Part 3

At sea, the moment the sun rises, and when one feels in the humor of quitting his hot state-room and going on deck, the officer of the watch sings out in a voice that goes directly to the heart--"Forard there--wash decks!" Then commences an elemental war rivalling Noah's deluge. _That_ was caused by the pouring down of rain in drops--_thie_ by the out-pouring of full buckets. From the moment this flood commences one may draw back into his narrow shell, like an affrighted snail, and take a morning's nap:--the deck, for an hour to come, is no place for animals that are not web-footed.

Fore and aft the unhappy passenger finds no way of escaping the infliction of this purifying ceremony. Should he be driven aloft, there "to banquet on the morning," he were better reposing on a gridiron or sitting astride a handsaw. If below, there the steward has possession, sweeping, laying the breakfast table and making-up berths, and the air, a hundred times breathed over, rushes from the opening state-rooms threatening to suffocate him--he were better engulfed in the bosom of a stew-pan.

To stand, cold, wet, and uncomfortable upon the damp decks till the sun has dried both them and him is the only alternative. If after all the "holy stone" should come in play, he may then quietly jump over-board.

The evenings, however, amply compensate for the loss of the fine mornings. The air, free from the dust, floating particles and exhalations of the land, is perfectly transparent, and the sky of a richer blue. The stars seem nearer to you there; and the round moon pours her unclouded flood of light, down upon the sea, with an opulence and mellowness, of which those who have only seen moonlight, sleeping upon green hills, cities and forests, know nothing. On such nights, there cannot be a nobler, or prouder spectacle, as one stands upon the bows, than the lofty, shining pyramid of snow-white canvass which, rising majestically from the deck, lessens away, sail after sail, far into the sky--each sheet distended like a drum-head, yet finely rounded, and its towering summit, as the ship rises and falls upon the billows, waving like a tall poplar, swaying in the wind. In these hours of moonlit enchantment, while reclining at full length upon the deck, and gazing at the diminished point of the flag-staff, tracing devious labyrinths among the stars, the blood has danced quicker through my veins as I could feel the ship springing away beneath me like a fleet courser, and leaping from wave to wave over the sea. At such moments the mind cannot divest itself of the idea that the bounding ship is instinct with life--an animated creature, careering forward by its own volition. To this are united the musical sighing of the winds through the sails and rigging--the dashing of the sea and the sound of the rushing vessel through the water, which sparkles with phosphorescent light, as though sprinkled with silver dust.

A dark night also affords a scene to gratify curiosity and charm the eye. A few nights since, an exclamation of surprise from one of the passengers called me from my writing to the deck. As, on emerging from the cabin, I mechanically cast my eyes over the sea, I observed that at first it had the appearance of reflecting the stars from its bosom in the most dazzling splendour, but on looking upward to gaze upon the original founts of this apparently reflected light, my eyes met only a gloomy vault of clouds unillumined by a solitary star. The "scud" flew wildly over its face and the heavens were growing black with a gathering tempest. Yet beneath, the sea glittered like a "lake of fire." The crests of the vast billows as they burst high in the air, descended in showers of scintillations. The ship scattered broken light from her bows, as though a pavement of mirrors had been shivered in her pathway. Her track was marked by a long luminous train, not unlike the tail of a comet, while gleams of light like lighted lamps floating upon the water, whirled and flashed here and there in the wild eddies of her wake. The spray which was flung over the bows glittered like a sprinkling of diamonds as it fell upon the decks, where, as it flowed around the feet, it sparkled for some seconds with innumerable shining specks. And so intense was the light shining from the sea that I was enabled to read with ease the fine print of a newspaper. A bucket plunged into the sea, which whitened like shivered ice, on its striking it, was drawn up full of glittering sea-water that sparkled for more than a minute, after being poured over the deck, and then gradually losing its lustre, finally disappeared in total darkness.

