CHAPTER III.

"With such delayWell pleased they slack their course, and many a leagueCheer'd with the grateful smell old ocean smiles."

The last expression is peculiarly significant. Here was indeed the many-millioned smile of ocean. It seemed impossible that this amiable monster should be the same we had so lately seen swelling with rage, and threatening our instant destruction. But the naked ocean, even when in good humour, is after all a tiresome companion. I had formed my ideas of a sea-voyage almost entirely from Irving's description of his voyage to Europe. I remembered reading, in my younger days, of the many hours of delightful revery in which he had indulged, and of the amusements he derived from watching the unwieldly monsters of the deep in their uncouth gambols. It seemed to my boyish fancy as if the shark, the whale, the porpoise and the dolphin, and perhaps, even the veritable sea-serpent himself, had come at his bidding, as the beasts came to Adam in Paradise. But either these noble personages are less accommodating since his time, or are unwilling to pay their respects to any less distinguished visitors. Their privacy has been so often invaded by troops of cockney tourists, that it has now become almost impossible to obtain an introduction.

But if these dwellers beneath the surface, these aborigines of the ocean, indigenous, if we may so say, to the soil, failed to gratify our curiosity, or to answer our extravagant expectations, this was far from being the case with the comparatively alien but dominant race of man's introduction. A ship at sea is as different from the same ship lying at a wharf, as the lion of the desert from the cringing brute of a menagerie; I no longer wondered that such should seem to the ignorant savage, beholding them for the first time, living and intelligent creatures, tamed and subjected to the service of a superior race of beings, nor did the ancient fable of their transformation into sea-nymphs seem altogether incredible.

We spoke several ships at this time, bound in different directions. Such an event never failed to produce the most intense excitement, and a feverish anxiety to know the name of the vessel, where she was from, and whither she was bound. To compare great things with small, it was as if two worlds should cross each other's path in the heavens, and should "heave to" a moment in their breathless career to hold brief converse on their state and destiny. It would be an interesting question what matters should be introduced at so august a meeting; though it were much to be feared, that in their anxiety to touch upon none but the most important, the precious, irrecoverable moment would be altogether lost.

In the present instance, however, the question and answer are both ready beforehand; and even the order of precedence is determined by some freemasonary of the high seas, the mystery of which I did not unravel. A few moments are commonly sufficient for the purpose; the captain, who has the first words, pours through his trumpet a hoarse bellow that would be quite unintelligible if its purport were not already known,—the other courteously replies,—the flags are run up and down, to take the place of that head andhand shaking that attends the meeting of two magnates on land, and away go the obedient vessels, to meet, perhaps, no more during their whole career.

When three weeks out, we spoke an English ship from Madras, which thus became exalted, in our imaginations, to a place of vast importance. She sent her boat to obtain a supply of fuel; and we regarded the crew with almost as much interest as if they had belonged to a different planet. Charley Bainbridge, who was always on the look-out for such opportunities, slid down into the boat, and presently returned with some article he had found in her bottom, mysteriously guarded in his breeches pocket. On being pressed to exhibit his treasure, he steadily refused till after the boat had gone; when he drew forth a pebble, which he said came from Madras, and being obtained in that odd way, would make a very handsome addition to his cabinet.

A yet more lively interest was awakened by our meeting, soon after, a ship bound from Calcutta to Boston. She had been in sight all the afternoon, and, in compliance with our invitation to speak, altered her course sufficiently to come up with us just after dusk. A lantern was suspended at our poop, and guided by its light, which seemed quite absorbed by the immense darkness, she came cautiously feeling her way along, till, suddenly shooting into our little illuminated horizon, she hove to and waited to know our pleasure. All the while our ship was silent as the grave, but more than a hundred pair of eyes were peeping through the blanket of the night, as if, though the frailest and softest things, they would really tear it into shreds. We had no sooner, however, learned the destination of the stranger than our decks swarmed with sudden life. As a delay of even a few minutes is regarded as a serious inconvenience, especially by your fast-sailing Indiaman, there was little time to prepare our letters, but most on board, in expectation of such an opportunity, had everything in readiness; and the boat was hardlylowered before the mail-bag was thrown into it. When our visitor had filled her sails, and her tall shadow had merged in the surrounding blackness, a feeling of loneliness settled down upon us, that we had not known since leaving home. In a few weeks she would be in Boston; while, at the same time, we should be off the stormy Cape. It seemed like severing the last tie that bound us to home; as if we had now really begun to slide down the backside of the world, without any possibility of ever climbing up again.

