Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
About an hour before sundown, having stowed our water-casks, we
began getting under way, and were not a little while about it; for
we were in thirty fathoms water, and in one of the gusts which
came from off shore had let go our other bow anchor; and as the
southerly wind draws round the mountains and comes off in
uncertain flaws, we were continually swinging round, and had thus
got a very foul hawse. We hove in upon our chain, and after
stoppering and unshackling it again and again, and hoisting and
hauling down sail, we at length tripped our anchor and stood out
to sea. It was bright starlight when we were clear of the bay, and
the lofty island lay behind us in its still beauty, and I gave a
parting look and bade farewell to the most romantic spot of earth
that my eyes had ever seen. I did then, and have ever since, felt
an attachment for that island together peculiar. It was partly, no
doubt, from its having been the first land that I had seen since
leaving home, and still more from the associations which every one
has connected with it in his childhood from reading Robinson
Crusoe. To this I may add the height and romantic outline of its
mountains, the beauty and freshness of its verdure and the extreme
fertility of its soil, and its solitary position in the midst of
the wide expanse of the South Pacific, as all concurring to give
it its charm.
When thoughts of this place have occurred to me at different times,
I have endeavored to recall more particulars with regard to it.
It is situated in about 33° 30' S., and is distant a little more
than three hundred miles from Valparaiso, on the coast of Chili,
which is in the same latitude. It is about fifteen miles in length
and five in breadth. The harbor in which we anchored (called by
Lord Anson Cumberland Bay) is the only one in the island, two small
bights of land on each side of the main bay (sometimes dignified
by the name of bays) being little more than landing-places for boats.
The best anchorage is at the western side of the harbor, where we
lay at about three cables' lengths from the shore, in a little
more than thirty fathoms water. This harbor is open to the N. N. E.,
and in fact nearly from N. to E.; but the only dangerous winds being
the southwest, on which side are the highest mountains, it is
considered safe. The most remarkable thing, perhaps, about it is
the fish with which it abounds. Two of our crew, who remained on
board, caught in a short time enough to last us for several days,
and one of the men, who was a Marblehead man, said that he never
saw or heard of such an abundance. There were cod, bream,
silver-fish, and other kinds, whose names they did not know, or
which I have forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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