First Impressions of the New World Part 11

The weather, though blowy, continued very fine till Tuesday at four o'clock, when Papa came down and told me to prepare for a gale; an ominous black cloud had shown itself in the north-west horizon; this would not of itself have created much sensation, had it not been accompanied by an extraordinary fall in the barometer; it had, in fact, been falling for twenty-four hours, for at noon on Monday it stood rather above 30, and at midnight was as low as 2955, which, in these lat.i.tudes, is a great fall. But on Tuesday, at nine A.M., it had fallen to 2880, when it began rapidly to sink, till at half-past three it stood at 2840, showing a fall of more than an inch and a half since the preceding day at noon. It seems that this is almost unprecedented, so that when the little black cloud appeared, every sail was taken in, and the main topmast and fore top-gallantmast lowered down on deck, and this was not done a bit too soon, for by half-past four, it blew a hurricane.

The captain told a naval officer on board, that he had thought of putting the s.h.i.+p's head towards the gale, to let it blow past, but on further consideration, he put her right before it, though at the expense of losing a good deal of ground, as it made us go four points out of our course. Papa, who was on deck, said it was most magnificent to hear the fierce wind tearing past the vessel, and to see the s.h.i.+p not swaying in the least one way or another, but driving forwards with the masts perpendicular, as if irresistibly impelled through the water, without appearing to feel the waves. But alas, alas, this absence of motion, which was a paradise to me, lasted but some twenty minutes, while the fury of the blast continued. We ran before the gale for the next four hours, when it sufficiently moderated to enable us to resume our proper course.

The gale continued, however, till four next morning, and such a night I never pa.s.sed. The doctor said, neither he nor any officer in the s.h.i.+p could sleep, and next morning the poor stewardess and our peculiar cabin boy mournfully deplored their fate, the former being forced to confess that, though for years accustomed to the sea, she had been desperately sick. In fact no one had ever known the vessel to roll before as she did this night, and the sounds were horrible. The effect of one sea, in particular, striking the s.h.i.+p was appalling, from the perfect stillness which followed it. The vessel seemed quite to stagger under the blow and to be paralysed by it, so that several seconds must have elapsed before the heavy rolling recommenced. This, and the creaking and groaning of the vessel, had something solemn about it; but some minor sounds were neither so grand nor so philosophically borne by either Papa or myself.

One of the most persevering of these arose from my carelessness in having forgotten to bolt the door of a cupboard which I made use of, in our cabin, the consequence of which was that, with every lurch of the vessel, the door gave a violent slam, and our lamp having been put out at midnight, as it invariably was, we were in total darkness, and without the means of ascertaining whether the irritating noise proceeded, as we suspected, from the cupboard door, or from one of the doors having been left open in the pa.s.sage adjoining our cabin. It would have been dangerous to have got up in the dark, and with a violent lurching of the vessel, to discover the real cause of this wearisome noise. I had a strong feeling of self-reproach in my own mind at having brought such a calamity on poor Papa, when it could have been avoided if I had been a little more careful before going to bed. On, therefore, the noise went, for the rest of that night, with great regularity--slam--slam--slam--defying every attempt to obtain even five minutes of sleep. With the first gleam of dawn I plainly saw that our own peccant door was the cause, and I was able by that time, with some caution, to rise and secure the bolt, and thus relieve ourselves, and probably our neighbours, from the weary sound.

Sleep, however, on my part was, under any circ.u.mstances, out of the question, for I was under great anxiety lest Papa should be pitched out of his berth, as he slept in the one above mine. Before retiring for the night I had consulted the surgeon on the subject, having heard that a steward had been once thrown out of his berth in this vessel under similar circ.u.mstances. The surgeon a.s.sured me that he had never heard of such an accident, and Papa reminded me that his height would save him from such a calamity, for the berths being only six feet long he could, by stretching himself out to his full length, wedge himself in and hold on by his head and heels, and so, in fact, he did; but many pa.s.sed the night on the floors in their cabin, particularly the children, who had not the advantage of being six feet three. Next morning the surgeon said he would not himself have slept where Papa did, and I suspect few of the upper berths were occupied. So much for the value of a medical opinion!

