“Suddenly a heavy blow struck the starboard quarter and careened the ship over on her side. A crash was heard overhead — chains rattling and falling, sails madly flapping, yardarms snapping and masts breaking; for a few seconds, the noise was terrific…”

-49er Linville Hall, describing his trip around Cape Horn

It’s been six full weeks, and you’ve yet to see the South American continent. You pass the time playing cards and checkers — and daydreaming about gold.

Lots of gold.

You’ve heard the stories kicking around the ship: Gold in the hills, gold in the riverbeds.  Fat glistening seams a foot below the topsoil.  Cracks in rocks packed with gold, able to pried with a pocketknife.

You know that gold sells for $16 per ounce, and you fall asleep every night to the rocking of the high seas, and endless arithmetic involving the number sixteen.

Just as the boredom becomes unbearable, you dock in Rio de Janeiro, a bustling port city in Brasil.

The town has everything, including satisfaction for those shipmates with a taste for life’s darker vices.

So relieved to be on terra firma, you kiss the ground upon landing. You take a donkey ride into the countryside, and find a peace that’s escaped you for months.

You even think about staying in Brasil, maybe learning the language, dancing the fandango with a young Brasilian bride.

This daydream is short-lived, however. You return to Rio, where you purchase a sack of lemons to fend off scurvy. You also buy a small guitar to help pass the time at sea.

Once back on the water, boredom quickly returns, but it’s soon replaced by terror. The Straits of Magellan causes all kinds of trouble for your vessel as you make a 180-degree turn around the continent. But after two hectic days (and sleepless nights), you head north.

The trip north is maddeningly uneventful. You’ve learned to play guitar, as well as your friend’s banjo and the captain’s mandolin. You have also read every one of Shakespeare’s works.

A better man? Maybe. But in San Francisco, after 16,000 miles at sea, you’re delighted just to be on land.

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