no doubt, of the devil, who had further work for him.
The officers of the American squadron, under the command of Commodore
Reed, who arrived here a short time after the departure of La Place,
issued a circular, from which the following is an extract:—
“Being most decidedly of opinion that the persons composing the
Protestant mission of these islands are American citizens, and, as such,
entitled to the protection which our government has never withheld; and
with unwavering confidence in the justice which has ever characterized
it, we rest assured that any insult offered to this unoffending class,
will be promptly redressed.”
This circular, which honors the intelligence and moral justice in which
it had its source, is signed by Commodore George A. Magruder;
Lieutenants Andrew H. Foot, John W. Livingston, Thomas Turner, James S.
Palmer, Edward R. Thompson, Augustus H. Kelly, George B. Minor; Surgeons
John Hazlett, John A. Lockwood, Joseph Beale; Purser Dangerfield
Fauntleroy; Chaplain, Fitch W. Taylor; Professors of Mathematics, J.
Henshaw Belcher, Alexander G. Pendleton.
Captain La Place having succeeded so brilliantly with his
powder-and-shot diplomacy, Lord George Paulet, the commander of her
Britannic majesty’s ship Carysfort, thought he would try his hand at the
business. He arrived here a short time after his illustrious
predecessor; but, having no Jesuits and brandy to introduce, it became
necessary to find something else as a basis of action.
In this emergency, he drummed up a set of claims on the government, to
which he deemed its resources unequal, and demanded for them immediate
satisfaction. To his utter surprise, these claims were recognised: he
had now no alternative but to bring in a new set, of such a magnitude as
to render all adjustment impracticable. The government remonstrated
against the injustice of the proceeding; but it was of no avail: payment
must be made instanter, or the sovereignty of the islands surrendered.
Lord George accordingly hauled down the Hawaiian flag, and run up that
of her Britannic majesty. The little ships belonging to the government
were all re-christened: one taking the name of Victoria; another the
Adelaide; and even the old fort was honored with a Georgian title.
Dispatches were immediately sent by Lord George to the British ministry,
informing them of the acquisition of all the Hawaiian islands to her
Majesty’s dominions. But in the mean time, Admiral Thomas, the senior
officer of the English fleet in this sea, arrived here, in the Dublin,
from Valparaiso. He requested an interview with the king: the real
difficulties were at once amicably adjusted; the fictitious ones, which
were the basis of Lord George’s proceeding, were thrown by the Admiral
to the wind, and the sovereignty of the islands restored. This was
rather an imposing ceremony. The king and his chiefs appeared on the
plain, east of the town, where fifteen or twenty thousand of the
inhabitants had assembled. Admiral Thomas entered the grounds under a
brilliant escort of marines from his squadron. The standard of the king
was now unfurled, and his flag run up on the two forts. They were
saluted by the guns of the Dublin and Carysfort, and Kamehameha III. was
again on the throne of his ancestors.
Thus ended the brilliant conquest of Lord George, and thus vanished his
dream of empire, when touched by the wand of moral rectitude. He was not
only compelled to see the Hawaiian flag restored, but to salute it from
his own ship, and with those very guns with which he had demanded its
surrender under a threat that Honolulu should be blown sky-high. Verily,
as the proverb hath it, “he that governs his own spirit, is greater than
he that taketh a city.” The conduct of Admiral Thomas was sustained by
the British ministry, and Lord George went to the wall.
CHAPTER XIII.
PASSAGE FROM HONOLULU TO MONTEREY.
THE MORAL PHAROS.—THE MORMON SHIP.—BIBLE CLASS.—THE SEA-HEN.—OUR
INSANE SAILOR.—FOURTH OF JULY.—PROFANENESS AT SEA.—EVENING
PRAYER-MEETING.—FUNERAL.—TARGET FIRING.—RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE
CREW.—ANCHOR UNDER MONTEREY.
“The sea-bird wheels above the mast,
And the waters fly below,
And the foaming billows flashing fast
Are leaping up the prow.”
TUESDAY, JUNE 23. We weighed anchor at daylight this morning, and stood
out from the open bay of Honolulu. The breeze was fresh, and in a few
hours Oahu presented only its volcanic peaks above the swell of the
ocean. We cast a parting glance to those cliffs from which we had gazed
in delighted wonder, and felt a sentiment allied to bereavement, as they
faded on our vision.
The volcanoes which threw up these mountain-masses have long since
rested from their labors; the flames which lit the savage grandeur of
their craters are extinct; dim ages have swept over them, and only the
bleak monuments of their terrific energy remain; but Christian
philanthropy, without pomp and parade, and in the silence of that love
which seeks only to solace and save, has here kindled a light that shall
never wane. Centuries may come and go, and night rest upon other isles
of the wide sea, but this light will still stream on in undying
splendor. Beneath its beams generations will here go untremblingly down
to the unbreathing sepulchre, and as this world darkens on their vision,
discern those objects of faith which loom to light in the spirit-land.
With the good, a shadow only falls between this world and the next.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24. We have been for the last twenty-four hours on our
starboard tack, with the wind from the northeast. The jagged steeps of
Kanie sunk this morning in the sea over our larboard quarter. We are
again upon the wide ocean without an object on which the eye can rest.
Our frigate has a heavy roll; she has in her six months’ provisions, and
lies too deep for the greatest speed. The heat is oppressive, but has
been relieved by several refreshing showers. Our men jumped around in
them like wild ducks in the foam of the cascade.
The wardroom of the Congress presents an orderly, well-regulated table.
It has been so from the commencement of our cruise. Grace is said at our
meals; not a glass of spirits has entered our mess; not a word of
discord, petulance, or anger, has been heard. The officers are within
the circle of that religious sentiment which more or less pervades the
crew. It is religion alone that can bind passion, harmonize the elements
of society, and render the obligations of mutual forbearance and love
the abiding rules of action.
