After we had got about two hundred miles south of the equator,
we fell in with the south-easterly Trades, and once more moved steadily
and swiftly on our course. We were not many hundred miles
from the coast of Africa for many days sail; it being the custom of

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ships in going to South America to keep well to the Eastward, to avail
themselves of the Trades, which blow from the coast of Europe northeasterly,
and from the coast of Africa south-easterly. The two winds
do not approach each other by seven or eight degrees, which space is
in the region of the Equator, and wherein reign calms and rains, squalls
and fiery heat.

Having well passed this fitful region, and once more feeling the influence
of a steady wind which blows for weeks from one quarter, we
rapidly run down our latitude. Nothing of importance occurred until
we were in thirty south, when one morning we saw a water-spout about
a league to leeward. Its shape was that like a huge speaking trumpet
hanging from the clouds. Its smaller end nearly touched the sea
which was in the wildest confusion beneath it. At length, it suddenly
shot upward a slender column of water and joined it, thus binding the
clouds and the sea in a strange union. The conjoined column we
soon saw was in rapid motion, and in the direction of our vessel, its
progress being dead to windward. We watched its approach with no
little apprehension until it came within half a mile when it wheeled
and moved several points away from us, but advancing like a race horse,
its roar distinctly reaching our ears. Its path was marked with foam.
Above it was a jet black cloud, from the bosom of which it hung and
which supplied it with its volume of water. Suddenly a flash of lightning
darted from the cloud followed by a sharp clap of thunder. Instantly
the tall crystal link that bound heaven and earth together parted
in mid air, half ascended rapidly and lost its form in the cloud, while
the other section descended into the sea with the noise of billows dashing
against rocks.

The same afternoon we for the first time saw a whale. It was ahead
of us when first discovered, laying motionless upon the surface, occasionally
sending a jet of water into the air. As we advanced on our
course and came near the hebemoth, he disappeared, slowly sinking
beneath the surface, lashing the sea with his tail as he went down.—
In a little while we heard him blowing astern of us, and looking round
saw his huge bulk half exposed and rolling upon the waves like some
island adrift. He took his way to the westward, and was soon hulldown
in the blue distance.

The following day I was so fortunate as to spear a dolphin. It had
been swimming along side for some time, and I had entertained myself
with watching his graceful movements, keeping up with the vessel
seemingly without any effort. In the water when the sun strikes upon
his sides as he turns to it, his colors are very beautiful; but it is when
he is lying on deck and dying that he presents that splendid appearance
which has made him so celebrated. Watching my opportunity with
the `grains' in my hand, I succeeded in throwing it with such accuracy
as to spear him. He struggled with a surprising outlay of strength,
but with the aid of some of my fellow-passengers he was hauled inboard.
I never saw any thing so beautiful as the hue his scales presented
as he was expiring. They were like those in the lining of some
rich Indian pearl, varied by the most dazzling prismatic changes.

We found that his flesh or meat, (has the language no word?) his

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fish was very delicately flavored, though something dry. It was similar
in appearance and taste to the pickerel.

The next day we fell in with an English ship loaded with emigrants,
bound to Buenos Ayres. She came so close to us that we could see
the groups of poor emigrants crowding her decks in scores. The
Captain, as the wind was light, came on board of us, gave us some
English newspapers, took some of our American papers in exchange,
had a glass of wine in the cabin with the Captain and Mr. Bedrick,
and then returned to his own clumsy, slow sailing ship, the sails of
which were old and brown, and looking anything but tidy. I have
always observed the inferior appearance of English merchant vessels
compared with ours. They are wanting in that cleanliness and comfort
that characterizes the American. The Captains, too, generally
are a rude, coarse set of men, without refinement and indifferent to it.
This English brig and its Captain, suffered by comparison with our
brig, and our Captain, though we had not much to boast of in this
way.

At length, we had run down our latitude, and the Captain gave orders
to square away the yards for the mouth of the river La Plata.—
The idea of soon seeing the coast of South America, and putting an
end to our long voyage, which had now been fifty-six tedious days in
length, filled us with hope and joy. We moved speedily on our new
course for five days, when one morning after breakfast, the Captain
electrified us all by giving the order for a man to go aloft and keep
sharp look out for land.

The man went not up alone. We all followed, some ascending to
the main, some to the foreroyalmast head. We could, however, discover
nothing around us but the wide circle of the blue ocean, and far
in the south-western horizon a faint white spec which we knew to be
a sail, and reported on deck accordingly. The Captain took his glass
and swept the horizon, but he could not see it on deck on account of
the curvature of the earth, or rather the ocean. To a landsman the
difference that a few feet elevation at sea makes in viewing a distant
object, is always surprising when experienced for the first time. He
does not easily conceive that the are of the circumference of the earth
can be manifest within the scope of a human eye. Yet experience
proves that it is apparent across a few leagues' surface. We could,
from aloft, see an object on the horizon that from the deck was invisible
even with a telescope. The telescope would have had to see
over the verge of the earth's peripheny to take it within its range. A
few feet up the rattlings will make a perceptible difference. I have
seen from deck all the sails of a ship sailing along the horizon, but the
ship herself was under the verge. By going twenty feet up the mast I
rose above the arching swell of the globe sufficiently to bring in sight
her hull. I have often amused myself with watching through the glass
vessels far distant whose topsails only were visible.

