Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/38

 mistaken for rocks. There is little doubt that many of the numerous reefs on our charts have as little reality  as our supposed wreck. I recall that a few days before we sailed for Georges Banks, the Banks were reported to  be out of water, by several inward-bound vessels. While surveying them we ran afoul of one of the largest dead  whales I ever saw. It measured ninety-three feet in length, and was covered with barnacles. It had drifted in a tide-rip about a mile long, and in a storm it might  easily have been mistaken for a sand-bar or a reef. Probably this whale and the seaweed had been thought to be the exposed Bank; but the Bank was not exposed,  for the shoalest water we obtained on the Banks at that  time was three fathoms.

September the 9th being Sunday, all hands were called to Divine service. The sermon from our chaplain was a discourse upon profane language. Such services called to mind scenes of the past, and awakened the  better feelings of our natures. On the afternoon of the 10th the man at the mast-head reported land, which  proved to be the Peak of Pico, one of the Western  Islands. On the following day we made the northern coast of St. Michael’s, belonging to the same group, a  high and mountainous island, but exceedingly fertile,  and dotted with valleys, groves, and cultivated fields,  which could be seen from the ship’s deck. For several days we were favored with fine weather and fair breezes,  and were making rapid progress toward the place of destination. On the 15th, while he was setting the main- to’gallant-sail over a single reef topsail, George Porter, one of the maintop men, met with an accident. In