THURSDAY, JUNE 25. We left at Honolulu the American ship Brooklyn, with
one hundred and seventy-five Mormon emigrants on board, bound to
Monterey and San Francisco, where they propose to settle. They look to
us for protection, and expect to land, if necessary, under our
batteries. I spent the greater part of a day among them, and must say, I
was much pleased with their deportment. The greater portion of them are
young, and have been trained to habits of industry, frugality, and
enterprise. Some have been recently married, and are accompanied by
their parents. They are mostly from the Methodist and Baptist
persuasions. Their Mormonism, so far as they have any, has been
superinduced on their previous faith, as Millerism on the belief of some
Christians. They are rigidly strict in their domestic morals; have their
morning and evening prayers; and the wind and the weather have never
suspended, during their long voyage, their exercises of devotion.
FRIDAY, JUNE 26. We have had since we left port a head wind; but we are
constantly working our way north through the trades into the variables;
a few weeks since we were very anxious to get out of the variables, we
are now equally anxious to get into them. But we were then sailing
northwest; our course now lies northeast: such is the occupation of the
sailor. He is forever crossing and retracing his own track, and well
would it be for him if this crossing and retracing were confined to his
track on the deep, but unhappily it enters into the pathway of his moral
being. He plods back in penitence and remorse the space over which folly
and passion blindly whirled him. “Facilis descensus averni, sed revocare
his labor, hoc opus est.”
SATURDAY, JUNE 27. We have at last a slant of wind which has put us on
our course. The Mormon ship must make haste if she expects to overtake
us before we reach Monterey. It is a little singular that with a company
of one hundred and seventy emigrants, confined in a vessel of only four
hundred tons, depending on each other’s activity and forbearence for
comfort, unbroken harmony should have prevailed. They may have had their
momentary jars, but I was assured by the captain, who is not of their
persuasion, that no serious discord had occurred. They put their money
into a joint stock, laid in their own provisions, and have every thing
in common. They chartered their vessel, for which they pay twelve
hundred dollars per month. It will cost them for their passage alone
some ten thousand dollars before they disembark in California.
SUNDAY, JUNE 28. We had divine service at the usual hour. The subject of
the sermon was the aversion of the world to the meekness, humility, and
forbearance which enter into the Christian character. Men of the world
are too apt to consider these qualities incompatible with courage,
resolution, firmness, and self-respect. But the most heroic virtues have
been displayed in dungeons, on the rack, and at the stake, by martyrs to
truth. He who suffered on the cross, triumphed over not only the malice
of his foes, but the terrors of death. After service I met my Bible
class, and spent an hour with them. Among them are some of the first
seamen in the ship; men whose influence extend through the whole crew;
several of these, there is reason to believe, have experienced religion
since we started on the present cruise. God grant they may persevere
with unshaken firmness.
I applied to-day to Captain Du Pont and Mr. Livingston for the apartment
leading to the store-room, in which to hold our evening prayer-meeting.
It was granted without any hesitation. This prayer-meeting commenced
with three or four individuals; it now embraces some fifteen or twenty,
and it will not stop here.
MONDAY, JUNE 29. We have been in a dead calm all day,—the ocean
slumbering about us without a ripple, and our dog-vane not lifting a
feather. The lazy clouds piled themselves up in pyramids and castles on
the sea, without a wave or breath to disturb their fantastic forms. The
rays of the sun were quenched in their veils, and twilight spread over
their summits her rosy charm. As night in her sable hues advanced, the
moon came up and poured on turret and tower her tender light. Man rears
his structures amid weariness and tumult; nature erects hers in silence.
When the monuments of man decay, ages may sigh over their unreviving
relics, but when those of nature are dissolved, others emerge from the
ruin in more exulting beauty, as the bird of flame from the ashes of its
parent.
TUESDAY, JUNE 30. When an aquatic fowl appears for which the sailor has
no other name, he always calls it a sea-hen. Several of this brood have
been about our ship to-day, circling through the air, and resting on the
sleeping sea. The head is large, the neck strong, the wings long and
arching, and the plumage dark brown. We tried to hook one of them with a
tempting bait, but the fellow was too cunning. The only purpose they
seemingly serve is to relieve the monotony of a sea-life.
We have been lying now for two days in the same waveless berth; our
motion has not been sufficient to straighten our log-line. Every cloud
is watched, but it brings no breeze. It departs like the airy visions of
childhood, and none knoweth the place of its rest. We are born in
shadows; live in their aerial folds, and vanish at last into deep night.
But the spark of the Divinity that glows within is quenchless evermore.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1. We caught to-day, with a hook, one of the sailor’s
sea-hens. It proved to be the brown albatros of the Pacific; and
measured ten feet between the tips of its wings. When brought on board,
the fellow threw his wild glances at the crew, and walked about as
haughtily as if sole monarch of the peopled deck. One of the men
attempted to trifle with his dignity, when he pounced upon him and
severely chastised his impertinence. After being detained an hour, we
let him go to join his female companion, who was waiting for him, on the
wave, by the side of the ship. The albatros never deserts its consort in
calamity.
The love which coldly wounds and kills,
Is that which care and sorrow chills.
THURSDAY, JULY 2. Our sailor, Lewis, who is touched with insanity, is
again on deck. He moves around among the crew, but never participates in
their amusements, or enters into conversation with any one. If
questioned, his answers are so stern and brief they quell curiosity. He
handles a rope as if there were a scorpion’s fang in every strand. Only
snatches of his history are known. He has borne arms; his last exploits
were at San Jacinto. He has the air of one in whom the feelings of a
better nature have been turned to apathy and scorn.
“His features’ deepening lines and varying hue
At times attract, and yet perplex the view
As if within that murkiness of mind
Worked feeling, fearful and yet undefined.
He has the skill, when cunning’s gaze would seek
To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek,
At once the observer’s purpose to espy,
And on himself roll back his scrutiny.”
FRIDAY, JULY 3. We have at last a breeze from the northwest, which is
leading us out of this region of calms. Our latitude is 35° N. Our
thermometer ranges at seventy,—rather a cool temperature, considering
that we are so near the vertical rays of a cloudless sun, wheeling
around his northern bourne in his career of flame to the Line. But the
temperature of the Pacific never undergoes those extreme changes to
which that of the same latitude in the Atlantic is subjected. The cause
of this difference is probably found in the relative disproportion of
sea and land over which the tides of the atmosphere pass in the two
oceans.
Three seamen came into my state-room to-day to converse with me on the
subject of religion. They stated that for several weeks their attention
had been drawn to this subject, and that they had now resolved to
renounce every sin, and seek an interest in Christ. I encouraged them in
this good resolution, gave them books suited to their frame of mind, and
invited them to our evening prayer-meeting. These are the bows of
promise which span the dark tides of ocean.
