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Updated: May 25, 2025
Pamperos happen quickly here, and though the Elsinore, under bare poles to her upper-topsails, is prepared for anything, it may well be that they will be crowding on canvas in another hour. Mr.
I had not much leisure, though, to note the pictorial effects of the scene; for I heard the skipper's voice behind me. "By Jove, Leigh!" he exclaimed, "we're going to have one of those pamperos, as they call them, that come off the mouth of the Plate; and we'll have all our work cut out for us to be ready in time. Call the other watch, boatswain!"
In an hour, perhaps, the heaviest part of the storm may be over, but still the wind blows furiously; till at length it ceases, the clouds disappear, and the air becomes delightfully fresh and cool. The craft on the rivers are, however, often caught in these pamperos, and driven into the bush, or upset, when the swift current carries down the best of swimmers to a watery grave.
That storm soon came to an end, but the old hands told us that we might look out for others, and so the captain seemed to think, for although he was anxious to get round Cape Horn we were always under snug canvas at night, and during the day a bright look-out was kept, lest one of those sudden squalls called Pamperos might come off the land and whip the masts out of the ship, or lay her on her beam-ends, as frequently happens when the hands are not ready to shorten sail.
They are not caused by mere temporary storms, but by winds having a constant and regular direction; as the "trades" in the Atlantic and Pacific, the "monsoons" in the Indian Ocean, the "pamperos" of South America, and the "northers" of the Mexican Gulf. There is another cause for these currents, perhaps of more powerful influence than the winds, yet less taken into account.
The liquor mounted in the heads of all of us, and the talk of Scotty and the harpooner was upon running the Easting down, gales off the Horn and pamperos off the Plate, lower topsail breezes, southerly busters, North Pacific gales, and of smashed whaleboats in the Arctic ice. "You can't swim in that ice water," said the harpooner confidentially to me. "You double up in a minute and go down.
Here there are violent gales from the southwest, called Pamperos, which are very destructive to the shipping in the river, and are felt for many leagues at sea. They are usually preceded by lightning. The captain told the mates to keep a bright lookout, and if they saw lightning at the southwest, to take in sail at once. We got the first touch of one during my watch on deck.
"I don't know about your storms here, Captain; but if it were in the Levant I should get every stitch of canvas off her excepting closely- reefed topsails, a storm jib, and fore stay-sail. The first burst over, one can always shake out more canvas. However, you know these seas, and I do not." "I think you are right. These pamperos, as we call them, are not to be trifled with."
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