Chapter V: Part 5

“The sight which all of us who weren’t busy gazed upon, over the larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see; ’twas half dark, though the sun dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail, then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of the round-house aft, with the Indian judge standing in it, his hand to his eyes—and the land far away, to the very swell rolling onto it. Then the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack, that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle below—and the wet back-fins of twenty sharks or so, that had risen out of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly.

“The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on to the clouds, her jib was still up, and I knew the next time the clouds rose we should fairly have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder, such as you hear before a tornado—yet the chief officer wasn’t to be seen, and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while everyone began to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he stayed so long; but there wasn’t a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs, walked forward on the quarter-deck, and said coolly to the men nearest me, ‘Run and haul down that jib yonder—set the spanker here, aft. You’ll have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!’ The men did so at once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr. Finch. ‘Stand by the anchors there!’ I sang out, ‘to let go the starboard one, the _moment_ she swings head to wind!’ The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett’s face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather helm.

“We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood, too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to run forward and look after the anchors, when someone came hastily up the after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn’t trouble myself to glance at him further, when ‘Hold on with the anchors!’ he sang out in a loud voice. ‘Hold on there for your lives!’ Heavens! it was the captain himself!

“At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again, ‘Hoist the jib and fore-topmast-staysail—stand by to set fore-course!’ By Jove! this was the way to pay the ship _head_ off, instead of stern off, from the blast when it came—and to let her drive before it at no trifle of a rate, wherever _that_ might take her. ‘_Down_ with that spanker, Mr. Macleod, d’ye hear?’ roared Captain Williamson again; and, certainly, I did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But his manner was so decided, and ’twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of seamanship above _me_, or some special knowledge of the coast; and I waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts,—the Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long slight swell and the faint flow of the land-air. The black arch to windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zigzag before our glaring fore-to’-gallant-mast. Suddenly, the captain had looked at me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and, quiet, easy-going man as he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something extraordinarily wild and _raised_ in his pale visage, strange as the air about us made everyone appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting, ‘Who are—’ when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue, and the next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a cannon’s mouth.

“For one minute the Seringapatam heeled over to her starboard streak, almost broadside on, and her spars towards the land—all on her beam was a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black brow of the clouds, with a trampling, eddying roar up into the sky. The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks to hold on for bare life, we saw a roller fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam, when crash went mizzen-topmast and main-to’-gallant-mast; the ship payed swiftly off by help of her head-sails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.

“The least yaw in her course, and she’d have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men’s ears, and waved his hands to ride down the foresheets as far as they’d go; which kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half set, and she rather flew than ran—the sea one breadth of white foam back to the gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail been stretched, ’twould have blown off like a cloud. I looked at the captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast—nothing but determination in his manner: yet once or twice he started, and glanced fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might chance to thwart him. I can’t express my contrary feelings, betwixt a sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land, at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour—yet _could_ there actually be some harborage hereaway, or that river the quartermaster of the Iris had mentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it?

“Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and puzzling to desperation—still, I trusted to the captain’s experience. The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening howl of the wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet from seaweed, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it.

“All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it like a long blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed—the yellow flame blazed into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke blew whitening over it—when, almighty power! what did I see as it lengthened in, but part after part of the old Bob’s landmarks creep out ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together—first the low line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps, and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but it was far too much on our starboard bow, and in half an hour at this rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the coast ahead—so I signed to Jacob for God’s sake to edge her off as nicely as was possible.

“Captain Williamson caught my motion. ‘Port! port, sirrah!’ he sang out sternly. ‘_Back_ with the helm, d’ye hear?’ and pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the other. ‘Land! land!’ shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout. ‘I’ll be there though a thousand mutineers—’ His eye was like a wild beast’s. That moment the truth glanced across me—this was the _green leaf_, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I’d seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. ’Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile; when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, then _laughed_, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you’d have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he’d got the furious power of a madman; and during half a minute ’twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck just as one of the mates with some of the crew were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly top-man made a sign, as much as to say, ‘Knock the fellow down;’ but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in.

“A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more southeast in the _end_, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw anyone back if he let go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held: and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not only _slant_ the sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously, as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black—though I had taken its bearing by the compass—and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling at every shiver in the foresail’s edge, lest either it or the mast should go.

“Suddenly, we began to get into a fearful swell—the Indiaman plunged and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the wheel, and in the dark; we were getting close in with the land, and the time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her head in the compass-box, as nearly as might and main could do it, for the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next moment.

