The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1860-01-26

PERILs OF CAPE HoRS.-The Golden Eagle which
arrived at San Francisco Dec %, left New York on
the I'D Of May, with every prospect Of making a
good passage, as she is n fast sailer and Capt. Luce a
known 50 driver in nautical ~par!ance. Her pas
sage to the equator on the Atlantic side was a fair
one, but owing TO her having had no trade winds,
she waE eighty-hve days to Cape Horn, and passed
through the Straits of lie Marie with studdingsails
and royals set Another day would have put her all
right, when, within three miles of Cape Horn, the
wind came out to the w. N W., and from that time
for three months, the ships log-book displays a sue
cession Of storms and tremendous seas, or rather an
unbrOken continuation of them. which we believe to
be unparalleled. The wind continued dead ahead,
sometimes blowing in awful hail and snow storms,
reducing the ship TO 9 bare poles, under which she
often lay to for weeks at n tims. A mountainous sea
made up and kept the ship flooded with water. The
crew, benumbed with the cold and long continued
heavy weather, grew discouraged and sick, and for
two or three months ten of them laid up at a time.
The nautical vocabulary Stems to have been exhaust
ed in the log-bOOk, to describe the severity Of the
weather. The ship lost her fore and main yards, the
latter having been carried away by the sings Thus
disabled she drifted six days to the eastward, before
another could be got aloft, such was the tremendous
character Of the gale aud the running sea. During
this time she made a dead drift from Ion. 73' w. to
long. 65' W., blowing steadily, so that at times it was
impossible to look to windward. Ice formed on deck,
and the rigging was sometimes covered with il. The
men being saturated with water, and several Of them
frozen, rendered the situation of the ship for some
time extremely critical. The water gradually grew
quart a day. Several times the wind lulled and fell
calm, when the long-looksd for southeasterly winds
were believed to be coming. But this would only
last n few hours, and seemed like the crouch of the
tiger before the onset, for in every instance the wind
came out with terrific violence from the westward,
and the ship was again brought down to fighting
trim. During all this time the Golden Eagle proved
herself to be a splendid seaboat, or she would never
have lived through such weather. Heavy seas board
ed her at times, but she generally rode out the gale
like a duck, and nothing was washed off the decks.
There seemed to be some fatality in the repeated
hauling of the gales into the westward. 1t would
blow weeks from that point. then moderate for a few
hours, haul into the eastward and coax the light can
vas out, when dowr il came again from the old
quarter. blowing, in IA 4, q hurricane. At one time
fifteen of the crew Ysre sick and OFF duty. Some OF
them had lately arri, &c AZ New York, from long voy-
ages, and had the germs of scurvy in them which
this heavy weathe- developed in its worst form. In
one place, the log book refers to the exhausted condi-
ton of the crew, but ads that harsh measures had
to be adopted to drive til 81. 30 their work In anoth-
err, the mate describes the getting III of the sails and
reducing the ship to bare poles and he adds that
it was impossible for canvass TO stand against the
force Of the wind. Finally the ship got n slant. and
emerged from those iBhospitable chimes into the Pa
ci6c. She was exactly ninety days from so south
in the Atlantic. to that latitude in the Pacifc-a
point which a few days sailing would have accom-
plished. Thence she made for the port of Talca-
huana, where she reitted and took in stores, provi-
siOns and water, and getting her first streak of good
luck, was only eighteen days up to the equator, and
made the passage to this port from Fulcahuana in
th.rty-nine days, which we believe is the best on re-
cord. Part Of the time she sailed fourteen knots an
hour. Her entire passage has been ZIG days, OF
which six were passed in the Chilean port--4ha-