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TOUCH-AND-GO.On anchoring, we learned that all the vessels bound for St. John’s had left, but that one belonging to Mr. Slade was still waiting in Fogo Harbour, to take Mr. Slade and Mr. Peyton, who were expected down to go on board of her to St. John’s. As I thought it possible they might go down to Fogo outside the island, I wished to go on. The people said it was no time for any loaded craft to try to get into Fogo Harbour, hut our light cutter might doit; and old John said he thought he could take her in, so we set off. We found a tremendous sea rolling in from the North, with only a light wind blowiug from the West, making it more difficult to manage. Mountains of foam were bursting over all the shoal rocks about; Black Ilock was alternately dry, standing thirty feet out of the water, and buried in boiling surges that were raging and swelling above its head. The scenery was very grand; the bare dark rocks of Fogo Head frowning characteristically above the waves. On nearing the entrance of the harbour, we found the western entrance under Fogo Head white with foam all across; and as the wind would be likely to baffle us under the high land, wc prepared to run in by the Boatswain’s Tickle, a narrow passage between two of the islands, of only two fathoms deptli at low water. John gave the men directions to stand by the main sheet, and when he told them to haul, to pull away without minding what became of themselves, and on no account to let go. As I could be of no sjrvice, I held on by the rigging amidships, to watch the result. As we slowly drew in between the islands, the rooks on each side of us presented themselves alternately bare and black, and covered with torrents of white foam, in which, as it extended across the passage, we were soon involved. Then came a long thundering wave which lifted us up on high, and* launched us into the middle of the channel, Down we sank as it retired, till we seemed touching the rocks below, and our rudder did receive a slight shock. All our heads were tiien turned aft to watch the approach of the next wave. On it came, a huge mountain of water, rising continually higher as it approached, lifting up our punt, which was towed behind, high over our heads, so that 1 verily thought it would fall over on to our deck, until at last it plunged under our stern, and up we rose on the swelling wave, which buried Tom and Simon for a brief space, and drenched our decks a3 far as the foot of the mast. This wave hurried us helter -skelter close to a black rock, upon which I could have leaped ashore from the leeward rigging, as the water receded, and to avoid Which it had been necessary to haul in the main sheet.Luckily, the men obeyed their directions ; and old John, as steady as a rock when he had no rum on board, never blenched from the helm, so we crept past it; and another wave, of rather less violence than the preceding, launched us into smooth water within, the harbour. Some people had collected on the opposite cliff to watch our entrance, as it was certainly “a very close shave,” and old John acknowledged afterwards he would not haye tried it had he known the sea was so high. As we were on the slope of the middle wave, and 1 looked over the bowsprit and saw it pointing directly down to the rocks at the bottom of the water, I really had expected it to catch on one of them, andi that the little vessel would enter the harbour by a kind of summerset. As itwas, however, in about twenty minutes I was comfortably seated in Mr. RJs! parlour, feeding on fish with not the less appetite that I had narrowly escapedbecoming their food.CLOSE OF A TRIP.■tyjien we landed, our appearance must have been somewhat remarkable, and ♦ not the less striking as the day happened to be Sunday, i had taken one summer and one winter pair of trousers with me, but was now obliged to wear them both, not merely on account of the cold, but also that, as the holes in each did not exactly correspond, I might get a mean or average pair of trousers from the two. My jackets were in a similar condition, while our faces were grimed with smoke and dirt, and our whole persons redolent of bad salt-fish.As in all Mr. Murray’s books, the typography is unexceptionable ; but the omission of a map is an oversight detracting fromthe use of the volume, as not many readers of it will have one complete enough to enable them to follow Mr* Jukes,
Newspaper Details
Colonial Gazette
London, Middlesex, GB
Wed, Aug 24, 1842
Page 15
Full Page
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Anonymous
CA 01 Feb 2019
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