CHAPTER XXIV.
INTRODUCTORY TO CAPE HORN.
And now, through drizzling fogs and vapours, and under damp,double-reefed top-sails, our wet-decked frigate drew nearer and nearerto the squally Cape.
Who has not heard of it? Cape Horn, Cape Horn--a _horn_ indeed, thathas tossed many a good ship. Was the descent of Orpheus, Ulysses, orDante into Hell, one whit more hardy and sublime than the firstnavigator's weathering of that terrible Cape?
Turned on her heel by a fierce West Wind, many an outward-bound shiphas been driven across the Southern Ocean to the Cape of GoodHope--_that_ way to seek a passage to the Pacific. And that stormyCape, I doubt not, has sent many a fine craft to the bottom, and toldno tales. At those ends of the earth are no chronicles. What signifythe broken spars and shrouds that, day after day, are driven before theprows of more fortunate vessels? or the tall masts, imbedded inicebergs, that are found floating by? They but hint the old story--ofships that have sailed from their ports, and never more have been heardof.
Impracticable Cape! You may approach it from this direction or that--inany way you please--from the East or from the West; with the windastern, or abeam, or on the quarter; and still Cape Horn is Cape Horn.Cape Horn it is that takes the conceit out of fresh-water sailors, andsteeps in a still salter brine the saltest. Woe betide the tyro; thefool-hardy, Heaven preserve!
Your Mediterranean captain, who with a cargo of oranges has hithertomade merry runs across the Atlantic, without so much as furling at'-gallant-sail, oftentimes, off Cape Horn, receives a lesson which hecarries to the grave; though the grave--as is too often thecase--follows so hard on the lesson that no benefit comes from theexperience.
Other strangers who draw nigh to this Patagonia termination of ourContinent, with their souls full of its shipwrecks anddisasters--top-sails cautiously reefed, and everything guardedlysnug--these strangers at first unexpectedly encountering a tolerablysmooth sea, rashly conclude that the Cape, after all, is but a bugbear;they have been imposed upon by fables, and founderings and sinkingshereabouts are all cock-and-bull stories.
"Out reefs, my hearties; fore and aft set t'-gallant-sails! stand by togive her the fore-top-mast stun'-sail!"
But, Captain Rash, those sails of yours were much safer in thesail-maker's loft. For now, while the heedless craft is bounding overthe billows, a black cloud rises out of the sea; the sun drops downfrom the sky; a horrible mist far and wide spreads over the water.
"Hands by the halyards! Let go! Clew up!"
Too late.
For ere the ropes' ends can be the east off from the pins, the tornadois blowing down to the bottom of their throats. The masts are willows,the sails ribbons, the cordage wool; the whole ship is brewed into theyeast of the gale.
An now, if, when the first green sea breaks over him, Captain Rash isnot swept overboard, he has his hands full be sure. In all probabilityhis three masts have gone by the board, and, ravelled into list, hissails are floating in the air. Or, perhaps, the ship _broaches to_, oris _brought by the lee_. In either ease, Heaven help the sailors, theirwives and their little ones; and heaven help the underwriters.
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thuswith seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the mostcircumspectly. A veteran mariner is never deceived by the treacherousbreezes which sometimes waft him pleasantly toward the latitude of theCape. No sooner does he come within a certain distance ofit--previously fixed in his own mind--than all hands are turned tosetting the ship in storm-trim; and never mind how light the breeze,down come his t'-gallant-yards. He "bends" his strongest storm-sails,and lashes every-thing on deck securely. The ship is then ready for theworst; and if, in reeling round the headland, she receives a broadside,it generally goes well with her. If ill, all hands go to the bottomwith quiet consciences.
Among sea-captains, there are some who seem to regard the genius of theCape as a wilful, capricious jade, that must be courted and coaxed intocomplaisance. First, they come along under easy sails; do not steerboldly for the headland, but tack this way and that--sidling up to it,Now they woo the Jezebel with a t'-gallant-studding-sail; anon, theydeprecate her wrath with double-reefed-topsails. When, at length, herunappeasable fury is fairly aroused, and all round the dismantled shipthe storm howls and howls for days together, they still persevere intheir efforts. First, they try unconditional submission; furling everyrag and _heaving to_: laying like a log, for the tempest to tosswheresoever it pleases.
This failing, they set a _spencer_ or _try-sail_, and shift on theother tack. Equally vain! The gale sings as hoarsely as before. Atlast, the wind comes round fair; they drop the fore-sail; square theyards, and scud before it; their implacable foe chasing them withtornadoes, as if to show her insensibility to the last.
Other ships, without encountering these terrible gales, spend weekafter week endeavouring to turn this boisterous world-corner against acontinual head-wind. Tacking hither and thither, in the language ofsailors they _polish_ the Cape by beating about its edges so long.
Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first navigators whoweathered Cape Born. Previous to this, passages had been made to thePacific by the Straits of Magellan; nor, indeed, at that period, was itknown to a certainty that there was any other route, or that the landnow called Terra del Fuego was an island. A few leagues southward fromTerra del Fuego is a cluster of small islands, the Diegoes; betweenwhich and the former island are the Straits of Le Mair, so called inhonour of their discoverer, who first sailed through them into thePacific. Le Mair and Schouten, in their small, clumsy vessels,encountered a series of tremendous gales, the prelude to the long trainof similar hardships which most of their followers have experienced. Itis a significant fact, that Schouten's vessel, the _Horne_, which gaveits name to the Cape, was almost lost in weathering it.
The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis Drake, who, onRaleigh's Expedition, beholding for the first time, from the Isthmus ofDarien, the "goodlie South Sea," like a true-born Englishman, vowed,please God, to sail an English ship thereon; which the gallant sailordid, to the sore discomfiture of the Spaniards on the coasts of Chiliand Peru.
But perhaps the greatest hardships on record, in making this celebratedpassage, were those experienced by Lord Anson's squadron in 1736. Threeremarkable and most interesting narratives record their disasters andsufferings. The first, jointly written by the carpenter and gunner ofthe Wager; the second by young Byron, a midshipman in the same ship;the third, by the chaplain of the Centurion. White-Jacket has them all;and they are fine reading of a boisterous March night, with thecasement rattling in your ear, and the chimney-stacks blowing down uponthe pavement, bubbling with rain-drops.
But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana'sunmatchable "Two Years Before the Mast." But you can read, and so youmust have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have beenwritten with an icicle.
At the present day the horrors of the Cape have somewhat abated. Thisis owing to a growing familiarity with it; but, more than all, to theimproved condition of ships in all respects, and the means nowgenerally in use of preserving the health of the crews in times ofsevere and prolonged exposure.