We had now become somewhat accustomed to the dull routine of a long voyage. Sunrise, commonly flat and insipid, even on land, had here the superadded monotony of life at sea. The sun came bouncing out of bed, without a rag of a cloud about him, as if in a great hurry to find out whether we were just where he left us the night before. Soon after we began, one by one, to drop down from our berths; and having drawn on our pantaloons, we shuffled along, towel and wash-bowl in hand, to the waist of the ship, where we were used to perform our ablutions. A fireman's bucket attached to a stout rope had been considerately provided for the use of one hundred passengers; or, to speak more accurately, for the use of the cooks, the passengers having the benefit of it only by sufferance of those sooty dignities.

In warm weather, and quiet seas, drawing water was no great hardship; but when the seas and the latitudes both ran high, and the ship was rolling and pitching at such a rate that it was no easy matter to stand upright,—I could not help thinking that the old nursery ballad

What! cry to be washed?Not love to be clean?

was not after all quite so orthodox in its irony as I had supposed.

Leaning over the bulwarks, with feet well braced against the slippery deck, his hair in his eyes, and the crook of hiselbow nervously hooking the rigging, the unlucky ablutor picks up the "superior accommodation," and throws it over the gunwale into the sea. This is a simple and facile operation; there is no need of plumping the bucket up and down in order to fill it, the swift current has already done that for you, and has at once drawn out the whole length of the rope, while the bucket, with open mouth, seems ready to burst, like the frog in the fable, in the vain attempt to swallow the whole ocean. But to regain possession, or as Dan Carpenter, one of our Vermonters, had it, "revocare bucketum, hoc labor, hoc opus est."

This important duty being at length accomplished, we proceeded, in fine weather, to promenade the deck till breakfast. The forenoon was occupied in a great variety of ways. Some disinterested and inquiring individuals kept a constant look-out for sails, sharks, and whales, in order to gratify the universal craving for novelty and excitement. These were the newsmongers and express agents of our little community. A shark could not show his dorsal fin within a cable's length of the ship,—a whale could not wag his tail or blow his nose within five miles,—and a sail could not steal into the wide horizon of the masthead, without being at once detected by half a dozen curious eyes, and straightway reported to all below. Various groups on deck were occupied in reading, talking, and smoking, or in games of chance or skill. A few bolder spirits had even the hardihood to attempt "Spanish without a Master," but they got no farther than the story of the three travellers, and the ominous moral, "Desgraciado el que aspira a riquezas,"—miserable is he who aspires after riches.

The party to which I belonged consisted originally of but three members. Captain Bill was a short, broad-faced, blue-eyed Saxon, who no sooner felt his sea-legs, as the sailors said, well under him, than he began to discover an aptitude for naval tactics that might almost be called genius. Instead of spending his time in those light and trifling pursuits that engrossed the attention of those about him, he applied himself with unwearied assiduity to the acquisition of that knowledge that is usually so distasteful to a landsman; and had constantly in his mouth some such horrid and uncouth phrases as, "How's she head?" "Keep her off half a point," "Haul in your jib-sheets," and others equally portentous. He at length acquired such a facility in this sort of exercise that he came to be regarded as a very high authority in such matters, and hence received from his companions the honorary title of Captain, which his subsequent fortune strangely confirmed. One of the sailors whom I met by chance in the maintop, assured me that he, Captain Bill, knew almost as much as the Captain himself; and that it was a great pity he had not been sent to sea when he was a boy, as there was no knowing what might have happened. I assented to all he said, but took care to say nothing about it to my companion, for fear of inflaming his malady; as his conversation, even then, was almost wholly made up of the phrases above mentioned, and it was well nigh impossible to obtain from him an answer such as a landsman could understand. As Captain Bill, in spiteof this little infirmity, was a very clever fellow, and was reputed to have a great deal of what is commonly called luck, I felicitated myself, not a little, on having him for a partner, as I thought I must surely share in his good fortune.

A younger brother of the author, who having like Captain Bill lost his proper title, was distinguished by the name of Tertium Quid, or simply Tertium, and a big bull-dog called Zachary Taylor, completed our little party.

