The Little Differences And Quarrels Which A Long Voyage Breeds
On Board A Ship, Were Forgotten, And Every One Was Friendly;
And Two Men, Who Had Been On The Eve Of A Battle Half The Voyage,
Were Laying Out A Plan Together For A Cruise On Shore.
When the
mate came forward, he talked to the men, and said we should be
on George's Bank before to-morrow noon; and joked with the boys,
promising to go and see them, and to take them down to Marblehead
in a coach.
Saturday, 17th. The wind was light all day, which kept us back
somewhat; but a fine breeze springing up at nightfall, we were
running fast in toward the land. At six o'clock we expected to
have the ship hove-to for soundings, as a thick fog, coming up
showed we were near them; but no order was given, and we kept
on our way. Eight o'clock came, and the watch went below,
and, for the whole of the first hour, the ship was tearing on,
with studding-sails out, alow and aloft, and the night as dark
as a pocket. At two bells the captain came on deck, and said a
word to the mate, when the studding sails were hauled into the
tops, or boom-ended, the after yards backed, the deep-sea-lead
carried forward, and everything got ready for sounding. A man
on the spritsail yard with the lead, another on the cathead with
a handful of the line coiled up, another in the fore chains,
another in the waist, and another in the main chains, each with
a quantity of the line coiled away in his hand. "All ready there,
forward?" - "Aye, aye, sir!" - "He-e-e-ave!" - "Watch! ho! watch!"
sings out the man on the spritsail yard, and the heavy lead drops
into the water. "Watch! ho! watch!" bawls the man on the cat-head,
as the last fake of the coil drops from his hand, and "Watch! ho!
watch!" is shouted by each one as the line falls from his hold;
until it comes to the mate, who tends the lead, and has the line
in coils on the quarter-deck. Eighty fathoms, and no bottom! A
depth as great as the height of St. Peter's! The line is snatched
in a block upon the swifter, and three or four men haul it in and
coil it away. The after yards are braced full, the studding-sails
hauled out again, and in a few minutes more the ship had her
whole way upon her. At four bells, backed again, hove the lead,
and - soundings! at sixty fathoms! Hurrah for Yankee land! Hand
over hand, we hauled the lead in, and the captain, taking it to
the light, found black mud on the bottom.
Studding-sails taken in; after yards filled, and ship kept on under
easy sail all night; the wind dying away.
The soundings on the American coast are so regular that a navigator
knows as well where he has made land, by the soundings, as he
would by seeing the land.
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