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Updated: May 13, 2025
The Coquille set sail again on the 30th October. When to the east of Rio de la Plata she was caught in one of those formidable gales, there called pampero, but had the good fortune to weather it without sustaining any damage. While in this part of the ocean Duperrey made some interesting observations on the current of the Plate River.
The pampero having blown off from the pampas inland whence the local name for these tornadoes had come from the westwards, and, of course, the set of the waves, even after the wind had ceased to move them, continued in a south-westerly direction, whither the Esmeralda had also been carried away from us, the exposed surface of her hull drifting her more rapidly away than such tiny atoms as we presented to the influence of the rollers.
It was the morning of that pampero off the Plate, when you were thrown through the door into my father's stateroom. I saw it in your eyes. I knew it. I think it was the first time, the very instant." I could only nod my head and draw her close to me. And she looked up at me and added: "You were very ridiculous.
The pampero is a dry, cold wind, exceedingly violent. It bursts on the plains very suddenly, and usually lasts only a short time, sometimes not more than ten minutes; it comes irregularly, and at all seasons of the year, but is most frequent in the hot season, and after exceptionally sultry weather.
The day of the pampero, however, did not pass by before another incident happened on board the Esmeralda.
"Now that's a clever old man," said the boatswain's mate next day to me, approvingly, of the captain; "boxing her off that way, with all that wind and blackness, was handsomely done." After this we settled down to a two days' pampero, with a huge but regular sea. Whether the Congress's helm on this interesting occasion was shifted for sternboard I never inquired.
You may be sure he likes well his situation, and finds the duties of a Minister Extraordinary much preferable to leading the retreat of a pampero expedition. Here the General significantly opened one eye and shut the other: 'Only telling you this for your own good' I watched him anxiously as he grasped me by the hand, and replied: 'Smooth! the boldest stroke in my administration does not please me so much as sending you Minister in General to Europe.
Neither this hypothetical sense in animals, nor "historical memory" will account for the dragon-fly storms, as the phenomenon of the pampas might be called, since the insects do not pass and repass between "breeding and subsistence areas," but all journey in a north-easterly direction; and of the countless millions flying like thistledown before the great pampero wind, not one solitary traveller ever returns.
To the hail succeeded a heavy storm of rain; and then, the pampero having blown itself out by its sudden frenzy, a short calm now came on, after which the wind chopped round to the old quarter, the southwards and eastwards, bringing us back again to the port tack as we steered between the Falkland Islands and the South American continent keeping in closer to the land now, for any fresh wind that might spring up would be certain to come from off shore.
Towards this evening, however, the wind fell light, and we got up steam, in order to be prepared for any emergency, as a calm is frequently succeeded on this coast by a pampero, and we are now approaching a lee shore. Sunday, September 10th. Tom has been on deck nearly all night. The shore is very low and difficult to distinguish, and the lights are badly kept.
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