At Noon, The Thermometer, Which Had Been Repeatedly
Lowered Into The Water, Showed The Temperature To Be Seventy;
Which Was Considerably Above That Of The Air, - As Is Always
The Case In The Centre Of The Stream.
A lad who had been at
work at the royal mast-head, came down upon the deck, and took
a turn round the long-boat; and looking very pale, said he was
so sick that he could stay aloft no longer, but was ashamed to
acknowledge it to the officer.
He went up again, but soon gave
out and came down, and leaned over the rail, "as sick as a lady
passenger."
He had been to sea several years, and had, he said, never been
sick before. He was made so by the irregular, pitching motion
of the vessel, increased by the height to which he had been above
the hull, which is like the fulcrum of the lever. An old sailor,
who was at work on the top-gallant yard, said he felt disagreeably
all the time, and was glad, when his job was done, to get down
into the top, or upon the deck. Another hand was sent to the
royal mast-head, who staid nearly an hour, but gave up. The work
must be done, and the mate sent me. I did very well for some time,
but began at length to feel very unpleasantly, though I had never
been sick since the first two days from Boston, and had been in all
sorts of weather and situations. Still, I kept my place, and did
not come down, until I had got through my work, which was more
than two hours. The ship certainly never acted so badly before.
She was pitched and jerked about in all manner of ways; the sails
seeming to have no steadying power over her. The tapering points
of the masts made various curves and angles against the sky overhead,
and sometimes, in one sweep of an instant, described an arc of more
than forty-five degrees, bringing up with a sudden jerk which made
it necessary to hold on with both hands, and then sweeping off,
in another long, irregular curve. I was not positively sick,
and came down with a look of indifference, yet was not unwilling
to get upon the comparative terra firma of the deck. A few hours
more carried us through, and when we saw the sun go down, upon our
larboard beam, in the direction of the continent of North America,
we had left the bank of dark, stormy clouds astern, in the twilight.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SOUNDINGS - SIGHTS FROM HOME - BOSTON HARBOR - LEAVING THE SHIP
Friday, Sept. 16th. Lat. 38° N., long. 69° 00' W. A fine south-west
wind; every hour carrying us nearer in toward land. All hands on deck
at the dog watch, and nothing talked about, but our getting in; where
we should make the land; whether we should arrive before Sunday;
going to church; how Boston would look; friends; wages paid; - and
the like. Every one was in the best of spirits; and, the voyage
being nearly at an end, the strictness of discipline was relaxed;
for it was not necessary to order in a cross tone, what every one
was ready to do with a will.
The little differences and quarrels which a long voyage breeds
on board a ship, were forgotten, and every one was friendly;
and two men, who had been on the eve of a battle half the voyage,
were laying out a plan together for a cruise on shore. When the
mate came forward, he talked to the men, and said we should be
on George's Bank before to-morrow noon; and joked with the boys,
promising to go and see them, and to take them down to Marblehead
in a coach.
Saturday, 17th. The wind was light all day, which kept us back
somewhat; but a fine breeze springing up at nightfall, we were
running fast in toward the land. At six o'clock we expected to
have the ship hove-to for soundings, as a thick fog, coming up
showed we were near them; but no order was given, and we kept
on our way. Eight o'clock came, and the watch went below,
and, for the whole of the first hour, the ship was tearing on,
with studding-sails out, alow and aloft, and the night as dark
as a pocket. At two bells the captain came on deck, and said a
word to the mate, when the studding sails were hauled into the
tops, or boom-ended, the after yards backed, the deep-sea-lead
carried forward, and everything got ready for sounding. A man
on the spritsail yard with the lead, another on the cathead with
a handful of the line coiled up, another in the fore chains,
another in the waist, and another in the main chains, each with
a quantity of the line coiled away in his hand. "All ready there,
forward?" - "Aye, aye, sir!" - "He-e-e-ave!" - "Watch! ho! watch!"
sings out the man on the spritsail yard, and the heavy lead drops
into the water. "Watch! ho! watch!" bawls the man on the cat-head,
as the last fake of the coil drops from his hand, and "Watch! ho!
watch!" is shouted by each one as the line falls from his hold;
until it comes to the mate, who tends the lead, and has the line
in coils on the quarter-deck. Eighty fathoms, and no bottom! A
depth as great as the height of St. Peter's! The line is snatched
in a block upon the swifter, and three or four men haul it in and
coil it away. The after yards are braced full, the studding-sails
hauled out again, and in a few minutes more the ship had her
whole way upon her. At four bells, backed again, hove the lead,
and - soundings! at sixty fathoms! Hurrah for Yankee land!
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