“If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn, almost as if I’d left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving and shouting behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and where the chief officer was all this time surprised me, unless the madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return for being shut up himself—which, in fact, proved to be the case, cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled aft to me again, and charging him, for Heaven’s sake, to steer exactly the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us was the high line of coast in the dark—not a mile of swell between the ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind, and you saw the breakers lifting all along—not a single opening in them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my mouth—what I felt ’twould be vain to say—till I thought I _did_ make out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far on our bow as I’d reckoned the fire to have been; indeed, instead of that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it was. ‘By all that’s good!’ thought I, ‘if a river there is, that must be the mouth of it!’ But, by Heavens! on our present course the ship would run just right upon the point—and, to strike the clear water, her foreyard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the points—otherwise all was over.

“I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God’s sake, to drag upon the lee one—and that as if their life hung upon it—when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head a _single point_ up, whatever might happen, to the last—then I pulled with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvas we had strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent like whip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies rising and boiling out of the dark—her cutwater shearing through it and the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar—my very brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to—and it appeared next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would follow, when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she shuddered to it—all of a sudden, the dark mass of the land seemed as if it were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor where we were, than the spar before me—till again, the light broadened, glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the other bow.

“I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding on to the lee of the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. ‘Tom,’ shouted I to Westwood, ‘run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the helm—down with it, Jacobs, my lad!’ I sang out, ‘never mind spars or canvas!’ Down went the helm—the spanker held to luff her to the strength of the gust—and away she went up to port, the heavy swells rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and fore-course came in one terrible flash of roaring wind—tearing first one and then the other clear out of the bolt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening round the point into its lee. By heavens! there were the streaks of soft haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind, big and red, when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the point. ‘Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!’ I sang through the trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at that moment, till she was coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men. ‘Let—go!’ I shouted; not a look turned against me, and away thundered the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down in a perfect deluge—you couldn’t see a yard from you—all was one white pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go, cable paid out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the tide, pitching all the while on the short swell.

“The gale still whistled through her spars for two or three hours, during which it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o’clock it was clear moonlight to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarter-deck, when I saw the chief officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly around him, as if he thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman’s side, and you heard the fast ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead, plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin’s _river_ whatever that might be.”

MY FIRST VOYAGE

(From Two Years Before the Mast.)

By R. H. DANA, Jr.

The fourteenth day of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under way early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o’clock in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years’ voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure.

The change from the tight dress-coat, silk cap and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trousers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a landsman by every one on board as soon as I hove in sight.

A sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand can never get. The trousers, tight round the hips, and thence hanging long and loose round the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well-varnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a peculiar tie to the black silk neckerchief, with sundry other minutiæ, are signs, the want of which betrayed the beginner, at once. Besides the points in my dress which were out of the way, doubtless my complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me from the regular _salt_, who, with a sunburnt cheek, wide step, and rolling gait, swings his broad and toughened hands athwart-ships, half open, as though just ready to grasp a rope.

“With all my imperfections on my head,” I joined the crew, and we hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night. The next day we were employed in preparations for sea, reeving studding-sail gear, crossing royal-yards, putting on chafing gear, and taking on board our powder. On the following night, I stood my first watch. I remained awake nearly all the first part of the night from fear that I might not hear when I was called; and when I went on deck, so great were my ideas of the importance of my trust, that I walked regularly fore and aft the whole length of the vessel, looking out over the bows and taffrail at each turn, and was not a little surprised at the coolness of the old salt whom I called to take my place, in stowing himself snugly away under the long-boat, for a nap. That was a sufficient lookout, he thought, for a fine night, at anchor in a safe harbor.

The next morning was Saturday, and a breeze having sprung up from the southward, we took a pilot on board, hove up our anchor, and began beating down the bay. I took leave of those of my friends who came to see me off, and had barely opportunity to take a last look at the city and well-known objects, as no time is allowed on board ship for sentiment.

As we drew down into the lower harbor, we found the wind ahead in the bay, and we were obliged to come to anchor in the roads. We remained there through the day and a part of the night. My watch began at eleven o’clock at night, and I received orders to call the captain if the wind came out from the westward. About midnight the wind became fair, and having called the captain, I was ordered to call all hands. How I accomplished this I do not know, but I am quite sure that I did not give the true hoarse boatswain call of “A-a-ll ha-a-a-nds! up anchor, a ho-oy!” In a short time every one was in motion, the sails loosed, the yards braced, and we began to heave up the anchor, which was our last hold upon Yankee land.

