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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z
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- 3810
- text
- An now, if, when the first green sea breaks over him, Captain Rash is
not swept overboard, he has his hands full be sure. In all probability
his three masts have gone by the board, and, ravelled into list, his
sails are floating in the air. Or, perhaps, the ship _broaches to_, or
is _brought by the lee_. In either ease, Heaven help the sailors, their
wives and their little ones; and heaven help the underwriters.
Familiarity with danger makes a brave man braver, but less daring. Thus
with seamen: he who goes the oftenest round Cape Horn goes the most
circumspectly. A veteran mariner is never deceived by the treacherous
breezes which sometimes waft him pleasantly toward the latitude of the
Cape. No sooner does he come within a certain distance of it—previously
fixed in his own mind—than all hands are turned to setting the ship in
storm-trim; and never mind how light the breeze, down come his
t’-gallant-yards. He “bends” his strongest storm-sails, and lashes
every-thing on deck securely. The ship is then ready for the worst; and
if, in reeling round the headland, she receives a broadside, it
generally goes well with her. If ill, all hands go to the bottom with
quiet consciences.
Among sea-captains, there are some who seem to regard the genius of the
Cape as a wilful, capricious jade, that must be courted and coaxed into
complaisance. First, they come along under easy sails; do not steer
boldly for the headland, but tack this way and that—sidling up to it,
Now they woo the Jezebel with a t’-gallant-studding-sail; anon, they
deprecate her wrath with double-reefed-topsails. When, at length, her
unappeasable fury is fairly aroused, and all round the dismantled ship
the storm howls and howls for days together, they still persevere in
their efforts. First, they try unconditional submission; furling every
rag and _heaving to_: laying like a log, for the tempest to toss
wheresoever it pleases.
This failing, they set a _spencer_ or _try-sail_, and shift on the
other tack. Equally vain! The gale sings as hoarsely as before. At
last, the wind comes round fair; they drop the fore-sail; square the
yards, and scud before it; their implacable foe chasing them with
tornadoes, as if to show her insensibility to the last.
Other ships, without encountering these terrible gales, spend week
after week endeavouring to turn this boisterous world-corner against a
continual head-wind. Tacking hither and thither, in the language of
sailors they _polish_ the Cape by beating about its edges so long.
Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first navigators who
weathered Cape Horn. Previous to this, passages had been made to the
Pacific by the Straits of Magellan; nor, indeed, at that period, was it
known to a certainty that there was any other route, or that the land
now called Terra del Fuego was an island. A few leagues southward from
Terra del Fuego is a cluster of small islands, the Diegoes; between
which and the former island are the Straits of Le Mair, so called in
honour of their discoverer, who first sailed through them into the
Pacific. Le Mair and Schouten, in their small, clumsy vessels,
encountered a series of tremendous gales, the prelude to the long train
of similar hardships which most of their followers have experienced. It
is a significant fact, that Schouten’s vessel, the _Horne_, which gave
its name to the Cape, was almost lost in weathering it.
The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis Drake, who, on
Raleigh’s Expedition, beholding for the first time, from the Isthmus of
Darien, the “goodlie South Sea,” like a true-born Englishman, vowed,
please God, to sail an English ship thereon; which the gallant sailor
did, to the sore discomfiture of the Spaniards on the coasts of Chili
and Peru.
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