The most conspicuous person in the ship was Charley Bainbridge; who, without being acknowledged as such, was generally regarded as the representative head of the Vermonters. He was the spoilt child of his parents, just beginning, curiously, to dabble in the great mudpuddle of the world. Laughing blue eyes, hair brown and curling, a frank, good-humoured expression, and a fine manly figure, had stamped him plainly as one of that happy or unhappy class who never do anything for themselves, but are always sure to find others ready to do for them. He, as well as his companions, were declared decidedly green, at the outset of our voyage, by some who had seen a little more of the world; but, as the same uncomfortable wisdom had pronounced a similar judgment upon the author, the reader will readily perceive how much it was worth. Our hero left home with an abundant allowance, but this being exhausted by the time we arrived at San Francisco, he was obliged to borrow money in order to reach the mines. The air of the Yuba, whither he first directed his steps, did not agree with his health, and we next heard of him in the southern mines, where, being still unsuccessful, he borrowed money for the fourth time, and returning to Sacramento went into the business of cleaning tripe on a very enlarged scale, that plainly declared him intended only for grand and arduous undertakings. He would undoubtedly have succeeded in this new enterprise but for one of those unlucky accidents that sometimes befall the wisest, and would certainly never have entered into the calculations of Napoleonhimself. He was one day backing his cart, filled with the precious commodity, too near the bank of the river, which here falls some thirty feet at a very dangerous angle, when the wheels suddenly passing beyond the brink, the tripe, the cart, and the horse went rolling over each other down the declivity into the river. He stood awhile in amaze, such an illustration of the laws of gravity having probably never been heard of in the halls of old Harvard; but, finding that there was no hope of an immediate resurrection, he cast one longing, lingering look behind, and going at once on board the boat bid a final farewell to the country that had used him so ungratefully. I was the more interested in the adventures of this hero, as I thought they discovered a temper, like my own, too noble for what weaker and more grovelling minds call success.

Dan Carpenter belonged to the same party. He was oftener called "Old Herculaneum," from an admirable misapprehension of the sense of that word, which he was wont to use, in connection with grasp, as synonomous with Herculean. He had studied a little law, and was the best man at checkers in the ship. His conversation was rather homely than brilliant, but he sometimes blundered into what were considered at sea very tolerable jests.

A man of a very different stamp was Thomas Busby, our Manhattan merchant. He was an admirable representative of his class, and prouder of the distinction than if he had written "The Reveries of a Bachelor." He thought a Broadway merchant the greatest man in the world, and himself the greatest merchant in Broadway. He was the most respectable man I ever saw,—the valet, I forget his name, in David Copperfield, was nothing to him,—and this was the more remarkable, since his figure was too slight to act the character to advantage. His manner was everything; though really below the medium height, he had the art ascribed to Louis XIV. of impressing the beholder with a painful idea of hismajestic proportions. Methinks I see him now; his slight but jaunty figure cased in the finest of broadcloth, his head thrown back, his chest expanded, as if about to toss a roll of cloth on to a counter; and then his voice! it seemed impossible it should proceed from anything less than a giant,—indeed I never believed it rightfully belonged to him, but was one he had stolen from some thick-witted Goliah, with whom he had left his own piping notes in exchange.

His most amusing idiosyncrasy, however, was his contempt for college learning; it amounted to a positive mania. "When any one," said he, "applied for a situation at our store, (he was fond of telling how many clerks he employed at once,) I always asked him if he had been to college; and, if he had, that was enough—I had nothing more to do with him." In spite however of this antipathy, he had once studied a little Latin, and adroitly contrived to be vain of this distinction, and, at the same time, of having forgotten all he had learned.

The little spice of the ridiculous thus mingled in his composition only made Busby the more agreeable as a companion; as it is impossible to feel an affection, I had almost said respect, for one at whom we cannot sometimes laugh.

Then there was ——, that Will-o'-the-wisp, that strange compound of opposite and seemingly, contradictory qualities, the unwinking, almost ubiquitous celerity of the lizard, and more than elephantine clumsiness. He needed to tie up his wits, as Lightfoot in the story tied up his legs that he might run slow enough to catch the deer. He walked with a pair of seven-league boots, and stept beyond the mark continually.

At table, he was the victim of more unlucky accidents than all the rest of the ship's company. He upset his soup into his lap. He ran his fork through his cheek. He stept into the slop-pail. He trod on his own toes. He tript himself up. If it had been possible, he would have run between his own legs. He was always sure to spit on his own boot, or on another's.He emptied his wash-bowl on the Captain's head. Off Cape Horn he fell overboard, and only saved himself by catching his leg in a rope that lamed him for a week. As he said, nobody else could have possibly done it; but nobody else would have fallen.

