y night and Sunday morning the sailors
scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon
the visitors thronged the decks. By night outfitters and relatives
were still on board. The medals of commemoration were handed round.
Health and good luck and God speed were drunk unto the heel taps.
Songs resounded over the festive board. It was all "mirth and glee"
writes one of the men on {216} board. But by daybreak the ships had
slipped cables. The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced
bounding to meet them. A last dip of land behind; and on Monday,
October 1, 1787, the ships' prows were cleaving the waters of their
fate.

[Illustration: Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_
cruise.]

The course lay from Boston to Cape Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to
the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of
South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence,
without pause, to the west coast of North America. At Cape Verde, Gray
hired a valet, a colored boy, Marcus Lopez, destined to play an
important part later. Crossing the equator, the sailors became
hilarious, playing the usual pranks of ducking the men fresh to
equatorial waters. So long did the ships rest at the Verde Islands,
taking in fresh provisions, that it was January before the Falkland
Islands were reached. Here Kendrick's caution became almost fear. He
was averse to rounding the stormy Horn in winter. Roberts, the
surgeon, and Woodruff, who had been with Cook, had become disgusted
with Kendrick's indecision at Cape Verde, and left, presumably taking
passage back on some foreign cruiser. Haswell, then, went over as
first mate to Gray. Mountain seas and smashing gales assailed the
ships from the time they headed for the Horn in April of 1788. The
_Columbia_ was tossed clear up on her beam ends, and sea after sea
crashed over the little {217} _Lady Washington_, drenching everything
below decks like soap-suds in a rickety tub. Then came a hurricane of
cold winds coating the ship in ice like glass, till the yard-arms
looked like ghosts. Between scurvy and cold, there was not a sailor
fit to man the decks. Somewhere down at 57 degrees south, westward of
the Horn, the smashing seas and driving winds separated the two ships;
but as they headed north, bright skies and warm winds welcomed them to
the Pacific. At Masafuera, off Chile, the ships would have landed for
fre