Herman Melville
AND NOW, THROUGH DRIZZLING FOGS AND VAPORS, AND UNDER DAMP, double-reefed topsails, our wet-decked frigate drew nearer and nearer to the squally Cape. Who has not heard of it? Cape Horn, Cape Horn—a horn indeed, that has tossed many a good ship. Was the descent of Orpheus, Ulysses, or Dante into Hell, one whit more hardy and sublime than the first navigator’s weathering of that terrible Cape?
Turned on her heel by a fierce West Wind, many an outwardbound ship has been driven across the Southern Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope—that way to seek a passage to the Pacific. And that stormy Cape, I doubt not, has sent many a fine craft to the bottom, and told no tales. At those ends of the earth are no chronicles. What signify the broken spars and shrouds that, day after day, are driven before the prows of more fortunate vessels? or the tall masts, imbedded in icebergs, that are found floating by? They but hint the old story—of ships that have sailed from their port, and never more have been heard of.
Impracticable Cape! You may approach it from this direction or that—in any way you please—from the East or from the West; with the wind astern, or abeam, or on the quarter; and still Cape Horn is Cape Horn. Cape Horn it is that takes the conceit out of freshwater sailors, and steeps in a still salter brine the saltest. Woe betide the tyro; the foolhardy, Heaven preserve!
Your Mediterranean captain, who with a cargo of oranges has hitherto made merry runs across the Atlantic, without so much as furling a t’-gallant-sail, oftentimes, off Cape Horn, receives a lesson which he carries to the grave; though the grave—as is too often the case—follows so hard on the lesson that no benefit comes from the experience.
Other strangers who draw nigh to this Patagonia termination of our Continent, with their souls full of its shipwrecks and disasters—top-sails cautiously reefed, and everything guardedly snug—these strangers at first unexpectedly encountering a tolerably smooth sea, rashly conclude that the Cape, after all, is but a bugbear; they have been imposed upon by fables, and founderings and sinkings hereabouts are all cock-and-bull stories.
“Out reefs, my hearties; fore and aft set t’gallantsails! stand by to give her the foretopmast stun’-sail!”
But, Captain Rash, those sails of yours were much safer in the sailmaker’s loft. For now, while the heedless craft is bounding over the billows, a black cloud rises out of the sea; the sun drops down from the sky; a horrible mist far and wide spreads over the water.
“Hands by the halyard! Let go! Clew up!”
Too late.
For ere the ropes’ ends can be cast off from the pins, the tornado is blowing down to the bottom of their throats. The masts are willows, the sails ribbons, the cordage wool; the whole ship is brewed into the yeast of the gale.
And now, if, when the first green sea breaks over him, Captain Rash is not swept overboard, he has his hands full to be sure. In all probability his three masts have gone by the board, and, raveled into list, his sails are floating in the air. Or, perhaps, the ship broaches to, or is brought by the lee. In either case, Heaven help the sailors, their wives and their little ones; and Heaven help the underwriters.
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most circumspectly. A veteran mariner is never deceived by the treacherous breezes which sometimes waft him pleasantly toward the latitude of the Cape. No sooner does he come within a certain distance of it—previously fixed in his own mind—than all hands are turned to setting the ship in storm trim; and never mind how light the breeze, down come his t’gallantyards. He “bends” his strongest storm-sails, and lashes everything on deck securely. The ship is then ready for the worst; and if, in reeling round the headland, she receives a broadside, it generally goes well with her. If ill, all hands go to the bottom with quiet consciences.
Among sea captains, there are some who seem to regard the genius of the Cape as a wilful, capricious jade, that must be courted and coaxed into complaisance. First, they come along under easy sails; do not steer boldly for the headland, but tack this way and that—sidling up to it. Now they woo the Jezebel with a t’-gallant studdingsail; anon, they deprecate her wrath with double-reefed topsails. When, at length, her unappeasable fury is fairly aroused, and all round the dismantled ship the storm howls and howls for days together, they still persevere in their efforts. First, they try unconditional submission; furling every rag and heaving to; laying like a log, for the tempest to toss wheresoever it pleases.
