We clung to it with might and main; but this was instinct.

The truth is, that, in circumstances like these, the sense of fear is annihilated in the unutterable sights that fill all the eye, and the sounds that fill all the ear.

You become identified with the tempest; your insignificance is lost in the riot of the stormy universe around.
Below us, our noble frigate seemed thrice its real length--a vast black wedge, opposing its widest end to the combined fury of the sea and wind.
At length the first fury of the gale began to abate, and we at once fell to pounding our hands, as a preliminary operation to going to work; for a gang of men had now ascended to help secure what was left of the sail; we somehow packed it away, at last, and came down.
About noon the next day, the gale so moderated that we shook two reefs out of the top-sails, set new courses, and stood due east, with the wind astern.
Thus, all the fine weather we encountered after first weighing anchor on the pleasant Spanish coast, was but the prelude to this one terrific night; more especially, that treacherous calm immediately preceding it.
But how could we reach our long-promised homes without encountering Cape Horn?
by what possibility avoid it?
And though some ships have weathered it without these perils, yet by far the greater part must encounter them.

Lucky it is that it comes about midway in the homeward-bound passage, so that the sailors have time to prepare for it, and time to recover from it after it is astern.
But, sailor or landsman, there is some sort of a Cape Horn for all.
Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time.

Gray-beards! thank God it is passed.