Many hypotheses have been suggested by scientific men to account for this natural phenomenon. "Some have regarded it," says Dr. Coates, "as the effect of electricity, produced by the friction of the waves; others as the product of a species of fermentation in the water, occurring accidentally in certain places. Many have attributed it to the well-known phosphorescence of putrid fish, or to the decomposition of their slime and exuviae, and a few only to the real cause, the voluntary illumination of many distinct species of marine animals.

"The purpose for which this phosphorescence is designed is lost in conjecture; but when we recollect that fish are attracted to the net by the lights of the fisherman, and that many of the marine shellfish are said to leave their native element to crawl around a fire built upon the beach, are we not warranted in supposing that the animals of which we have been speaking, are provided with these luminous properties, in order to entice their prey within their grasp?"

IV.

Land--Abaco--Fleet--Hole in the Wall--A wrecker's hut-- Bahama vampyres--Light houses--Conspiracy--Wall of Abaco-- Natural Bridge--Cause--Night scene--Speak a packet ship--A floating city--Wrecker's lugger--Signal of distress--A Yankee lumber brig--Portuguese Man-of-War.

"Land ho!" shouted a voice both loud and long, apparently from the clouds, just as we had comfortably laid ourselves out yesterday afternoon for our customary _siesta_.

"Where away?" shouted the captain, springing to the deck, but not so fast as to prevent our tumbling over him, in the head-and-heels projection of our bodies up the companion-way, in our eagerness to catch a glimpse, once more, of the grassy earth; of something at least stationary.

"Three points off the weather bow," replied the man aloft.

"Where is it?"--"which way?" "I see it"--"Is that it captain--the little hump?" were the eager exclamations and inquiries of the enraptured passengers, who, half beside themselves, were peering, straining, and querying, to little purpose.

It was Abaco--the land first made by vessels bound to New Orleans or Cuba, from the north. With the naked eye, we could scarcely distinguish it from the small blue clouds, which, resting, apparently, on the sea, floated near the verge of the southern horizon. But with the spy glass, we could discern it more distinctly, and less obscured by that vail of blue haze, which always envelopes distant objects when seen from a great distance at sea, or on land.

As we approached, its azure vail gradually faded away, and it appeared to our eyes in its autumnal gray coat, with all its irregularities of surface and outline clearly visible.

Slightly altering our course, in order to weather its southern extremity, we ran down nearly parallel with the shores of the island that rose apparently from the sea, as we neared it, stretching out upon the water like a huge alligator, which it resembled in shape. Sail after sail hove in sight as we coasted pleasantly along with a fine breeze, till, an hour before the sun went down, a large wide-spreading fleet could be discerned from the deck, lying becalmed, near the extreme southern point of Abaco, which, stretching out far into the sea, like a wall perforated with an arched gateway near the centre, is better known by the familiar appellation of "The Hole in the Wall."

"There is a habitation of some sort," exclaimed one of the passengers, whose glass had long been hovering over the island.

"Where--where?" was the general cry, and closer inspection from a dozen eyes, detected a miserable hut, half hidden among the bushes, and so wild and wretched in appearance, that we unanimously refused it the honor of

"----A local habitation and a name!"

It was nevertheless the first dwelling of man we had seen for many a day; and notwithstanding our vote of non-acceptance, it was not devoid of interest in our eyes. It was evidently the abode of some one of those demi sea-monsters, called "Wreckers," who, more destructive than the waves, prey upon the ship-wrecked mariner. The Bahamas swarm with these wreckers who, in small lugger-sloops, continually prowl about among the islands,

"When the demons of the tempest rave,"

like birds of ill omen, ready to seize upon the storm-tossed vessel, should it be driven among the rocks or shoals with which this region abounds. At midnight, when the lightning for a moment illumines the sky and ocean, the white sail of the wrecker's little bark, tossing amid the storm upon the foaming billows, will flash upon the eyes of the toiling seamen as they labour to preserve their vessel, striking their souls with dread and awakening their easily excited feelings of superstition. Like evil spirits awaiting at the bed-side the release of an unannealed soul, they hover around the struggling ship through the night, and, flitting away at the break of morning, may be discovered in the subsiding of the tempest, just disappearing under the horizon with a sailor's hearty blessing sent after them.