This failing, they set a spencer or trysail, and shift on the other tack. Equally vain! The gale sings as hoarsely as before. At last, the wind comes round fair; they drop the fore-sail; square the yards, and scud before it; their implacable foe chasing them with tornadoes, as if to show her insensibility to the last.
Other ships, without encountering these terrible gales, spend week after week endeavoring to turn this boisterous world-corner against a continual headwind. Tacking hither and thither, in the language of sailors they polish the Cape by beating about its edges so long.
Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first navigators who weathered Cape Horn. Previous to this, passages had been made to the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan; nor, indeed, at that period, was it known to a certainty that there was any other route, or that the land now called Tierra del Fuego was an island. A few leagues southward from Tierra del Fuego is a cluster of small islands, the Diegoes; between which and the former island are the Straits of Le Mair, so called in honor of their discoverer, who first sailed through them into the Pacific. Le Mair and Schouten, in their small, clumsy vessels, encountered a series of tremendous gales, the prelude to the long train of similar hardships which most of their followers have experienced. It is a significant fact, that Schouten’s vessel, the Horne, which gave its name to the Cape, was almost lost in weathering it.
The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis Drake, who, on Raleigh’s Expedition, beholding for the first time, from the Isthmus of Darien, the “goodlie south Sea,” like a trueborn Englishman, vowed, please God, to sail an English ship thereon; which the gallant sailor did, to the sore discomfiture of the Spaniards on the coasts of Chili and Peru.
But perhaps the greatest hardships on record, in making this celebrated passage, were those experienced by Lord Anson’s squadron in 1736. Three remarkable and most interesting narratives record their disasters and sufferings. The first, jointly written by the carpenter and gunner of the 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 the casement rattling in your ear, and the chimney-stacks blowing down upon the pavement, bubbling with raindrops.
But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana’s unmatchable “Two Years Before the Mast.” But you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle.
At the present day the horrors of the Cape have somewhat abated. This is owing to a growing familiarity with it; but, more than all, to the improved condition of ships in all respects, and the means now generally in use of preserving the health of the crews in times of severe and prolonged exposure.
Colder and colder; we are drawing nigh to the Cape. Now gregoes, pea jackets, monkey jackets, reefing jackets, storm jackets, oil jackets, paint jackets, round jackets, short jackets, long jackets, and all manner of jackets, are the order of the day, not excepting the immortal white jacket, which begins to be sturdily buttoned up to the throat, and pulled down vigorously at the skirts, to bring them well over the loins.
But, alas! those skirts were lamentably scanty; and though, with its quiltings, the jacket was stuffed out about the breasts like a Christmas turkey, and of a dry cold day kept the wearer warm enough in that vicinity, yet about the loins it was shorter than a ballet-dancer’s skirts; so that while my chest was in the temperate zone close adjoining the torrid, my hapless thighs were in Nova Zembla, hardly an icicle’s toss from the Pole.
Then, again, the repeated soakings and dryings it had undergone, had by this time made it shrink woefully all over, especially in the arms, so that the wristbands had gradually crawled up near to the elbows; and it required an energetic thrust to push the arm through, in drawing the jacket on.
I endeavored to amend these misfortunes by sewing a sort of canvas ruffle round the skirts, by way of a continuation or supplement to the original work, and by doing the same with the wristbands.
This is the time for oil-skin suits, dreadnaughts, tarred trousers and overalls, sea-boots, comforters, mittens, woolen socks, Guernsey frocks, Havre shirts, buffalo-robe shorts, and mooseskin drawers. Every man’s jacket is his wigwam, and every man’s hat his caboose.
Perfect license is now permitted to the men respecting their clothing. Whatever they can rake and scrape together they put on—swaddling themselves in old sails, and drawing old socks over their heads for nightcaps. This is the time for smiting your chest with your hand, and talking loud to keep up the circulation.
