Chapter VI: Part 6

After dinner to-day, when we went up on the poop, we found that both wind and sea had increased, but there was nothing to warn us of what was to happen. We had arranged the folding-chairs against the wheel-house, sheltered from the violence of the wind by the bulwarks, and I was in the act of arranging a rug around my wife, when the skipper cried out, “Now, then, mind yourself!” We felt the ship rising higher and higher on an unusually heavy sea, and, looking forward, were just in time to see a great, white cataract roar over the weather-side abaft the main-rigging. Half of it tumbled into the waist, while the other half broke with a stunning crash full against the forward end of the poop-deck-house. It wrenched away a heavy wooden shutter, built to repel just such an attack as this, snapping a thick brass hook as if it had been of glass, washed away a short, massive ladder leading to the top of the deck-house, and then bore down upon us like a freshet. Captain Scruggs again came to the rescue, and, picking my wife up, chair and all, held her clear of the flood; while the only thing for me to do, seeing that my wife was safe, was to fall across one of the stern-bitts hard by and lift my legs out of the water as I best could; and here I remained for two minutes, floundering and wallowing about as though on a pivot, and this just after an especially hearty dinner. When most of the water had run off, the skipper placed my wife’s chair on the deck again with such dexterous cunning as to disengage the supporting-bar in the rear, letting the whole contrivance down flat, so that my wife lay prone upon the deck in the chill sea-water, which still swirled about our feet. It didn’t seem to disturb him much, and he only remarked, as he stamped on the deck, squirting little jets of water out of his Cape Horn slippers, “There, that’s more water than I’ve seen on this ship’s poop since I’ve had her.” It was really a grand spectacle as the sea broke on board, and would have made a superb subject for a camera.

We are now in the very heart of the violent river Plate region, being at noon to-day abreast of that vast estuary, whose mouth is three degrees in width. The Rio de la Plata, or River of Silver, is, like Cape Hatteras, the dividing line between two climates: that of the torrid Brazils and of the cold, bleak pampas of the Argentine and Patagonia, just as Hatteras is the turning-point, so to speak, in the climates of our Southern and Middle Atlantic States. They are, too, about equidistant from the equator. A rather noteworthy fact is that, bar Cape Horn, the three stormiest localities in the Southern Hemisphere are almost exactly in the same latitude, though thousands of miles apart: the river Plate, Cape Agulhas, and Cape Leewin, at the southwestern end of Australia. Latitude, 36° 55′ south; longitude, 47° 20′ west.

+June 28+

By way of variety, light winds were vouchsafed to us for the twenty-four hours, varying from southwest to northeast, and we made not fifty miles of southing in that time. Very suddenly last night at nine o’clock the wind let go at southwest, and instantly came out of the southeast, backing gradually to northeast, where it is now; but though a fair wind we are not doing three knots an hour. However, the glass is falling and a change is no doubt at hand, and the sea has gone down till nothing remains but a sullen, greasy roll from south-southeast. We earnestly hope for a strong, fair wind which will give us at least eight knots, for the skipper’s temper is failing rapidly, and he is beginning to rage at the weather. Generally, by the fiftieth day from New York he has crossed the parallel of 50° south, so that in round numbers we are about seven hundred miles north of his average, this being our forty-eighth day at sea. It has been noted previously, I think, that he has never been more than one hundred and thirty days on a voyage, and has made eight voyages between New York and San Francisco in less than one hundred days; his longest passage of the Horn--that is, from 50° to 50°--was nineteen days; the shortest, eleven. Fine work, all this, which few ship-masters can equal.

My wife asked the skipper last evening if he had ever lost a ship. He said no, but that he had had one or two narrow calls. “One of the worst cases of smash-up I ever saw,” he continued, “happened to me when I had the ‘Judas Dawes’ about six years ago. We were well down in the southeast Trades in the Pacific, bound from ’Frisco to New York; the weather had been squally, and on this particular day, in about 14° south, I had specially told the mate not to loose the jib-topsail, but when I went below after dinner for a nap the beggar did it. When I went on deck again at four there was a squall makin’ ahead, and I ordered some hands to stand by the sky-sail-halliards, for I didn’t know the jib-topsail had been loosed. Well, sir, the squall hit us (it was a corker) and snapped off the jib-boom; and, as I ran forrad, crack went the foretop-mast, then the maint’-gallant-mast, and at last over went the mizzen-t’-gallant-mast. In all my goin’ to sea I never saw the like of it; ’twas as bad nearly as the ‘May Flint,’ only we had smooth water. Forrad we were a wreck, with nothing at all above the foreyard, while alongside was a fearful mass o’ gear slammin’ against the ship, and you know those Trades in the Pacific blow fresh. Well, we cleared up the wreck after hard work, sent up a few of the old yards that weren’t too far gone to fish, made sail, and crossed Sandy Hook Bar, ninety-eight days from ’Frisco, under a jury-rig.” Captain Scruggs has as great a reputation for fast passages as any living American ship-master in the California trade, but we’ll have to have better luck if we are to reach port in less than one hundred and thirty days from New York.