I could take but little part in all these preparations. My little knowledge of a vessel was all at fault. Unintelligible orders were so rapidly given and so immediately executed; there was such a hurrying about, and such an intermingling of strange cries and strange actions, that I was completely bewildered. There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor’s life.

At length those peculiar, long-drawn sounds, which denote that the crew are heaving at the windlass, began, and in a few moments we were under way. The noise of the water thrown from the bows began to be heard, the vessel leaned over from the damp night breeze, and rolled with a heavy ground swell, and we had actually begun our long, long journey. This was literally bidding “good-night” to my native land.

The first day we passed at sea was the Sabbath. As we were just from port, and there was a great deal to be done on board, we were kept at work all day, and at night the watches were set, and everything put into sea order. When we were called aft to be divided into watches, I had a good specimen of the manner of a sea captain. After the division had been made, he gave a short characteristic speech, walking the quarter-deck with a cigar in his mouth, and dropping the words out between the puffs:

“Now, my men, we have begun a long voyage. If we get along well together, we shall have a comfortable time; if we don’t, we shall have hell afloat. All you’ve got to do is to obey your orders and do your duty like men,—then you’ll fare well enough;—if you don’t, you’ll fare hard enough,—I can tell you. If we pull together, you’ll find me a clever fellow; if we don’t, you’ll find me a _bloody_ rascal. That’s all I’ve got to say. Go below, the larboard watch!”

I being in the starboard, or second mate’s watch, had the opportunity of keeping the first watch at sea. S——, a young man, making, like myself, his first voyage, was in the same watch, and as he was the son of a professional man, and had been in a counting-room in Boston, we found that we had many friends and topics in common. We talked these matters over:—Boston, what our friends were probably doing, our voyage, etc., until he went to take his turn at the lookout, and left me to myself.

I had now a fine time for reflection. I felt for the first time the perfect silence of the sea. The officer was walking the quarter-deck, where I had no right to go, one or two men were talking on the forecastle, whom I had little inclination to join, so that I was left open to the full impression of everything about me. However much I was affected by the beauty of the sea, the bright stars, and the clouds driven swiftly over them, I could not but remember that I was separating myself from all the social and intellectual enjoyments of life. Yet, strange as it may seem, I did then and afterward take pleasure in these reflections, hoping by them to prevent my becoming insensible to the value of what I was leaving.

But all my dreams were soon put to flight by an order from the officer to trim the yards, as the wind was getting ahead; and I could plainly see by the looks the sailors occasionally cast to windward, and by the dark clouds that were fast coming up, that we had bad weather to prepare for, and had heard the captain say that he expected to be in the Gulf Stream by twelve o’clock. In a few minutes eight bells were struck, the watch called, and we went below.

I now began to feel the first discomforts of a sailor’s life. The steerage in which I lived was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, old junk, and ship stores, which had not been stowed away. Moreover, there had been no berths built for us to sleep in, and we were not allowed to drive nails to hang our clothes upon. The sea, too, had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete “hurrah’s nest,” as the sailors say, “everything on top and nothing at hand.” A large hawser had been coiled away upon my chest; my hats, boots, mattress and blankets had all _fetched away_ and gone over leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and I was just beginning to feel strong symptoms of sea-sickness, and that listlessness and inactivity which accompany it.

Giving up all attempts to collect my things together, I lay down upon the sails, expecting every moment to hear the cry of “All hands ahoy,” which the approaching storm would soon make necessary. I shortly heard the rain-drops falling on deck, thick and fast, and the watch evidently had their hands full of work, for I could hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, the trampling of feet, the creaking of blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which let down the noise and tumult of the deck still louder, the loud cry of “All hands, ahoy! tumble up here and take in sail!” saluted our ears, and the hatch was quickly shut again.

When I got upon deck, a new scene and a new experience was before me. The little brig was close-hauled upon the wind, and lying over, as it then seemed to me, nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head sea was beating against her bows with the noise and force almost of a sledge-hammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsail halyards had been let go, and the great sails were filling out and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about; loud and, to me, unintelligible orders constantly given and rapidly executed, and the sailors “singing out” at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains. In addition to all this, I had not got my “sea legs” on, was dreadfully sick, with hardly strength enough to hold on to anything, and it was “pitch dark.” This was my state when I was ordered aloft, for the first time, to reef topsails.

