MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
Qui n'a plus qu'un moment a vivre
N'a plus rien a dissimuler.
—Quinault—Atys.
OF my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage and
length of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from the
other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common order,
and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me to methodize the stores
which early study very diligently garnered up.—Beyond all things,
the study of the German moralists gave me great delight; not from any
ill-advised admiration of their eloquent madness, but from the ease with
which my habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect their falsities.
I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency
of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism
of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong
relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with
a very common error of this age—I mean the habit of referring
occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the
principles of that science. Upon the whole, no person could be less
liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by
the ignes fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus
much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered
rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience
of a mind to which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a
nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18—,
from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java, on
a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as
passenger—having no other inducement than a kind of nervous
restlessness which haunted me as a fiend.
Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons,
copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted
with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on
board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The
stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood
along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguile
the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some of the
small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular,
isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well for its color, as
from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia.
I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to
the eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip
of vapor, and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon
afterwards attracted by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the
peculiar character of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change,
and the water seemed more than usually transparent. Although I could
distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in
fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with
spiral exhalations similar to those arising from heat iron. As night
came on, every breath of wind died away, an more entire calm it is
impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop
without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the
finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration.
However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger,
and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to
be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew,
consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon
deck. I went below—not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed,
every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I told the
captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me
without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me
from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck.—As I placed my foot
upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a
loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a
mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship
quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam
hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft, swept
the entire decks from stem to stern.
The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the salvation
of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her masts had
gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and,
staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of the tempest, finally
righted.
By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say. Stunned
by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery, jammed in
between the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my
feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck with the idea of
our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination,
was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were
engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had
shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to
him with all my strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon
discovered that we were the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck,
with the exception of ourselves, had been swept overboard;—the captain
and mates must have perished as they slept, for the cabins were deluged
with water. Without assistance, we could expect to do little for the
security of the ship, and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the
momentary expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course, parted
like pack-thread, at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should
have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful
velocity before the sea, and the water made clear breaches over us. The
frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively, and, in almost every
respect, we had received considerable injury; but to our extreme Joy we
found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting of
our ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and we
apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we looked
forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that, in our
shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell
which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no means
likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights—during
which our only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured
with great difficulty from the forecastle—the hulk flew at a rate
defying computation, before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which,
without equalling the first violence of the Simoom, were still more
terrific than any tempest I had before encountered. Our course for the
first four days was, with trifling variations, S.E. and by S.; and we
must have run down the coast of New Holland.—On the fifth day the cold
became extreme, although the wind had hauled round a point more to the
northward.—The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a
very few degrees above the horizon—emitting no decisive light.—There
were no clouds apparent, yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew
with a fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as we could
guess, our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun.
It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow
without reflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before
sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as
if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim,
sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.
We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day—that day to me
has not arrived—to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforward we were
enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object
at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us,
all unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been
accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that, although the tempest
continued to rage with unabated violence, there was no longer to be
discovered the usual appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto
attended us. All around were horror, and thick gloom, and a black
sweltering desert of ebony.—Superstitious terror crept by degrees into
the spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent
wonder. We neglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless, and
securing ourselves, as well as possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast,
looked out bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means of
calculating time, nor could we form any guess of our situation. We were,
however, well aware of having made farther to the southward than any
previous navigators, and felt great amazement at not meeting with the
usual impediments of ice. In the meantime every moment threatened to be
our last—every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell
surpassed anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not
instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of
our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship; but
I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and
prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could
defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made,
the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally
appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the
albatross—at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into
some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed
the slumbers of the kraken.
We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick scream
from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. "See! see!" cried he,
shrieking in my ears, "Almighty God! see! see!" As he spoke, I became
aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down the sides
of the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our
deck. Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the
current of my blood. At a terrific height directly above us, and upon
the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of,
perhaps, four thousand tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave
more than a hundred times her own altitude, her apparent size exceeded
that of any ship of the line or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge
hull was of a deep dingy black, unrelieved by any of the customary
carvings of a ship. A single row of brass cannon protruded from her open
ports, and dashed from their polished surfaces the fires of innumerable
battle-lanterns, which swung to and fro about her rigging. But what
mainly inspired us with horror and astonishment, was that she bore up
under a press of sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of
that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her bows
were alone to be seen, as she rose slowly from the dim and horrible gulf
beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she paused upon the giddy
pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own sublimity, then trembled and
tottered, and—came down.
At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over my
spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly the ruin
that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasing from her
struggles, and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of the
descending mass struck her, consequently, in that portion of her frame
which was already under water, and the inevitable result was to hurl me,
with irresistible violence, upon the rigging of the stranger.
As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about; and to the confusion
ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew. With little
difficulty I made my way unperceived to the main hatchway, which was
partially open, and soon found an opportunity of secreting myself in the
hold. Why I did so I can hardly tell. An indefinite sense of awe, which
at first sight of the navigators of the ship had taken hold of my mind,
was perhaps the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust
myself with a race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I
had taken, so many points of vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I
therefore thought proper to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I
did by removing a small portion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner
as to afford me a convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the
ship.
I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forced me
to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a feeble
and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity
of observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of
great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load of years, and
his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself,
in a low broken tone, some words of a language which I could not
understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking
instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His manner was a wild
mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and the solemn dignity
of a God. He at length went on deck, and I saw him no more.
A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul
—a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of
bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself
will offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter
consideration is an evil. I shall never—I know that I shall
never—be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it
is not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since they have
their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new sense—a new entity is
added to my soul.