We are entering that region most celebrated in the world for its sunsets; it would be interesting to know whether there is anything in this, or whether it is imagination on the part of captains. At any rate, we witnessed one this evening finer than any which we have ever seen before; the sun sinking into the core of a huge, crimson cavern in the centre of an inky cloud, from behind which shot up scores of slender, golden arrows toward the zenith, presenting a scene of such lurid magnificence as to fill the heart with reverence and wonder. And by that same token, the sun is getting low in the northern sky, his altitude at meridian being only a little above 30°, or about the same as at New York towards the end of December.

The day being chill and raw, with a noon temperature of 52°, a fire was lighted in the cabin stove for the first time; and as the thermometer below has stood for a long while at 55° and a dismal drizzle prevailed all day, the heat and glow of the fire were grateful beyond expression. Latitude, 37° 42′ south; longitude, 47° 40′ west.

+June 29+

From six o’clock yesterday evening till noon to-day we had a breeze so light that at times the sky-sails flapped idly against the masts, and for several hours we were becalmed on a motionless sea,--a sea so wonderfully smooth that, but for the temperature, we might readily have fancied ourselves in the equatorial Doldrums again. At four yesterday afternoon a crisp little breeze came whipping along out of the south (although it lasted only two hours) driving away the squalls and muggy air, a bright, rosy atmosphere taking their place at sundown, with a horizon as sharply cut as the edge of a razor. As for the night which followed, it was as brittle and sparkling as any evening in Nova Scotia, wanting only the flashing pennons of the Aurora Borealis to complete the picture. The firmament glittered with splendid constellations, the stars dancing and scintillating with the glance of steel, as though electric sparks, while the Milky Way seemed firm and solid enough to walk upon. A magnificent sunrise succeeded this matchless night, and we stood entranced by the glory of the scene for half an hour, watching the lovely colors shift every few seconds like the revolutions of a kaleidoscope, changing the tiny, pink, shell-like clouds into glowing, golden embers as the great orb touched the horizon and threw a path of crimson fire even to the vessel’s side. Where are the gales of wind which are supposed to scream incessantly over the Southern Ocean? Where are the giant seas which sweep the South Atlantic with their foaming crests? It is not difficult to answer the latter question, for we will not meet with any of those tremendous rollers which have made Cape Horn the hobgoblin of navigators till we have cleared Staten Land and receive the full fury of the thousands of miles of tempestuous ocean which lie to the south and west of the Horn. It is true that on our first voyage we experienced very heavy weather when in this latitude; but then we were bound the other way and were near the forty-third eastern meridian (about four hundred miles the other side of Good Hope) at this parallel; the weather, as a general rule, is far worse farther to the eastward at 40° south than in here near the land, where bright skies and much smoother seas are the rule rather than the exception. We are not more than three hundred and fifty miles from South America now, so that even if we did have a heavy westerly gale (westerly winds are almost constant south of 30° south) the sea could not rise to such heights as it does off Agulhas and Cape Horn.

But these gentle winds we cannot understand; at dinner-time to-day, though, a nice little breeze came along from the westward, and we are humming along under the sky-sails, doing well except that we are not making much westing, as we can’t do better than south by west.

The captain is like one demented. As MacFoy whispered to me this afternoon when the jib-topsail-sheet parted, throwing him into a paroxysm, “If he doesn’t get a fair wind soon he’ll go mad.” In truth, he has been in a passion all day, chassezing up and down the main-deck as though he had a devil. Just before the sheet went he had a spasm of tautening things up, and went braying about with a voice of brass, driving the men like animals before him; he had just ordered the above sheet flattened in when crack it went, and in a few seconds the clew of the sail was in fluttering ribbons, for the wind, though not strong, whipped away the old canvas as though it were a cobweb. The mate caught it too when he came out of his cavern at quarter to twelve to take the sun, and by the time that we sat down to dinner the old man had worked him into a speechless state, so that throughout the meal he sat crushed and silent, with a face like a cigar Indian. These repasts on such occasions are pregnant with gloomy thoughts, stillness reigning as the skipper fiercely gnaws at his dinner, clicking his teeth, while the whole top of his head seems to move as he chews, his temples particularly rotating like the eccentrics of a steam-engine. His head is quite bald, and his face is embellished with such enormous whiskers that his whole head looks like an inverted sea-anemone; and when he is angry, as he was to-day, his black eyes so glitter and snap under such shaggy brows that they seem about to jump out and annihilate you. After dinner, which appeared to increase his ill-humor, being a dyspeptic, he went up to put some new panes of glass into the skylight which the sea had broken. He fussed and fumed around with putty, diamond, and chisel for half an hour, at the end of which time he had one pane nicely adjusted, when it cracked across one corner. This almost prostrated him, and when two other cracks appeared in rapid succession, each calling forth a low, intense “d----,” he simply got up and ran away.

Then this amiable man commenced on the mate again, who, of course, began to “bullyrag” the men, and finally brought down young Louis Eckers to his knees with a hard blow in the face with his fist. This was due solely to temper, because he had to repeat an order which Louis didn’t understand on account of his ignorance of English.

