El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-09-02
CHAPTER XIII.
An Incident.

| By the time we had been a month
at sea, having applied myself assidu-
ously to work, picked up a little
knowledge of seamanship. I took my
! turn Of watch with the rest; learned
| to go aloft and to lie upon a yard in
stiff topgallant breeze. I acquired all
the mysteries of knotting and splicing,
of serving rope with spun-yarn, and to
know the technical difference between
I the rope itself and a line. 1 could
heave the 1og,box the compass and take
my trick at the helm with the best
man on board, and thus gained the
golden opinions Of those among whom
rough turn of the wheel of fortune
had so strangely and so suddenly cast
me.
Some days after leaving the Cana
ries we found ourselves passing
through what seemed to be immense
meadows of green stuff adrift. By
moonlight the branches, leaves and
fbers of this uprooted marine forest
flor such 1t was, being wrack and sea-
weeds Of wondrous length springing
from the lowest depths of the ocean
sparkled, flashed and whirled in the
foaming eddies astern Of the brig as
she cleft or brushed down the yielding
masses with her rushing keel.
was never weary of surveying this
scene, which was so marvellous in its
beauty, when the moon was shining on
the sea.
These vast, broad leaves and long,
snaky tendrils that danced upon the
surface of the sea were the Florida
gu1f-weed.
1.-THE tropical grape of the Sailors
said Hislop, as we leaned over the lee
quarter one night. These plants grow
upon the two great banks of the At
lantfc, and were known to the Phoe-
nicians, who named them the Weedy
Sea-"
ct remember said I; land that the
seamen of Columbus thought they
were sent by heaven to stay their
course
you are right" replied the mate,
with an approving smile. "It is pleas
ant to meet one like you, Rodney, who
has read that which is worth reading,
and remembers it,
"The Gulf Stream" said Weston,
joining in the conversation, sis a great
current about sixty miles broad.
caused by the trade winds, which al
ways blow from east to west. 1t is
sues from the Gulf between Cape Flor
Ida and Cuba, and runs at the rate of
three knots an hour along the shores
Of South and North America, till the
Newfoun dland bank turns it to the
southeast; so everywhere its track is
known by that gulf-weed which you
now see floating past"
It is by this mysterious current
this mighty river that traverses the
ocean-that the timber logs OF the st.
the wrecks of the old plate
and the carved idols of older
Mexico and the Caribbean Isles, all
covered with the weeds and barnacles
of long immersion, have been cast
upon the western shores of Scotland
and the Hebrides
Every morning the weather became
warmer-the sea and sky more clear
the atmosphere more rarefied. The
wind was so steady that scarcely a
sheet or tack was altered Thus for
several days we bore on with both
sheets aft, as the phrase is, when run
ming right before the wind.
Shoals of porpoises plunged across
the bows of the brig in the sapphire
colored sea, and when it was smooth |
a whole feet of the little nautili |
passed us with purple sails up; nor
were the dark and gliding sharks and |
the silvery fiying-fish wanting at times |
to keep MY attention excited; and the |
tiny petrels, as they came tripping |
along, half in the water and half in |
the air, kept pace with the Eugene.