Recollections of Europe | Page 4

hours. We hove short, and sheeted
home, and hoisted the three topsails; but the anchor hung, and the
people were ordered to get their breakfasts, leaving the ship to tug at
her ground-tackle with a view to loosen her hold of the bottom.
Everything was now in motion. The little Don Quixote, the Havre ship
just mentioned, was laying through the narrows, with a fresh breeze
from the south-west. The Liverpool ship was out of sight, and six or
seven sails were turning down with the ebb, under every stitch of

canvass that would draw. One fine vessel tacked directly on our quarter.
As she passed quite near our stern, some one cried from her deck:--"A
good run to you, Mr. ----." After thanking this well-wisher, I inquired
his name. He gave me that of an Englishman, who resided in Cuba,
whither he was bound. "How long do you mean to be absent?" "Five
years." "You will never come back." With this raven-like prediction we
parted; the wind sweeping his vessel beyond the reach of the voice.
These words, "You will never come back!" were literally the last that I
heard on quitting my country. They were uttered in a prophetic tone,
and under circumstances that were of a nature to produce an impression.
I thought of them often, when standing on the western verge of Europe,
and following the course of the sun toward the land in which I was born;
I remembered them from the peaks of the Alps, when the subtle mind,
outstripping the senses, would make its mysterious flight westward
across seas and oceans, to recur to the past, and to conjecture the future;
and when the allotted five years were up, and found us still wanderers, I
really began to think, what probably every man thinks, in some
moment of weakness, that this call from the passing ship was meant to
prepare me for the future. The result proved in my case, however, as it
has probably proved in those of most men, that Providence did not
consider me of sufficient importance to give me audible information of
what was about to happen. So strong was this impression to the last,
notwithstanding, that on our return, when the vessel passed the spot
where the evil-omened prediction was uttered, I caught myself
muttering involuntarily, "---- is a false prophet; I have come back!"
We got our anchor as soon as the people were ready, and, the wind
drawing fresh through the narrows, were not long turning into lower
bay. The ship was deep, and had not a sufficient spread of canvass for a
summer passage, but she was well commanded, and exceedingly
comfortable.
The wind became light in the lower bay. The Liverpool ship had got to
sea the evening before, and the Don Quixote was passing the Hook, just
as we opened the mouth of the Raritan. A light English bark was
making a fair wind of it, by laying out across the swash; and it now

became questionable whether the ebb would last long enough to sweep
us round the south-west spit, a detour that our heavier draught rendered
necessary.
By paying great attention to the ship, however, the pilot, who was of
the dilatory school, succeeded about 3 P.M. in getting us round that
awkward but very necessary buoy, which makes so many foul winds of
fair ones, when the ship's bead was laid to the eastward, with square
yards. In half an hour the vessel had "slapped" past the low sandy spit
of land that you have so often regarded with philosophical eyes, and we
fairly entered the Atlantic, at a point where nothing but water lay
between us and the Rock of Lisbon. We discharged the pilot on the bar.
By this time the wind had entirely left us, the flood was making strong,
and there was a prospect of our being compelled to anchor. The bark
was nearly hull-down in the offing, and the top-gallant-sails of the Don
Quixote were just settling into the water. All this was very provoking,
for there might be a good breeze to seaward, while we had it calm
inshore. The suspense was short, for a fresh-looking line along the sea
to the southward gave notice of the approach of wind; the yards were
braced forward, and in half an hour we were standing east southerly,
with strong headway. About sunset we passed the light vessel which
then lay moored several leagues from land, in the open ocean,--an
experiment that has since failed. The highlands of Navesink
disappeared with the day.
The other passengers were driven below before evening. The first mate,
a straight-forward Kennebunk man, gave me a wink, (he had detected
my sea-education by a single expression, that of "send it an end," while
mounting