Our first albatross presented himself to view this morning. When you are making your first long voyage there is generally some confusion at first, resulting in the more or less similarity between an albatross and a molly-hawk. The latter are large birds and really look a good deal like the former; but when you have seen an albatross half a dozen times, you will never forget his appearance. There is no mistaking that great beak or the odd hunchback-look of those shoulders, much less the majestic flight of the stately bird as he skims along close to the surface of the sea and then rises in a splendid circle on those great wings of his. Our friend of this morning, however, did not long abide with us, but, after looking us over, wheeled about and vanished in the south. A Cape pigeon struck the taffrail this morning and fell on the poop by the wheel-house. He was a beautiful little creature, with a snow-white breast, dark-brown wings splashed with white, and a glossy black head and neck, with a sheen as of satin on the feathers. After sufficiently admiring the little fellow and showing him to the cat, who wouldn’t approach within ten feet of him, we hove it overboard, and it whizzed screaming away to rejoin its companions, who now follow us in scores. Latitude, 38° 12′ south; longitude, 49° 35′ west.

+June 30+

The bright happy weather of yesterday has given place to a chill, gloomy day with half a gale from the westward, while the ship under reefed topsails has been digging into a strong head-sea in quite a violent manner. How tender and delicate, so to speak, even the best and largest of wooden vessels really are! For instance, at nine last evening the second mate said that he thought he would put the gaskets on the royals, the sky-sails having come in before supper.

“What on earth do you want to stow the royals for?” said I; “there certainly is not wind enough for that.”

“No, it’s not the wind,” he answered, “but this sea’s makin’ ahead, and she’ll strain goin’ into it with the royals on her.”

There certainly was a southerly sea running, but the ship was diving easily, without wrenching or pounding; and it surely was very surprising that a powerful ship like this would have to shorten sail for such a swell. “And that’s just the great point in favor of an iron ship,” said Mr. Rarx; “you can drive her through most anything and not give her a thought. You know the ‘William J. Rotch’? We opened her all up forrad a-drivin’ of her into a head-sea beatin’ up the Sea of Japan trying to find Willywoodstock in a fog.”

“Where’s that place? It’s new to me,” said I.

“Siberia,” was his reply; and it was not until some hours afterward that I grasped his meaning; he intended to say Vladivostok.

As the night wore on it grew squally, and at three in the morning the fore- and maintop-sails were reefed, while at four o’clock the massive iron hook on the cross-jack-tack carried away, and the sail was saved only by the prompt and good work of both watches. I awoke in the midst of the operation, and above the boom of the seas we could hear the skipper’s hurricane voice shouting, “Haul away on those buntlines; _haul away on those buntlines_; +HAUL AWAY ON THOSE BUNTLINES+.”

At five yesterday afternoon, just before we clewed up the sky-sails, we sailed through a whole fleet of albatrosses, feeding quietly on the water. It was the first time that we had seen so many of the big birds at rest at one time, and they looked very large and dignified as they rose and sunk upon the swell. To say that we sailed through them is not strictly correct, though, for when we had approached to within two hundred yards or so they rose from the surface and went sailing away into the southwest. It is always interesting to watch them rise from the water, flapping their immense wings, each two yards long, and rapidly paddling with feet as large as cabbage leaves to gain an impetus; when, the wind striking beneath their pinions, they stow their great feet somewhere in their stern feathers, and with a couple of powerful strokes of wing away they soar up to windward; and you can watch an albatross for half an hour at a time thereafter, and not a single alar movement can be discerned.

The Scottish bosun entertained me last night for some time in drawing comparisons between various sailing ships. I asked him how the men liked it here. “Why, can’t you tell?” said he. “They don’t like it at all; and I can tell you it’s no child’s play aboard here. Most of the men, you see, have come out of British ships, where they don’t break men’s bones with clubs or their hearts with drivin’.”

“If you like British ships better than ours, what did you sign in this one for?” I asked.

“Why did I?” he replied. “Why, for the same reason that lots of others do,--for the sake o’ the Snug Harbor. Ye see, if any man serves five years in American ships and can prove it, he can end his days in peace and comfort in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island, where they take care of him. But, say, I never see a skipper like this one before. Has he slept at all since we came to sea? I’m hanged if I think so, for at all times o’ the night the first thing you know there’s th’ old man standin’ within two foot of you on the main-deck, like a black spook. Lord knows how he gets around, _I_ don’t.”

To-day we attained the highest southern latitude which my wife and I ever reached, as on our first voyage around the other cape 39° 5′ was the southernmost point. Having crossed the fortieth parallel, we have also probably passed without the influence of the river Plate region; but it is too bad that we are not two hundred miles farther to the westward. Latitude, 40° 31′ south; longitude, 51° 10′ west.

