CHAPTERII.
We sailed from Harbeck’s Stores, New York harbor, on a fair June day, for the Azores, intending to make our first call at Horta, and then to touch at Ponte Delgada, whence we would proceed to Lisbon for orders.
At the last hour I had accepted a passenger in the person of Arthur Gray. He claimed to be an artist, and certainly exhibited evidences of his profession in the portfolio and drawing pads that made part of his luggage. He had with him one of the new Secor launches, propelled by direct explosion against the water astern. It was built with more shear than an ordinary craft of the kind, so that, as he maintained, it would be possible to navigate the ocean in calm weather.
Three days from New York, at Gray’s urgent solicitation, I altered the course of the Caribas. After reaching longitude 40 I steered to the southeast and held that direction until the morning of the fifth day, when we began to sight many derelicts. My guest understood the purport of this quite as well as I did. He knew we were nearing the Sargasso Sea, that great assemblage of seaweed and floating hulks that for centuries has been accumulating in the eternal calm of the mid-Atlantic.
The gazetteers define the geographical limits of the Sargasso Sea as included between 22 degrees and 28 degrees north latitude and 25 degrees and 60 degrees longitude west of Greenwich. In area, therefore, it equalsabout 200,000 square miles, only slightly less than that occupied by the State of Texas. Its position varies somewhat from year to year, navigators maintaining that the floating continent, under the influence of a deflected African current, is brought several hundred miles nearer to the Azores some years than others.
I am not prepared to deny this, though I believe the extent of the change is exaggerated.
Being the navigating officer, as well as captain of the Caribas, I felt considerable responsibility in taking my vessel into this uncharted part of the Atlantic. The official Admiralty chart, as well as that supplied by our Navy Department, indicated open water in all that vast stretch between the Azores and Bermuda. But already large masses of floating sod, composed of matted and interlaced trees and seaweed, were within sight. I remembered the story of the ancient Argonauts, who sailed in the first tramp voyage to Colchis, and who encountered islands that “clapped together with the swell of the tide!” In the Sargasso Sea I found a veritable realization of that statement in the watery lanes that separated islands of seaweed. They were constantly varying in width. I was, naturally, very wary of penetrating any of these narrow sounds, for fear that the adjacent islands might close together and cut off my retreat.
A cast of the lead showed great depth. To anchor was impossible. I admit, however, that the thoughts of abandoned wealth to be found aboard the thousand floating craft of the Sargasso Sea appealed to my cupidity so strongly that, after a day’s deliberation, I made fast to a great, rolling hulk that had once been a full-rigged ship. She was badly water-logged and had listed to an angle of 25 degrees.
The sun rose above the eastern horizon with great splendor on the following morning. The sky was clear and almost golden-hued. I was called on deck by the first mate because of the report from a man at the masthead,who had been sent aloft with a good glass to make a survey of the surrounding ocean. The mate first brought to my attention a wonderful mirage that appeared just above the horizon. I had never before observed a mirage in the eastern sky, and had supposed that it was only possible for the setting sun to produce it. But on this occasion all my experience was swept aside, and we saw plainly in the sky an assemblage of vessels, of all sizes and conditions, each separated by a narrow strip of green sod, so arranged that they might not crash together and destroy each other. The masts were still standing on some, but in most cases these were utterly gone. I cannot describe at this time the thrill of curiosity with which I scrutinized the strange discovery. There was a semblance of order regarding the arrangement of the ships that promptly suggested to my active imagination the presence of a directing human intelligence. But I said nothing to the mate on that subject.
We were joined at the bow by my passenger, Arthur Gray, who was in an almost uncontrollable condition of enthusiasm. He had been talking with the man from the masthead, and added to our information the startling declaration of the lookout that he had descried moving objects in the City of Ships!
If I had been lukewarm before; if I had hesitated regarding the exploration of the mysterious region, my mind was brought to an abrupt and decisive conclusion by this statement. I ran up the rattlings to the masthead and was greatly astonished at what I beheld. About thirty miles to the southeast was clearly to be seen the same congregation of vessels reflected in the sky and already described by the man who had been aloft.
Then and there I resolved to accept the proposition of Arthur Gray to enter his launch and go on a voyage of exploration.
Committing the care of the Caribas to my first mate and taking my quadrant, one of the ship’s chronometersand several days’ provisions, I prepared to enter the launch as soon as it was ready.
A derrick was rigged from the foremast, and the stanch little craft was soon hoisted over the ship’s side with the aid of a steam windlass. Meanwhile, all the oil tanks in the launch had been filled, and, adding a water cask, we were soon ready.
Fully expecting to return within forty-eight hours, I merely gave the first officer general directions regarding the care of the ship. I told him to keep the men employed with the tar bucket and the holy stone. On leaving I saluted the first mate.
The second mate stood at the ladder and touched his cap as I descended. He evidently had a premonition of coming trouble, and was so far guilty of a breach of discipline as to suggest that he be allowed to accompany me upon my hazardous journey. I replied with a frown and a shake of the head.
Without any suggestion from the owner of the launch, I took my seat at the tiller, while Gray looked after the engine. Despite the rigid discipline maintained aboard the Caribas, the entire ship’s company, except those actually engaged in scrubbing the deck, assembled at the bulwarks to watch our departure. I confess that I was rather pleased than annoyed at this.
It touched my vanity, as I suppose it would have awakened that feeling in any man.
We got under headway about 9 o’clock and made for the first broad canal we discovered. While at the masthead I had attempted to follow this channel with my glass, just as I might have traced the sinuous windings of a sluggish stream through a grassy meadow; but I had not been able to outline its course beyond a few miles, because of the height of the brushwood, covered with its parasitic growth of plants. We steamed along gayly under full headway for about an hour, doing about eight miles, I should say, because of our heavy load, andalthough the channel we navigated varied greatly in width at places, it was broad enough at all points to have admitted the Caribas. The average width of the passage was about that of the Grand Canal at Venice, and though its convolutions were more numerous, we had no trouble in following the main channel.
As we penetrated farther and farther into this great mass of floating herbage, I was particularly struck with the strange mental effect produced upon me by the rise and fall of the ocean swell underneath the overlying mass. For the first time in my life I felt a sense of dizziness and seasickness. To the eye it was much the same as if in the midst of a far-reaching prairie one should find the land heaving and sinking in long undulations.