54° 10', long. 79° 07'. This was our
position at noon. The sun was out bright; the ice was all left
behind, and things had quite a cheering appearance. We brought
our wet pea-jackets and trowsers on deck, and hung them up in
the rigging, that the breeze and the few hours of sun might dry
them a little; and, by the permission of the cook, the galley
was nearly filled with stockings and mittens, hung round to be
dried. Boots, too, were brought up; and having got a little tar
and slush from below, we gave them a thick coat. After dinner,
all hands were turned-to, to get the anchors over the bows,
bend on the chains, etc. The fish-tackle was got up, fish-davit
rigged out, and after two or three hours of hard and cold work,
both the anchors were ready for instant use, a couple of kedges
got up, a hawser coiled away upon the fore-hatch, and the deep-sea-
lead-line overhauled and got ready. Our spirits returned with having
something to do; and when the tackle was manned to bowse the anchor
home, notwithstanding the desolation of the scene, we struck up
"Cheerily ho!" in full chorus. This pleased the mate, who rubbed
his hands and cried out - "That's right, my boys; never say die!
That sounds like the old crew!" and the captain came up, on hearing
the song, and said to the passenger, within hearing of the man at
the wheel, - "That sounds like a lively crew. They'll have their
song so long as there're enough left for a chorus!"
This preparation of the cable and anchors was for the passage
of the straits; for, being very crooked, and with a variety of
currents, it is necessary to come frequently to anchor. This was
not, by any means, a pleasant prospect, for, of all the work that
a sailor is called upon to do in cold weather, there is none so
bad as working the ground-tackle. The heavy chain cables to be
hauled and pulled about the decks with bare hands; wet hawsers,
slip-ropes, and buoy-ropes to be hauled aboard, dripping in water,
which is running up your sleeves, and freezing; clearing hawse
under the bows; getting under weigh and coming-to, at all hours
of the night and day, and a constant look-out for rocks and sands
and turns of tides; - these are some of the disagreeables of such
a navigation to a common sailor. Fair or foul, he wants to have
nothing to do with the ground-tackle between port and port. One of
our hands, too, had unluckily fallen upon a half of an old newspaper
which contained an account of the passage, through the straits, of a
Boston brig, called, I think, the Peruvian, in which she lost every
cable and anchor she had, got aground twice, and arrived at
Valparaiso in distress. This was set off against the account of
the A. J. Donelson, and led us to look forward with less confidence
to the passage, especially as no one on board had ever been through,
and the captain had no very perfect charts. However, we were spared
any further experience on the point; for the next day, when we must
have been near the Cape of Pillars, which is the south-west point
of the mouth of the straits, a gale set in from the eastward, with a
heavy fog, so that we could not see half of the ship's length ahead.
This, of course, put an end to the project, for the present; for a
thick fog and a gale blowing dead ahead are not the most favorable
circumstances for the passage of difficult and dangerous straits.
This weather, too, seemed likely to last for some time, and we
could not think of beating about the mouth of the straits for a
week or two, waiting for a favorable opportunity; so we braced up
on the larboard tack, put the ship's head due south, and struck
her off for Cape Horn again.
CHAPTER XXXII
ICE AGAIN - A BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON - CAPE HORN - "LAND HO!" - HEADING FOR HOME
In our first attempt to double the Cape, when we came up to the
latitude of it, we were nearly seventeen hundred miles to the
westward, but, in running for the straits of Magellan, we stood so
far to the eastward, that we made our second attempt at a distance
of not more than four or five hundred miles; and we had great hopes,
by this means, to run clear of the ice; thinking that the easterly
gales, which had prevailed for a long time, would have driven it
to the westward. With the wind about two points free, the yards
braced in a little, and two close-reefed topsails and a reefed
foresail on the ship, we made great way toward the southward and,
almost every watch, when we came on deck, the air seemed to grow
colder, and the sea to run higher. Still, we saw no ice, and had
great hopes of going clear of it altogether, when, one afternoon,
about three o'clock, while we were taking a siesta during our
watch below, "All hands!" was called in a loud and fearful voice.
"Tumble up here, men! - tumble up! - don't stop for your clothes -
before we're upon it!" We sprang out of our berths and hurried
upon deck.
The loud, sharp voice of the captain was heard giving orders,
as though for life or death, and we ran aft to the braces,
not waiting to look ahead, for not a moment was to be lost.
The helm was hard up, the after yards shaking, and the ship
in the act of wearing.
Slowly, with stiff ropes and iced rigging, we swung the yards round,
everything coming hard, and with a creaking and rending sound, like
pulling up a plank which had been frozen into the ice.
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