The prospect of meeting this in a ship half manned, and loaded so
deep that every heavy sea must wash her fore and aft, was by no
means pleasant. The Alert, in her passage out, doubled the Cape in the
month of February, which is midsummer; and we came round in the
Pilgrim in the latter part of October, which we thought was bad
enough. There was only one of our crew who had been off there in the
winter, and that was in a whaleship, much lighter and higher than
our ship; yet he said they had man-killing weather for twenty days
without intermission, and their decks were swept twice, and they
were all glad enough to see the last of it. The Brandywine frigate,
also, in her passage round, had sixty days off the Cape, and lost
several boats by the heavy sea. All this was for our comfort; yet pass
it we must; and all hands agreed to make the best of it.
During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made and
mended everything for bad weather. Each of us had made for himself a
suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we got out, and gave
thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung upon the stays to dry.
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