Nearly two months after leaving home we entered the harbour of Rio; or, to borrow the spirited lines of Madame W. our poetess,—we were so fortunate as to possess the species, both male and female,—

"We crossed the line in cheerful glee,And anchored safe in Rio Janee."

We were nearly out of sight of the city; but its scattering suburbs lay all around in the laps of the mountains, the white walls of the houses contrasting finely with the deep green of the back ground. The nearest mountain peaks stood with their naked feet in the very bottom of the bay, presenting, on the water side, a smooth, and, in many places, almost perpendicular wall, and enclosing between them long winding coves, stretching away almost out of sight.

We were obliged to remain on board all the next morning, until the officers had made their customary visit, but having endured this formality with what patience we could, and eaten a dinner of "fresh," as it is called at sea, we went ashore in a boat manned by four slaves entirely naked. We landed near the emperor's palace; and having no particular object in view, strolled through the streets as chance directed. Partly from thoughtlessness, and partly to obtain a better view of the buildings, we walked carelessly along, in the middle of the street, staring about us like a parcel of backcountrymen just landed in the city of New York; at least so said the respectableBusby, who never, in any case, forgot his propriety, and even now, though nobody about him talked with an English tongue, or saw with English eyes, conducted himself precisely as if he had been in his favourite Broadway.

But we were too much engrossed with the strange objects about us, to waste a thought on our own appearance. It was as if we had gone back to the days of childhood, and recovered, for a season, that delicious sense of novelty that gave those days their peculiar charm. We resembled a piece of sponge, from which the last drop had been squeezed, suddenly plunged into a vessel of water. Every sense, every pore, seemed made the highway for a whole host of new ideas. We read volumes at a glance, sucked up knowledge at every breath, and found sermons in the very stones of the streets. Slaves were crossing the great square in every direction, carrying on their heads tall jars of water, baskets of clothes to be washed at the fountain, and large trays full of fruit and flowers. They moved with a peculiar erect and springing gait, balancing their awkward burdens with such dexterity as made them seem rather a natural excrescence than anything they could lay aside at pleasure. Others were basking in the sun, in the very middle of the street, like so many bundles of old clothes.

When they were wanted for any purpose, and failed to arouse themselves at the first signal, the impatient master would run upon them, and, after an enlivening series of hearty kicks and thumps, hale them along to their work like a refractory or worn-out horse; and indeed they performed most of that work assigned to horses in more humane countries. Every thing whose weight permitted they carried on their heads or backs, and these burdens were often so heavy, that two or three men were required to raise them. In other cases they made use of a rude cart, with two low wheels, which was pushed and pulled along by a dozen slaves. One usually took his station at each wheel, and tugged, apparentlyvery hard, at the spokes. But all were evidently skillful adepts at the art of sogering; and a single horse, with a properly constructed cart, would have drawn three times their ordinary load.

As we were walking through a narrow street, about thirty slaves came suddenly upon us, round a corner, moving at a slow trot, carrying on their backs bales of sheeting, and keeping time to their step by a loud, monotonous chant. They threw down their loads at a door we were passing, and, stopping their music, one by one, hurried away like the genii of the Arabian tales, who, having performed their master's bidding, disappeared as mysteriously as they came.

The buildings of Rio are generally heavy and substantial, with little exterior decoration. Their churches resemble, in this respect, the shell of an oyster, rough and rude without, but of a metallic brilliancy within. It was a festival of some sort at the close of Lent, and the churches were all open, though we saw but few worshippers. Little boys were dragging effigies of Judas about the streets, and beating them with sticks, with the most edifying zeal and devotion.

Having somewhat satiated our curiosity, we returned to the Hotel Pharoux, to take a supplemental dinner. This was a French café in spite of its Egyptian title; the cooking was excellent, and the idea of being served by veritable Parlezvous highly gratifying, at least to the provincials of our party, who had very likely never seen one of those animals before.

"Here, garsong" cried Charley Bainbridge, with an air, "donny moy some pully à potage, and some pang à boottre."

"Oui, monsieur" replied the ready Frenchman, who had acquired by long practice a marvellous facility in interpreting thepatoisof his guests; but as the reader may be less successful, I would explain that the mysterious substantives above, signified chicken and potatoes, bread and butter.

