The Masts Are Low And Small, And The
Canvas, Which Is Always Spread In Fair Weather, Looks As If It Had Been
Trailed Along Cheapside On A Wet Day.
In the America it was not such a
very material assistance either; for on one occasion, when we were running
before a splendid breeze under a crowd of sail, the engines were stopped
and the log heaved, which only gave our speed at three miles an hour.
One
lady passenger had been feeding her mind with stories of steamboat
explosions in the States, and spent her time in a morbid state of terror
by no means lessened by the close proximity of her state-room to the
dreaded engine.
On the sixth day after leaving Halifax the wind, which everybody had been
hoping for or fearing, came upon us at last, and continued increasing for
three days, when, if we had been beating against it, we should have called
it a hurricane. It was, however, almost directly aft, and we ran before it
under sail. The sky during the two days which it lasted was perfectly
cloudless, and the sea had that peculiar deep, clear, greenish-blue tint
only to be met with far from land. There was a majesty, a sublimity about
the prospect from the poop exceeding everything which I had ever seen.
There was the mighty ocean showing his power, and here were we poor
insignificant creatures overcoming him by virtue of those heaven sent arts
by which man
"Has made fire, flood, and earth,
The vassals of his will."
I had often read of mountain waves, but believed the comparison to be a
mere figure of speech till I saw them here, all glorious in their beauty,
under the clear blue of a December sky.
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