Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/249

 and clung closely to the side of the mountain. Amidst all this Jack had his jokes, you may be sure. You might hear one sing out, "I say, old gruffy, my lad, did you  ever fall in with anything like this off Cape Cod?" "No, my hearty, it even beats Cape Horn." Another would shout, "I’ve seen it blowing like blue blazes, but  this is a regular old blow-hard, hard enough to blow  Yankee Doodle on a frying-pan."

"Silence fore and aft!" sings out old Tom Piner, "you never knew anything about its blowing above the  mast-heads. Just heave to until all hands are called up  higher; then you will find that you cannot weather the  gale even by lying down to it."

At two o’clock the gale abated; at daylight everything was as serene as a morning in the tropics.

At sunrise we were astonished to behold the Star, Spangled Banner still proudly waving far above this scene  of desolation, on the brim of one of the craters.

I feel proud to know that my country’s flag, the broad stripes and bright stars, has been borne by brave men,  north, south, east, and west, and waved to the breeze in  as high an altitude as the flag of any other nation.

The words, "Pendulum Peak, January, 1841, U. S. Ex. Ex.," having been cut in the lava within our village,  we picked up the remnants of the camp, and were all  glad to bid adieu to the bleak and dreary summit of  Mauna Loa.

On our return we made the first station about eleven o’clock, when we "spliced the mainbrace" for the first  time since we had left the ship. At noon we dined on a good hot soup, and after a short rest went on our way