Chapter 11

"With glossy skin, and dripping mane,
And reeling limbs, and reeking flank,
The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain
Up the repelling bank."

Mazeppa.

Roswell Gardiner felt as if he could breathe more freely when they had run
the Summers Group fairly out of sight, and the last hummock had sunk into
the waves of the west. He was now fairly quit of America, and hoped to see
no more of it, until he made the well-known rock that points the way into
that most magnificent of all the havens of the earth, the bay of Rio de
Janeiro. Travellers dispute whether the palm ought to be given to this
port, or to those of Naples and Constantinople. Each, certainly, has its
particular claims to surpassing beauty, which ought to be kept in view in
coming to a decision. Seen from its outside, with its minarets, and Golden
Horn, and Bosphorus, Constantinople is, probably, the most glorious spot
on earth. Ascend its mountains, and overlook the gulfs of Salerno and
Gaeta, as well as its own waters, the _Campugna Felici_ and the memorials
of the past, all seen in the witchery of an Italian atmosphere, and the
mind becomes perfectly satisfied that nothing equal is to be found
elsewhere; but enter the bay of Rio, and take the whole of the noble
panorama in at a glance, and even the experienced traveller is staggered
with the stupendous as well as bewitching character of the loveliness that
meets his eye. Witchery is a charm that peculiarly belongs to Italy, as
all must feel who have ever been brought within its influence; but it is a
witchery that is more or less shared by all regions of low latitudes.

Our two Sea Lions met with no adventures worthy of record, until they got
well to the southward of the equator. They had been unusually successful
in getting through the calm latitudes; and forty-six days from Montauk,
they spoke a Sag Harbour whaler, homeward bound, that had come out from
Rio only the preceding week, where she had been to dispose of her oil. By
this ship, letters were sent home; and as Gardiner could now tell the
deacon that he should touch at Rio even before the time first anticipated,
he believed that he should set the old man's heart at peace. A little
occurrence that took place the very day they parted with the whaler, added
to the pleasure this opportunity of communicating with the owner had
afforded. As the schooners were moving on in company, about a cable's
length asunder, Hazard saw a sudden and extraordinary movement on board
the Vineyard Lion, as the men now named that vessel, to distinguish her
from her consort.

"Look out for a spout!" shouted the mate to Stimson, who happened to be on
the foretopsail-yard at work; when this unexpected interruption to the
quiet