Charley's example was, as usual, contagious, and presently there arose a Babel of English, interspersed with such mongrelFrench and Spanish as might have taxed the triple throat of Cerberus himself. Captain Bill, whose whole stock in foreign languages, if we exclude that in which we have already shown his proficiency, consisted of three words,si,monsieur, andmademoiselle, traded upon this slender capital with unequalled success. "Si monsieur," or "si mademoiselle" he constantly repeated, whenever any of the waiters approached the table, sometimes interrogatively, sometimes affirmatively, and sometimes suggestively, but always with a bland smile, expressive of the highest self-satisfaction and contentment.

Our dinner consisted ofbifstek, potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee, all of the finest quality—but we were somewhat alarmed, when our bill was presented, at sight of a long row of figures swelling up to a total of several thousands. A few words, however, soon removed our apprehensions; the thousands were nothing but reys, twenty of which make one cent. The milrey, or thousand reys, is a silver coin equivalent to our half dollar. They have also a copper coin about equal in value to two cents, of a very clumsy form, and appropriately called a dump.

The Hotel Pharoux was our favourite lounge while we remained on shore. It was constantly thronged with a motley crowd of Californians, man-of-war's men, and others of various nations, presenting altogether a scene of the most lively and amusing description. We now began, for the first time, to feel the suck and swing of that mighty maelstrom into which we had ventured. Sixty ships had been at Rio before us—and, while we were there, the number of Californians in port was over a thousand. We naturally regarded all these as, in some sort, our rivals, and the excitement of competition was thus aggravated a hundred-fold. It was impossible to get rid of the absurd notion, that the whole country would be appropriated before we had set foot in it, and that we should thus be in the awkward predicament of a dilatory guest, whoarrives only in time to be tantalized by sight of the fragments of the feast.

The next day was Sunday. It was ushered in by the chiming of bells, bursts of martial music, and the thunder of cannon. Going early on shore, we found all the shops open as usual, and nothing to distinguish the day but the increased display in the churches. Hearing that the Emperor was to be present in the cathedral attached to his palace, and fronting the great square, we went at an early hour for the purpose of seeing his Majesty. After we had stood several hours, he came in at a private entrance, attended by the Empress, and took his seat on an elevated platform that afforded us a fine view of his person. He was tall and finely formed, dressed in military uniform, and was, altogether, just such a figure as one would naturally expect in an Emperor.

The cathedral shone like a great jewel box, with gold and silver; a numerous and enthusiastic band played martial airs with all their might and main; and the Emperor, and the priests, and the dignitaries of the Empire, and the foreign ambassadors, standing meekly and foolishly in a row, like a class of school boys—and all the congregation, save and except some unterrified Californian, and the saints that stood in gold-and-silvery dignity around the sides of the cathedral, kept kneeling down and getting up again in the most unexpected manner.

After some time spent in this way, an ecclesiastic, richly dressed, climbed up into a sort of martin-house that stood on one side; and poking his head and shoulders out at the top, somewhat in the manner of those ingenious bouncing toys with which children are so deliciously frightened, he began to shout down to us below like a sweep on top of a chimney. But no one regarded him, though he doubtless talked very wisely, and in Latin, too; and, in fifteen minutes, he came down again, very warm and red in the face, and again the band struck up their music.

The long service being at length over, the Emperor left the cathedral, and passed through the whole length of his palace to the principal entrance, where a carriage was in readiness to convey him to his country-seat. Having handed his empress into the carriage as politely as if he had been only a private individual, he took his seat beside her; the door was closed, and the six horses instantly set off at full gallop, diagonally across the square, to the imminent danger of his loyal subjects, who had much ado to get out of the royal road. The whole scene reminded me very pleasantly of a picture I had often studied, with great interest, in somebody's geography, representing a nobleman—in Austria, I think—riding over a cripple, who held up his wooden leg bayonetwise against the frightened horses. When the emperor has thus swept away like a whirlwind, and his escort had gone galloping after him on diminutive horses, his suit also got into carriages, and followed, more soberly, in the same direction.

We spent Monday and Tuesday in wandering about the city, and in purchasing a few luxuries for use at sea. Wednesday morning, I went, with a small party, in one of the ship's boats, several miles up into one of the arms of the bay, for the purpose of buying oranges. Leaving the boat anchored a short distance from the beach, we struck into a narrow lane or footpath leading up into the country, and shut in, on both sides, by the queerest and most eccentric forest I had ever seen. Every tree, shrub, and flower was a most decided humourist, and had its own way of growing, entirely different from its neighbours. Instead of harmonizing with each other, like the twin quakers of a Northern forest, each one seemed trying to be as odd and outre as possible.