Colder, and colder, and colder, till at last we spoke a fleet of icebergs bound North. After that, it was one incessant “cold snap,” that almost snapped off our fingers and toes. Cold! It was cold as Blue Flujin, where sailors say fire freezes.
And now coming up with the latitude of the Cape, we stood southward to give it a wide berth, and while so doing were becalmed; ay, becalmed off Cape Horn, which is worse, far worse, than being becalmed on the Line.
Here we lay forty-eight hours, during which the cold was intense. I wondered at the liquid sea, which refused to freeze in such a temperature. The clear, cold sky overhead looked like a steel-blue cymbal, that might ring, could you smite it. Our breath came and went like puffs of smoke from pipebowls. At first there was a long gauky swell, that obliged us to furl most of the sails, and even send down t’gallantyards, for fear of pitching them overboard.
Out of sight of land, at this extremity of both the inhabitable and uninhabitable world, our peopled frigate, echoing with the voices of men, the bleating of lambs, the cackling of fowls, the grunting of pigs, seemed like Noah’s old ark itself, becalmed at the climax of the Deluge.
There was nothing to be done but patiently to await the pleasure of the elements, and “whistle for a wind,” the usual practice of seamen in a calm. No fire was allowed, except for the indispensable purpose of cooking, and heating bottles of water to toast Selvagee’s feet. He who possessed the largest stock of vitality, stood the best chance to escape freezing. It was horrifying.
In such weather any man could have undergone amputation with great ease, and helped take up the arteries himself.
Indeed, this state of affairs had not lasted quite twenty-four hours, when the extreme frigidity of the air, united to our increased tendency to inactivity, would very soon have rendered some of us subjects for the surgeon and his mates, had not a humane proceeding of the Captain suddenly impelled us to rigorous exercise.
And here be it said, that the appearance of the Boatswain, with his silver whistle to his mouth, at the main hatchway of the gundeck, is always regarded by the crew with the utmost curiosity, for this betokens that some general order is about to be promulgated through the ship. What now? is the question that runs on from man to man. A short preliminary whistle is then given by “Old Yarn,” as they call him, which whistle serves to collect round him, from their various stations, his four mates. Then Yarn, or Pipes, as leader of the orchestra, begins a peculiar call, in which his assistants join. This over, the order, whatever it may be, is loudly sung out and prolonged, till the remotest corner echoes again. The Boatswain and his mates are the towncriers of a man-of-war.
The calm had commenced in the afternoon: and the following morning the ship’s company were electrified by a general order, thus set forth and declared: “D’ye hear there, fore and aft! all hands skylark!”
This mandate, nowadays never used except upon very rare occasions, produced the same effect upon the men that Exhilarating Gas would have done, or an extra allowance of “grog.” For a time, the wonted discipline of the ship was broken through, and perfect license allowed. It was a Babel here, a Bedlam there, and a Pandemonium everywhere. The Theatricals were nothing compared with it. Then the faint-hearted and timorous crawled to their hiding places, and the lusty and bold shouted forth their glee. Gangs of men, in all sorts of outlandish habiliments, wild as those worn at some crazy carnival, rushed to and fro, seizing upon whomsoever they pleased—warrant-officers and dangerous pugilists excepted—pulling and hauling the luckless tars about, till fairly baited into a genial warmth. Some were made fast to and hoisted aloft with a will: others, mounted upon oars, were ridden fore and aft on a rail, to the boisterous mirth of the spectators, any one of whom might be the next victim. Swings were rigged from the tops, or the masts; and the most reluctant wights being purposely selected, in spite of all struggles, were swung from East to West, in vast arcs of circles, till almost breathless. Hornpipes, fandangoes, Donnybrook-jibs, reels, and quadrilles, were danced under the very nose of the most mighty captain, and upon the very quarterdeck and poop. Sparring and wrestling, too, were all the vogue; Kentucky bites were given, and the Indian hug exchanged. The din frightened the seafowl, that flew by with accelerated wing.
