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bought her and the cargo from Mr. Peake for four thousand pounds, Island currency, being one hundred pounds each share. She was loaded chiefly with house building ma- terial, provisions and tools of all kinds for different trades. We sailed on the 12th day of November, 1849. A small steamer called the “Rose” towed us out from Charlotte town to Governor’s Islands, where we an- chored for the night; the next morning we set sail for Canso, arriving in the evening where we landed the pilot, he carrying the news back how we were progressing. We started from Canso and shaped our course for Cape St. Rogue, which proved a bad mistake. I advised differently. but was overruled by the captain, and when we got down on the coast of Brazil we found our- selves six hundred miles to the westward and leeward, taking us nearly six weeks to beat out around the cape. causing us to be very short of water, and although we kept ourselves on short allowance and the water under lock and key, when we ar— rived at Bahia on the Ist (lay of February. 1850, we had only enough for one day. We made only a short stayat Bahia. Owing to the British consul warning us of the danger of yellow fever ; we got our supplies on board as quickly as possible and sailed away, fol- lowed by a gale of fair wind, which proved a great blessing, for the first night our first mate took sick of yellow fever; his cries and groans were awful to hear and greatly alarmed us. Our hope now was that the words of the consul might prove true. that the fever would soon die away, and our quick run into a colder climate proved them to be so. Our gallant captain deserved the thanks of all for his kind attention to the mate, whose recovery dismissed our fears. We had guns and plenty of ammunition and
V PAST AND PRESENT OF
on the way shot lots of game. James C. Pope shot the first bird, a very large black one, a kind very plentiful. We all wished to get it, but were refused the boat. Pope, strong and determined, with not a lazy bone in his body, clothed in duck trousers and shirt. leaped from the deck into the sea and was soon making for the ship with the bird, when within fifty yards of the ship he was seen to drop the bird. Everyone thought this a bad sign, as he was not the man to abandon his purpose. A rope was thrown him and soon he was on deck, but not a ’ moment too soon, for a large disappointed shark made his appearance just where he had come out of the water. Off the river De La Plata we met stormy weather, which carried away our foretop sailyard and sprung our fore yard. I happened to be in the ca- pacity of ship’s carpenter for the voyage. and this incident made some extra work
for me. However, we soon got our spars repaired . and everything in ship-shape again.
The next place we came to anchor was in the straits of Lamere, near Cape Horn, about the Ist of March, lying there one day. Then we started to turn the cape, when we encountered very strong weather, cold, with snow squalls. We came very near being lost here, our ship being hove over on beam ends, causing the loss of deck load. It took us about three weeks of hard bat- tling before we got around; then we had fair passage up the coast to Valparaiso, where we called, buying a quantity of flour, with the intention of taking it to the mines in California. We stayed in Valparaiso four days, then sailed again for our destination, with a fair wind which remained with us. But there were some of our company that fine weather and fair winds would not sat-