There were beauties there of every description, but they needed a cunning hand to sort and arrange them. The effect, though almost bewildering by its brilliancy, was not,in the end, agreeable to my plain republican notions. The eye is wearied by so much slovenly magnificence, such wasted prodigality, and ostentatious vanity; and would gladly turn to "the sober realm of leafless trees," even of our own November.

Walking a mile over the deep, fine sand, we came to the plantation to which we had been directed. The house, which was small and light, like a huge bird-cage of bamboo, stood in the midst of an orange orchard, where the fruit was hanging on the trees in the greatest profusion. The price demanded was twenty-five cents a hundred; we were to gather the oranges ourselves, and wherever we pleased, with the exception of half a dozen trees, the fruit of which, being of a higher flavour, was reserved by the owner for his own use. It was a very pleasant novelty—this picking oranges as though they had been apples—tasting one, here and there, and throwing it magnanimously away, if it were not quite first-rate; but we had little leisure for such pastimes. We selected the sweetest trees, and stopping only to pick the thickest of the fruit, we had collected by noon more than five thousand oranges, which we thought as many as our boat would hold.

After eating the dinner we had brought from the ship, we strolled off to a neighbouring plantation, where we found a similar bird-cage perched on a slight elevation, and its owner, a little, squat, bandy-legged Frenchman, engaged in drying coffee on mats spread before the door. He received us with the greatest cordiality; and after his heart was a little warmed by the wine he had compelled us to drink with him, he began to give us some account of his former history; and at length informed us that he had served in the armies of the great Emperor. Stripping up his sleeve, with characteristic vivacity, he exhibited the wounds he had received in his service, with as much pride and enthusiasm as if they had been the cross of the Legion of Honour. It seemedstrangely incongruous to find one who had played a part, even though the humblest, in that stirring drama, mouldering away, like a forgotten firebrand, in this woody solitude, long after the fierce flame of battle had gone out on the field of Waterloo.

We were employed the whole afternoon in conveying our booty to the boat. After working hard all the morning, we found little romance in carrying one or two hundred oranges, in bags, on our heads, over the hot yielding sand; and there was a general exclamation of satisfaction when the last load came heavily down to the beach. We reached the ship long after sundown, and bid a final farewell to Rio the next morning.

My quiet room-mate went with us no farther. He was disheartened by the length of the voyage, and perhaps thought Brazil presented quite as many advantages as California. His place was filled by a young, red-haired Scotchman, who had formerly lived in Edinburgh, and sat on the knee of Sir Walter. He had been on one or two whaling voyages, and had evidently seen the world. He played on the guitar—sang a variety of songs, some of which were of a very doubtful character—was an expert boxer—had something of a turn for poetry and light literature—and, in spite of his unsettled, wandering life, still possessed, to an unusual degree, that sort of native refinement that makes one tender of the feelings and weaknesses of others. He seemed, however, to value these various accomplishments only as passports to the favour of the other sex. His successes in that line had been very numerous, according to his own showing, and had confirmed him in the belief that there was no such thing as virtue in the world.

On leaving port, we plunged at once into the region of storms. The tropic of Capricorn seemed an actual wall of separation, dividing two distinct climates as smoothly and evenly as it does the zones upon the map. On one side, all was bright and serene; on the other, cloudy and tempestuous. Off the mouth of the La Platte, the mariner is sureto encounter heavy seas, as if there floated down that magnificent river, from its mountain birthplace, nothing but miniature Andes to encumber the smooth surface of the deep. Day after day we climbed up and down these hills, as slowly and painfully as a man walking over a ploughed field. We gained, seemingly, not a foot; and I sometimes thought we were to remain there forever seesawing the same dull wave. Every morning we found ourselves apparently just where we were the night before; the same ill-looking wave on our quarter, the same dirty cloud over head. Drive as hard as we could, there was no getting away from them; they still, like the headless horseman, preserved the same relative position.

But the ocean was no longer a solitude; the space around the ship resembled rather an immense barnyard thronged with a greater variety of poultry than is often seen, even in the enclosures of the most successful fancier. There were little bevies of Mother Cary's Chickens—flocks of Cape pigeons, gonies, hagletts, and mollymocks; and, largest and noblest of all, the solitary albatross. They followed us for miles, floating on the water till almost out of sight, then regaining their position by a hasty flight. We fished for them with great success, using for bait a bit of pork attached to a stout hook, which, being suffered to float on a piece of board, far behind the ship, was eagerly swallowed by these greedy scavengers.