It is worth mentioning that several casualties occurred, of which, however, I will relate but one. While the “skylarking” was at its height, one of the foretopmen—an ugly-tempered devil of a Portuguese, looking on—swore that he would be the death of any man who laid violent hands upon his inviolable person. This threat being overhead, a band of desperadoes, coming up from behind, tripped him up in an instant, and in the twinkling of an eye the Portuguese was straddling an oar, borne aloft by an uproarious multitude, who rushed him along the deck at a railroad gallop. The living mass of arms all round and beneath him was so dense, that every time he inclined one side he was instantly pushed upright, but only to fall over again, to receive another push from the contrary direction. Presently, disengaging his hands from those who held them, the enraged seaman drew from his bosom an iron belaying pin, and recklessly laid about him to right and left. Most of his persecutors fled; but some eight or ten still stood their ground, and, while bearing him aloft, endeavored to wrest the weapon from his hands. In this attempt, one man was stuck on the head, and dropped insensible. He was taken up for dead, and carried below to Cuticle, the surgeon, while the Portuguese was put under guard. But the wound did not prove very serious; and in a few days the man was walking about the deck, with his head well bandaged.
This occurrence put an end to the “skylarking,” further headbreaking being strictly prohibited. In due time the Portuguese paid the penalty of his rashness at the gangway; while once again the officers shipped their quarterdeck faces.
Ere the calm had yet left us, a sail had been discerned from the foretop-masthead, at a great distance, probably three leagues or more. At first it was a mere speck, altogether out of sight from the deck. By the force of attraction or something else equally inscrutable, two ships in a calm, and equally affected by the currents, will always approximate, more or less. Though there was not a breath of wind, it was not a great while before the strange sail was described from our bulwarks; gradually, it drew still nearer.
What was she, and whence? There is no object which so excites interest and conjecture, and, at the same time, baffles both, as a sail, seen as a mere speck on these remote seas off Cape Horn.
A breeze! a breeze! for lo! the stranger is now perceptibly nearing the frigate; the officer’s spyglass pronounced her a full-rigged ship, with all sail set, and coming right down to us, though in our own vicinity the calm still reigns.
She is bringing the wind with her. Hurrah! Ay, there it is! Behold how mincingly it creeps over the sea, just ruffling and crisping it.
Our top-men were at once sent aloft to loose the sails, and presently they faintly began to distend. As yet we hardly had steerage-way. Toward sunset the stranger bore down before the wind, a complete pyramid of canvas. Never before, I venture to say, was Cape Horn so audaciously insulted. Stun’-sails alow and aloft; royals, moonsails, and everything else. She glided under our stern, within hailing distance, and the signal quartermaster ran up our ensign to the gaff.
“Ship ahoy!” cried the Lieutenant of the Watch, through his trumpet.
“Halloa!” bawled an old fellow in a green jacket, clapping one hand to his mouth, while he held on with the other to the mizzenshrouds.
“What ship’s that?”
“The Sultan, Indiaman, from New York, and bound to Callao and Canton, sixty days out, all well. What frigate’s that?”
“The United States ship Neversink, homeward bound.”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” yelled our enthusiastic countryman, transported with patriotism.
By this time the Sultan had swept past, but the Lieutenant of the Watch could not withhold a parting admonition.
“D’ye hear? You’d better take in some of your flying-kites there. Look out for Cape Horn!”
But the friendly advice was lost in the now increasing wind. With a suddenness by no means unusual in these latitudes, the light breeze soon became a succession of sharp squalls, and our sailproud braggadocio of an Indiaman was observed to let everything go by the run, his t’-gallant stun’sails and flying jib taking quick leave of the spars; the flying-jib was swept into the air, rolled together for a few minutes, and tossed about in the squalls like a football. But the wind played no such pranks with the more prudently managed canvas of the Neversink, though before many hours it was stirring times with us.
About midnight, when the starboard watch, to which I belonged, was below, the boatswain’s whistle was heard, followed by the shrill cry of “All hands take in sail! Jump, men, and save ship!”
