A voyage round the world : including an embassy to Muscat and Siam in 1835, 1836, and 1837 / by W.S.W. Ruschenberger.

  • Ruschenberger, W. S. W. (William Samuel Waithman), 1807-1895.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A voyage round the world : including an embassy to Muscat and Siam in 1835, 1836, and 1837 / by W.S.W. Ruschenberger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    rice water, &c. By this plan, the sense of fulness and constriction of the head, which characterize the invasion of the malady, will be relieved, and the patient will become comparatively comfortable. Ladies who cross the Atlantic in packet ships, where all the appli- ances of comfort procurable at sea are usually found, may find this hint not thrown out in vain. From the day of sailing, nothing of importance occurred out of the usual routine of ship's duty. The passage was remarkable for a great deal of rain, and we experienced very few days of really very pleasant weather. On the 28th of May, being close to the equator, we had a beautiful annular eclipse of the sun, between the hours of eleven and twelve o'clock A. M. Although the thermomoter did not sink, the air was sensibly cooler, and the whole atmosphere much darkened, yet no stars were seen. On the 10th of June, at sunrise we saw the coast of Brazil, stretch- ing between Cape Frio and the harbour of Riode Janeiro, the hills, or rather mountains, rising in broken outline in the gray of the morning. The light land wind was quickly succeeded by a gentle sea breeze. About three o'clock P. M. we descried a large sail under the land to the westward of the Sugar Loaf, which proved to be the United States ship Natchez, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore Ren- shaw. At a distance of five miles we exchanged signals; and, on hauling down our broad blue pendant and substituting a red one, as is the custom when a junior meets a senior commodore, we fired a salute of thirteen guns, which was promptly returned. The breeze continued light, and fell almost calm as the sun sank lower, so that we moved along at a rate not exceeding two miles an hour. The sunset was a magnificent one, even for this tropical region. The soft tints of the sky changed from the lightest orange to a golden hue; from that to rosy, and then deepened to a blazing red, which last faded away into the soft gray of twilight, leaving the clouds no longer reflected upon by the sun, in their own som- bre colours. The effect of these hues on the imagination was height- ened by the bold and broken outline of the mountains, cast in strong relief, by a flood of light poured upwards from behind them as the sun sank. The moon was at her full, and as she rose, poured her silvery rays over the smooth surface of the waters; and the modest stars of the Southern Cross beamed forth in the calm purity of that religion of which this beautiful constellation js an emblem. The two ships of war, now slowly approaching each oilier, and with three or four small vessels, weie standing in iui the harbour. Onboard