The largest albatross measured nearly twelve feet across his wings, though his body was no larger than a goose. Their powers of flight are unrivalled. I used to watch them for hours together, circling with prying eyes round the ship, now rising, now falling, now coming up heavily against the wind, then suddenly shooting away before it, like a kite that has broken its string; and all, apparently, without any more exertion than is visible in the flight of a thistle down, their "sail broad vans" remaining constantly motionless, with the exception,now and then, of a single, almost imperceptible flap, as they varied their course to one side or the other.

When drawn on board, and placed upon the deck, the albatross lost at once all this poetry of motion, and became an awkward, ungainly bird, unable to rise into the air, and in constant danger of tumbling forward on to its ugly nose. I was rather disappointed by the indifference of our sailors on this interesting subject. They viewed the death of their patron bird with as little concern as if it had been a turkey; they had no superstitious fears about ill-luck thence arising; and, indeed, I am sorry to say, were as little given to superstition of any kind as the stoutest enlightener of the masses could desire.

Some of the smaller birds were also killed for food; but their feathers were so disproportioned to the flesh, that they were not worth the trouble of picking. A far more abundant and grateful repast was furnished by a porpoise, that was harpooned as he frolicked past the bows. No sooner was the approach of these playful creatures discovered, than the inspiriting cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," was echoed through the ship, and all hands were instantly on the alert. They generally made their first appearance on our quarter; and speedily overtaking us, rolled, in broken files, and with many an awkward bound and splash, directly under the bowsprit. A harpoon was always kept in readiness for such an emergency, and the second mate, who was an old hand at the business, taking his station on the martingal, waited a favourable opportunity to hurl his weapon into the back of one of the plunging monsters. This was the first time he had succeeded, and now twenty or thirty of the passengers, bowsing away on the rope to the tune of Uncle Ned, soon landed our game on deck. He weighed several hundred pounds, and the flesh, which was remarkably sweet, closely resembling beef, furnished an excellent dinner for all on board.

The sight of a strange sail in these lonely seas aroused ourmost eager speculation. She was bound in the same direction as ourselves, and we had no difficulty in conjecturing that she was seeking the same golden gate. She proved to be the ship Sweden; had left port three weeks after us, and partly by not stopping at any port, and partly by her superior sailing, had gained so decided an advantage. We raced with her two days in succession, but, as the wind freshened, she slowly crept ahead, and our captain gave orders to put on more sail. The Sweden followed our example, and both vessels, crowded with all the canvass they could bear, staggered, like a drunken man with a barrel of whisky on his shoulders, heavily, along their uneven path, showing many feet of their bright and dripping copper at every spring. Suddenly the Sweden carried away her foresail, and we began to recover the ground we had lost. But it was set again with provoking rapidity, and, ere long, we were compelled to abandon the contest. Before parting company, however, we endeavoured to find out if her commander intended to go through the Straits of Magellan, as there was a great diversity of opinion on board our ship as to the expediency of attempting the passage. A board was put up in the rigging with the question printed on it in large letters; but though, as we afterwards learned, they saw the board, they could not make out the inscription, and our captain, in his perplexity, finally referred the matter to the passengers. The majority, knowing nothing of the difficulties of the undertaking, and naturally desirous to shorten the voyage as much as possible, were in favour of going through the Straits; but we were fortunately prevented from making the trial by adverse winds that drove us wide of the mark, and compelled us to take the longer, but far safer passage round the Horn.

About the middle of May we arrived off the coast of Patagonia, and soon after made Staten Island. In these inhospitable latitudes, we found the serenest weather since leaving Rio; the sea, though heaving in lazy swells, wasalmost as smooth as a looking-glass. It was evident that our coming was unexpected, and that the fierce brood of storms that infest that region had left home on some distant marauding expedition. We were so near the coast that we could easily distinguish the helmets of glittering snow worn by the hills drawn up in solid phalanx near the shore; but we were unable to catch a glimpse of that race of giants that had so imposed upon our childish fancy.

Passing Terra del Fuego, and the little island of Cape Horn, at too great a distance to obtain a view of those famous headlands, we held steadily on our course into still higher latitudes; till, having gained a sufficient elevation to avoid all danger of being blown back into the Atlantic, the ship's head was, at last, turned towards the west; and on the morning of the twenty-second of May we waked up in the Pacific, with something of the feeling of those early navigators when they first burst through into this unknown sea.

