V.—­An Adventurous Voyage Home

By Sunday, June 19, we were in lat. 34 deg. 15’ S. and long. 116 deg. 38’ W., and bad weather prospects began to loom ahead.  The days became shorter, the sun gave less heat, the nights were so cold as to prevent our sleeping on deck, the Magellan clouds were in sight of a clear night, the skies looked cold and angry, and at times a long, heavy, ugly sea set in from the southward.  Being so deep and heavy, the ship dropped into the seas, the water washing over the decks.  Not yet within a thousand miles of Cape Horn, our decks were swept by a sea not half so high as we must expect to find there.  Then came rain, sleet, snow, and wind enough to take our breath from us.  We were always getting wet through, and our hands stiffened and numbed, so that the work aloft was exceptionally difficult.  By July 1 we were nearly up to the latitude of Cape Horn, and the toothache with which I had been troubled for several days had increased the size of my face, so that I found it impossible to eat.  There was no relief to be had from the impoverished medicine-chest, and the captain refused to allow the steward to boil some rice for me.

“Tell him to eat salt junk and hard bread like the rest of them,” he said.  But the mate, who was a man as well as a sailor, smuggled a pan of rice into the galley, and told the cook to boil it for me, and not to let the “old man” see it.  Afterwards, I was ordered by the mate to stay in my berth for two or three days.

It was not until Friday, July 22, that, having failed to make the passage of the Straits of Magellan, we rounded the Cape, and, sighting the island of Staten Land, stood to the northward, and ran for the inside of the Falkland Islands.  With a fine breeze we crowded on all the canvas the ship would bear, and our “Cheerily, men,” was given with a chorus that might have been heard halfway to Staten Land.  Once we were to the northward of the Falklands, the sun rose higher in the horizon each day, the nights grew shorter, and on coming on deck each morning there was a sensible change in the temperature.

On the 20th of the month I stood my last helm, making between 900 and 1,000 hours at this work, and 135 days after leaving San Diego our anchor was upon the bottom in Boston Harbour, and I had the pleasure of being congratulated upon my return and my appearance of health and strength.