+July 1+

Strong winds from the westward, shifting in the morning watch to southeast, and a rough sea prevailed up to noon to-day, when it cleared up, a persistent rain having added its portion to the dreariness of the weather. At five this morning, when the wind shifted to the southeast, we wore and stood in shore on the port tack, heeling well over to a strong breeze. Both wind and sea increased as the morning advanced, and at nine we had to take some of the sails off the ship. And here mark the skipper’s perversity: at this particular moment we were in quite a severe squall, and I shouted to him, “It’s breezing all the time.” “No, it ain’t,” he replied, harshly; “the wind’s lettin’ go.” Ten minutes later he ordered the maintop-gallant-sail to be clewed up, and in another five minutes he ordered in the spanker. Anything to differ from me and express an opinion of his own, even if he has to act against it.

After these two sails had come in the ship was easier, but the sea was making very rapidly, and in another hour we were taking large quantities of water aboard. It was a wild sight then: an immense squall overhanging us and darkening the heavens and the sea; the ship enveloped in clouds of whirling spray; the driving rain, whipping us with the sting of a lash; the crash of a sea now and then against the forward house; and the flock of sea-birds astern wheeling and diving through the squall, with a brace of gaunt, gray albatrosses sailing calmly along, as though this were a tropic zephyr.

During one of these squalls the carpenter was observed at work on the weather side of the forecastle-house, dodging the seas as each gave warning of its approach by a peculiar motion just before it broke aboard, which one soon learns to know. We were beginning to think that if he didn’t look sharp he would catch it, when a great mass of water arose alongside, faltered a moment high up above the rail, and then, with overwhelming fury, the whole sea thundered aboard. First it flattened Chips out against the deck-house as though he had been crucified against it; then it lifted him, mighty man though he is, and drove him with terrible force against the pumps; while the huge volume of water, encountering the various obstacles in its mad career about the deck, shot into the air as high as the mainyard, totally blotting out the waist of the ship. What saved that carpenter from mortal hurt is beyond human ken. The mate says that it was his sheathing of blubber which encases his carcass like that of a seal. At any rate, he painfully gathered up his clumsy, massive frame and stumbled forward with both hands on his left leg, which proved to be very badly bruised, and he complains now of a hard pain in his chest. This was by far more water than we have had on board at any one time, and it is difficult to conceive of the grandeur of such a sea breaking aboard, though it is an awful sight withal; its power seems resistless, and as it sweeps over the side with a peculiar, crushing sound, one involuntarily grips the rail or a belaying-pin with the grasp of a vice.

When this last squall had passed, lo! a ship to windward, and I was again the first to sing out “Sail ho.” There is much secret pleasure for me in this; for, whenever it occurs, the captain always walks over to Mr. Goggins, who is generally wool-gathering at the break of the poop, and asks him if there is anything in sight. “Naw, sir, there hain’t nothin’. Oh, yes, there’s a sail to wind’ard, sir, through the fog.” “Oh, thanks,” usually answers the skipper ironically, by which the mate knows that he’s been caught again.

Visions of the “Dowes” appeared to us as we studied the stranger as closely as the flying spray and rain would permit, the ship being under her topsails with the main-sail hauled up. Presently, though, we saw that she had no sky-sail-yards, proving that she was not our friend; while her short, thick, pole bowsprit showed that she was doubtless a metal ship, which belief was later confirmed by painted ports.

At noon the sun burst through the dense pall of cloud, and an afternoon of dazzling beauty followed, with the good old “Higgins” surging ahead over the long, blue, foaming seas, a sky of sapphire overhead, dappled with a few thin, cirrus clouds and a grand breeze over the beam, giving us about eight knots on a southwest-half-west course. Just at noon the other ship, too, presented a splendid appearance. To begin with, she was a very handsome vessel, and had so altered her position as to be close astern, a little on our weather quarter, distant about one-third of a mile. Her topsails and courses (she had set her main-sail and cross-jack) were swelled out like great cylinders, while her painted ports lent her the dignity of an old-time frigate; and she presented to us a perfect ideal of the poetry of motion as she rolled deeply but easily, now sinking into a valley to her lower yards, now cleaving the lofty crest of a breaking sea which veiled her in a storm of spray.

At half-past one we decided to signal her, and ran up our number, to which she instantly replied that she was the “La Pallice”; then we informed her that we were from New York bound to San Francisco, fifty-one days out, while she proved to be from Hamburg for the same destination, and was fifty-nine days at sea; after which we dipped our ensign, which she answered with the tricolor of France.

We are reading Nansen’s “First Crossing of Greenland” together with the greatest interest, being one of the most charmingly written of all stories of Arctic work. What a delightful time we will have with his “Farthest North”! We have it on board, but I am waiting till we pass 50° south, so that we can read it in a part of the world almost as rough and desolate as he passed over in his great journey. Latitude, 42° 24′ south; longitude, 52° 36′ west.

+July 2+

We had a good breeze from the south all last night and this morning, which put us off to about west by south; but, as our aim for the past four or five days has been to make westing rather than southing, this breeze was most acceptable. The strong wind of yesterday eased up in the second dog-watch last night, and we carried the top-gallant-sails without trouble afterward.