That light-houses have not been erected on the dangerous head-lands and reefs which line the Bahama channel, is a strange oversight or neglect on the part of the governments of the United States and England, which of all maritime nations are most immediately concerned in the object. Suitable light-houses on the most dangerous points, would annually save, from otherwise inevitable destruction, many vessels and preserve hundreds of valuable lives. The profession of these marauders would be, in such a case, but a sinecure; provided they would allow the lights to remain. But, unless each tower were converted into a well-manned gun-battery the piratical character of these men will preclude any hope of their permanent establishment. Men of their buccaneering habits are not likely to lie quietly on their oars, and see their means of livelihood torn from them by the secure navigation of these waters. They will sound, from island to island, the tocsin for the gathering of their strength, and concentrate for the destruction of these enemies to their _honest calling_, before they have cast their cheering beams over these stormy seas a score of nights.

As we approached the Hole in the Wall, the breeze which we had brought down the channel, stole in advance and set in motion the fleet of becalmed vessels, which rolled heavily on the long, ground-swell, about a league ahead of us. The spur or promontory of Abaco, around which we were sailing, is a high, wall-like ridge of rock, whose surface gradually inclines from the main body of the island to its abrupt termination about a quarter of a league into the sea. As we sailed along its eastern side we could not detect the opening from which it derives its name. The eye met only a long black wall of rock, whose rugged projections were hung with festoons of dark purple sea-weed, and around whose base the waters surged, with a roar heard distinctly by us, three miles from the island.

On rounding the extremity of the head-land, and bearing up a point or two, the arch in the Cape gradually opened till it became wholly visible, apparently about half the altitude of, and very similar in appearance to the Natural bridge in Virginia. The chasm is irregularly arched, and broader at thirty feet from the sea than at its base. The water is of sufficient depth, and the arch lofty enough, to allow small fishing vessels to pass through the aperture, which is about one hundred feet in length through the solid rock. There is a gap which would indicate the former existence of a similar cavity, near the end of this head-land. A large, isolated mass of rock is here detached from the main wall, at its termination in the sea, which was undoubtedly, at some former period, joined to it by a natural arch, now fallen into the water, as, probably, will happen to this within a century.

These cavities are caused by the undermining of the sea, which, dashing unceasingly against the foundations of the wall, shatters and crumbles it by its constant abrasion, opens through it immense fissures, and loosens large fragments of the rock, that easily yield and give way to its increased violence; while the upper stratum, high beyond the reach of the surge, remains firm, and, long after the base has crumbled into the sea, arches over like a bridge the chasm beneath. By and by this falls by its own weight, and is buried beneath the waves.

As the shades of night fell over the sea, and veiled the land from our eyes, we had a fresh object of excitement in giving chase to the vessels which, as the sun went down among them, were scattered thickly along the western horizon far ahead of us--ships, brigs, and schooners, stretching away under all sail before the evening breeze to the south and west. We had lost sight of them after night had set in, but at about half past eight in the evening, as we all were peering through the darkness, upon the _qui vive_ for the strangers, a bright light flashed upon our eyes over the water, and at the same moment the lookout forward electrified us with the cry----

"A ship dead ahead, sir!"

The captain seized his speaking-trumpet, and sprang to the bows; but we were there before him, and discovered a solitary light burning at the base of a dark pyramid, which towered gloomily in the obscurity of the night. The outline of the object was so confused and blended with the sky, that we could discern it but indistinctly. To our optics it appeared, as it loomed up in the night-haze, to be a ship of the largest class. The spy glass was in immediate requisition, but soon laid aside again.

Let me inform you that "DAY and NIGHT" marked upon the tube of a spy-glass, signifies that it may be used in the day, and kept in the beckets at night.