SATURDAY, JULY 4. This is the anniversary of our national independence.
The crew have been permitted to spend it as they pleased; no duty being
required of them beyond what is essential to keep the ship on her
course. Some collected themselves in groups, and spun patriotic yarns
about naval actions in the last war; some sung the star-spangled banner;
some waxed eloquent at the idea of a war with Mexico, and some sat
quietly mending their old clothes. The young were generally the most
eager for hostilities, and seemed to think they could hew their way with
a cutlass and a pound of pork to the halls of the Montezumas.
Commodore Stockton gave an elegant dinner to his officers. Many
sentiments, kindled by the examples of the glorious past, went round;
and many thoughts of home and hearts left behind, melted in an
under-tone through the festivities. How veneration, gratitude, and
pride, will grow in the breast of an American, in a distant clime, over
the memory of those who perilled their all in the Revolution! They rest
in immortal remembrance amid the flowers and fragrant airs of earth:
“By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.”
SUNDAY, JULY 5. Though the morning has been overcast with flying clouds,
from which dashes of rain have fallen, accompanied with sudden gusts of
wind, giving every thing the air of discomfort, and rendering the ship
rather uneasy, yet we have had our regular service. The subject of the
discourse was, Profaneness—its degrading effects, its prohibition in the
rules of the service, its violation of the laws of God.
This is the besetting sin of those who follow the seas,—of those who, in
their helplessness, are surrounded by the most stupendous displays of
omnipotent power. Yet let the ship in which it prevails most, be swept
in a gale of shroud and mast, be driving amid breakers against the steep
rock, her guilty crew will fall on their knees in prayer, and call on
Him whose name they have profaned, whose worship they have derided, to
have mercy and save.
Our prayer-meeting has increased, so that the small apartment in which
we have been assembling will not accommodate us. Capt. Du Pont, on the
suggestion of Mr. Livingston, has given us the use of the store-room. It
has been so arranged that there is no interference with the public
stores, and no increase of hazard from additional lights. It would have
been easy for them to have suggested difficulties; but, thank God, they
are not so inclined. They have extended to me every facility and every
encouragement in their power. Nor has any officer on board the ship cast
an impediment in my way. Not a derisive remark from any one, either in
or out of the wardroom, has fallen on my ear.
MONDAY, JULY 6. When we were receiving our crew at Norfolk, an old
seaman, by the name of Barnard, applied to Capt. Du Pont to be shipped.
He was told that he had not vigor for the hardships of another cruise,
and kindly advised to make the Naval Asylum his home. But he plead the
forty years of service which he had performed in our national ships so
earnestly, that he was permitted to come on board. Though over sixty
years of age, he has discharged the duties of quarter-master very well.
But recently the springs of life have been giving way, till at last he
has been obliged to relinquish his post at the wheel. He could not rally
again, and has sunk to his last repose.
To-day we have consigned his remains to the deep. The body, wrapped in
his hammock, was borne by his messmates up the main-hatch, along the
line of the marine guard presenting arms, where it was met by the
Commodore and Captain, As the band ceased its funeral air, the burial
service was read, the plank on which the body lay was lifted, and
Barnard glided down to his deep rest. Over him roll the waters of the
Pacific.
But when the last great trump shall thrill the grave,
And earth’s unnumbered myriads reappear,
He too shall hear the summons ’neath the wave,
That now in silence wraps his sunless bier.
And coming forth, in trembling reverence bowed,
Unfold the tongueless secrets of his shroud.
TUESDAY, JULY 7. We have sailed since we left Callao about eight
thousand miles without falling in with a single vessel, though the
Pacific is said to be sprinkled with whalers and merchantmen. The former
pursue their vocation without any reference to the customary tracks of
other vessels; they set up their chase wherever the whale sweeps, be it
to the Pole or the Line, and yet we have not encountered one of them.
Out of the thousand, not one has come within the range of our vision.
This gives one some idea of the immensity of the Pacific. A ship in it
is like a meteor in the unconfined realms of space.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8. We have had general quarters, with the exercise of
the crew at the guns, almost every day since we left Honolulu. Mexican
papers were received there, the day before our departure, stating that
hostilities had commenced between that country and the United States, on
the Texan line. We doubted the correctness of the information, but put
to sea at once, that we might be off Monterey in season for any service
which the possible exigency might require.
To-day we have been practising at target firing. This fictitious foe
made his appearance on a platform buoyed up by eight empty casks at a
distance, varying with the action of the sea and wind, of from one to
two miles. The firing commenced on the larboard side, and was restricted
to one round from each gun. It was found that the shot, though the guns
had been elevated one degree, struck the water short of the mark. An
order was therefore given to elevate the guns two degrees, and to be
careful to fire on an even keel. This brought the target within a
point-blank range; and the shot whistled past it, grazing this side and
that.
We now tacked ship, and gave the starboard lads a chance. Their shot
struck with sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes in a naval
engagement, and the target, though bobbing up and down on the sea as a
frightened thing of life, very narrowly escaped. The whistling, whizzing
sound made by a huge ball in its passage through the air, is like
nothing else that I have ever heard. It seems to carry in its very tone
an import of the destructive errand upon which it is sent. This ominous
voice, however, in the excitement and thunders of an engagement, is
never heard. The warning and the havoc come together, twins in life and
death!
THURSDAY, JULY 9. We have made, for the last three days, but very little
progress towards our port. The wind has been extremely light and
baffling, breathing and dying away at all points of the compass. The
atmosphere has had that peculiar property which magnifies every object
of vision. The moon hung on the horizon this evening with a breadth of
circle which attracted the attention of all on board; the stars seemed
to have extended their glowing verge, the sea-bird to have enlarged its
dusky form as it floated dimly in the pale light, while the wing of the
cloud threw its vast shadow on the sleeping surface of the sea. We heard
“Not a sound, save the surge of the ship
As she lazily rolls to and fro,
And the sails as they listlessly flap,
And the creak of the rudder below.”