It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and the
rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus. Incomprehensible
men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I cannot divine, they
pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly on my part, for the
people will not see. It was but just now that I passed directly before
the eyes of the mate—it was no long while ago that I ventured into the
captain's own private cabin, and took thence the materials with which
I write, and have written. I shall from time to time continue this
Journal. It is true that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting
it to the world, but I will not fall to make the endeavour. At the last
moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.
An incident has occurred which has given me new room for meditation. Are
such things the operation of ungoverned Chance? I had ventured upon deck
and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice, among a pile of
ratlin-stuff and old sails in the bottom of the yawl. While musing upon
the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubed with a tar-brush the
edges of a neatly-folded studding-sail which lay near me on a barrel.
The studding-sail is now bent upon the ship, and the thoughtless touches
of the brush are spread out into the word DISCOVERY.
I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the vessel.
Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her rigging,
build, and general equipment, all negative a supposition of this
kind. What she is not, I can easily perceive—what she is I fear it is
impossible to say. I know not how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange
model and singular cast of spars, her huge size and overgrown suits
of canvas, her severely simple bow and antiquated stern, there will
occasionally flash across my mind a sensation of familiar things, and
there is always mixed up with such indistinct shadows of recollection,
an unaccountable memory of old foreign chronicles and ages long ago.
I have been looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built of a
material to which I am a stranger. There is a peculiar character about
the wood which strikes me as rendering it unfit for the purpose to
which it has been applied. I mean its extreme porousness, considered
independently by the worm-eaten condition which is a consequence of
navigation in these seas, and apart from the rottenness attendant upon
age. It will appear perhaps an observation somewhat over-curious, but
this wood would have every characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak
were distended by any unnatural means.
In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old
weather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. "It
is as sure," he was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of his
veracity, "as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in
bulk like the living body of the seaman."
About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of the
crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in the
very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like
the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the
marks of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with infirmity; their
shoulders were bent double with decrepitude; their shrivelled skins
rattled in the wind; their voices were low, tremulous and broken; their
eyes glistened with the rheum of years; and their gray hairs streamed
terribly in the tempest. Around them, on every part of the deck, lay
scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaint and obsolete
construction.
I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. From that
period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her
terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas packed upon her,
from her trucks to her lower studding-sail booms, and rolling every
moment her top-gallant yard-arms into the most appalling hell of water
which it can enter into the mind of a man to imagine. I have just left
the deck, where I find it impossible to maintain a footing, although the
crew seem to experience little inconvenience. It appears to me a miracle
of miracles that our enormous bulk is not swallowed up at once and
forever. We are surely doomed to hover continually upon the brink of
Eternity, without taking a final plunge into the abyss. From billows a
thousand times more stupendous than any I have ever seen, we glide away
with the facility of the arrowy sea-gull; and the colossal waters rear
their heads above us like demons of the deep, but like demons confined
to simple threats and forbidden to destroy. I am led to attribute these
frequent escapes to the only natural cause which can account for such
effect.—I must suppose the ship to be within the influence of some
strong current, or impetuous under-tow.
I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin—but, as I
expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there is,
to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or less than
man-still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the
sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. In stature he is nearly
my own height; that is, about five feet eight inches. He is of a
well-knit and compact frame of body, neither robust nor remarkably
otherwise. But it is the singularity of the expression which reigns upon
the face—it is the intense, the wonderful, the thrilling evidence of
old age, so utter, so extreme, which excites within my spirit a sense—a
sentiment ineffable. His forehead, although little wrinkled, seems to
bear upon it the stamp of a myriad of years.—His gray hairs are records
of the past, and his grayer eyes are Sybils of the future. The cabin
floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron-clasped folios, and
mouldering instruments of science, and obsolete long-forgotten charts.
His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he pored, with a fiery
unquiet eye, over a paper which I took to be a commission, and which, at
all events, bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as
did the first seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables
of a foreign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, his
voice seemed to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.
The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crew glide
to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their eyes have an eager
and uneasy meaning; and when their fingers fall athwart my path in the
wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before,
although I have been all my life a dealer in antiquities, and have
imbibed the shadows of fallen columns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and
Persepolis, until my very soul has become a ruin.
When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions. If I
trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I not stand
aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea of which
the words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective? All in the
immediate vicinity of the ship is the blackness of eternal night, and a
chaos of foamless water; but, about a league on either side of us, may
be seen, indistinctly and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice,
towering away into the desolate sky, and looking like the walls of the
universe.
As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current; if that appellation
can properly be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by the
white ice, thunders on to the southward with a velocity like the
headlong dashing of a cataract.
To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly
impossible; yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful
regions, predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me to the
most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we are hurrying onwards
to some exciting knowledge—some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose
attainment is destruction. Perhaps this current leads us to the southern
pole itself. It must be confessed that a supposition apparently so wild
has every probability in its favor.
The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there is
upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hope than
of the apathy of despair.
In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and, as we carry a crowd
of canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea—Oh,
horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly to the right, and to the
left, and we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round
and round the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose
walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. But little time will be
left me to ponder upon my destiny—the circles rapidly grow small—we
are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool—and amid a
roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship
is quivering, oh God! and—going down.
NOTE.—The "MS. Found in a Bottle," was originally published in 1831,
and it was not until many years afterwards that I became acquainted with
the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean is represented as rushing, by
four mouths, into the (northern) Polar Gulf, to be absorbed into the
bowels of the earth; the Pole itself being represented by a black rock,
towering to a prodigious height.
