The South-West (Vol. 1&2) - J. H. Ingraham

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have only seen moonlight, sleeping upon green hills, cities and forests, know nothing. On such nights, there cannot be a nobler, or prouder spectacle, as one stands upon the bows, than the lofty, shining pyramid of snow-white canvass which, rising majestically from the deck, lessens away, sail after sail, far into the sky—each sheet distended like a drum-head, yet finely rounded, and its towering summit, as the ship rises and falls upon the billows, waving like a tall poplar, swaying in the wind. In these hours of moonlit enchantment, while reclining at full length upon the deck, and gazing at the diminished point of the flag-staff, tracing devious labyrinths among the stars, the blood has danced quicker through my veins as I could feel the ship springing away beneath me like a fleet courser, and leaping from wave to wave over the sea. At such moments the mind cannot divest itself of the idea that the bounding ship is instinct with life—an animated creature, careering forward by its own volition. To this are united the musical sighing of the winds through the sails and rigging—the dashing of the sea and the sound of the rushing vessel through the water, which sparkles with phosphorescent light, as though sprinkled with silver dust.

      A dark night also affords a scene to gratify curiosity and charm the eye. A few nights since, an exclamation of surprise from one of the passengers called me from my writing to the deck. As, on emerging from the cabin, I mechanically cast my eyes over the sea, I observed that at first it had the appearance of reflecting the stars from its bosom in the most dazzling splendour, but on looking upward to gaze upon the original founts of this apparently reflected light, my eyes met only a gloomy vault of clouds unillumined by a solitary star. The "scud" flew wildly over its face and the heavens were growing black with a gathering tempest. Yet beneath, the sea glittered like a "lake of fire." The crests of the vast billows as they burst high in the air, descended in showers of scintillations. The ship scattered broken light from her bows, as though a pavement of mirrors had been shivered in her pathway. Her track was marked by a long luminous train, not unlike the tail of a comet, while gleams of light like lighted lamps floating upon the water, whirled and flashed here and there in the wild eddies of her wake. The spray which was flung over the bows glittered like a sprinkling of diamonds as it fell upon the decks, where, as it flowed around the feet, it sparkled for some seconds with innumerable shining specks. And so intense was the light shining from the sea that I was enabled to read with ease the fine print of a newspaper. A bucket plunged into the sea, which whitened like shivered ice, on its striking it, was drawn up full of glittering sea-water that sparkled for more than a minute, after being poured over the deck, and then gradually losing its lustre, finally disappeared in total darkness.

      Many hypotheses have been suggested by scientific men to account for this natural phenomenon. "Some have regarded it," says Dr. Coates, "as the effect of electricity, produced by the friction of the waves; others as the product of a species of fermentation in the water, occurring accidentally in certain places. Many have attributed it to the well-known phosphorescence of putrid fish, or to the decomposition of their slime and exuviæ, and a few only to the real cause, the voluntary illumination of many distinct species of marine animals.

      "The purpose for which this phosphorescence is designed is lost in conjecture; but when we recollect that fish are attracted to the net by the lights of the fisherman, and that many of the marine shellfish are said to leave their native element to crawl around a fire built upon the beach, are we not warranted in supposing that the animals of which we have been speaking, are provided with these luminous properties, in order to entice their prey within their grasp?"

      IV.

       Table of Contents

      Land—Abaco—Fleet—Hole in the Wall—A wrecker's hut—Bahama vampyres—Light houses—Conspiracy—Wall of Abaco—Natural Bridge—Cause—Night scene—Speak a packet ship—A floating city—Wrecker's lugger—Signal of distress—A Yankee lumber brig—Portuguese Man-of-War.

      "Land ho!" shouted a voice both loud and long, apparently from the clouds, just as we had comfortably laid ourselves out yesterday afternoon for our customary siesta.

      "Where away?" shouted the captain, springing to the deck, but not so fast as to prevent our tumbling over him, in the head-and-heels projection of our bodies up the companion-way, in our eagerness to catch a glimpse, once more, of the grassy earth; of something at least stationary.

      "Three points off the weather bow," replied the man aloft.

      "Where is it?"—"which way?" "I see it"—"Is that it captain—the little hump?" were the eager exclamations and inquiries of the enraptured passengers, who, half beside themselves, were peering, straining, and querying, to little purpose.

      It was Abaco—the land first made by vessels bound to New Orleans or Cuba, from the north. With the naked eye, we could scarcely distinguish it from the small blue clouds, which, resting, apparently, on the sea, floated near the verge of the southern horizon. But with the spy glass, we could discern it more distinctly, and less obscured by that vail of blue haze, which always envelopes distant objects when seen from a great distance at sea, or on land.

      As we approached, its azure vail gradually faded away, and it appeared to our eyes in its autumnal gray coat, with all its irregularities of surface and outline clearly visible.

      Slightly altering our course, in order to weather its southern extremity, we ran down nearly parallel with the shores of the island that rose apparently from the sea, as we neared it, stretching out upon the water like a huge alligator, which it resembled in shape. Sail after sail hove in sight as we coasted pleasantly along with a fine breeze, till, an hour before the sun went down, a large wide-spreading fleet could be discerned from the deck, lying becalmed, near the extreme southern point of Abaco, which, stretching out far into the sea, like a wall perforated with an arched gateway near the centre, is better known by the familiar appellation of "The Hole in the Wall."

      "There is a habitation of some sort," exclaimed one of the passengers, whose glass had long been hovering over the island.

      "Where—where?" was the general cry, and closer inspection from a dozen eyes, detected a miserable hut, half hidden among the bushes, and so wild and wretched in appearance, that we unanimously refused it the honor of

      "——A local habitation and a name!"

      It was nevertheless the first dwelling of man we had seen for many a day; and notwithstanding our vote of non-acceptance, it was not devoid of interest in our eyes. It was evidently the abode of some one of those demi sea-monsters, called "Wreckers," who, more destructive than the waves, prey upon the ship-wrecked mariner. The Bahamas swarm with these wreckers who, in small lugger-sloops, continually prowl about among the islands,

      "When the demons of the tempest rave,"

      like birds of ill omen, ready to seize upon the storm-tossed vessel, should it be driven among the rocks or shoals with which this region abounds. At midnight, when the lightning for a moment illumines the sky and ocean, the white sail of the wrecker's little bark, tossing amid the storm upon the foaming billows, will flash upon the eyes of the toiling seamen as they labour to preserve their vessel, striking their souls with dread and awakening their easily excited feelings of superstition. Like evil spirits awaiting at the bed-side the release of an unannealed soul, they hover around the struggling ship through the night, and, flitting away at the break of morning, may be discovered in the subsiding of the tempest, just disappearing under the horizon with a sailor's hearty blessing sent after them.

      That light-houses have not been erected on the dangerous head-lands and reefs which line the Bahama channel, is a strange oversight or neglect on the part of the governments of the United States and England, which of all maritime nations are most immediately concerned in the object. Suitable light-houses on the most dangerous points, would annually save, from otherwise inevitable destruction, many vessels and preserve hundreds of valuable lives. The profession of these marauders would be, in such a case, but a sinecure; provided they would allow the lights to remain. But, unless each tower were converted into a well-manned gun-battery the piratical character of these men will preclude any hope of their permanent establishment. Men of their buccaneering

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