We had been gathered upon the bowsprit and forecastle but a few seconds, watching in silence the dark moving tower on the water before us, as we approached it rapidly, when we were startled by the sudden hail of the stranger, who was now hauling up on our weather bow--

"Ship-ahoy!" burst loudly over the water from the hoarse throat of a trumpet.

"Ahoy!" bellowed our captain, so gently back again through the ship's trumpet, that the best "bull of Bashan" might have envied him his roar.

"What ship's that?"

"The Plato of Portland," with a second bellow which was a very manifest improvement upon the preceding.

"Where bound?"

"New-Orleans!"

Now came our turn to play the querist. "What ship's that?"

"The J. L., eleven days from New-York, bound to New-Orleans."

"Ay, ay--any news?"

"No, nothing particular."

We again moved on in silence; sailing in company, but not always in sight of each other, during the remainder of the night.

A delightful prospect met our eyes, on coming on deck the morning after making the Hole in the Wall. The sea was crowded with vessels, bearing upon its silvery bosom a floating city. By some fortuitous circumstance, a fleet of vessels, bearing the flags of various nations, had arrived in the Bahama channel at the same time, and now, were amicably sailing in company, borne by the same waves--wafted by the same breeze, and standing toward the same point. Our New-York friend, for whom, on casting our eyes over the lively scene we first searched, we discovered nearly two leagues from us to the windward, stretching boldly across the most dangerous part of the Bahama Banks, instead of taking, with the rest of the fleet, the farther but less hazardous course down the "Channel"--if a few inches more of water than the Banks are elsewhere covered with, may with propriety be thus denominated.

A little to the south of us, rocking upon the scarcely rising billows, was a rough clumsy looking craft, with one low, black mast, and amputated bowsprit, about four feet in length, sustaining a jib of no particular hue or dimensions. Hoisted upon the mast, was extended a dark red painted mainsail, blackened by the smoke, which, issuing from a black wooden chimney amidships, curled gracefully upward and floated away on the breeze in thin blue clouds. A little triangular bit of red bunting fluttered at her mast head; and, towed by a long line at her stern, a little green whale-boat skipped and danced merrily over the waves. Standing, or rather reclining at the helm--for men learn strangely indolent postures in the warm south--with a segar between his lips, and his eye fixed earnestly upon the J. L., was a black-whiskered fellow, whose head was enveloped in a tri-coloured, conical cap, terminated by a tassel, which dangled over his left ear. A blue flannel shirt, and white flowing trowsers, with which his body and limbs were covered, were secured to his person by a red sash tied around the waist, instead of suspenders. Two others similarly dressed, and as bountifully bewhiskered, leaned listlessly over the side gazing at our ship, as she dashed proudly past their rude bark. A negro, whose charms would have been unquestionable in Congo, was stretched, apparently asleep, along the main-boom, which one moment swung with him over the water, and the next suspended him over his chimney, whose azure incense ascended from his own altar, to this ebony deity, in clouds of grateful odour.

"What craft do you call that?" inquired one of the passengers of the captain.

"What? It's a wrecker's lugger.--Watch him now!"

At the moment he spoke, the lugger dropped astern of us, came to a few points--hauled close on the wind, and then gathering headway, bounded off with the speed of the wind in the direction of the New-York packet ship, which the wrecker's quicker and more practised eye had detected displaying signals of distress. Turning our glasses in the direction of the ship, we could see that she had grounded on the bank, thereby affording very ample illustration of the truth of the proverb, "The more haste the less speed."

About the middle of the forenoon the wind died away, and left us becalmed within half a mile of a brig loaded with lumber. The remaining vessels of the fleet were fast dispersing over the sea--this Yankee "fruiterer" being the only one sailing within a league of us.

