O
F
my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage and
length
of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from the other.
Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common order, and a
contemplative
turn of mind enabled me to methodise the stores which early study very
diligently garnered up. Beyond all things, the works of the German
moralists
gave me great delight; not from any ill-advised admiration of their
eloquent
madness, but from the ease with which my habits of rigid thought
enabled
me to detect their falsities. I have often been reproached with the
aridity
of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a
crime;
and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me
notorious.
Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured
my mind with a very common error of this age — I mean the habit of
referring
occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the
principles
of that science. Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than
myself
to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the
ignes fatui
of
superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the
incredible
tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude
imagination,
than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries of fancy
have
been a dead letter and a nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed
in the year 18—, from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous
island of Java, on
a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as passenger —
having no other inducement than a kind of nervous restlessness which
haunted
me as a fiend.
[column 2:]
Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four
hundred tons,
copper-fastened,
and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted with cotton-wool
and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on board coir,
jaggeree,
ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily
done,
and the vessel consequently crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for
many days stood
along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguile
the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some of the
small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a
very singular,
isolated cloud, to the N. W. It was remarkable, as well for its color,
as
from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia.
I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to
the
eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of
vapor,
and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon
afterwards
attracted by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar
character
of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water
seemed
more than usually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the
bottom,
yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now
became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar
to those arising from heated iron. As night came on, every breath of
wind
died away, and a more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The
flame
of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion,
and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the
possibility
of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could
perceive
no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he
ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was
set,
and the crew, consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves
deliberately
upon deck. I went below — not without a full presentiment of evil.
Indeed,
every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I told the
captain
my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me without
deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from
sleeping,
and about midnight I went upon deck. As I placed my foot upon the
upper
step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise,
like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and
before
I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its
centre.
In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends,
and, rushing over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to
stern.
The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great
measure, the
salvation
of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her masts had
gone
by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and,
staggering
[page 204:] awhile beneath the immense pressure of
the tempest, finally righted.
By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is
impossible to say.
Stunned
by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery, jammed in
between
the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my feet, and
looking dizzily around, was at first struck with the idea of our
being
among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the
whirlpool
of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were ingulfed. After a
while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at
the
moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and
presently he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole
survivors of the accident. All on deck, with the exception of
ourselves,
had been swept overboard; the captain and mates must have perished
as
they slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance,
we could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our
exertions
were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectation of going down. Our
cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the first breath of
the
hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We
scudded
with frightful velocity before the sea, and the water made clear
breaches
over us. The frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively, and, in
almost every respect, we had received considerable injury; but to our
extreme
joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting
of our ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and
we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we
looked
forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that in
our
shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous
swell
which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no means
likely
to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights — during which
our
only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great
difficulty from the forecastle — the hulk flew at a rate defying
computation,
before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the
first
violence of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had
before encountered. Our course for the first four days was, with
trifling
variations, S. E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of New
Holland. On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the wind
had hauled round a point more to the northward. The sun arose with a
sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the
horizon — emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds apparent,
yet
the
wind was upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury.
About
noon, as nearly as we could guess, our attention was again arrested by
the appearance of the sun. It gave out no light, properly so called,
but
a dull and sullen glow without reflection, as if all its rays were
polarized.
Just before sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly
went
out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a
dim, sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.
We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day —
that day to me
has not arrived — to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforward we
were
enshrouded in pitchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object
at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us,
all
unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been
accustomed
in the tropics. We observed too, that, although the tempest continued
to
[column 2:] rage with unabated violence, there was no
longer to be discovered the
usual
appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto attended us. All around
were horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering desert of ebony.
Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the
spirit of the old Swede,
and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder. We neglected all care
of the ship, as worse than useless, and securing ourselves, as well as
possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast, looked out bitterly into the
world of ocean. We had no means of calculating time, nor could we form
any guess of our situation. We were, however, well aware of having made
farther to the southward than any previous navigators, and felt great
amazement
at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice. In the meantime every
moment threatened to be our last — every mountainous billow hurried to
overwhelm us. The swell surpassed anything I had imagined possible, and
that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of
the
lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of
our
ship; but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope
itself,
and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing
could
defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the
swelling
of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times
we
gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross — at times
became
dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where the
air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.