FRIDAY, JULY 10. We have had to-day a light but steady breeze on our
starboard quarter. Our studding-sails have been set for the first time
since we left Honolulu. We are now within nine hundred miles of our
port. All are engaged, some in ship’s duty, some in acquiring Spanish,
some in writing letters home; while the crew, as they come off watch,
occupy their time with books from the library. Sailors will read if you
furnish them with books suited to their tastes and habits. Give them
narratives, history, biography, and incidents of travel. In these
sketches virtues may be shadowed forth that will win reverence and love,
and the results of vice unfolded with repelling power. But all this
requires care in the selection; this duty properly devolves on the
chaplain; it is for him to elevate and mould the moral sentiments of
those around him. If he is not equal to this, he should not put his foot
on the decks of a man-of-war.
SATURDAY, JULY 11. Our light aft wind has left us, and we have in its
stead a heavy sea, rolling in from the west. There must have been a
tremendous blow in that quarter. Our ship rolled last night as she did
off Cape Horn. Every thing in the wardroom and steerage which had not
been secured, rushed about in crashing confusion. The candlesticks
leaped from the sideboard, a tray of knives and forks followed, while a
water tank flew from one bulkhead to another, as if determined to dash
in its own staves. The front board of my berth had been taken out to
admit more air, and I had no sooner dropped asleep, than out I rolled on
the floor; and well was it for me that I did, for I was no sooner out of
my berth than my library tumbled in. What singular feelings, half
vexatious and half ludicrous, one has gathering himself up from such a
tumble!
SUNDAY, JULY 12. The weather has been too stormy, and the roll of the
ship too heavy, for religious service on deck. We have had a
prayer-meeting in the store-room. The attendance was voluntary, but the
large apartment was filled. A good number of our sailors are earnestly
seeking religion, and several hope they have found it. I meet them every
evening from eight to nine o’clock. They speak in these meetings with
much frankness of their previous evil courses, and of their resolution
to abandon them and seek Christ. Those who have obtained light and
comfort, encourage others, and pray for them with an earnestness which
shows their heart is in the work. Every evening some two or three new
ones join us. Among them are some of the first sailors we have.
The effect of this on the discipline of the ship is too marked to escape
observation. There is no disobedience and no punishment. Each performs
with alacrity the duties of his station. It would seem as if we might
throw every instrument of correction and coercion overboard; their
requirement, for the present at least, has ceased. Give me the religious
sentiment in a crew, and you may sink your handcuffs, cats, and colts in
the depths of ocean. They who, under the hypocritical cry of church and
state, would deprive our seamen of these influences, have steeled their
hearts to the first instincts of humanity. Their religion, if they have
any, is cruel as the grave.
MONDAY, JULY 13. The following note, which I received last evening from
one of our quarter-gunners, a stanch sailor, derives its interest from
the fact that he followed it up with an attendance at our
prayer-meeting.
_U. S. Frigate Congress, July 12, 1846._
DEAR SIR:—
With feelings of sincere regret for the error I made on the night of
the 11th, by using profane language in your hearing, I do humbly crave
your pardon, and I do assure you, had I known you were present at the
time, such language would never have been used by me. I am aware I can
make no excuse for the crime of swearing: it is, as you have truly
said, the force of habit, which should have been checked by me years
ago. No man inside this ship is more indebted to an all-merciful God
than I am, for I have been totally shipwrecked in the course of my
sea-life four different times, and been preserved when some of my
shipmates met a watery grave; and still I sin greatly, daily, hourly,
in spite of all my resolutions to the contrary.
Yours obediently.
TUESDAY, JULY 14. We were tumbled out of our dead calm by a roaring
northwester, and have been driven by it two hundred and thirty-five
miles in the last twenty-four hours. We have six months’ provisions, and
four months’ water, on board, and have been logging eleven and twelve
knots. A ship that can do this under these circumstances, and close
hauled, must be a good sailer. We are now within two hundred and twenty
miles of our port; and if this wind continues, shall probably anchor
under Monterey to-morrow. Whether it be for hostilities or for peace, we
know not; but we are prepared for either.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 15. The wind continued very fresh through the night. Not
wishing to make the land till daylight, we furled our top-gallant sails,
hauled up our courses, double-reefed our topsails, and still run eight
knots. As day dawned, Point Pinos rose fifteen miles directly ahead of
us. But as the first rays of the sun tipped its forest-tops with flame,
a bank of fog rolled between. Not a vestige of the coast was seen for
hours; and we wore ship, and stood out to sea.
It was nearly noon before the fog lifted. We then made sail, and in two
hours rounded Point Pinos, and entered the harbor of Monterey. We
discovered at anchor the U. S. frigate Savannah, bearing the broad
pennant of Commodore Sloat; the U. S. sloop-of-war Cyane, Captain
Mervin; and the U. S. sloop-of-war Levant, Commander Page. We run up the
red pennant, and saluted the blue of Commodore Sloat with thirteen guns,
which were returned by the Savannah. As we rounded under her stern for
our berth, her band struck up “Hail Columbia!” We came to anchor, in
graceful style, outside the Cyane.
Here will we rest, and let the winds rave on
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
GLANCES INTO CALIFORNIA.
SAILORS ON SHORE AS SOLDIERS.—THE BEAR FLAG.—CAPT. FREMONT AND HIS
ARMED BAND.—DEPARTURE OF ADMIRAL SEYMOUR.—SAN FRANCISCO.—ASPECTS OF
THE TOWN.—HABITS OF THE PEOPLE.—THE GOLD-DIGGER.—SPIRIT OF
SPECULATION.—GAMBLING.—EFFECTS OF THE GOLD MINES.—PAST AND PRESENT
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.
The peak where burns the blush of morn,
The glen in which a torrent rolled,
The crater where the Deil was born,
Are hemmed and stratified with gold;
And e’en the quartz, which bind the shore,
Sweat out at times the precious ore.
THURSDAY, JULY 16. The Cyane warped out of her berth this morning, and
we warped into it. Our ships are now moored in line, command the
anchorage, and present a very warlike appearance.
This afternoon a large ship was discovered rounding Point Pinos. She
entered the harbor under a cloud of canvas, and proved to be the
Collingwood, bearing the broad pennant of Admiral Seymour. She came to
anchor outside the Congress and Savannah. Our band greeted her with “God
save the Queen,” which she returned with “Hail, Columbia.” She is an 80
gun ship, and looks majestic on the wave. The Admiral was greatly
surprised to find Monterey in possession of the Americans.
[Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO IN 1846]
Commodore Sloat, having received information at Mazatlan, through the
public press, that our advanced posts on the Rio Grande had been
attacked by a Mexican force, sailed immediately for this port. On his
arrival the town was taken without any conflict, the flag run up and
saluted with twenty-one guns from each ship of the squadron. A
proclamation was then issued by the commodore, informing the inhabitants
of the bases of his proceedings, and invoking quietude as the condition
of security and repose; while our own men, who had been stationed on
shore, were strictly enjoined not to molest the citizens in their lawful
occupations.
FRIDAY, JULY 17. The bay of Monterey circles up broad and deep into the
coast. It is far from being land-locked, and yet the southern bend is
sufficiently sheltered to afford a safe and quiet anchorage. The town is
built within a circling range of forest-feathered hills, and on a plain
that descends in easy slopes to the strand of the bay. A more inviting
picturesque location for a city never entered a poet’s dream. The
buildings are reared of adobes, covered with a white layer of lime; they
are seldom over one story and a half, and are ornamented with porticoes
running the entire front. The streets are broad but irregular, and the
hills around connect themselves with the gleaming walls of cottages
which as yet exist only in your imagination.
The U. S. sloop-of-war Portsmouth, J. B. Montgomery commander, is at San
Francisco; the Warren, J. B. Hull, commander, is at Mazatlan. Our flag
is now flying over Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma, and Sutter’s Fort.
No formidable attempt has been made by the Californians to recapture any
of these positions. The great body of the inhabitants seem but little
inclined to take up arms. They have no great affection for Mexico, or
reverence for the military chieftains whom she has sent to govern them.
Our marine guard, commanded by Lieut. Zelin, and fifty sailors under the
command of Lieut. Tilghman, left our ship to-day for duty on shore. It
is amusing to see Jack with a carbine in his hand; he don’t know what to
do with it, whether to carry it in one hand or both, at his side or on
his shoulder. When posted as a sentinel, he always forgets the
countersign of course, and if a man looks pretty honest, allows him to
pass; but if he comes in some mysterious shape, he may expect to be
shot. One on an outpost last night, hearing a rumpling sound among the
dry leaves, and catching glimpses, by the pale moonlight, of a form
gliding behind this bush and that, instead of hailing, “Who comes
there?” cried out, “A bloody Indian!” and let off his carbine. The
guard, hearing the report, rushed immediately to the spot, where they
found a bullock, which had narrowly escaped our sentinel’s bullet. Jack,
when shown his horned antagonist and rebuked for his precipitancy,
gruffly replied, that it was impossible to make out, in the night and
among the bushes, what sort of a craft was coming at him, and he thought
it best to get the first fire.
SATURDAY, JULY 18. The whole of California is in a state of tumult, and
was so before our squadron made a demonstration on Monterey. The
jealousy of the government had been roused by the arrival of a fresh
body of emigrants, who had located themselves on the Sacramento, and by
the movements of Capt. Fremont, whose scientific projects a disturbed
imagination had converted into revolutionary purposes. The emigrants
were ordered out of the country, with Capt. Fremont and his exploring
party; and measures adopted to enforce the mandate. But the indomitable
captain and the emigrants were not thus to be ousted or overawed. They
had the Anglo-Saxon blood in them, and decided that a man has a right to
live where he pleases on this green earth of God’s.
They ran up a flag sufficiently significant of their intentions,—a white
field, red border, with a grizzly bear eyeing a single star, which threw
its light on the motto, “The Republic of California.” To this flag and
its fortunes they pledged themselves in mutual confidence, and though a
band of only two hundred, pushed their measures so vigorously that Gen.
Castro, with a force of three times their numbers, retreated before
their resolute positions. They are now within the department of
Monterey, and their arrival is looked for hourly. Such in brief is the
history of the Bear flag, and of that courageous organization which set
the ball of Anglo-Saxon supremacy rolling in California.
SUNDAY, JULY 19. We had divine service at the usual hour. The object of
the sermon was a plain illustration of the text, “The way of
transgressors is hard.” The every-day life of the sailor is a living
commentary on the truth of this significant proverb. The hardships of
his lot have generally been entailed upon him by a career of folly. The
recitals of his errors, which are often poured into my ears, are full of
painful interest. I greatly fear the novelties of the shore, and the
excitements which reach us every day from all quarters, will dissipate
that religious concern which has prevailed of late among our crew.
MONDAY, JULY 20. Captain Fremont and his armed band, with Lieut.
Gillespie of the marine corps, arrived last evening from their pursuit
of Gen. Castro. They are two hundred strong, all well mounted, and have
some three hundred extra horses in their train. They defiled, two
abreast, through the principal street of the town. The ground seemed to
tremble under their heavy tramp. The citizens glanced at them through
their grated windows. Their rifles, revolving pistols, and long knives,
glittered over the dusky buckskin which enveloped their sinewy limbs,
while their untrimmed locks, flowing out from under their foraging caps,
and their black beards, with white teeth glittering through, gave them a
wild savage aspect. They encamped in the skirts of the woods which
overhang the town. The blaze of their watch-fires, as night came on,
threw its quivering light into the forest glades, and far out at sea.
Their sentinels were posted at every exposed point; they sleep in their
blankets under the trees, with their arms at their side, ready for the
signal shot or stir of the crackling leaf.
For let a footstep, scarce as loud
As falls the winter’s flake,
Approach their tents, they wake,
And spring like lightning from the cloud.