How I got along, I cannot now remember. I “laid out” on the yards and held on with all my strength. I could not have been of much service, for I remember having been sick several times before I left the topsail yard. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favor, for the confusion of everything below, and the inexpressible sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of the bilge-water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold wet decks.

I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine; for in addition to every other evil, I could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years’ voyage. When we were on deck we were not much better off, for we were continually ordered about by the officer, who said that it was good for us to be in motion. Yet anything was better than the horrible state of things below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head down, when I was oppressed by _nausea_, and always being relieved immediately. It was as good as an emetic.

This state of things continued for two days.

_Wednesday, Aug. 20th._ We had the watch on deck from four till eight, this morning. When we came on deck at four o’clock, we found things much changed for the better. The sea and wind had gone down, and the stars were out bright. I experienced a corresponding change in my feelings; yet continued extremely weak from my sickness. I stood in the waist on the weather side, watching the gradual breaking of the day, and the first streaks of the early light. Much has been said of the sunrise at sea; but it will not compare with the sunrise on shore. It wants the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of men, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires, and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. But though the actual _rise of the sun_ at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare with the _early breaking of day_ upon the wide ocean.

There is something in the first gray streaks stretching along the eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of the deep, which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depth of the sea round you, and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of dread, and of melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in nature can give. This gradually passes away as the light grows brighter, and when the sun comes up, the ordinary monotonous sea day begins.

From such reflections as these, I was aroused by the order from the officer, “Forward there! rig the head-pump!” I found that no time was allowed for day-dreaming, but that we must “turn to” at the first light. Having called up the “idlers,” namely carpenter, cook, steward, etc., and rigged the pump, we commenced washing down the decks. This operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly two hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get through it.

After we had finished, swabbed down, and coiled up the rigging, I sat down on the spars, waiting for seven bells, which was the sign for breakfast. The officer, seeing my lazy posture, ordered me to slush the main-mast, from the royal mast-head down. The vessel was then rolling a little, and I had taken no sustenance for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast; but I knew that I must “take the bull by the horns,” and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, that I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal-mast-head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the grease, which offended my fastidious senses, upset my stomach again, and I was not a little rejoiced when I got upon the comparative _terra firma_ of the deck. In a few minutes seven bells were struck, the log hove, the watch called, and we went to breakfast.

Here I cannot but remember the advice of the cook, a simple-hearted African.

“Now,” said he, “my lad, you are well cleaned out; you haven’t got a drop of your ’long-shore _swash_ aboard of you. You must begin on a new tack—pitch all your sweetmeats overboard, and turn-to upon good hearty salt beef and sea bread, and I’ll promise you, you’ll have your ribs well sheathed, and be as hearty as any of ’em, afore you are up to the Horn.”

This would be good advice to give passengers, when they speak of the little niceties which they have laid in, in case of sea-sickness.

I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a biscuit or two produced in me. I was a new being. We had a watch below until noon, so that I had some time to myself; and getting a huge piece of strong, cold salt beef from the cook, I kept gnawing upon it until twelve o’clock. When we went on deck I felt somewhat like a man, and could begin to learn my sea duty with considerable spirit.

At about two o’clock we heard the loud cry of “Sail ho!” from aloft, and soon saw two sails to windward, going directly athwart our hawse. This was the first time that I had seen a sail at sea. I thought then, and have always since, that it exceeds every other sight in interest and beauty. They passed to leeward of us, and out of hailing distance; but the captain could read the names on their sterns with the glass. They were the ship Helen Mar, of New York, and the brig Mermaid, of Boston. They were both steering westward, and were bound in for our “dear native land.”

_Thursday, Aug. 21st._ This day the sun rose clear, we had a fine wind, and everything was bright and cheerful. I had now got my sea legs on, and was beginning to enter upon the regular duties of a sea-life. About six bells, that is, three o’clock, P.M., we saw a sail on our larboard bow. I was very anxious, like every new sailor, to speak her. She came down to us, backed her maintopsail and the two vessels stood “head on,” bowing and curvetting at each other like a couple of war-horses reined in by their riders. It was the first vessel that I had seen near, and I was surprised to find how much she rolled and pitched in so quiet a sea. She plunged her head into the sea, and then, her stern settling gradually down, her huge bows rose up, showing the bright copper, and her stern, and breast-hooks dripping, like old Neptune’s locks, with the brine. Her decks were filled with passengers who had come up at the cry of “Sail ho,” and who by their dress and features appeared to be Swiss and French emigrants. She hailed us in French, but receiving no answer, she tried us in English. She was the ship La Carolina, from Havre, for New York. We desired her to report the brig Pilgrim, from Boston, for the northwest coast of America, five days out. She then filled away and left us to plough on through our waste of waters. This day ended pleasantly; we had got into regular and comfortable weather, and into that routine of sea-life which is only broken by a storm, a sail, or the sight of land.

