Page images
PDF
EPUB

only to inform his Consul that he wishes to return home; and is immediately sent on board some American vessel, returning to the United States. The government allows ten dollars for his passage; and at that price every vessel is obliged to take a certain number of these men. By this excellent policy the seamen of the United States are not obliged to enter into the service of foreigners.

t

I like talking to sailors:-though a rough, unpolished set of beings, they have for the most part seen so much of the world, and been in so many different countries, that a great deal of amusement, and sometimes of information, may be gained from them. One of our crew, born in England, was taken prisoner with Mariner, by the Indians of the Tonga Islands, at the time when they seized the vessel, and massacred the crew. He was then a boy, and therefore his life was spared. The natives tattooed him all over the arms, legs, and breast and he told me, that it was with great difficulty, and only by coaxing one of the chiefs, that he hindered them from perfor:ning the same operation on his face for although considered very unfashionable by his naked Indian friends, yet he did not think it would much improve his appearance, to have a picture of the sun and moon delineated on his forehead with a tattooing instrument. One of the chiefs adopted him; and taught him, among other polite branches of Indian education, to use the bow and the spear, to fish, and to make a

canoe. A British vessel, which touched at the island, took him away, after he had been there seven years and some months. But on his return home his father and mother were dead, and he found himself without a friend. "I wished to return," said he, " and I will return if ever I can; for I led a much happier life among the savage Indians than I have ever done among the civilized whites."

One morning a sailor told me he could lend me a volume of the Waverley novels, and spoke of some of the personages mentioned in these books, in a manner which showed how completely he entered into the spirit of them. Upon inquiry I found he was from Connecticut, one of the New England states, which produce not only the best sailors in America, but also contain a greater number of well-educated people than any country in the world.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

During my voyage I was astonished at the immense distance from land at which I saw those little birds the Stormy Petrels, vulgarly called Mother Cary's Chickens. We had some of them 'with us every day, and that at times when we were not less than seven or eight hundred miles from the nearest land. The sailors, not being great naturalists, affirmed most positively, that these birds never went on shore, but that, seated on the water, they hatch their eggs under their wings; and when I inquired how the birds con

[ocr errors]

trived to place their eggs there, the sailors replied, they did not know, but that such was the fact. The Stormy Petrel is the smallest of all webfooted birds, being of the size of the common swallow, which, when on the wing, it very much resembles. A flock of them following the wake of the vessel is a very curious object. They dip down and skim along the surface of the water; and if a small piece of board, with some grease on it, be thrown into the sea, they will hover round it, like a swarm of wasps round a piece of honeycomb.

Buffon tells us that these birds are called Petrels or Peterells, from their appearing to walk upon the sea a feat attempted by St. Peter.

As we approached the Great Bank of Newfoundland, we encountered the Gulph Stream. This current, running from the Gulph of Mexico, between the island of Cuba and the point of Florida, rushes up the coast of America, strikes the southern end of the Great Bank, and then, taking an E.S. E. direction, loses itself in the ocean. Sailors are always able to tell when they are in this stream, from the great quantity of sea-weed, and from the increased temperature of the water, which, on the 20th of September, was 72° of Fahrenheit, that of the air being only 62°.

[ocr errors]

The weather on the Great Bank of Newfoundland is called by way of distinction, "Bank weather; that is, very damp, rainy, and cold. The temperature of the water was, on the 21st of Sep

tember, only 48°. This sudden change was very disagreeable. It has been affirmed by some, that the Bank of Newfoundland has been formed by the great deposition of sand and sediment, ocea sioned by the crossing of the Gulph Stream with a current, which sets towards the south from Hudson's Bay and the Gulph of St. Lawrence. While crossing the Great Bank we had some rough wea ther, accompanied by a very thick fog. One night, when it was blowing pretty fresh, we suddenly felt it so extremely cold, that some of the passengers, who had been a great deal at sea, were induced to suppose that we had passed near an iceberg. Al though the captain said, that he had sometimes felt currents of cold air, on this Bank, without being near ice, yet I am inclined to think that the passengers were right. Indeed, on our arrival at New York, we heard that one of the finest vessels of that port, the ship Liverpool, had, a few weeks before, struck an iceberg on the banks, at twelve o'clock in the day, during a thick fog, and had only just given the passengers and crew sufficient time to save themselves in the boats. This ice is brought down by the northerly current before-mentioned, and is prevented from finding its way further to the south by the Gulph Stream. Hence it is collected in great quantities, and sometimes renders the Bank very dangerous, particularly during the whole of June and July, and the beginning of August.

Some of them

colour. The

We again experienced warm weather, upon coming a second time into the Gulph Stream, Thus, on September 26th, lat. 40° 31′, long. 63°, the temperature of the air was 62°, and that of the water 74°. When we were near this spot, several beautiful nautili passed us, with their natural sails hoisted, scudding before the wind. were of the most beautiful pink sailors call them Portuguese men of war, but wherefore I could not learn. The nautili, if in danger of being run over, will, as the sailors term it, capsize, let the boat or ship pass over them, and then hoist sail and proceed again. Such is the melancholy sameness on board a ship, that even one of these passing by, creates for the moment a sensation of novelty; and a whale, a dolphin, or a flying-fish, brings every one on deck, and affords a subject of conversation. I am at a loss to conceive why the dolphin is so strangely represented in all pictures, from the Gothic emblems of heraldry, down to the modern signs of inns; for this fish is of the most elegant and beautiful shape, and bears as little resemblance to the crooked monster we generally see in pictures, as the lion of England to Peter Pindar's "old red cat."

The first time I saw Sandy Hook and the Highlands of Staten Island, seemed to me one of the happiest moments of my life, so delighted was Iwith the certainty of being able to quit my prison. Even the brute animals on board, that

« PreviousContinue »