By way of Cape Horn : $b four months in a Yankee clipperStevenson, Paul Eve
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By way of Cape Horn : $b four months in a Yankee clipper
Stevenson, Paul Eve
Hosea Higgins (Ship); Seafaring life; Voyages to the Pacific coast
A great change has taken place in the temperature, for at eight
this morning the thermometer stood at 38° in the air and 47° in the
water,--a fall in thirty-six hours of 15° in the atmosphere and 16° in
the sea. People who have never been exposed for consecutive hours to
a temperature at sea of between 30° and 40° can have no just idea of
how penetratingly cold the wind is when the mercury drops below 40°,
or of how many clothes it is necessary to wear if one wants to stay on
deck a long while without constant motion. For example, I have on now
two suits of heavy underwear, pilot-cloth trousers, a heavy jersey, a
whip-cord waistcoat, a padded leather jacket, and a mackintosh; the
costume is completed with mention of knitted woollen gloves and socks
and leather boots and ditto hat. Now, there are numerous brawny, burly
individuals who will ridicule this mass of apparel, and insist that
one ought to keep moving, which would make it unnecessary. But to
begin with, our promenade is here limited to seventy-five feet instead
of several hundred, as in the case of a transatlantic steamer; and,
besides, I have not that maniac passion for pedestrianism which lays
so fierce a hold on some people the instant that they set foot upon a
vessel’s deck. When I want exercise, half an hour at the pumps, even in
cold weather, is sufficient; and I’ll warrant that it would be enough
for the brawny, burly individuals before noticed. Neither of us came to
sea to stay below, so we pile on sufficient clothes to repel even the
strongest blasts, and can sit comfortably and unruffled for hours on
deck without a break.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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