As we had now a long “spell” of fine weather, without any incident to break the monotony of our lives, there can be no better place to describe the duties, regulations, and customs of an American merchantman, of which ours was a fair specimen.

The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question, even from his chief officer. He has the power to turn his officers off duty, and even to break them and make them do duty as sailors in the forecastle. Where there are no passengers and no supercargo, as in our vessel, he has no companion but his own dignity, and no pleasures, unless he differs from most of his kind, but the consciousness of possessing supreme power and, occasionally, the exercise of it.

The prime minister, the official organ, and the active and superintending officer, is the chief mate. He is first lieutenant, boatswain, sailing-master, and quartermaster. The captain tells him what he wishes to have done, and leaves to him the care of overseeing, of allotting the work, and also the responsibility of its being well done. _The_ mate (as he is always called, _par excellence_) also keeps the logbook, for which he is responsible to the owners and insurers, and has the charge of the stowage, safe-keeping, and delivery of the cargo. He is also _ex-officio_, the wit of the crew; for the captain does not condescend to joke with the men, and the second mate no one cares for; so that when “the mate” thinks fit to entertain “the people” with a coarse joke or a little practical wit, every one feels bound to laugh.

The second mate’s is proverbially a dog’s berth. He is neither officer nor man. The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the rest. The crew call him the “sailor’s waiter,” as he has to furnish them with spun-yarn, marline, and all other stuffs that they need in their work, and has charge of the boatswain’s locker, which includes serving-boards, marline-spikes, etc. He is expected to maintain his dignity and to enforce obedience, and still is kept at a great distance from the mate, and obliged to work with the crew. He is one to whom little is given and of whom much is required. His wages are usually double those of a common sailor, and he eats and sleeps in the cabin; but he is obliged to be on deck nearly all his time, and eats at the second table, that is, makes a meal out of what the captain and chief mate leave.

The steward is the captain’s servant, and has charge of the pantry, from which every one, even the mate himself, is excluded. These distinctions usually find him an enemy in the mate, who does not like to have any one on board who is not entirely under his control; the crew do not consider him as one of their number, so he is left to the mercy of the captain.

The cook is the patron of the crew, and those who are in his favor can get their wet mittens and stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the nightwatch. These two worthies, together with the carpenter and sail-maker, if there be one, stand no watch, but, being employed all day, are allowed to “sleep in” at night unless all hands are called.

The crew are divided into two divisions, as equally as may be, called the watches. Of these the chief mate commands the larboard, and the second mate the starboard. They divide the time between them, being on and off duty, or, as it is called, on deck and below, every other four hours. If, for instance, the chief mate with the larboard watch have the first night-watch from eight to twelve; at the end of the four hours the starboard watch is called, and the second mate takes the deck while the larboard watch and the first mate go below until four in the morning, when they come on deck again and remain until eight; having what is called the morning watch. As they will have been on deck eight hours out of the twelve, while those who had the middle watch—from twelve to four—will only have been up four hours, they have what is called a “forenoon watch below,” that is, from eight A.M. till twelve M. In a man-of-war, and in some merchantmen, this alternation of watches is kept up throughout the twenty-four hours; but our ship, like most merchantmen, had “all hands” from twelve o’clock to dark, except in bad weather, when we had “watch and watch.”

An explanation of the “dog-watches” may, perhaps, be of use to one who has never been at sea. They are to shift the watches each night, so that the same watch need not be on deck at the same hours. In order to effect this, the watch from four to eight A.M. is divided into two half, or dog-watches, one from four to six; and the other from six to eight. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the dog-watches come during twilight, after the day’s work is done, and before the night-watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody is on deck. The captain is up, walking on the weather side of the quarter-deck, the chief mate on the lee side, and the second mate about the weather gangway. The steward has finished his work in the cabin, and has come up to smoke his pipe with the cook in the galley. The crew are sitting on the windlass or lying on the forecastle, smoking, singing, or telling long yarns. At eight o’clock, eight bells are struck, the log is hove, the watch set, the wheel relieved, the galley shut up, and the other watch goes below.