Springing from our hammocks, we found the frigate leaning over to it so steeply, that it was with difficulty we could climb the ladders leading to the upper deck.
Here the scene was awful. The vessel seemed to be sailing on her side. The maindeck guns had several days previous been run in and housed, and the portholes closed, but the lee carronades on the quarter-deck and forecastle were plunging through the sea, which undulated over them in milk-like billows of foam. With every lurch to leeward the yard-arm-ends seemed to dip in the sea, while forward the spray dashed over the bows in cataracts, and drenched the men who were on the foreyard. By this time the deck was alive with the whole strength of the ship’s company, five hundred men, officers and all, mostly clinging to the weather bulwarks. The occasional phosphorescence of the yeasting sea cast a glare upon their uplifted faces, as a night fire in a populous city lights up the panic-stricken crowd.
In a sudden gale, or when a large quantity of sail is suddenly to be furled, it is the custom for the First Lieutenant to take the trumpet from whoever happens then to be officer of the deck. But Mad Jack had the trumpet that watch; nor did the First Lieutenant now seek to wrest it from his hands. Every eye was upon him, as if we had chosen him from among us all, to decide this battle with the elements, by single combat with the spirit of the Cape; for Mad Jack was the saving genius of the ship, and so proved himself that night. I owe this right hand, that is this moment flying over my sheet, and all my present being to Mad Jack. The ship’s bows were now butting, battering, ramming, and thundering over and upon the head seas, and with a horrible wallowing sound our whole hull was rolling in the trough of the foam. The gale came athwart the deck, and every sail seemed bursting with its wild breath.
All the quartermasters, and several of the forecastlemen, were swarming round the double-wheel on the quarter-deck. Some jumping up and down, with their hands upon the spokes; for the whole helm and galvanized keel were fiercely feverish, with the life imparted to them by the wild tempest.
“Hard up the helm!” shouted Captain Claret, bursting from his cabin like a ghost in his nightdress.
“Damn you!” raged Mad Jack to the quarter-masters; “hard down—hard down, I say, and be damned to you!”
Contrary orders! but Mad Jack’s were obeyed. His object was to throw the ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing the topsails, but though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on the canvas. It now blew a hurricane. The spray flew over the ship in floods. The gigantic masts seemed about to snap under the world-wide strain of the three entire topsails.
“Clew down! Clew down!” shouted Mad Jack, husky with excitement, and in a frenzy, beating his trumpet against one of the shrouds. But, owing to the slant of the ship, the thing could not be done. It was obvious that before many minutes something must go—either sails, rigging, or sticks; perhaps the hull itself, and all hands.
Presently a voice from the top exclaimed that there was a rent in the main topsail. And instantly we heard a report like two or three muskets discharged together; the vast sail was rent up and down like the Veil of the Temple. This saved the main-mast; for the yard was now clewed down with comparative ease, and the topmen laid out to stow the shattered canvas. Soon, the two remaining top-sails were also clewed down and close-reefed.
Above all the roar of the tempest and the shouts of the crew, was heard the dismal tolling of the ship’s bell—almost as large as that of a village church—which the violent rolling of the ship was occasioning. Imagination cannot conceive the horror of such a sound in a night tempest at sea.
“Stop that ghost!” roared Mad Jack; “away, one of you, and wrench off the clapper!”
But no sooner was this ghost gagged, than a still more appalling sound was heard, the rolling to and fro of the heavy shot, which, on the gundeck, had broken loose from the gunracks, and converted that part of the ship into an immense bowling alley. Some hands were sent down to secure them; but it was as much as their lives were worth. Several were maimed; and the midshipmen who were ordered to see the duty performed reported it impossible, until the storm abated.
The most terrific job of all was to furl the main-sail, which, at the commencement of the squalls, had been clewed up, coaxed and quieted as much as possible with the bunt-lines and slab lines. Mad Jack waited some time for a lull, ere he gave an order so perilous to be executed. For to furl this enormous sail, in such a gale, required at least fifty men on the yard; whose weight, superadded to that of the ponderous stick itself, still further jeopardized their lives. But there was no prospect of a cessation of the gale, and the order was at last given.
