Journal of an African Cruiser | Page 3

French Squadron--Success of
the English, and why--Results effected by the American Squadron.

JOURNAL
OF AN
AFRICAN CRUISER.

CHAPTER I.

Departure--Mother Carey's Chickens--The Gulf stream--Rapid
Progress--The French Admiral's Cook--Nautical Musicians--The Sick
Man--The Burial at Sea--Arrival at the Canaries--Santa Cruz--Love and
Crime--Island of Grand Canary--Troglodytes near Las Palmas.
June 5,1843.--Towed by the steamer Hercules, we go down the harbor
of New York, at 7 o'clock A.M. It is the fourth time the ship has moved,
since she was launched from the Navy Yard at Portsmouth. Her first
experience of the ocean was a rough one; she was caught in a wintry
gale from the north-east, dismasted, and towed back into Portsmouth
harbor, within three days after her departure. The second move brought
us to New York; the third, from the Navy Yard into the North river;
and the fourth will probably bring us to an anchorage off Sandy Hook.
After a hard winter of four months, in New Hampshire, we go to broil
on the coast of Africa, with ice enough in our blood to keep us
comfortably cool for six months at least.
At 10 A.M. the steamer cast off, and we anchored inside of Sandy
Hook; at 12 Meridian, hoisted the broad pennant of Commodore Perry,
and saluted it with thirteen guns. At 3 P.M. the ship gets under way,
and with a good breeze, stands out to sea. Our parting letters are
confided to the Pilot. That weather-beaten veteran gives you a cordial
shake with his broad, hard hand, wishes you a prosperous cruise, and
goes over the side. His life is full of greetings and farewells; the grasp
of his hand assures the returning mariner that his weary voyage is over;
and when the swift pilot boat hauls her wind, and leaves you to go on
your course alone, you feel that the last connecting link with home is
broken. On our ship's deck, there were perhaps some heart-aches, but
no whimpering. Few strain their eyes to catch parting glimpses of the
receding highlands; it is only the green ones who do that. The Old Salt
seeks more substantial solace in his dinner. It is matter of speculation,
moreover, whether much of the misery of parting does not, with those
unaccustomed to the sea, originate in the disturbed state of their
stomachs.
7.--We are in the Gulf-stream. The temperature of the water is ten
degrees above that of the air. Though the ship is deep, being filled with

stores, and therefore sailing heavily, we are yet taken along eleven
knots by the wind, and two or three more by the current. Swiftly as we
fly, however, we are not quite alone upon the waters. Mother Carey's
chickens follow us continually, dipping into the white foam of our track,
to seize the food which our keel turns up for them out of the ocean
depths. Mysterious is the way of this little wanderer over the sea. It is
never seen on land; and naturalists have yet to discover where it
reposes, and where it hatches its young; unless we adopt the idea of the
poets, that it builds its nest upon the turbulent bosom of the deep. It is a
sort of nautical sister of the fabled bird of Paradise, which was footless,
and never alighted out of the air. Hundreds of miles from shore, in
sunshine and in tempest, you may see the Stormy Petrel. Among the
unsolvable riddles which nature propounds to mankind, we may reckon
the question, Who is Mother Carey, and where does she rear her
chickens?
9.--We are out of the Gulf-stream, and the ship is now rolling
somewhat less tumultuously than heretofore. For four days, we have
been blest with almost too fair a wind. A strong breeze, right aft, has
been taking us more than two hundred and forty miles a day on our
course. But the incessant and uneasy motion of the ship deprives us of
any steady comfort. In spite of all precautions, tables, chairs, and books,
have tumbled about in utter confusion, and the monotony is enlivened
by the breaking of bottles and crash of crockery. As some consolation,
our Log Book shows that we have made more than half of a thousand
miles, within the last forty-eight hours. Land travelling, with all the
advantages of railroads, can hardly compete with the continual
diligence of a ship before a prosperous breeze.
11.--Spoke an American brig from Liverpool, bound for New York.
Though the boat was called away, and our letters were ready, it was all
at once determined not to board her; and, after asking the captain to
report us, we stood on our course again. The newspapers will tell our
friends something of our whereabouts; or, at least, that on a certain day,
we were encountered at a