A great change has taken place in the temperature, for at eight this morning the thermometer stood at 38° in the air and 47° in the water,--a fall in thirty-six hours of 15° in the atmosphere and 16° in the sea. People who have never been exposed for consecutive hours to a temperature at sea of between 30° and 40° can have no just idea of how penetratingly cold the wind is when the mercury drops below 40°, or of how many clothes it is necessary to wear if one wants to stay on deck a long while without constant motion. For example, I have on now two suits of heavy underwear, pilot-cloth trousers, a heavy jersey, a whip-cord waistcoat, a padded leather jacket, and a mackintosh; the costume is completed with mention of knitted woollen gloves and socks and leather boots and ditto hat. Now, there are numerous brawny, burly individuals who will ridicule this mass of apparel, and insist that one ought to keep moving, which would make it unnecessary. But to begin with, our promenade is here limited to seventy-five feet instead of several hundred, as in the case of a transatlantic steamer; and, besides, I have not that maniac passion for pedestrianism which lays so fierce a hold on some people the instant that they set foot upon a vessel’s deck. When I want exercise, half an hour at the pumps, even in cold weather, is sufficient; and I’ll warrant that it would be enough for the brawny, burly individuals before noticed. Neither of us came to sea to stay below, so we pile on sufficient clothes to repel even the strongest blasts, and can sit comfortably and unruffled for hours on deck without a break.

Points in connection with such a voyage as this can be learned only by experience; our first one gave us all that was necessary, so that we knew exactly what to bring with us this time. A leather jacket very thickly lined is almost inconceivably useful, as are a pair of heavy leather knee-boots, at least one size too large, to allow for woollen socks. Such boots well greased will be sufficiently water-tight for all ordinary purposes, and if they should become water-logged, they can always be dried at the galley-fire; rubber boots, though, should never be omitted from the sea wardrobe. The best head-gear is a woollen cap with ear-flaps, and a sou’wester, of course, for bad weather. As to oilskins, there is now manufactured a water-proof stuff, which has proved in this case to be everything that is claimed for it. It is brown in color, and in texture much like a mackintosh, but harder to the touch, and is in two pieces,--short jacket and trousers. These suits have been used in the life-saving service on the Atlantic coast, and the only objection which the men made to the suits was that the sand cut the stuff in a high wind, so that in a short time it became quite porous. At sea, however, I have never found the equal of one of these suits; and, as a test, I stood for two hours yesterday in drenching rain and spray in one position, so as to allow the elements full continuous sweep at one point, and when we went below the inside of the jacket was not even damp. A long oil-skin coat is extremely unwieldy at sea, for if it is blowing at all hard the skirts cling to the legs most aggravatingly, and I have had some hard falls by being thus tripped. All mates wear long yellow coats, however, and I wondered why until yesterday, when I asked Mr. Goggins if a short jacket and pants wouldn’t be more comfortable; but he replied, indignantly, “Wot do yer think I am, a foremast ’and?” It seemed to me that a mate who has to wear a long coat to distinguish him from an ordinary sailor must be like the man who tells another that he himself is a gentleman,--he must be somewhat in doubt about it.

It is to be hoped that this treatise on deep-sea garments has not proved a bore; but after our previous voyage so many persons asked us what we wore in bad weather in the Southern Ocean, that the above explanations may not be out of place. My wife dresses much as she would for golf,--a short skirt and leather gaiters for clear, cold weather, with yellow oil-skins when it rains and the spray flies.

We observed some further fine cloud effects to-day a little after sunrise, the horizon being smothered at frequent intervals with dense squalls; and at nine o’clock a ponderous mass of cumulus cloud appeared in the south, rearing its immense domes nearly to the zenith, like heaps of yellow wool, for the sun’s reflection changed the color of the great bank to that of rich cream, while far below, at the base, the cloud shaded off into a dim, sable mass. “There’s snow in that fellow,” quoth the skipper, which was certainly true, for ten minutes later we were swallowed up in a thick snow-squall, which lasted for fifteen or twenty minutes. Snow seemed to be a singular phenomenon on the second of July, not to mention the biting cold. Latitude 43° 8′ south; longitude, 56° 45′ west.

+July 3+

This morning broke with a clear sky and little or no wind, and when the sun came up fine and rosy, he looked over the rim of the horizon across an azure sea just crinkled by a faint westerly breeze. Light as it was, though, there was a biting sting in it which, before breakfast, set the teeth chattering and raised one’s knuckles into big gristly knobs. The broad sweep of the South Atlantic was well-nigh motionless, for it was only at considerable intervals that a slight swell came sighing up from the Antarctic, and the sea was as calm as off Newport in August. Clothes suspended against the walls hung without motion, and we might well have fancied ourselves in Long Island Sound; as for the day, it was cloudless save for an occasional snow flurry, which lasted only a few minutes. This clear, cold, merry weather at sea is indescribably charming, though, no doubt, the men would tell a different tale, for Olsen and Jacquin, who were mending an old fine-weather royal on the cabin-house this morning, had to knock off work now and then to beat some feeling into their stiffened fingers before they could drive the needles through the canvas.