I was very sorry I could not go on deck on either of the following days, for though the gale had abated, the wind continued sufficiently strong to keep up a splendid sea. Papa, however, says that it was more the force of the wind when the gale first began, than the height of the sea that was remarkable, as the gale did not last long enough to get up a _proper_ sea, though what that would have been I cannot imagine, as the effects, such as they were, were sufficiently serious for me. Since then, things have gone on prosperously, but we have only to-night come in sight of the lights on Cape Clear. The sea mercifully is somewhat smoother, and has allowed me to write this long story; and I am going to bed with a fairer prospect of sleep than I have had for the last few nights.

_Sunday night, Sept. 12th._--The wind got up again in the night, and has delayed us much, so that we are still outside the bar of the Mersey: for some hours it has been doubtful whether we should land to-night in Old England, or pa.s.s another night on board. The uncertainty of our fate has caused an evening of singular excitement, owing to several of the pa.s.sengers going perpetually on deck and bringing down news, either that we were in the act of crossing the bar, or that we had crossed it, or that all this was wrong and that we were still outside. As often as it was announced, and that with the most positive a.s.sertion, that we should land to-night, there was great joy and glee among all the pa.s.sengers, excepting ourselves and a few others who had visions of a late Custom House examination in a dark and dismal night with pouring rain, and a conviction that landing before morning would not bring us to London any sooner than doing so early to-morrow, and so we secretly hoped all the time that we were neither on nor over the bar. Betting, as usual, began on the subject, and the excitement was still at its height when official information was brought to us that we neither had attempted nor meant to attempt to cross the bar till five o'clock to-morrow morning. We have therefore easily made up our minds to what I fear is a disappointment to many. We trust now to have a quiet night, for we are lying-to, and are as still as at anchor, and hope on awaking to-morrow morning, to find ourselves in the dock at Liverpool; in which case we shall rush up by an early train to London.

Here, therefore, ends our Journal; but before closing it, I must add a few lines to say what cause we have had to feel deeply thankful for all the mercies that have followed us by land and by sea. We have travelled a distance of nearly 6000 miles, in a country where accidents frequently occur, both on the railways and in steam-boats, and have never for one moment been exposed to peril, or experienced one feeling of anxiety. We have met everywhere with great attention, kindness, and hospitality, and have been preserved in perfect health. Besides our land and river journeys, we have made two long voyages across the wide Atlantic, and in the midst of a tempest, which was a very severe one, the Hand of G.o.d protected us and preserved us from danger, and, better still, kept our minds in peace and confidence, and in remembrance that He who ruleth the waves, could guide and succour us in every time of need, so that even I felt no fear; Papa has had more experience of storms at sea, and was less likely to feel any, but his confidence, too, was in knowing that we were under Divine protection, and that our part was to TRUST; and in this we had our reward.

In thus enumerating the many subjects of thankfulness during our absence from home, I must reckon as one of the chief of our blessings, the comfort we have experienced in so constantly receiving the very best accounts of you all; and when we think of the many thousands of miles that have separated us, we may indeed feel full of grat.i.tude that, neither on one side of the ocean nor the other, have we had any reason for anxiety concerning each other. In a few hours more, we shall, I trust, have the joy and gladness of seeing all your dear faces again, and be rejoicing together over our safe return from our interesting and delightful expedition to the NEW WORLD.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The issues of the British and Foreign Bible Society during the same period were 1,517,858; but the circulation of the American Bible Society is almost entirely limited to the American continent, and for their foreign Missions, while a large portion of ours goes to supply the Colonies.

[15] Aunt Sally is a real person still living at Detroit on Lake Michigan, with her son, the Rev. Isaac Williams, who is the minister there of the Methodist church.

[16] We must admit that our experience differs greatly from that of many; and, looking at the statistics of railway travelling, accidents do occur with frightful frequency. In a report recently published by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, the accidents which occurred on that line alone in 1855, amounted to no less than 179 in a year, and this on a line where there is no great press of traffic. In these accidents, 619 cars were broken, 29 people killed, and 7 wounded. Things are since a little improved; as, last year, 1858, there were only 26 cases of killed and wounded, and, the Report adds, as if consolatory to the feelings of the natives, "of these 18 were strangers."

THE END.