WHALING VOYAGE. 
389 
from the depth which she lay in the water, owing to the 
weight of her cargo, which allowed the spray and the 
tops of the waves to wash over her in frequent succes- 
sion. 
In our vast passage from near New Zealand, until we 
arrived at Cape Horn, we had nothing to do with con- 
trary winds. Heavy gales and enormous waves con- 
stantly chased us— the blast of the hail-squall howled 
loudly among the masts— the mountainous seas rolling 
after us in awful grandeur: lifting their swelling bosoms 
high above our decks, they came careering along with 
furious majesty, until the ship, floating on their summits, 
allowed the dashing and hissing sea-cap to pass and 
lash with its snowy foam her moss-grown and weather- 
beaten sides, or wash her whitened deck. Onward it 
flies, until the sound heard dying in the distance ahead 
is again renewed by others, which are constantly rising 
astern. 
At night, in those boisterous regions, everything 
around appears dismal in the extreme. The dark ocean, 
the murky sky, the howling wind, the hissing spray, the 
rolling ship, slowly ascending and descending the enor- 
mous waves, with her decks covered with water, dashing 
to and fro according to her motion, all conspire in this 
lonely passage to “ render night hideous.” Sometimes, 
amid the howling blast and the clattering of the pitiless 
hail- storm, the sailor’s voice could be heard from aloft, 
upon the “ high and giddy mast,” giving instruction to 
those upon the deck, while from the rolling of the ship 
he is every moment suspended over the raging deep— at 
s 2 