As we draw nearer and nearer to Cape Horn the men are daily growing very anxious to know the ship’s position, and as I am, of course, the only individual on board who will gratify their curiosity, they often ask me several times a day. Frequently, on the main-deck, a man will ask what the position is in a very low tone, after a careful scrutiny round about to see that none of the after-guard is hard by. Sometimes, as I pass by the wheel-house, I am assailed in a raven’s whisper with, “Say, mister, what’s the latitood?” and their pleasure at being told is quite child-like. A passenger on a sailing ship, by the way, is seldom, if ever, called by his name; he is simply “mister.” Of course, in a general way, sailors often get an idea of the approach of land from the discoloration of the water, the increase in the number of vessels sighted, and the presence of land-birds; but the average sailor probably couldn’t tell within much less than a thousand miles of where he is on a voyage like this. Even a second mate is generally very much in the dark on this subject, for he is never a navigator on American ships, as he ought to be, and keeps no reckoning. We have often seen Mr. Rarx go up to the mate and hint in various ways that he would like to know the ship’s position at noon. The mate sometimes tells him; but Mr. Rarx is too good a seaman to stand well with such a man as the mate, who does not know very much more of that art than some of the sailors. Besides, it _might_ get to the men through one of the bosuns, which would be truly horrible and unspeakable; therefore, unless there is a passenger aboard, sailors live in almost blank ignorance of their whereabouts throughout a four or five months’ voyage.

The bosun of the port-watch, big MacFoy, has been limping badly for several days, his left foot being so severely mashed and swollen that he cannot bear even a loose rubber boot on it. This is the result of a sea which fell upon him one night at the weather forebraces. It slung him across the deck and jammed his foot against a fife-rail stanchion, but luckily broke no bones. I have promised to give him a glass of grog to-morrow, the Fourth of July, but exceeding caution will have to be exercised lest I be apprehended by the powers.

Yesterday the main-spencer was rigged, and as this is a heavy-weather sail, a description of it may prove of interest. It is otherwise known as a storm-try-sail, and, being a fore-and aft-sail, is set on the main lower mast. A number of stout screw-eyes were driven into the mast, extending from a point about eight feet above the deck to an iron band three feet below the top; through these eyes an iron rod was inserted, and to this rod the sail was laced. A standing-gaff was then rigged, furnished with hoops, to which the head of the sail was bent, the method of setting being by hauling it out on the gaff, like the fore- and aft-sails on steamers. It is forty-four feet long on the luff and twenty-two on the gaff, and is, of course, of No. 0 duck, with a bolt-rope nearly as big as the fore-tack. The spencer is what is known as a steadying sail in bad weather, and is usually set after the courses have all been hauled up and the ship is head-reaching under the lower topsails, or when the ship is regularly hove to.

There was a very turbulent scene enacted while the sail was being bent. The mate was aloft, swinging over the rim of the top in a bowline, trying to fit the end of the gaff into a gooseneck, both man and spar flying wildly about as the ship rolled. Two vangs led down from the gaff-end to the deck, one on either side, while a man on each, trying to hold it steady, was jerked about like the tail of a kite. The mate was already in a passion, for no sooner would he have the end nearly in the socket than away it would fly, while he himself brought to with a thump against the futtock-shrouds. At this juncture Captain Scruggs appeared with his sextant. It was the signal for chaos. Everything almost immediately was plunged into inextricable confusion. Something had manifestly gone wrong with the old man below, for he was bristling when he laid down his instrument on the deck-house and walked with foreboding leisure to the break of the poop. You could see that he was seething within himself; but for some time he appeared totally unconscious of the mate, the spencer, and everything else; but when the gaff drew off and smote the taut weather-shrouds with the force of a steam-hammer, he thought it was time to take a hand. Did the mate give an order he would instantly countermand it, sandwiching in sarcastic remarks, such as, “Ah, that’s beautiful! You’d make a master-rigger, you would. Think you’ll git that in by dark? I could put the whole main-mast in while you’re scratchin’ away up there.” At these pleasantries old Goggins fairly snarled and bared his teeth in devilish grins, but kept silent. At last, seeing a chance, he bawled to the man below who was surging up on the rope, “Lower away smart, now.” “Hoist away, there,” immediately cried the skipper. Behold the fatal straw on the dromedary. “’Ow in the name o’ G---- am Hi to do this, Cap’n Scruggs, if you don’t let me alone?” And then they went at it like Kilkenny cats, so that the air quivered with blasphemous discharges. It was quite astonishing to hear the mate answer back with such intrepid vehemence, and they kept it up so long that the captain lost his sight; for when he removed his sextant the sun was falling, which didn’t add very much to the geniality of his temper. Scenes of this sort are heralded with the most intense joy by the men, who turn their heads away to hide faces which actually glisten with delight. Latitude, 43° 13′ south; longitude, 58° 24′ west.

