The Ship
Wore Round Fairly, The Yards Were Steadied, And We Stood Off On The
Other Tack, Leaving Behind Us,
Directly under our larboard quarter,
a large ice island, peering out of the mist, and reaching high above
our tops,
While astern; and on either side of the island, large tracts
of field-ice were dimly seen, heaving and rolling in the sea. We were
now safe, and standing to the northward; but, in a few minutes more,
had it not been for the sharp look-out of the watch, we should have
been fairly upon the ice, and left our ship's old bones adrift in
the Southern ocean. After standing to the northward a few hours,
we wore ship, and the wind having hauled, we stood to the southward
and eastward. All night long, a bright lookout was kept from every
part of the deck; and whenever ice was seen on the one bow or the
other, the helm was shifted and the yards braced, and by quick
working of the ship she was kept clear. The accustomed cry of
"Ice ahead!" - "Ice on the lee bow!" - "Another island!" in the
same tones, and with the same orders following them, seemed to
bring us directly back to our old position of the week before.
During our watch on deck, which was from twelve to four, the wind
came out ahead, with a pelting storm of hail and sleet, and we
lay hove-to, under a close-reefed main topsail, the whole watch.
During the next watch it fell calm, with a drenching rain, until
daybreak, when the wind came out to the westward, and the weather
cleared up, and showed us the whole ocean, in the course which we
should have steered, had it not been for the head wind and calm,
completely blocked up with ice. Here then our progress was stopped,
and we wore ship, and once more stood to the northward and eastward;
not for the straits of Magellan, but to make another attempt to
double the Cape, still farther to the eastward; for the captain
was determined to get round if perseverance could do it; and the
third time, he said, never failed.
With a fair wind we soon ran clear of the field-ice, and by noon
had only the stray islands floating far and near upon the ocean.
The sun was out bright, the sea of a deep blue, fringed with the
white foam of the waves which ran high before a strong south-wester;
our solitary ship tore on through the water, as though glad to be
out of her confinement; and the ice islands lay scattered upon the
ocean here and there, of various sizes and shapes, reflecting the
bright rays of the sun, and drifting slowly northward before the
gale. It was a contrast to much that we had lately seen, and a
spectacle not only of beauty, but of life; for it required but
little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which
had broken loose from the "thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,"
and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone,
and some in fleets, to milder climes. No pencil has ever yet
given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. In a picture,
they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea, while their chief
beauty and grandeur, - their slow, stately motion; the whirling
of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and
cracking of their parts, - the picture cannot give. This is the
large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating on
the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little
floating fairy isles of sapphire.
From a north-east course we gradually hauled to the eastward, and
after sailing about two hundred miles, which brought us as near to
the western coast of Terra del Fuego as was safe, and having lost
sight of the ice altogether, - for the third time we put the ship's
head to the southward, to try the passage of the Cape. The weather
continued clear and cold, with a strong gale from the westward,
and we were fast getting up with the latitude of the Cape, with a
prospect of soon being round. One fine afternoon, a man who had
gone into the fore-top to shift the rolling tackles, sung out, at
the top of his voice, and with evident glee, - "Sail ho!" Neither
land nor sail had we seen since leaving San Diego; and any one who
has traversed the length of a whole ocean alone, can imagine what
an excitement such an announcement produced on board. "Sail ho!"
shouted the cook, jumping out of his galley; "Sail ho!" shouted
a man, throwing back the slide of the scuttle, to the watch below,
who were soon out of their berths and on deck; and "Sail ho!"
shouted the captain down the companion-way to the passenger in
the cabin. Besides the pleasure of seeing a ship and human beings
in so desolate a place, it was important for us to speak a vessel,
to learn whether there was ice to the eastward, and to ascertain the
longitude; for we had no chronometer, and had been drifting about
so long that we had nearly lost our reckoning, and opportunities
for lunar observations are not frequent or sure in such a place as
Cape Horn. For these various reasons, the excitement in our little
community was running high, and conjectures were made, and everything
thought of for which the captain would hail, when the man aloft sung
out - "Another sail, large on the weather bow!"
This was a little odd, but so much the better, and did not shake
our faith in their being sails. At length the man in the top
hailed, and said he believed it was land, after all. "Land in
your eye!" said the mate, who was looking through a telescope;
"they are ice islands, if I can see a hole through a ladder;" and a
few moments showed the mate to be right and all our expectations
fled; and instead of what we most wished to see, we had what we
most dreaded, and what we hoped we had seen the last of.
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