Vikings of the Pacific: The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, EastwardLaut, Agnes C.
History
Vikings of the Pacific: The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward
Laut, Agnes C.
America -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography; Northwest Coast of North America; Pacific Ocean
The superstitious crews' fears of disaster for the death of Doughty
seemed to become very real in the terrific tempests that assailed the
three ships as they entered the straits. Gales lashed the cross tides
to a height of thirty feet, threatening to swamp the little craft.
Mountains emerged shadowy through the mists on the south. Roiling
waters met the prows from end to end of the straits. Topsails were
dipped, psalms of thanks chanted, and prayers held as the ships came
out on the west side into the Pacific on the 6th of September. In
honor of the first English vessel to enter this ocean, Drake renamed
his ship "_Golden Hind_." {151} The gales continued so furiously,
Drake jocosely called the sea, _Mare Furiosum_, instead of Pacific.
The first week of October storms compelled the vessels to anchor. In
the raging darkness that night, the explosive rip of a snapping hawser
was heard behind the stern of the _Golden Hind_. Fearful cries rose
from the waves for help. The dark form of a phantom ship lurched past
in the running seas--the _Marygold_ adrift, loose from her anchor,
driving to the open storm; fearful judgment--as the listeners
thought--for the crew's false testimony against Doughty; for, as one
old record states, "they could by no means help {152} spooming along
before the sea;" and the _Marygold_ was never more seen.
[Illustration: The Golden Hind.]
Meanwhile like disaster had befallen the _Golden Hind_, the cable
snapping weak as thread against the drive of tide and wind. Only the
_Elizabeth_ kept her anchor grip, and her crew became so
panic-stricken, they only waited till the storm abated, then turned
back through the straits, swift heels to the stormy, ill-fated sea, and
steered straight for England, where they moored in June. Towed by the
_Golden Hind_, now driving southward before the tempest, was a
jolly-boat with eight men. The mountain seas finally wrenched the
tow-rope from the big ship, and the men were adrift in the open boat.
Their fortunes are a story in itself. Only one of the eight survived
to reach England after nine years' wandering in Brazil.[6]
Onward, sails furled, bare poles straining to the storm, drifted Drake
in the _Golden Hind_. Luck, that so often favors daring, or the
courage, that is its own talisman, kept him from the rocks. With
battened hatches he drove before what he could not {153} stem,
southward and south, clear down where Atlantic and Pacific met at Cape
Horn, now for the first time seen by navigator. Here at last, on
October 30, came a lull. Drake landed, and took possession of this
earth's end for the Queen. Then he headed his prow northward for the
forbidden waters of the Pacific bordering New Spain. Not a Spaniard
was seen up to the Bay of San Filipe off Chile, where by the end of
November Drake came on an Indian fisherman. Thinking the ship Spanish,
the fellow offered to pilot her back eighteen miles to the harbor of
Valparaiso.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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