CHANGE OF WEATHER.

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to appear an embassador with full powers in the proudest empire of Christendom.

I do not recollect ever to have felt more strongly the desire of securing to myself the blessing of Him, "who converteth a sinner from the error of his ways," than since I have been with this crew; and my daily prayer, as well as heart's desire, unto God is, that they may be saved.

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May the grace of God, in the ministry with which I am clothed, be sufficient for me; and in mercy to myself and to his creatures, may I be made the happy instrument of feeding, with the sweet provision of the gospel, the few here who are of that flock which shall yet inherit the kingdom;" of reclaiming the lost and wandering; of binding up the broken-hearted; and of leading the lambs of the fold into "the green pastures," and beside the "still waters" of his love.

LETTER XIV.

PASSAGE ROUND CAPE HORN.

U. S. ship Guerriere, at Sea,
May 25th, 1829.

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THE wintry weather of the southern hemisphere commenced early with us after leaving port. A few bright and balmy days, with fair weather and fullspread canvass, and a moon at night riding through a soft and tranquil sky in a brightness of beam almost equal to that of noonday, were followed on the first VOL. I.

10

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MAKE STATEN LAND

"sabbath morning by a red and lurid horizon, a head wind with scud and squalls from the south, and a heavy, rolling sea upon our bows.

For three weeks afterwards we were in a succession of strong gales directly against us, and reduced almost every night to close-reefed main and fore sails, with housed guns, and the deadlights all in, by way of preparation for "the whirlwind and the storm."

It was not till the 13th inst., nearly four weeks after leaving Rio, that we reached the latitude of the Falkland Islands, and, after two days calm, ran past the group, but not in sight of land, with a noble wind, at the rate of ten and twelve miles the hour. Great numbers of albatross, with flocks of haglets, and a beautiful ice-pigeon, probably from New Shetland, which lighted on our capstan hungry and exhausted, proclaimed an approach to the Cape; and on the morning of the 15th we made Staten Land, forty miles distant.

The time of day and manner in which the island came in sight, the weather and temperature, the doubling of Cape St. John and coasting of the southern shore, and the bearings and outline of the principal points, afterwards, were all so much the same as when on board the Thames, in 1823, that every thought was closely associated with the first sight of this distant and inhospitable region; and it seemed but a day since, hanging on my arm in the wintry garb of cap and mantle, you, dear H, then walked the deck with me, gazing with animation and pleasure on the novel and desolate scene.

The next evening we were in the longitude of Cape Horn, with the prospect of a speedy passage round, till a heavy western gale met us, and drove us entire

AND ENCOUNTER A GALE.

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ly from our course. continued to blow fiercely, and at times with a violence equal to any thing I ever before witnessed. The Guerriere, however, "behaved well," as the sailors say; though the little canvass she could bear was reduced to a sieve, and she often seemed almost on her beam ends. One night the wind blew a hurricane, and the labor of the ship in a tremendous sea was such that the commodore, as well as the captain and first lieutenant, was up till morning.

For a week afterwards the wind

During the whole period, the ocean presented a succession of varied and sublime scenes, heightened by the appearance of the frigate struggling in majesty amid the tumultuous conflict of billow raging against billow on every side. Even when her upper spars are sent down, which is generally the case in heavy weather, such a mass of rigging is still presented to the wind, that the rushing of the "impetuous storm,"

as

it sweeps around and over us, sounds like the roaring of a tempest in a mountain forest, and would fill the mind unaccustomed to it with apprehension and horror. When familiar, however, as to me, it only induces a musing mood, leading to thoughts commensu rate with the state of the elements abroad.

A more sublime spectacle is seldom witnessed than that presented by a stately ship in a heavy gale at sea, or one more increasingly impressive the oftener it is seen and the longer gazed on. A finely modeled and perfectly rigged vessel is, under any circumstances, a chef d'œuvre of the art of man: but when seen thus to brave the tempest and the whirlwind, and to ride. gracefully and triumphantly through all the contortions of the storm, there is presented in it an evidence

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DOUBLE CAPE HORN AND

of the power of mind in devising the means and perfecting the arrangements for a dominion over the winds and waves themselves, scarcely to be found in any other work of his hands.

For the last three days we have had a fair wind, with fine weather and moderate temperature; and in the longitude 81°, we consider ourselves entirely past the Cape and within a fortnight's sail of Valparaiso. It is but ten days since we made Staten Land, and we feel ourselves fortunate in having gained an entrance into the Pacific in that period.

Weddell, after the observation of several years in this region, considers the month intervening between the 15th of May and the middle of June as one of the best periods in the year for accomplishing this passage, and our experience on this occasion corroborates the belief. We experienced some hail and snow, but less falling weather than in the Thames in midsummer, and the temperature has not been much colder. The mercury, on one occasion only, fell as low as 29°. The greater shortness of the day makes the most important difference; but with the benefit of a full moon, we have felt no particular inconvenience from nights of sixteen hours duration.

There is reason for much thankfulness that we have thus escaped every extreme of danger and a long delay in this region; and that we have been favored with such weather that, except during the continuance of the gale, we were permitted, at the very remotest point to which we were driven, to continue on the open deck our evening worship; and, at the very extremity of the globe, daily to offer our praises and our prayers to Him who is "the confidence alike of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea."

GAIN SIGHT OF THE ANDES.

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LETTER XV.

DESCRIPTION OF VALPARAISO.

U. S. ship Guerriere, og Valparaiso,

1829.

SAIL ho!" from aloft, on the morning of the 5th inst., broke the monotony of the preceding fortnight. A vessel was on our lee-bow; and we bore away for her. It proved to be the brig Fortune from Huacho, bound to Boston; and we gladly boarded her, with letters to communicate to our friends, the safe arrival of the Guerriere on this side the continent.

The still more animating and welcome sound of "land ahead!" echoed round our decks yesterday. The faintest outline of a mountainous coast could, at first, scarcely be traced in the east; but long before night, we had noble views of the Cordilleras, standing like a wall of eternal snow against a sombre sky. They were still sixty or seventy miles distant; but the gleaming of a declining sun, against their icy summits, presented them in clear and strongly defined outlines to the eager and admiring gaze of our ship's company.

This morning, while it was scarce yet light, Mr. Babbitt, our first lieutenant, entered my state-room to hasten me on deck for a sunrise view of the coast.We were yet twenty miles or more from land; and the cold gray of the dawn was just giving place over it to the warmer tints of the rising day. At first the whole seemed only a dark, gigantic wall rising from the sea; but irregular lines of light and shade soon.