|
[page 111:]
|
|
|
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE.
 OF 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 {{1840-01:
, // 1842-02: ; }} and a contemplative turn of
mind
enabled
me to methodize 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 {{1840-01: — // 1842-02: ; }}
a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime {{1840-01: — // 1842-02: ; }}
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 [page 112:]
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 {{1840-01: like //
1842-02: as }} a fiend.
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, [page 113:] 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 {{1840-01: — // 1842-02: ; }}
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 with a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned [page
114:] 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
all
her masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from
the sea, and, staggering 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 {{1840-01:
beyond the wildest imagination }}
was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were
engulfed. 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, and 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 [page 115:] 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 {{1840-01: — //
1842-02: ; }} but to our {{1840-01:
extreme }} joy we found the pumps
unchoked,
and that we had made no great shifting of our ballast. The main fury of
the Simoom had already blown over, and we apprehended little danger
from
the violence of the wind {{1840-01: — //
1842-02: ; }} 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 South; 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 [page 116:]
sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the
horizon {{1840-01: — // 1842-02:
, }} emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds
whatever 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 unaccompanied by any ray. 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, silver-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 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 was 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 [page
117:] 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 extreme 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 {{1840-01: — // 1842-02:
; }} 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!" {{1840-01: — // 1842-02:
, }} 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, [page 118:]
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 nearly four thousand tons. Although upreared
upon the summit of a wave of more than {{1840-01:
a hundred // 1842-02: fifty }} 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 off 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
stupendous
bows were alone to be seen, as she rose up, like a demon of the deep,
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 [page 119:]
was to hurl me with irresistible violence upon the rigging of the
stranger.
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. A nameless and
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 [page
120:] 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 [page 121:] true that I may not find an
opportunity
of transmitting it to the world, but I will not fail 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 operations 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, and the thoughtless
touches
of the brush are spread out into the word DISCOVERY.
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 {{1840-01: , // 1842-02: — }}
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 canvass, 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. [page
122:] 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
wormeaten 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 {{1840-01:
has // 1842-02: would have }} every
characteristic of Spanish oak, {{1840-01:
if
Spanish oak were distended or swelled by any unnatural means //
1842-02: 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 {{1840-01: , }} 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. [page
123:]
I mentioned some time ago the bending
of a
studding-sail.
From that period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has held 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 buried up at once and forever. 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 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 {{1840-01: — // 1842-02:
; }} 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 [page 124:]
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 remarkably otherwise. But it is the
singularity
of the expression which reigns upon the face {{1840-01:
, // 1842-02: — }} 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, yet 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-latterns, I feel as I
have
never felt before, although I have been all my life a dealer in
antiquities,
and have imbibed [page 125:] 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 {{1840-01: — //
1842-02: ; }} 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 {{1840-01: — it //
1842-02: . It }} must be confessed that a
supposition apparently so
wild
has every probability in its favor. [page 126:]
The crew pace the deck with unquiet
and tremulous
step {{1840-01: , // 1842-02: ; }}
but there is upon their countenances an expression 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 {{1840-01:
, }} the ship is at times lifted bodily from
out the sea {{1840-01: — // 1842-02:
. }} 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 shrieking of ocean and of tempest, the ship is
quivering,
oh God! and — going down. |
|
|
|
|
|