Add to all this labor, the neat work upon the
rigging;- the knots, flemish-eyes, splices, seizings, coverings,
pointings, and graffings, which show a ship in crack order. The last
preparation, and which looked still more like coming into port, was
getting the anchors over the bows, bending the cables, rowsing the
hawsers up from between decks, and overhauling the deep-sea-lead-line.
Thursday, September 15th. This morning the temperature and
peculiar appearance of the water, the quantities of gulf-weed floating
about, and a bank of clouds lying directly before us, showed that we
were on the border of the Gulf Stream. This remarkable current,
running north-east, nearly across the ocean, is almost constantly
shrouded in clouds, and is the region of storms and heavy seas.
Vessels often run from a clear sky and light wind, with all sail, at
once into a heavy sea and cloudy sky, with doublereefed topsails. A
sailor told me that on a passage from Gibraltar to Boston, his
vessel neared the Gulf Stream with a light breeze, clear sky, and
studding-sails out, alow and aloft; while, before it, was along line
of heavy, black clouds, lying like a bank upon the water, and a vessel
coming out of it, under double-reefed topsails, and with royal yards
sent down.
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