TUESDAY, JULY 21. The Levant has been ordered to be ready for sea with
all dispatch. She is to take Commodore Sloat to Panama, where he crosses
the Isthmus for the United States. His measures here involve some
responsibility, as no authentic intelligence of a declaration of war has
reached us. But his motives have been high and patriotic, and his action
opportune in the event of national hostilities. The command will now
devolve on Commodore Stockton; what he will do with the California
question, remains to be seen. Among the persons whose influence is felt
in these affairs, stands T. O. Larkin, Esq., U. S. Consul for many years
in this province, and of whose services I shall have occasion to speak
hereafter.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22. Captain Fremont’s band of riflemen visited our ship
to-day, and lunched with us. Many of them are trappers from the interior
wilds, who have never seen a man-of-war before. They looked at our
frowning battery with a wonder for which their trap dialect had no
expression. The Indians connected with the body, wanted to know how such
an immense mass could be put on the _trail_. We pointed to our sails,
clewed to the yards; they shook their heads in incredulity. They seemed
to think there must be some invisible monster in the hold, whose
terrific energies caused the ship to go. Our band played some of their
most spirit-stirring airs, but they had as little effect on these
children of the wild as the song of the grasshopper. The article which
seemed to interest them most, was the rifle of Commodore Stockton; they
handled it with that yearning fondness which a mother feels clasping her
first-born.
THURSDAY, JULY 23. The Collingwood sailed to-day for the Sandwich
Islands. Many of her officers had clothes on shore in the hands of
washerwomen; they were hurried off, some half ironed, some half dry, and
some in the suds. Such are the accidents which await the linen of one
connected with a national ship. He may think himself fortunate if he
recovers his clothes at all; they are often left as contingent
remainders in a man’s will.
The Collingwood has offered us no molestation: Admiral Seymour is an
officer of great amenity of deportment,—has been several times on board
the Congress: he was much impressed with the force of our battery, and
says our ship is the most powerful frigate afloat in the world. The
Admiral and most of his officers are connected with the English
nobility, but assume no airs, and are boon companions wherever met. It
has been often stated by American writers that the Admiral intended to
raise the English flag in California, and would have done it had we not
stolen the march on him. I believe nothing of the kind; the allegation
is a mere assumption, unwarranted by a solitary fact. He had no such
instructions from the British ministry: what the English _might_ have
done, had they been apprized of our designs, is another thing; what they
_did_ do, was to watch our movements. When we had harpooned the whale,
they left us to make the most of its blubber and bones.
FRIDAY, JULY 24. Capt. Du Pont left us to-day to take command of the
Cyane—a fine ship, well officered and manned. We part with him with much
regret; he has been with us in gale and calm, amidst the ice of the Cape
and on the burning Line, and cheerfully shared, in his own person, every
hardship and peril. His professional knowledge and efficiency, with his
social qualities and unblemished character, have won our unmeasured
confidence and esteem.
Mr. Livingston, our first lieutenant, succeeds to the command, under an
appointment from Commodore Stockton, and combines, with the duties of
this post, those of executive officer. His station is one of some
difficulty, but he is the better qualified for it by his previous
services and thorough knowledge of the crew. Capt. Mervin takes command
of the Savannah—a post to which he is entitled by his experience and
rank. The officers attached to this frigate are an ornament to the
service; there are not wanting individuals among them whose religious
example has been felt deep and wide.
Here the publication of my journal must rest; and be resumed in another
volume, under the title of “Three Years in California.” But without
trenching on the incidents sketched in that volume, I may glance at a
few local circumstances which recent events have thrown into remarkable
prominency. The geographical features of the country will be described
in their proper place; I turn from these to a point which looms up, in
the fancy at least, like a headland on which a rosy twilight has poured
its golden charm.
The bay of San Francisco resembles a broad inland lake, communicating by
a narrow channel with the ocean. This channel, as the tradition of the
aborigines runs, was opened by an earthquake which a few centuries since
convulsed the continent. The town is built on the south bend of the bay,
near its communication with the sea. Its site is a succession of barren
sand-hills, tumbled up into every variety of shape. No levelling
process, on a scale of any magnitude, has been attempted. The buildings
roll up and over these sand ridges like a shoal of porpoises over the
swell of a wave, only the fish has much the most order in the disposal
of his head and tail. More incongruous combinations in architecture
never danced in the dreams of men. Brick warehouses, wooden shanties,
sheet-iron huts, and shaking tents, are blended in admirable confusion.
But these grotesque habitations have as much uniformity and sobriety as
the habits of those who occupy them. Hazards are made in commercial
transactions and projects of speculation, that would throw Wall-street
into spasms. I have seen merchants purchase cargoes without having even
glanced into the invoice. The conditions of the sale were a hundred per
cent. profits to the owner, and costs. In one cargo, when tumbled out,
were found twenty thousand dollars in the single article of red cotton
handkerchiefs! “I’ll get rid of those among the wild Indians,” said the
purchaser, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ve a water-lot which I will
sell,” cries another. “Which way does it stretch?” inquire half a a
dozen. “Right under that craft there,” is the reply. “And what do you
ask for it?” “Fifteen thousand dollars.” “I’ll take it.” “Then down with
your dust.” So the water-lot, which mortal eyes never yet beheld,
changes its owners without changing its fish. “I have two shares in a
gold mine,” cries another. “Where are they?” inquire the crowd. “Under
the south branch of the Yuba river, which we have almost turned,” is the
reply. “And what will you take?” “Fifteen thousand dollars.” “I’ll give
ten.” “Take them, stranger.” So the two shares of a _possibility_ of
gold under a branch of the Yuba, where the water still rolls rapid and
deep, are sold for ten thousand dollars paid down! Is there any thing in
the Arabian Nights that surpasses this?
But glance at that large wooden building, which looks as if the winds
had shingled it, and the powers of the air pinned its clapboards in a
storm. Enter, and you find a great hall filled with tables, and a motley
group gathered around each. Some are laying down hundreds and others
thousands on the turn of a card. Each has a bag of grain-gold in his
hand, which he must double or lose, and is only anxious to reach the
table where he can make the experiment. You would advise him at least to
purchase a suit of clothes, or repair his old ones, before he loses his
all; but what cares he for his outward garb, when piles of the yellow
dust swell and glitter in his excited imagination? Down goes his bag of
gold—and is lost! But does he look around for a rope or pistol that he
may end his ruin? No: the river bank, where he gathered that bag, has
more; so he cheers his momentary despondency with a strong glass of
brandy, and is off again for the mines. He found the gold by good
fortune, and has lost it by bad, and now considers himself about even
with the world. Such is the moral effect of gold hunting on a man whose
principles are not as fixed and immoveable as the rock. It begins in a
lottery and ends in a lottery, where the blanks outnumber the prizes ten
to one.