These lumber vessels, which are usually loaded with shingles, masts, spars, and boards, have been long the floating mines of Maine. But as her forests disappear, which are the veins from whence she draws the ore, her sons will have to plough the earth instead of the ocean. Then, and not till then, will Maine take a high rank as an agricultural state. The majority of men who sail in these lumber vessels are both farmers and sailors; who cultivate their farms at one season, fell its timber and sail away with it in the shape of boards and shingles to a West India mart at another. Jonathan is the only man who knows how to carry on two trades at one time, and carry them on successfully.

For their lumber, which they more frequently _barter_ away than sell, they generally obtain a return cargo of molasses, which is converted by our "sober and moral" fellow-countrymen into liquid gunpowder, in the vats of those numerous distilleries, which, like guide-posts to the regions of death, line the sea skirts of New-England!

The smooth bottom, above which we were suspended, through the deceptive transparency of the water, appeared, though eighteen feet beneath us, within reach of the oar. But there were many objects floating by upon the surface, which afforded us more interest than all beneath it.

Among these was the little nautilus which, gaily dancing over the waves, like a Lilliputian mariner,

"Spreads his thin oar and courts the rising gale."

This beautiful animal sailed past us in fleets wafted by a breeze gentler than an infant's breathing. We endeavoured to secure one of them more beautiful than its fellows, but like a sensitive plant it instantly shrunk at the touch, and sunk beneath the surface; appearing beneath the water, like a little, animated globule tinged with the most delicate colours. This singular animal is termed by the sailors, "The Portuguee' man-o'-war," from what imaginary resemblance to the war vessels of His Most Christian Majesty I am at a loss to determine; unless we resort for a solution of the mystery to a jack-tar, whom I questioned upon the subject--

"It's cause as how they takes in all sail, or goes _chuck_ to bottom, when it 'gins to blow a spankin' breeze,"--truly a fine compliment to the navarchy of Portugal!

This animal is a genus of the mollusca tribe, which glitters in the night on the crest of every bursting wave. In the tropical seas it is found riding over the gently ruffled billows in great numbers, with its crystalline sail expanded to the light breeze--barks delicate and tiny enough for fairy "Queen Mab." Termed by naturalists _pharsalia_, from its habit of inflating its transparent sail, this splendid animal is often confounded with the _nautilus pompilius_, a genus of marine animals of an entirely distinct species, and of a much ruder appearance, whose dead shells are found floating every where in the tropical seas, while the living animal is found swimming upon the ocean in every latitude.

Dr. Coates, in describing the Portuguese man-of-war (pharsalia) says, that "it is an oblong animated sack of air, elongated at one extremity into a conical neck, and surmounted by a membraneous expansion running nearly the whole length of the body, and rising above into a semi-circular sail, which can be expanded or contracted to a considerable extent at the pleasure of the animal. From beneath the body are suspended from ten to fifty, or more little tubes, from half an inch to an inch in length, open at their lower extremity, and formed like the flower of the blue bottle. These I cannot but consider as proper stomachs, from the centre of which depends a little cord, never exceeding the fourth of an inch in thickness, and often forty times as long as the body.

"The group of stomachs is less transparent, and although the hue is the same as that of the back, they are on this account incomparably less elegant. By their weight and form they fill the double office of a keel and ballast, while the cord-like appendage, which floats out for yards behind, is called by seamen "the cable." With this organ, which is supposed by naturalists, from the extreme pain felt, when brought in contact with the back of the hand, to secrete a poisonous or acrid fluid, the animal secures his prey." But in the opinion of Dr. C. naturalists in deciding upon this mere hypothesis have concluded too hastily. He says that the secret will be better explained by a more careful examination of the organ itself. "The cord is composed of a narrow layer of contractile fibres, scarcely visible when relaxed, on account of its transparency. If the animal be large, this layer of fibres will sometimes extend itself to the length of four or five yards. A spiral line of blue, bead-like bodies, less than the head of a pin, revolves around the cable from end to end, and under the microscope these beads appear covered with minute prickles so hard and sharp that they will readily enter the substance of wood, adhering with such pertinacity that the cord can rarely be detached without breaking.