We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when
a quick scream
from
my companion broke fearfully upon the night. "See! see!" cried he,
shrieking
in my ears, "Almighty God! see! see!" As he spoke, I became aware of a
dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down the sides of the
vast
chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our deck.
Casting
my eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the current of my
blood.
At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the
precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship, of perhaps four thousand
tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave more than a hundred
times
her own altitude, her apparent size still exceeded that of any ship of
the
line
or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge hull was of a deep dingy black,
unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship. A single row of
brass cannon protruded from her open ports, and dashed from their
polished
surfaces the fires of innumerable battle-lanterns,
which swung to and
fro
about her rigging. But what mainly inspired us with horror and
astonishment,
was that she bore up under a press of sail in the very teeth of that
supernatural
sea, and of that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her,
her bows were alone to be seen, as she rose slowly from the dim and
horrible
gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she paused upon the
giddy
pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own sublimity, then trembled
and
tottered, and — came down.
At this instant, I know not what sudden
self-possession came over my
spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly the ruin
that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasing from her
struggles,
and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of the descending mass
struck her, consequently, in that portion of her frame which was
already
under water, and the inevitable result was to hurl me, with
irresistible
violence, upon the rigging of the stranger.
[page 205:]
As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about;
and to the
confusion
ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew. With little
difficulty I made my way, unperceived, to the main hatchway, which was
partially
open, and soon found an opportunity of secreting myself in the hold.
Why
I did so I can hardly tell. An indefinite sense of awe, which at first
sight of the navigators of the ship had taken hold of my mind, was
perhaps
the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust myself with a
race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I had taken, so
many
points of vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought
proper
to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small
portion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner as to afford me a
convenient
retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.
I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in
the hold forced
me to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a
feeble
and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity of
observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of
great
age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load of years, and his
entire frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself, in a
low
broken tone, some words of a language which I could
not understand, and
groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking instruments, and
decayed
charts of navigation. His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness
of second childhood and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went
on deck, and I saw him no more.
A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken
possession of my soul — a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to
which the lessons of
by-gone time are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will
offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter
consideration
is an evil. I shall never — I know that I shall never — be satisfied
with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful
that
these conceptions are indefinite, since they have their origin in
sources
so utterly novel. A new sense — a new entity is added to my soul.
It is long since I first trod the deck of this
terrible ship, and
the
rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus. Incomprehensible
men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I cannot divine, they
pass
me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly on my part, for the people
will
not see. It was but just now that I passed
directly before the
eyes
of the mate; it was no long while ago that I ventured into the
captain's
own private cabin, and took thence the materials with which I write,
and
have written. I shall from time to time continue this journal. It is
true
that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but
I will not fall to make the endeavor. At the last moment I will
enclose
the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.
An incident has occurred which has given me new room
for meditation.
Are such things the operation of ungoverned chance? I had ventured upon
deck and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice, among a
pile
of ratlin-stuff and old sails, in the bottom of the yawl. While musing
upon
the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubed with a tar-brush the
edges
of a neatly-folded studding-sail which lay near me on a barrel. The
studding-sail
is now bent upon the ship,
[column 2:] and the thoughtless
touches of the brush are
spread out into the word D
ISCOVERY.
I have made many observations lately upon the
structure of the
vessel.
Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her rigging,
build,
and general equipment, all negative a supposition of this kind. What
she
is not, I can easily perceive; what she
is,
I fear it is impossible to
say. I know not how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange model and
singular
cast of spars, her huge size and overgrown suits of canvas, her
severely
simple bow and antiquated stern, there will occasionally flash across
my
mind a sensation of familiar things, and there is always mixed up with
such indistinct shadows of recollection, an unaccountable memory of old
foreign chronicles and ages long ago. *
*
*
I have been looking at the
timbers
of the ship. She is built of a material to which I am a stranger. There
is a peculiar character about the wood which strikes me as rendering it
unfit for the purpose to which it has been applied. I mean its extreme
porousness,
considered independently of the
worm-eaten condition which
is a consequence of navigation in these seas, and apart from the
rottenness
attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an observation somewhat
over-curious,
but this wood would have every characteristic of Spanish oak, if
Spanish
oak were distended by any unnatural means.
