The Heights of Neversink are passed. The night closes in upon the sea, dreary, cold, and snowing; our signal lanterns, the red, the white, and the green, gleam out into the mist; the furnace fires throw a lurid light from the doors below, cheerful or fearful as may be the temper of mind of the looker-on; the long swell lifts and drops the bow and stern, and rolls the ship from side to side; the sea-bells begin to strike their strange reckoning of the half-hours; the wet and the darkness drive all below but the experts and the desperate, and our first night at sea has begun.
At six bells, tea is announced; and the bright lights of the long cabin table, shining on plates and cups and gleaming knives and hurrying waiters, make a cheerful and lively contrast with the dark, cold, deserted deck.
By night, I walk deck for a couple of hours with the young captain. After due inquiries about his family in Georgia, and due remembrance of those of his mother’s line whom we loved, and the public honored, before the grave or the sea closed over them, the fascinating topic of the navy, the frigates and the line-of-battle ships and little sloops, the storms, the wrecks, and the sea fights, fill up the time. He loves the navy still, and has left it with regret; but the navy does not love her sons as they love her. On the quarterdeck at fifteen, the first in rank of his year, favored by his commanders, with service in the best vessels, making the great fleet cruise under Morris, taking part in the actions of the Naval Brigade on shore in California, serving on the Coast Survey, a man of science as well as a sailor—yet what is there before him, or those like him, in our navy? The best must continue a subaltern, a lieutenant, until he is gray. At fifty, he may be entitled to his first command, and that of a class below a frigate; and if he survives the African fevers and the Isthmus fevers, and the perils of the sea, he may totter on the quarterdeck of a line-of-battle ship when his skill is out of date and his capacity for further command problematical. And whatever may be the gallantry or the merit of his service, though he may cut off his right hand or pluck out his eye for the country’s honor, the navy can give him no promotion, not even a barren title of brevet, nor a badge of recognition of merit, though it be but a star, or a half yard of blue ribbon. The most meritorious officers receive large offers from civil life; and then, it is home, family, society, education of children, and pecuniary competency on the one side, and on the other, only the navy, less and less attractive as middle life draws on.
The staterooms of the Cahawba, like those of most American seagoing steamers, are built so high above the water that the windows may be open in all but the worst of weather, and good ventilation be ensured. I have a very nice fellow for my roommate, in the berth under me; but, in a stateroom, no roommate is better than the best; so I change my quarters to a stateroom further forward, nearer “the eyes of her,” which the passengers generally shun, and get one to myself, free from the rattle of the steering gear, while the delightful rise and fall of the bows, and leisurely weather roll and lee roll, cradle and nurse one to sleep.
II
Hatteras—Gulf Stream—Coast of Florida—Routine of steamer.
Sunday, February 13.—It is cold and rough, though not at all stormy, and those who are on deck wear thick coats and caps. There is no clergyman on board, and we have no religious service. Capt. Bullock used to read the Liturgy himself, but in these West India and New Orleans voyages there are many Roman Catholics, and those who are not Romanists are of so many denominations, that he received little encouragement in maintaining an official worship; and it is no longer held, unless there is a clergyman on board and a request is made by the passengers.
All day there has been no sail in sight, except the steamer Columbia, for Charleston, SC; and she soon disappeared below the horizon.
We are near Cape Hatteras. It is night, and soon the Light of Hatteras throws its bright, cheerful beam for thirty miles over a huge burial ground of sailors. How many struggles with death, how many last efforts of the last resources of skill and courage, what floating wrecks of ships, what waste of life, has that light shone over! Under that reef, perished Bache, flying for harbor before the gale, in his little surveying brig. Every league has been and will be a field where lives and treasures are sown thick from the hand of Destruction—one of those points on the earth’s surface where, in the universal and endless struggle between life and death, preservation and destruction, the destroyers have the advantage.
Soon after 9 p.m. we stand out direct, to cross the Gulf Stream. A bucket is thrown over the side, and water drawn. Its temperature is at 42°. In fifteen minutes more, it is thrown again, and the water is at 72° 30′. We are in the Gulf Stream.
Monday, February 14.—Sea rather rough, and a good deal of seasickness. Several passengers have not been seen since we left the dock, and only about half appear at table. We are to the eastward of the Gulf Stream. The weather is clear, and no longer cold. At noon, we are