At this time a hurricane of slanting sleet and hail was descending upon us; the rigging was coated with a thin glare of ice, formed within the hour.
“Aloft, main-yard-men! and all you maintop-men! and furl the mainsail!” cried Mad Jack.
I dashed down my hat, slipped out of my quilted jacket in an instant, kicked the shoes from my feet, and, with a crowd of others, sprang for the rigging. Above the bulwarks (which in a frigate are so high as to afford much protection to those on deck) the gale was horrible. The sheer force of the wind flattened us to the rigging as we ascended, and every hand seemed congealing to the icy shrouds by which we held.
“Up—up, my brave hearties!” shouted Mad Jack; and up we got, some way or other, all of us, and groped our way out on the yard-arms.
“Hold on, every mother’s son!” cried an old quartergunner at my side. He was bawling at the top of his compass, but in the gale, he seemed to be whispering; and I only heard him from his being right to windward of me.
But his hint was unnecessary; I dug my nails into the Jack-stays, and swore that nothing but death should part me and them until I was able to turn round and look to windward. As yet, this was impossible; I could scarcely hear the man to leeward at my elbow; the wind seemed to snatch the words from his mouth and fly away with them to the South Pole.
All this while the sail itself was flying about, sometimes catching over our heads, and threatening to tear us from the yard in spite of all our hugging. For about three quarters of an hour we thus hung suspended right over the rampant billows, which curled their very crests under the feet of some four or five of us clinging to the lee yard-arm, as if to float us from our place.
Presently, the word passed along the yard from windward that we were ordered to come down and leave the sail to blow; since it could not be furled. A midshipman, it seemed, had been sent up by the officer of the deck to give the order, as no trumpet could be heard where we were.
Those on the weather yard-arm managed to crawl upon the spar and scramble down the rigging; but with us, upon the extreme leeward side, this feat was out of the question; it was, literally, like climbing a precipice to get to windward in order to reach the shrouds; besides, the entire yard was now encased in ice, and our hands and feet were so numb that we dared not trust our lives to them. Nevertheless, by assisting each other, we contrived to throw ourselves prostrate along the yard, and embrace it with our arms and legs. In this position, the stun’sail booms greatly assisted in securing our hold. Strange as it may appear, I do not suppose that, at this moment, the slightest sensation of fear was felt by one man on that yard. We clung to it with might and main; but this was instinct. The truth is, that, in circumstances like these, the sense of fear is annihilated in the unutterable sights that fill all the eye, and the sounds that fill all the ear. You become identified with the tempest; your insignificance is lost in the riot of the stormy universe around.
Below us, our noble frigate seemed thrice its real length—a vast black wedge, opposing its widest end to the combined fury of the sea and wind.
At length the first fury of the gale began to abate, and we at once fell to pounding our hands, as a preliminary operation to going to work; for a gang of men had now ascended to help secure what was left of the sail; we somehow packed it away, at last, and came down.
About noon the next day, the gale so moderated that we shook two reefs out of the top-sails, set new courses, and stood due east, with the wind astern.
Thus, all the fine weather we encountered after first weighing anchor on the pleasant Spanish coast, was but the prelude to this one terrific night; more especially, that treacherous calm immediately preceding it. But how could we reach our long promised homes without encountering Cape Horn? by what possibility avoid it? And though some ships have weathered it without these perils, yet by far the greater part must encounter them. Lucky it is that it comes about midway in the homeward-bound passage, so that the sailors have time to prepare for it, and time to recover from it after it is astern.
But, sailor or landsman, there is some sort of a Cape Horn for all. Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time. Greybeards! thank God it is passed. And ye lucky livers, to whom, by some rare fatality, your Cape Horns are placid as Lake Lemans, flatter not yourselves that good luck is judgment and discretion; for all the yolk in your eggs, you might have foundered and gone down, had the Spirit of the Cape said the word.