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For a week or ten days after crossing the line, we had the usual variety of calms, squalls, head winds, and fair winds; at one time braced sharp upon the wind, with a taught bowline, and in an hour after, slipping quietly along, with a light breeze over the taffrail, and studding-sails out on both sides; until we fell in with the north-east trade-winds; which we did on the afternoon of
There she is, with studding-sails set, about fifty miles to the northward of the Cape of Good Hope; and I think that when the reader has finished this chapter, he will be inclined to surmise that the author, as well as the Aspasia, has most decidedly "doubled the Cape."
The beautiful frigate looked like a vast cloud of snowy whiteness, as, with studding-sails alow and aloft, she swept proudly along over the blue waters of the Mediterranean in chase of the stranger. The latter had been standing to the eastward; but seeing herself pursued, she also altered her course, and ran off before the wind towards the land.
A breeze was creeping over the calm sea right astern, and it was to meet this that the studding-sails had been set a-low and aloft, so that the wide-spreading canvas, projecting far to the right and left, had, to an inexperienced eye, the appearance of being out of all proportion to the little hull by which it was supported.
"There go his stun'-sails already, and a plenty of them!" Sure enough the cruiser threw out her studding-sails, had them full and drawing in five minutes, and altered her course so as to follow the Montauk.
As the packet was inning in at the rate of nine knots, under topmast and top-gallant studding-sails, being to windward of her port, this was a promise that the gallant vessel seemed likely enough to redeem.
In the midst of all this, and before it became dark, we had all the studding-sails to make up and stow away, and then to lay aloft and rig in all the booms, fore and aft, and coil away the tacks, sheets, and halyards.
We had run between them and the main land of Patagonia. At sun-set the second mate, who was at the masthead, said that he saw land on the starboard bow. This must have been the island of Staten Land; and we were now in the region of Cape Horn, with a fine breeze from the northward, top-mast and top-gallant studding-sails set, and every prospect of a speedy and pleasant passage round.
We probably were nearly as fine a sight, with our studding-sails spread far out beyond the ship on either side, and rising in a pyramid to royal studding-sails and skysails, burying the hull in canvas and looking like what the whalemen on the Banks, under their stump top-gallant-masts, call ``a Cape Horn-er under a cloud of sail. Friday, August 12th.
To-day we have the breeze fair in our favor, we are going seven knots, studding-sails set, smooth water, and plenty of sea-room; to-morrow the wind freshens to half a gale, the sea gets up, a rocky coast is seen from the lee bow, and may be to add to all we spring a leak forward; but then, after all, bad as it looks, mayhap, we rub through even this, and with the next day, the prospect is as bright and cheering as ever.
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