The sail that was now discovered, in two hours afterwards came so
near as to be made out a whaler from Nantucket. She spoke us, asked
the news, and passed on, saying she was to touch at Rio Janeiro. By
her we despatched letters home, with the faint hope that they would

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ever get to the hands of our friends. But they were all received about
three months after we had spoken the ship.

Our look-out kept aloft, occasionally relieved until noon, when, just
as the Captain was taking the sun, he called out that cheering cry
which has made thousand of hearts leap with joy,

`Land ho!'

`Land ho!' was echoed by every voice on board; and for a moment
all was joyous confusion aft; though the seamen I noticed betrayed no
emotion. To them it is the same whether making or leaving port.—
The sea is their home, and they are alike indifferent what shores they
make or over what nameless oceans they wander. They know not the
landsman's joy at the sight of land!

We now went aloft, and from the main royal yard I was able to
make out a faint brown line in the west, but so dim, so remote, so high
up in the air (as it seemed) that I knew not whether to call it land or
cloud. But gradually it developed itself from the line of sky and sea,
between which it was suspended, and after an hour's watching I
thought I was able to detect wavy outlines that might be eminences or
might be imagination.

The Trades had left us two days before, and we wee now dependant
on such winds as pleased to blow us along. These were fickle,
as winds usually are, the kind `Trades' always excepted; and we had
not sailed an hour and a half after the land was made before the breeze
died away, leaving our sails flapping, and our hopes of getting into the
river before night, fast evaporating.

Captain Pright looked the very picture of ill-humor and discontent.
At one moment he would swear at the wind, at another at the brig,
and then give the seamen a regular d—g all round by way of variety.
Mr. Bedrick was cross, and we were one and all very much
vexed with the wind for dying away, instead of being thankful and
happy that we had got in sight of land. But such is human nature.—
We forget our blessings the moment fortune frowns upon us. The
sunshine is no more remembered when darkness and storms follow.—
Men are grumblers—good for nothing ungrateful grumblers! With
enough to fill our hearts with gratitude, for bringing us in sight of the
coast to which we were bound, we made ourselves wretched because
the wind had left us in sight of it. I dare say we should have been
less angry had we been becalmed an hour before the land was discovered.

The calm lasted the whole day. The sun set in a glassy sea of fire.
The moon rose, but with it rose not the expected wind. All night we
lay upon the bosom of the deep wooing the winds. None of us could
sleep for asking every half hour if `the wind had sprung up?' The
Captain walked the deck all night whistling, and set the sailors to
whistling for a wind. Morning dawned; the sun rose, but with it did
not come the breeze the Captain prophecied. The land, too, had
disappeared. A man was sent aloft, but could see nothing of it. The
current setting out of the river combined with the ebb of the tide had
effected us where we were and drifted us to sea again!

Upon the discovery of this fact the disappointment and ill-humor

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increased. No one spoke civilly to his neighbor. The tempers of all
had been soured by a long voyage of nearly sixty days, and also by
certain events that will be narrated in the next chapter.

At length the wind came gently from the South, and by noon we
once more made the land, which proved to be Cape St. Mary's. The
brig held on slowly until we were able to distinguish objects upon it.—
The sight of this place, the day before, had filled us with deep emotions
of joy. `Land! dear land!' It was happiness to gaze upon it.
It now proved to be a barren and bleak spot, destitute of trees, and of
a pale green hue, yet to our eyes so long weaned from earth it seemed
a paradise. Our imaginations invested it with every beauty of scenery,
and we felt that if we could place our feet upon it our earthly bliss
would receive its consummation. The very smell of the land which
came off to us many leagues was more grateful than the aroma borne
on the gales of Arabia. We did nothing now but hang over the vessel's
side and gaze upon it. The water now assumed a grayish dingy
appearance, and the lead was hove into the sea to ascertain the depth.
Nearer and nearer we came to the Cape, and at length were able to
distinguish the tower of a low light house, and near it something that
we guessed was a human habitation. About an hour before sunset we
entered the river passing within a mile and a half of the low Cape upon
which with the glass we made out a man half-naked, mounted on horseback,
and watching us.

The southern cape of the river being many leagues from the northern,
was visible to us; the river being at its mouth like a bay in
breadth. The moon rose above the dark land on our right for the
first time in sixty days that we had not seen it emerge from the water.
As we ascended the river we could hear the welcome sound of dogs
barking upon the shore; and here and there in the interior shone fires
which had been lighted for some purpose unknown to us four `clerks,'
but which we had no little curiosity to learn; for whatever we saw or
heard now, were subjects of no indifferent interest to us, thus for the
first time entering the waters and skirting the shores of a foreign
land.