+July 4+

We celebrated Independence Day not with pyrotechnical demonstrations, but with a remarkable barometric performance: it fell seven-tenths of an inch in ten hours, from 30.40 to 29.70, and this with an ugly look to windward. The breeze began to freshen late yesterday afternoon, and at five o’clock in came the fore- and mizzen-royals. At table, the various utensils suddenly began to jump about, which was very astonishing, inasmuch as the sea was almost perfectly quiet half an hour earlier. The breeze kept on making, and when we came up from supper, at six o’clock, the captain ordered the main-royal- and mizzen-top-gallant-sail clewed up. At this time the ship was diving heavily, and it was time to take the fore- and maintop-gallants off her, too; the skipper had just concluded to furl them, when, with a great weltering plunge, the ship pushed her lofty flaring bows completely under a coaming sea, and then instantly rearing back, the enormous mass of water was projected with terrific force against the forward end of the forecastle-house. It smashed the lee door like cardboard, though it was three inches thick, and then washed aft like a Hooghly bore, absolutely filling the lee decks to the rail with solid water,--that is, it was six feet deep in the scuppers, and it seemed incredible that any bulwarks could withstand the strain; yet the water ran off in a few minutes, leaving no further trace of its power than a snarled mass of running gear which had been lifted off the pins. Good luck that the lookout had just been ordered to the top of the house instead of the forecastle-head, or there wouldn’t have been much of him left after that sea had struck him.

The forecastle, though, was a spectacle indeed. Its doors open forward, which no sailor likes; and when the big sea came from dead ahead and stove the lee door, the water poured into the house in thousands of gallons. It stood a foot deep on the floor, and shot up violently to the carlines at every roll, washing the men’s bedding out of even the topmost bunks (they are always built in three tiers, one above the other), while their chests went banging about in the deep water, the majority of them burst open, and others broken all to pieces. The sills of the doors on all ships opening on the main-deck are usually about eighteen inches high, to prevent the entrance of water, if possible; but if, as in this case, a great quantity find its way into the forecastle, these very sills prevent its egress. To be sure, there are leaders which are supposed to draw the water off, but they are so small that more than an hour passed before all the brine had disappeared. How sorrowful and helpless the poor fellows looked as they surveyed their drenched clothes and broken chests! and, worse than all, the dank, soaked forecastle. It means more suffering and privation than landsmen have any idea of, for the men will have to sleep in soggy, clammy, mildewed bunks for at least a month. No forecastle ever dries off Cape Horn, on account of the intense humidity of that region; and even if the forecastle has a stove in it, it doesn’t dry things out, but calls forth instead a rank steam from the reeking walls, which pervades the room like a foul mist.

All this time the glass had been falling, and we looked for bad weather; the captain had the main-sail hauled up, and in every way stood by for a heavy blow. But we worked out a false reckoning, for the wind shortly afterward let go more than half, while the aneroid rose to 29.85, where it is now. Since six o’clock this morning we have been about six points off our course, with the wind at south-southwest; therefore the captain once more wrapped himself in his mantle of wrath, and throughout dinner kept mumbling continuously to himself concerning the probability of there being a Jonah on board. This was not the first time that he has hinted at such things, and, though we knew well that he meant us, I didn’t say anything, but let him growl on. It is almost impossible to conceive how unpleasant it is to be considered a Jonah aboard ship; it is easy to say, “What’s the use of paying any attention to it?” But you can’t help heeding it, though it is only superstition, and the eyes of every one on board aft seem to say, “Look at the Jonah.” Foremast hands do not care how long they are at sea if they get decent food and even passably good treatment; indeed, the saying among them is, “More days, more dollars.” Still, in spite of everything we are reminded of that dismal verse in the “Ancient Mariner,”--

“One by one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang
And cursed me with his eye.”

There is another cause, however, for the skipper’s bad temper; yesterday we slaughtered our first pig, and at all three meals to-day we had fresh pork. Captain Scruggs caused prodigious quantities of it to disappear and has been in anguish ever since. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anything edible which will so upset one’s digestion as fresh pork at sea; it is bad enough ashore, where plenty of exercise is to be had, but aboard ship one hearty meal of pork freshly killed will cause an incredible amount of distress. The skipper instanced an illustration of how difficult it is to digest at sea: on the last outward voyage he killed a pig just before he reached San Francisco, and, the weather being too warm to keep the meat sweet, most of it was given to the sailors. Now, these men can digest sour, soggy bread and salt beef like ironwood, yet this fresh pork vanquished them, and five men were actually laid up in their bunks at the end of the second day.

Had many severe hail-squalls during the last twenty-four hours, but fine weather otherwise, sharp and clear. Latitude, 44° 41′ south; longitude, 59° 58′ west.

+July 5+

Very light southerly airs and a calm sea have added vastly to our surprise at such weather off Patagonia. How remarkable it is to find these gentle, variable winds here, when the popular notion of this region is a continuous westerly gale! Findlay’s “South Atlantic Directory,” however, indicates generally fine weather from 40° to 50° south _near the land_, and this has been our skipper’s almost invariable experience, except that the wind ought to be to the northward instead of to the southward of west; at the present moment, though, the breeze shows signs of hauling to the northward with the sun, instead of against, so perhaps it will stop there for a while. The wind has been so light and contrary for the twenty-four hours, that in that period we made only eight miles of latitude and seven of longitude!

