TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA?. 
407 
pick oakum and make spun yarn, and think through a calm 
like that. Well, at the end of fifteen days, just as the sun 
set, a little cloud about as large as John’s tarpaulin, scud up 
in the nor’west, like an angel of mercy to tell us there was 
wind once more in the heavens; and about eight o’clock the 
old ocean began to stir ; the air struck our parched bodies, 
and the sails flapped, the vessel moved, and we began to feel 
that we were climbing out of a great hot grave; I never shall 
forget that calm. 
“ Well, we had light breezes till we got off Montevideo, 
when a stiff norther came on, which bore us on under double- 
reefed topsails down to the Cape. Here it came on to blow 
a gale, and we were obliged to run into Magellan, and lay 
to under the lee of the highlands. After lying there two 
days, the wind chopped round northeast, and the old man 
thought we might as well run through the Straits. But the 
gale was renewed, and rushed overland upon us with such 
fury that we could carry for a number of days, only sail 
enough to make the ship lay her course. At last we hove in 
sight of the Pacific, and run afoul one of those villainous head 
winds which you know often set into the west end of the 
Straits. This detained us nine days. At the end of this time, 
it hauled into the northeast, and enabled us to get into the 
open sea. Our course from the Straits was NW. But the 
wind again chopped round dead ahead ; consequently all we 
could do was to try to hold our own. We accordingly beat 
off and on, and lay to twelve days, when we found we must 
up helm and let her run. The gale was awful; and as we 
advanced south, the raggedness of the sea was continually 
more and more frightful; the cold became intense; the water 
froze upon the deck six inches deep ; and the spars, and masts, 
and rigging were covered with ice to such an extent, that the 
ship swayed under the gale, and was likely to swamp; the 
most like a death-call from the mermaids that Tom ever saw, 
was that gale. The ship lurching her spars into the waves, 
the sailors slipping, the rigging stiff, and the only sail set, 
