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Updated: June 4, 2025
Hail and sleet were driving in our faces; a furious gale threatening to carry our only sail out of the bolt-ropes was blowing; the mountain seas raged round us; there was scarce time for a prayer, none for form or ceremony. A foaming billow came thundering against the bows; over the deck it swept. We clung for our lives to ropes, stanchions, and ring-bolts.
Just as we had agreed to go below again, a blast, as if a fresh hand had beep added to the bellows, came down upon us; there was a terrific report, the ship heeled over on her side as if she were going down, and away flew the stay-sails out of the bolt-ropes, followed by nearly all the canvas, which, ill furled in our hurry, broke loose from the gaskets, and, fluttering away with loud flaps, was soon reduced to ribbons, knotted and twisted in every conceivable way.
It strengthened him at once. He ordered the captain to cut the halyard by which the cook's body was towing, and also to go forward and cut loose the jib-halyard and sheet. When he had done so, the jib fluttered a couple of moments like a handkerchief, then tore out of the bolt-ropes and vanished. The Sophie Sutherland was running under bare poles.
At eight P.M. it freshened to a gale, which brought us under the main-topsail and storm-staysails, and at seven the following morning it increased to a gale of such violence from N.E.b.N. as does not very often occur at sea in these latitudes. The gusts were at times so tremendous as to set the sea quite in a foam, and threatened to tear the sails out of the bolt-ropes.
One of the numerous tenders of the ship Jewel , had just arrived before the wind under bare poles, an attempt to set a rag of umbrella having ended in its being blown out of the bolt-ropes, and the aforesaid tender Jewel was now in the vicarage harbour of refuge, reflecting what an awful job it would have in beating back against the monsoon.
She was tossed about like the merest cockle-shell, and every time that she rose upon the crest of a sea, the wind took her rag of a staysail, distending it as though it would tear it clean out of the bolt-ropes, and heeling the vessel over until we could see the whole of her bottom nearly down to her keel; and then her sharp bows would cleave the wave-crest in a perfect cataract of foam and spray, and away she would settle down once more with a heavy weather-roll into the trough.
Round went her head: another blast stronger than the first blew the canvas from the bolt-ropes, but the desired effect had been produced, and away she flew under bare poles through the ocean of seething foam; the wind howling and shrieking, and the waters hissing and roaring as we passed over them.
In an instant the topgallantsails were blown to ribbons. "Down, for your lives, down!" I shouted. No human power could have handled the canvas now, with wild roars lashing furiously in the wind. The main and mizen-topsails were blown out of the bolt-ropes, and soon with innumerable coils encircled the yards. The ship, relieved of the pressure of the sails, righted.
The head of the Josephine came up handsomely to the sea, and it was thus proved that the double-reefed foresail was just the sail for such an emergency. It was only to be demonstrated whether the sail would be blown out of the bolt-ropes or not. If it had been an old one, such would probably have been its fate; but being nearly new, and of the best material, it stood the strain to the end.
Then, Roger and Harry, rushing to Leigh's assistance, helped him to put the helm up, and the ship paid off and began to scud before the wind, while Cavendish, encouraging his little body of men up in the eyes of the ship, managed to get the foresail set, after having had it nearly blown out of the bolt-ropes.
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