My wife and I have finished reading Nansen’s “First Crossing of Greenland,” and during its perusal we learned some remarkable facts. For instance, it is strange how the body craves fat or grease of any sort when deprived of it for a long while; and it is also very odd to read that a lump of butter eaten alone slakes the thirst of men in the Arctic regions! I wonder why Nansen doesn’t undertake the ascent of Mount Everest? It seems to me that he, with all his strength and vitality, would be peculiarly well fitted for such an expedition, not to mention his being a man of science. How much interest the writings of Sir Joseph Hooker would lack if that great mountaineer had not been a scientist! The amount of risk to Nansen, too, in comparison with an Arctic voyage, would be very small; while the glory of being the first to stand upon the topmost pinnacle of the earth’s surface could be dwarfed only by the attainment of the Pole itself. I have loaned the second mate the Greenland book, as Mr. Rarx is deeply interested in such work, and is desirous of joining an expedition to the North Pole. He fears not being able to pass the physical tests necessary before becoming a member of the crew, but as he has considerable knowledge of the Peary Greenland expedition, it is my notion that he tried to join it, but was rejected; and as he laid stress on the fact that no one would be taken who had any old scars on his person, it is not unlikely that he was barred for this reason. Considering his lean, powerful frame, he ought to be well able to endure hardships.

Looking at the spencer, which is, of course, brailed up in such light weather, Mr. Rarx said, “Oh, those are great sails! Wait till it’s blowin’ and she under that and the topsails! They’ll stand a power o’ wind, but I’ve seen ’em blown away. I was second mate of a Nova Scotia ship, the ‘Mary L. Burrill,’ a few years ago, and we were bound across this time from Greenock to St. John in February, which it isn’t necessary for me to say anything more about the weather. We’d be’n lyin’ to for twenty hours under a goose-winged maintop-sail and spencer when the wind all at once rose to a perfect hurricane and hove us down to the hatches. And then the maintop-sail and that there spencer, sir, nearly as hard and thick as a plank, flew away like a muslin handkercheef; and though we had double gaskets on all the sails, four of ’em was blown loose and ripped off the yards like paper. Now, it’s blowin’ pretty hard when a lower maintop-sail goes, but nothin’ short of a hurricane can budge a new spencer. But no canvas ever made will stand a North Atlantic midwinter gale, and you hear me. We sighted a big White Star freighter this day, and she afterward reported the wind eighty miles an hour _between_ the squalls; not in ’em, mind. And if you want to see somethin’ to put joy in your heart, you ought to see these big White Star steamers in a heavy gale! I saw the ‘Cufic’ once comin’ across in another cyclone in the ‘J. B. Walker,’ and the way she kept clear of the seas was a caution. I’m a good enough American, but you can’t beat Harland and Wolff very much.”

Mr. Rarx is an infinitely more agreeable man to talk to than the mate, who is the longest-winded and most tiresome old porpoise who ever spun a yarn. His only recommendations are his hideousness, which is positively attractive, and his strange, absurd facial contortions when he doesn’t intend to be funny. Sometimes during the first watch, when it is very dark, with the exception of the binnacle lamp which casts its rays upon him as he crosses its path, he is actually weird-looking. His voice, too, is as husky as a rusty hinge now, owing to a severe cold, and last night he vented some curious statements. Neither of us had said a word for maybe five minutes, I watching the compass card, he grinning and mouthing to himself in the moonlight. Presently he wormed himself over to where I stood, looked earnestly at me a few seconds and croaked,--

“You’ll see plenty of people in California with no teeth.”

“How is that?” said I.

“Dunno,” he replied; “they do say it’s the climate; anyhow, you’ll see lots with nothin’ but gums.”

Then he crawled back to the other side, performed some further silent, facial acrobatics, returned, and wheezed out mysteriously, “You’ll be bothered with fleas there; they’re that plenty I always has a regular quadrille with ’em.”

A remarkable habit the captain has at table of asking the mate if he won’t have some of everything in sight; no matter how many dishes there may be on the board, the skipper always gazes fiercely at him for a moment, and then says rapidly and severely, “Have some of the salt meat, Mr. Goggins? Have some beans? Have some potatoes? Have some bread? Have some sparrow-grass?” All this in one breath, to which the mate answers, “A leetle, if you please, sir;” or if it’s a second asking, which is merely form, he replies with his droning, “No-o-o, sir, I thank you, sir; I’ve ’ad sufficient, sir, I thank you, sir,” as though to show how he is depriving himself, for he insists that it is vulgar to enjoy eating!

Sometimes the old creature corners my wife and me and entertains us with anecdotes of his acquaintances in San Francisco and how excessively numerous his influential friends are there. He will tell us that ’Arry Dolan is now getting seventy-five dollars a month at the Union Iron Works; and when we venture the opinion that he must be a rising young man, he answers, “Oh, ’Arry’s all right. Why, I knew him w’en he was gettin’ only three dollars a week at the Works.” Here generally follows a genealogical history of the Dolans for several generations, while their individual characteristics become the subject of minute discussion.

Well, we’re beating slowly, slowly, down the inhospitable shores of Patagonia, and our luck doesn’t seem to be much better than it was in the southeast Trades. Latitude, 44° 49′ south; longitude, 60° 5′ west.

+July 6+