In reading the above sentence, a curious apothegm of
an old
weather-beaten
Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. "It is as sure," he
was
wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of his veracity, "as sure
as
there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in bulk like the living
body of the seaman." *
*
About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself
among a group of the
crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in the
very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like
the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the
marks
of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity; their
shoulders
were bent double with decrepitude; their shrivelled skins rattled in
the
wind; their voices were low, tremulous, and broken; their eyes
glistened
with the rheum of years; and their gray hairs streamed terribly in the
tempest. Around them, on every part of the deck, lay scattered
mathematical
instruments of the most quaint and obsolete construction.
* *
* *
*
I mentioned, some time ago, the bending of a
studding-sail. From that
period, the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her
terrific
course due south, with every rag of canvass packed upon her, from her
trucks
to her lower studding-sail booms, and rolling every moment her
top-gallant
yard-arms into the most appalling hell of water which it can enter into
the mind of man to imagine. I have just left the deck, where I find
it
impossible to maintain a footing, although the crew seem to experience
little inconvenience. It appears to me a miracle of miracles that our
enormous
bulk is not swallowed up at once and for ever. We are surely doomed to
hover
continually upon the brink of eternity, without taking a final plunge
into
the abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendous than any I
have
ever seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea-gull; and
the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the deep,
but like demons confined to simple threats, and forbidden to destroy. I
am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only natural cause
which
can account for such effect. I must suppose the ship to
[page 206:]
be within
the
influence of some strong current, or impetuous
under-tow.
* *
* *
*
I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own
cabin — but,
as
I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there
is,
to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or less than
man, still, a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with
the
sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. In stature, he is nearly
my own height; that is, about five feet eight inches. He is of a
well-knit
and compact frame of body, neither robust nor remarkable otherwise. But
it is the singularity of the expression which reigns upon the face —
it
is the intense, the wonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age, so
utter,
so extreme, which excites within my spirit a sense — a sentiment
ineffable.
His forehead, although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp
of a myriad of years. His gray hairs are records of the past, and
his
grayer eyes are sybils of the future. The cabin floor was thickly
strewn
with strange, iron-clasped folios, and mouldering instruments of
science,
and obsolete long-forgotten charts. His head was bowed down upon his
hands,
and he pored, with a fiery, unquiet eye, over a paper which I took to
be
a commission, and which, at all events, bore the
signature of a
monarch.
He muttered to himself — as did the first seaman whom I saw in the hold
—
some low peevish syllables of a foreign tongue; and although the
speaker
was close at my elbow, his voice seemed to reach my ears from the
distance
of a mile.
* *
*
The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of
Eld. The crew
glide
to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their eyes have an
eager
and uneasy meaning; and when their figures fall athwart my path in the
wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before,
although I have been all my life a dealer in antiquities, and have
imbibed
the shadows of fallen columns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis,
until
my very soul has become a ruin.
* *
* *
*
When I look around me, I feel ashamed of my former
apprehensions. If
I trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I not
stand
aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea of which, the
words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective? All in the
immediate
vicinity of the ship, is the blackness of eternal night, and a chaos of
foamless water; but, about a league on either side of us, may be seen,
indistinctly and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice, towering
away
into the desolate sky, and looking like the walls of the universe.
* *
As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current —
if that
appellation
can properly be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by the
white
ice, thunders on to the southward with a velocity like the headlong
dashing
of a cataract.
* *
To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I
presume, utterly
impossible;
yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful regions,
predominates
even over my despair, and will reconcile me to the most hideous aspect
of death. It is evident that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting
knowledge — some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is
destruction.
Perhaps
this current leads us to the southern pole itself. It must be confessed
that a supposition apparently so wild has every probability in its
favor.
* *
*
* *
The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous
step; but there is
upon their countenances an expression
[column 2:] more of the
eagerness of hope
than
of the apathy of despair.
In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and,
as we carry a
crowd
of canvass, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea! Oh,
horror
upon horror! — the ice opens suddenly to the right, and to the left,
and
we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round
the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is
lost
in the darkness and the distance. But little time will be left me to
ponder
upon my destiny! The circles rapidly grow small — we are plunging
madly
within the grasp of the whirlpool — and amid a roaring, and bellowing,
and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering — oh God!
and — going down!