The sun off Cape Horn is a very sleepy fellow, with none of that inconvenient propensity to early rising that elsewhere interferes so much with our arrangements; he rose about eight, attained a meridian altitude of some twelve degrees, and retired at four. The weather was now cold and squally. Spirts of rain or sleet, or what was still worse, the tops of the waves driven in upon us by the winds, made it almost as hard to remain upon deck as if it had been swept by the fire of a battery. The ship seemed almost entirely deserted; a few of the more resolute sort, their heads drawn into their shoulders, purple with cold, and half blinded by the spray, still clung to the rigging, and stared stupidly, with puckered mouth and eyebrows, out into the immeasurable gloom. The rest had retired, like bats and owls, or a somnolescent bear, into the most out-of-the-way places they could find; and it was about as safe and agreeable an operation to disturb one of them as to stir up the abstracted, meditative gentleman last mentioned from his hollow tree.

Slinking away to my berth, I wrapped myself in great-coats and blankets, and strove, by the aid of a feeble lantern and an entertaining book, to conjure up more pleasing associations; but the result was a wretched failure. My narrow stateroom, six feet by four, contained, within its dark green walls, as much that was gloomy and repulsive as the wet, slippery deck, and melancholy ocean—everything had the feeling of a "cold, damp, uncomfortable body."

Cooking, in such weather, was well nigh impossible, but fortunately we had no appetite. We were put on an allowance of water, three quarts a day; but then we could not have drunk half of it if we had tried. Everybody, however, was out of sorts; and the dismal weather, the wretched fare, and the unjustifiable length of the voyage, afforded sufficient matter, if not cause, for grumbling. In such a state of mind it is anything but agreeable to be left behind by more successful rivals. A handsome, gaily-painted ship came up with us one of these days, and the usual question was propounded, how long she had been out. "Sixty-one days," was the ready and self-satisfied answer; "how long have you?" "One hundred and four," very slowly and reluctantly. We heard the passengers on the Loo Choo repeat the number with jeering triumph, as she forged ahead, flinging up her heels, and showing her bright yellow bottom in a very insulting manner. I hurled after them a wish not of the most amiable character, and looked to see them go down together; but they held on their course, rejoicing in the successful flam they had put upon us. The first question we asked, on arriving at San Francisco, was about the ships we had spoken on the way; and it gave us no little gratification to learn that the Loo Choo had not yet come into port. At the time of our meeting, she had really been out eighty-one days, and her whole passage was even longer than our own.

We then knew nothing of all this, however, and it would be hard to find a more discontented, distracted set of beingsthan was on board the Leucothea after the Loo Choo was fairly out of sight. A merry party got together round the windlass for the express purpose of cursing the ship and all concerned in her, the day in which they ever heard there was such a place as N——, and themselves, most of all, for having taken passage in what their prompter called such a lubberly, blubber-hunting craft. They were unfortunately interrupted, however, in their well meant design, by the cheerful cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," and hurrying to the bows, we soon had one of these delicate monsters floundering on deck, which, like a lump of sugar to a peevish child, put us all, for a time, in good humor.

Early the next morning, before it was light enough to see the ship's length, a fierce and sudden cry of "put the helm hard down, lower the boat," pierced every part of the ship, falling on the ears of the sleeping passengers like their funeral knell. "What's the matter? is the ship sinking?" cried at once a hundred voices, and a hundred hearts stood still for the answer. The next moment, "a man overboard" explained the alarm, and converted the lively apprehensions for our own safety into a comparatively inert sympathy for another. The waves were running mountains high, and the boats were all firmly lashed in their places, so that lowering one was both difficult and dangerous, yet ten minutes found the man safe in the ship, though so thoroughly exhausted by the intense cold as to be unable to stand alone. His escape was almost miraculous; he was stationed just beneath the bowsprit, trying to harpoon a porpoise, when the ship plunging heavily, he was swept off by the waves. As he passed along the side, he uttered the cry that had produced such an excitement, and was thus the first to announce his own danger. He afterwards contrived to kick off his boots, and being an excellent swimmer, kept his head above water till the boat, pulling directly in the wake of the ship, came to his relief.

The night came on unusually cold and blustering. I wassitting with Tertium and Captain Bill, in their stateroom, when a faint smell of fire attracted our attention. As it grew stronger, we became greatly alarmed, as indeed we well might, for nothing can appear more hideous to the imagination, than a ship loaded with passengers, on fire of a dark, stormy, wintry night off Cape Horn. Captain Bill now hastily descended into the cabin and roused the captain, who was already asleep, and became almost palsied with fright on hearing the dreadful tidings.

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