The scene at night on a man-of-war, is one full of interest to him who sees it for the first time. The decks, busily thronged during the day by the men in the performance of their duties, at an early hour of the night, with the exception of the watch, are apparently deserted; a number equal to the population of a small village, crowded close together, swing in their pendent beds in oblivious sleep, which the exertions of the day makes more profound, leaving nothing to disturb the quiet of the vessel, save the half-hour striking of the ship’s bell, and the quick responses of the different look-outs assuming their watchfulness, or the drumming of the wheels as they send the yesty water along the side.
In a few days we crossed that great liquid fortification of our coast—the Gulf-stream—when the temperature became greatly moderated, our stoves were taken down, the cloudy skies that we had had disappeared, and we hailed the sun. The water had changed from 41° to 71°, the sun came up magnificently from the ocean, and the air felt like a balmy spring morning; away off in the southeast floated piles of clouds like inverted illuminated pearl-shells, and for the first time since leaving Norfolk, we were enabled to look upon the _deep_ blue sea, and the blue deep sea. Then, too, our fine band, composed of twenty-three brass and reed instruments, discoursed its most pleasant strains for the first time since we had been out, under the leadership of a talented old Italian musician—the only man I ever saw who, with a nice “ear for music,” kept both of his auriculars continually stopped with wool.
The cry of “Land, ho!” on the evening of the 11th of December, announced our vicinity to Madeira, after a rough and lonely passage from the United States of eighteen days. The weather proving rough, we wore ship and stood off during the night, and early in the morning again stood for the island, and it was not long before we were running under the lee of its northern side. Madeira at a distance, wrapped in its hazy robe of blue, presents the appearance of a huge monster reposing on the water, but running in under the land, the aspect is far more attractive. Being the first foreign land on which my eyes had ever rested, I gazed with increasing pleasure on the parti-colored soil, on the graceful and silvery cascades precipitating themselves down its steep shores, presenting the appearance of tapering spires of churches, while nestling here and there on the cliffs, amid thick verdure, were the happy-looking quintas and farmhouses. Toward evening, leaving the singular formed rocks “Las Desertas” on our left, we rounded the northeasternmost point of the island, and Funchal, in its terraced beauty, came in full view. We fired a gun and hoisted a jack for a pilot, but we were permitted to approach without the aid of that functionary. It being Sunday, perhaps they did not officiate on that day. Just before sundown we came to in the harbor, near the Pontinha, and immediately on anchoring were boarded by the Portuguese health-officer, who, finding we had no contagious disease aboard, granted us _pratique_. The second promptest visiters to welcome us were the washerwomen, who are all eager for the possession of the soiled linen, at the same time evincing a wonder of recognition and recollection perfectly satisfactory to themselves, but not at all convincing to anybody else. One old shrivelled dame of a laundress insisted that I had visited the island before, and pretended to adhere to the opinion with the tenacity of Dolly, in Oliver Twist, when she called upon the good bystanders to make her brother go home. This was old Madam Yesus, and, as my poor battered garments subsequently proved, she washed “not wisely, but too well.” They were eminently communicative on general topics, told us how “mucher pauvre” they were, gave us the first news of the approaching famine, and to men who had been tumbling about the ocean for over half a month, the unsavory intelligence that wine, which but a short time before could be bought for forty cents per bottle, could now only be obtained for a dollar.