But you are hungry—want a breakfast—turn into a restaurant—call for ham,
eggs, and coffee—then your bill—six dollars! Your high boots, which have
never seen a brush since you first put them on, have given out: you find
a pair that can replace them-they are a tolerable fit, and now what is
the price—fifty dollars! Your beard has not felt a razor since you went
to the mines—it must come off, and your frizzled hair be clipped. You
find a barber: his dull shears hang in the knots of your hair like a
sheep-shearer’s in a fleece matted with burrs—his razor he straps on the
leg of his boot, and then hauls away—starting at every pull some new
fountain of tears. You vow you will let the beard go—but then one side
is partly off, and you try the agony again to get the other side
something like it; and now what is the charge for this torture—four
dollars! Night is approaching, and you must have a place where you can
sleep: to inquire for a bed would be as idle as to hunt a pearl in the
jungle of a Greenland bear. You look around for the lee of some shanty
or tent, and tumble down for the night; but a thousand fleas dispute the
premises with you—the contest is hopeless—you tumble out as you tumbled
in, and spend the remainder of the night in finding a place not occupied
by these aborigines of the soil.
But you are not perhaps a gold-digger, as I had supposed; you are a
supercargo, and have a valuable freight, which you wish to land. You
have warped your vessel in till her keel rakes, and yet you are several
hundred yards off. Some lighter must be found that can skim these
shallows; your own boats will not do: after waiting two or three weeks,
you get the use of a scow, called a lighter, for which you pay one
hundred and fifty dollars a day.
To-morrow you are going to commence unloading, and wake betimes; but
find that during the night every soul of your crew has escaped, and put
out for the mines. You rush about on shore to find hands, and collect
eight or ten loafers, who will assist you for fifteen dollars a day
each. Your cargo must be landed, and you close the bargain, though your
fresh hands are already half-seas over. The scow is shoved from shore,
brought alongside, loaded with goods, which are tumbled in as an
Irishman dumps a load of dirt, and then you up oars and poles and push
for the landing; but the tide has ebbed too soon: you are only halfway,
and there your scow sticks fast in the midst of a great mud bottom, from
which the last ripple of water has retreated. You cannot get forward,
and you are now too late to get back: night is setting in and the
rain-clouds are gathering fast; down comes a deluge, drenching your
goods, and filling your open scow. The returning tide will now be of no
use, the scow won’t float, except under water, and that is a sort of
floating which don’t suit you; skin for skin—though in this case not
dry—what will a man not give for his own life? So out you jump, and by
crawling and creeping, make your way through the mire to the landing,
and bring up against a bin, where another sort of wallower gives you a
grunt of welcome.
Your loafers must be paid off in the morning, and the scow recovered, or
its loss will cost you half the profits of your voyage. But the storm
last night has driven another brig into yours; and there they both are,
like a bear and bull that have gored and crushed each other. But “misery
loves company,” and you have it. The storm which swamped your scow and
stove your brig last night, has been busy on shore. Piles of goods
heaped up in every street, are in a condition which requires wreckers as
well as watchmen. But no one here is going to trouble himself about your
misfortunes, nor much about his own. The reverses of to-day are to be
more than repaired by the successes of to-morrow. These are only the
broken pickaxes and spades by which the great mine is to be reached.
What is the loss of a few thousands to one who is so soon to possess
millions? Only a coon back in his hole, while the buffalo remains within
rifle-shot,—only a periwinkle lost, while the whale is beneath the
harpoon,—only a farthing candle consumed, while the dowered bride,
blushing in beauty and bliss, is kneeling at the nuptial altar. But let
that pass.
But you are not alone in your destitution and dirt. There are hundreds
around you who were quite as daintily reared, and who are doing out here
what they dodged at home. Do you see that youth in red flannel shirt and
coarse brogans, rolling a wheelbarrow? He was once a clerk in a
counting-house in New York, and came here to shovel up gold as you scoop
up sand. He has been to the mines, gathered no gold, and returned, but
now makes his ten dollars a day by rolling that wheelbarrow; it costs
him six, however, to live, and the other four he loses at monté.
See you that young man with a long whip in his hand, cracking it over an
ox-team? He was one of the most learned geologists, for his age, in the
United States, and came out here to apply his science to the discovery
of gold deposites; but some how his diving-rods always dipped wrong—and
now he has taken a rod about which there is no mistake, so at least
think his cattle. He would accumulate a fortune did he not lose it as
fast as made in some phrensied speculation. But look yonder—do you see
that young gentlemen with a string of fish, which he offers for sale. He
was the best Greek and Latin scholar of his class in Yale College; and
subsequently one of the most promising members of our bar. But he
exchanged his Blackstone for a pick; and instead of picking fees out of
his clients’ pockets, he came here to pick gold out of the mines; but
the deuce was in it, for whenever his pick struck close upon a deposite,
it was no longer there! so he exchanged his pick for a hook and line,
and now angles for pike, pickerel, and perch, and can describe each fish
by some apt line from Catullus. He would do well at his new piscatory
profession, but for the gilded hook of the gambler. He laughs at the
trout for darting at a fictitious fly, and then chases a bait himself
equally fanciful and false.
But look again—do you see that pulperia, with its gathered groups of
soldiers and sailors, poets and politicians, merchants and mendicants,
doctors and draymen, clerks and cobblers, trappers and tinkers. That
little man who stands behind the bar and deals to each his dram of fire,
was once a preacher, and deemed almost a prophet, as he depicted the
pangs of that worm which dieth not; but now he has exchanged that _worm_
for another, but preserved his consistency, for this worm, too,
distilleth delirium and death. And that thick-set man who stands in the
midst of the crowd, with ruby countenance and revelling eye, whose
repartee sets the whole pulperia in a roar, and who is now watching the
liquor in his glass to see if it stirreth itself aright, once lectured
in the West on the temptations of those who tarry late at the wine; but
now his teetotalism covers all liquors as goodly gifts graciously
bestowed. But one brief year, and some dame Quickly may describe his
pale exit as that of his delirious prototype,—“I saw him fumble with the
sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends.”
And yet with all these drawbacks—with all these gambling-tables,
grog-shops, shanties, shavers, and fleas, San Francisco is swelling into
a town of the highest commercial importance. She commands the trade of
the great valleys through which the Sacramento and San Joaquin, with
their numerous tributaries, roll. She gathers to her bosom the products
and manufactures of the United States, of England, China, the shores and
islands of the Pacific. But let us glance at California as she was a few
years since, as she is now, and as she is fast becoming.
