Booth, Thomas. Papers, 1857 - 1859. Auckland War Memorial Museum Library. MS 2002/56.
My gg grandparents, Samuel and Elizabeth Harris travelled to NZ in 1859 on the clipper ship the Tornado. This blog contains the story of that journey and the people on it, told mainly through the diaries of Alexander Campbell, Thomas Booth and a "Glasgow Emigrant" as well as other information I have stumbled over from time to time.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
16 August 1859
16. We were disturbed about midnight by the extra rolling of the ship
and the noise of the sailors on deck. We found a very strong cold wind
blowing and storms of rain pelting and all hands hard at work taking
in all the sails except three, two of which were reefed and all made
snug by about 7 o'clock. (3 gibb sails and main top royal went to
pieces before they could be furled). I may here remark that the first
impressions conveyed by such a scene (especially when they happen by
night or in the twilight of morn) are capable of exciting great fear
in the bosom of those who know so little of seafaring life but more
particularly so if they do not lovingly know him who holds the winds
in his fist and the waters in the hollow of his hand. But a believer
sees and feels god as near and precious on the lonely deep as in the
cottage of devotion or the temple of prayer and praise and yet to all
landsmen it must be somewhat startling to hear the wind whistling
through the rigging and blowing the water about like dust and heaving
wave upon wave as if to pile the deep into liquid pyramids, each one
of which would come rolling and roaring after us as if to engulf us in
its surgings. And then rolling the ship on her beam ends (broadside)
then kicking against her ribs as if to affright every inmate. Again
lifting as though they would toss us in the airy regions and then
opening it's mouth to swallow us up as intruders on its troubled
waters. But as the day advances and we become more accustomed to this
new dispensation a few things recur which serve to amuse us at the
moment as we see our fellow passengers rolling one against another,
some slipping down on the wet decks, others getting a shower both with
the spray dashing over her Bulwarks and often in her rolls upsetting
buckets, breaking bottles and crockery and rattling the tins about and
turning the benches over. All these in turn kept chiming their answers
to the music of the deep (which excited many a smile at each others
little mishaps). The sea continued heavily and the wind blew fierce
and unabated all day and at night we retired to our rocking beds,
looking round somewhat wishful on the patches of blue sky and here and
there a star peeping through the broken clouds which still looked wild
and stormy.
Labels:
sails damaged,
Tornado
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