These scenes, with occasional dead calms, lasting for hours, and sometimes for days, are fair specimens of the Atlantic tropics. The nights were fine; and as we had all hands all day, the watch were allowed to sleep on deck at night, except the man at the wheel, and one lookout on the forecastle. This was not so much expressly allowed, as winked at. We could do it if we did not ask leave. If the lookout was caught napping, the whole watch was kept awake.
We made the most of this permission, and stowed ourselves away upon the rigging, under the weather rail, on the spars, under the windlass, and in all the snug corners; and frequently slept out the watch, unless we had a wheel or a lookout. And we were glad enough to get this rest; for under the “all hands” system, out of every other thirty-six hours, we had only four below; and even an hour’s sleep was a gain not to be neglected. One would have thought so, to have seen our watch, some nights, sleeping through a heavy rain. And often have we come on deck, and finding a dead calm and a light, steady rain, and determined not to lose our sleep, have laid a coil of rigging down so as to keep us out of the water which was washing about decks, and stowed ourselves away upon it, covering a jacket over us, and slept as soundly as a Dutchman between two feather beds.
For a week or ten days after crossing the line, we had the usual variety of calms, squalls, headwinds, and fair winds;—at one time braced sharp upon the wind, with a taut 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 northeast trade winds; which we did on the afternoon of
Sunday, August 28th, in lat. 12° N. The trade wind clouds had been in sight for a day or two previously, and we expected to take them every hour. The light southerly breeze, which had been blowing languidly during the first part of the day, died away toward noon, and in its place came puffs from the northeast, which caused us to take our studding sails in and brace up; and in a couple of hours more, we were bowling gloriously along, dashing the spray far ahead and to leeward, with the cool, steady northeast trades, freshening up the sea, and giving us as much as we could carry our royals to. These winds blew strong and steady, keeping us generally upon a bowline, as our course was about north-north-west; and sometimes, as they veered a little to the eastward, giving us a chance at a main topgallant studding sail; and sending us well to the northward, until—
Sunday, Sept. 4th, when they left us, in lat. 22° N., long. 51° W., directly under the tropic of Cancer.
For several days we lay “humbugging about” in the Horse latitudes,267 with all sorts of winds and weather, and occasionally, as we were in the latitude of the West Indies—a thunder storm. It was hurricane month, too, and we were just in the track of the tremendous hurricane of 1830, which swept the North Atlantic, destroying almost everything before it. The first night after the trade winds left us, while we were in the latitude of the island of Cuba, we had a specimen of a true tropical thunder storm. A light breeze had been blowing directly from aft during the first part of the night which gradually died away, and before midnight it was dead calm, and a heavy black cloud had shrouded the whole sky. When our watch came on deck at twelve o’clock, it was as black as Erebus;268 the studding sails were all taken in, and the royals furled; not a breath was stirring; the sails hung heavy and motionless from the yards; and the perfect stillness, and the darkness, which was almost palpable, were truly appalling. Not a word was spoken, but everyone stood as though waiting for something to happen. In a few minutes the mate came forward; and in a low tone, which was almost a whisper, told us to haul down the jib. The fore and mizen topgallant sails were taken in, in the same silent manner; and we
