FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  
are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming--one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return--and we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point. Twice, during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently, that, at length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents--here to-day and gone to-morrow--which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up. "I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered 'on the grounds'--it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather--but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the Moskoe-stroem itself without accident; although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish, while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. These would have been of great assistance at such times, in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing--but, somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into the danger--for, after all is said and done, it _was_ a horrible danger, and that is the truth. "It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18-, a day which the people of this part of the world will never forget--for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
remain
 

anchor

 

grounds

 

thought

 

danger

 
steady
 
unmanageable
 

rendered

 

forget

 

gentle


eldest

 
brother
 

afternoon

 

brightly

 

eighteen

 

current

 

minute

 

people

 

foreseen

 

strong


breeze
 

starting

 

seaman

 
horrible
 
heavens
 
oldest
 
terrible
 

hurricane

 

happened

 

afterward


fishing

 
sweeps
 

occurred

 

assistance

 

morning

 
account
 

forced

 

shortly

 

arrival

 
starving

calculation

 

weighed

 

violent

 
return
 

seldom

 

expedition

 

coming

 

channel

 

twentieth

 
difficulties