Three years ago the white population of California could not have
exceeded ten thousand souls. She has now a population of two hundred
thousand, and a resistless tide of emigration rolling in through the
heart of Mexico, over the Isthmus of Panama, around Cape Horn, and over
the steeps of the Rocky Mountains. Then the great staple of the country
was confined to wild cattle; now it is found in exhaustless mines of
quicksilver and gold. Then the shipping which frequented her waters was
confined to a few drogers, that waddled along her coast in quest of
hides and tallow; now the richest argosies of the commercial world are
bound to her ports.
Three years ago the dwellings of her citizens were reared under the
hands of Indians, from sun-baked adobes of mud and straw; now a thousand
hammers are ringing on rafter and roof over walls of iron and brick.
Then the plough which furrowed her fields was the crotch of a tree,
which a stone or root might shiver; now the shares of the New-England
farmer glitter in her soil. Then the wheels of her carts were cut from
the butts of trees, with a hole in the centre for the rude axle; now the
iron-bound wheel of the finished mechanic rolls over her hills and
valleys. Then only the canoe of the Indian disturbed the sleeping
surface of her waters; now a fleet of steamers traverse her ample rivers
and bays. Then not a schoolhouse, public teacher, magazine, or
newspaper, could be found in the whole territory; now they are met with
in most of the larger towns. Then the tastes and passions of an idle
throng ran on the guitar and the fandango; now the calculations of the
busy multitudes turn to the cultured field and productive mine. Then
California was a dependency of Mexico, and subject to revolutions with
the success of every daring military chieftain; now she is an
independent state, with an enlightened constitution, which guaranties
equal rights and privileges to all. Then she was in arms against our
flag; now she unrolls it on the breeze, with the star of her own being
and pride glowing in the constellation which blazes on its folds.
Three years ago and San Francisco contained only three hundred souls;
now she has a population of twenty-seven thousand. Then a building lot
within her limits cost fifteen dollars; now the same lot cannot be
purchased at a less sum than fifteen thousand. Then her commerce was
confined to a few Indian blankets, and Mexican reboses and beads; now
from two to three hundred merchantmen are unloading their costly cargoes
on her quay. Then the famished whaler could hardly find a temporary
relief in her markets; now she has phrensied the world with her wealth.
Then Benicia was a pasture covered with lowing herds; now she is a
commercial mart, threatening to rival her sister nearer the sea. Then
Stockton and Sacramento City were covered with wild oats, where the elk
and deer gambolled at will; now they are laced with streets, and walled
with warehouses, through which the great tide of commerce rolls off into
a hundred mountain glens. Then the banks of the Sacramento and San
Joaquin were cheered only by the curling smoke of the Indian’s hut; now
they throw on the eye at every bend the cheerful aspect of some new
hamlet or town. Then the silence of the Sierra Nevada was broken only by
the voice of its streams; now every cavern and cliff is echoing under
the blows of the sturdy miner. The wild horse, startled in his glen,
leaves on the hill the clatter of his hoofs, while the huge bear, roused
from his patrimonial jungle, grimly retires to some new mountain
fastness.
But I must drop this contrast of the past with the present, and glance
at a few facts which affect the future. The gold deposites, which have
hitherto been discovered, are confined mainly to the banks and beds of
perpetual streams, or the bottoms of ravines through which roll the
waters of the transient freshet. These deposites are the natural results
of the laws of gravitation; the treasures which they contain must have
been washed from the slopes of the surrounding hills. The elevations,
like spend-thrifts, seem to have parted entirely with their golden
inheritance, except what may linger still in the quartz. And these
gold-containing quartz will be found to have their confined localities.
They will crown the insular peaks of a mountain ridge, or fret the verge
of some extinguished volcano. They have never been found in a continuous
range, except in the dreams of enchantment. You might as well look for a
wall of diamonds, or a solid bank of pearls. Nature has played off many
a prodigal caprice in California, but a mountain of gold is not one of
them.
The alluvial gold will at no distant day be measurably exhausted, and
the miners be driven into the mountains. Here the work can be
successfully prosecuted only by companies with heavy capitals. All the
uncertainties which are connected with mining operations will gather
around these enterprises. Wealth will reward the labors of the few,
whose success was mainly the result of good fortune; while
disappointment will attend the efforts of the many, equally skilful and
persevering. These wide inequalities, in the proceeds of the miner’s
labor, have exhibited themselves wherever a gold deposite has been
hunted or found in California. The past is the reliable prophecy of the
future.
Not one in ten of the thousands who have gone, or may go, to California
to hunt for gold, will return with a fortune. Still the great tide of
emigration will set there, till her valleys and mountain glens teem with
a hardy, enterprising population. As the gold deposites diminish, or
become more difficult of access, the quicksilver mines will call forth
their unflagging energies. This metal slumbers in her mountain spurs in
massive richness. The process is simple which converts it into that form
through which the mechanic arts subserve the thousand purposes of
science and social refinement, while the medical profession, through its
strange abuse, keep up a carnival in the court of Death. But for this
they who mine the ore are not responsible; they will find their reward
in the wealth which will follow their labors. It will be in their power
to silence the hammers in those mines which have hitherto monopolized
the markets of the world.
But the enterprise and wealth of California are not confined to her
mines. Her ample forests of oak, red-wood, and pine, only wait the
requisite machinery to convert them into elegant residences and
strong-ribbed ships. Her exhaustless quarries of granite and marble will
yet pillar the domes of metropolitan splendor and pride. The hammer and
drill will be relinquished by multitudes for the plough and sickle. Her
arable land, stretching through her spacious valleys and along the broad
banks of her rivers, will wave with the golden harvest. The rain-cloud
may not visit her in the summer months, but the mountain stream will be
induced to throw its showers over her thirsting plains.
Such was California a few years since—such is she now—and such will she
become, even before they who now rush to her shores find their footsteps
within the shadows of the pale realm.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Deck and port : or, incidents of a cruise in the United States frigate Congress to California. With sketches of Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, Lima, Honolulu, and San Francisco" ***
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