One Night,
After One Of These Shifts Of The Wind, And When All Hands Had Been
Up A Great Part
Of the time, our watch was left on deck, with the
mainsail hanging in the buntlines, ready to be set
If necessary.
It came on to blow worse and worse, with hail and snow beating
like so many furies upon the ship, it being as dark and thick as
night could make it. The mainsail was blowing and slatting with
a noise like thunder, when the captain came on deck, and ordered
it to be furled. The mate was about to call all hands, when the
captain stopped him, and said that the men would be beaten out if
they were called up so often; that as our watch must stay on deck,
it might as well be doing that as anything else.
Accordingly, we went upon the yard; and never shall I forget
that piece of work. Our watch had been so reduced by sickness,
and by some having been left in California, that, with one man
at the wheel, we had only the third mate and three beside myself,
to go aloft; so that at most, we could only attempt to furl one
yard-arm at a time. We manned the weather yard-arm, and set to
work to make a furl of it. Our lower masts being short, and our
yards very square, the sail had a head of nearly fifty feet,
and a short leach, made still shorter by the deep reef which
was in it, which brought the clew away out on the quarters of
the yard, and made a bunt nearly as square as the mizen royal-
yard. Beside this difficulty, the yard over which we lay was
cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot and leach of
the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of suction-hose, and the
sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets
of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate
blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with
bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for if he
slipped, he was a gone man. All the boats were hoisted in on
deck, and there was nothing to be lowered for him. We had need
of every finger God had given us. Several times we got the sail
upon the yard, but it blew away again before we could secure it.
It required men to lie over the yard to pass each turn of the
gaskets, and when they were passed, it was almost impossible to
knot them so that they would hold. Frequently we were obliged to
leave off altogether and take to beating our hands upon the sail,
to keep them from freezing.
After some time, - which seemed forever, - we got the weather side
stowed after a fashion, and went over to leeward for another trial.
This was still worse, for the body of the sail had been blown over
to leeward, and as the yard was a-cock-bill by the lying over of
the vessel, we had to light it all up to windward. When the yard-
arms were furled, the bunt was all adrift again, which made more
work for us. We got all secure at last, but we had been nearly
an hour and a half upon the yard, and it seemed an age. It just
struck five bells when we went up, and eight were struck soon after
we came down. This may seem slow work, but considering the state
of everything, and that we had only five men to a sail with just
half as many square yards of canvas in it as the mainsail of the
Independence, sixty-gun ship, which musters seven hundred men at
her quarters, it is not wonderful that we were no quicker about it.
We were glad enough to get on deck, and still more, to go below.
The oldest sailor in the watch said, as he went down, - "I shall
never forget that main yard; - it beats all my going a fishing.
Fun is fun, but furling one yard-arm of a course, at a time,
off Cape Horn, is no better than man-killing."
During the greater part of the next two days, the wind was pretty
steady from the southward. We had evidently made great progress,
and had good hope of being soon up with the Cape, if we were not
there already. We could put but little confidence in our reckoning,
as there had been no opportunities for an observation, and we had
drifted too much to allow of our dead reckoning being anywhere
near the mark. If it would clear off enough to give a chance for
an observation, or if we could make land, we should know where we
were; and upon these, and the chances of falling in with a sail
from the eastward, we depended almost entirely.
Friday, July 22d. This day we had a steady gale from the southward,
and stood on under close sail, with the yards eased a little by the
weather braces, the clouds lifting a little, and showing signs of
breaking away. In the afternoon, I was below with Mr. H - - -,
the third mate, and two others, filling the bread locker in the
steerage from the casks, when a bright gleam of sunshine broke
out and shone down the companion-way and through the skylight,
lighting up everything below, and sending a warm glow through the
heart of every one. It was a sight we had not seen for weeks, - an
omen, a god-send. Even the roughest and hardest face acknowledged
its influence. Just at that moment we heard a loud shout from all
parts of the deck, and the mate called out down the companion-way to
the captain, who was sitting in the cabin. What he said, we could
not distinguish, but the captain kicked over his chair, and was on
deck at one jump.
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