ught hail and chilling rain. We lost
sight of land, reefed the sails close down, and then bid defiance to the
storm. Nothing venture nothing gain, is as true with ships' rigging, as
thimble rigging, and we staked all our hopes on a rapid passage. Sorry
work we made of it. The very birds were obliged to trim their pinions
with great nicety in beating to windward--even then a terrible gust
ruffled their plumes, and away they were driven, eddying, and screaming,
to leeward. Still we strove the tempests to disarm, by stout hearts, and
tough canvas, with partial success, too, for even with adverse winds, we
managed to get to the southward, besides making something in the voyage;
blessed, also, by a cool, bracing atmosphere, and day and twilight the
whole twenty-four hours. Though the sun in tracking his bright career in
either hemisphere is supposed to tinge the land and sea beneath his
blaze, with what is generally called summer, yet an exception to the
rule exists in vicinity of Cape Horn. The days, it is true, are longer;
in fact the night is day, but the sun diffuses no pleasant, genial
warmth, and is only seen peering out from behind the clouds, with a
careworn, desolate, blurred face, as if he was ashamed of his company,
and had marched entirely out of his beat.

In all this time hardly an incident occurred to make us even wink,
except, perhaps, the tumble of a topman from aloft, who was picked up
with a fractured spine; and a little sauciness, reproved by our stout
armorer, through the intervention of an iron rod upon the limbs of a
tall negro, thereby breaking his arm in two places. One's bones are
brittle in frosty weather, and young Vulcan was made to submit to severe
personal damages. I must chronicle also the sudden demise of a
venerable sergeant of marines, who departed this life one cold night,
while relieving the guard under the forecastle--the next day he was
consigned to the mighty deep, divested of all his worldly accoutrements,
save a hammock and a couple of round shot, to pull him into eternity. We
had not exchanged nautical salutations since leaving port, and well nigh
believed the ocean was deserted; however, one day there came looming
through the mist and rain, a large ship, with all her flaunting muslin
spread, running before the gale--the distance was too great to make out
her colors, but sufficiently near to cause some of us to wonder when our
bark's prow would be turned in the same direction, and th