The morning commences with the watch on deck “turning-to” at day-break and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks. This together with filling the “scuttled butt” with fresh water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells (half after seven), when all hands get breakfast. At eight, the day’s work begins, and lasts until sundown, with the exception of an hour for dinner.

Before I end my explanations, it may be well to define a _day’s work_, and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a sailor’s life. Nothing is more common than to hear people say—“Are not sailors very idle at sea? what can they find to do?” This is a very natural mistake, and being very frequently made, it is one which every sailor feels interested in having corrected. In the first place, then, the discipline of the ship requires every man to be at work upon _something_ when he is on deck, except at night and on Sundays. Except at these times, you will never see a man, on board a well-ordered vessel, standing idle on deck, sitting down, or leaning over the side. It is the officer’s duty to keep every one at work, even if there is nothing to be done but to scrape the rust from the cabin cables. In no state prison are the convicts more regularly set to work, and more closely watched. No conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty, and though they frequently do talk when aloft, or when near one another, yet they always stop when an officer is nigh.

With regard to the work upon which the men are put, it is a matter which probably would not be understood by one who has not been at sea. When I first left port, and found that we were kept regularly employed for a week or two, I supposed that we were getting the vessel into sea trim and that it would soon be over, and we should have nothing to do but to sail the ship; but I found that it continued so for two years, and at the end of the two years there was as much to be done as ever. As has often been said, a ship is like a lady’s watch, always out of repair. When first leaving port, studding-sail gear is to be rove, all the running rigging to be examined, that which is unfit for use to be got down, and new rigging rove in its place; then the standing rigging is to be overhauled, replaced, and repaired, in a thousand different ways; and wherever any of the numberless ropes or the yards are chafing or wearing upon it, there “chafing gear,” as it is called, must be put on. This chafing gear consists of worming, parcelling, roundings, battens, and service of all kinds—both rope-yarns, spun-yarn, marline, and seizing-stuffs. Taking off, putting on, and mending the chafing gear alone, upon a vessel, would find constant employment for two or three men, during working hours, for a whole voyage.

The next point to be considered is, that all the “small stuffs” which are used on board a ship—such as spun-yarn, marline, seizing-stuff, etc.—are made on board. The owners of a vessel buy up incredible quantities of “old junk,” which the sailors unlay after drawing out the yarns, knot them together and roll them up in balls. These “rope-yarns” are constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is manufactured into spun yarn. For this purpose every vessel is furnished with a “spun-yarn winch”; which is very simple, consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard constantly going on deck in pleasant weather; and we had employment, during a great part of the tune, for three hands in drawing and knotting yarns, and making spun-yarn.

Another method of employing the crew is “setting up” rigging. Wherever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is continually happening), the seizing and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taut, the seizings and coverings replaced; which is a very nice piece of work.

There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without altering another. You cannot stay a mast aft by the back-stays without slacking up the head-stays, etc. If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and also remember this is all to be done in _addition to_ watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask, “What can a sailor find to do at sea?”

If, after all this labor—after exposing their lives and limbs in storms, wet and cold,

“Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch;
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their furs dry;—”

the merchants and captains think that they have not earned their twelve dollars a month (out of which they clothe themselves), and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum—_ad infinitum_.

This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in sheltered places, and talk, and keep themselves comfortable, they are separated to different parts of the ship and kept at work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about in different parts of the ship, so that the sailors might not be idle in the _snatches_ between the frequent squalls upon crossing the equator.

Some officers have been so driven to find work for the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables. The “Philadelphia Catechism” is,

“Six days shalt thou labor and do all that thou art able,
And on the seventh—holystone the decks and scrape the cable.”

This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have seen the decks washed down and scrubbed, when the water would have frozen if it had been fresh; and all hands kept at work upon the rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.

I have here gone out of my narrative course in order that any who read this may form as correct an idea of a sailor’s life and duty as possible. I have done it in this place because, for some time, our life was nothing but the unvarying repetition of these duties which can be better described together.

Before leaving this description, however, I would state, in order to show landsmen how little they know of the nature of a ship, that a _ship carpenter_ is kept in constant employ during good weather on board vessels which are in, what is called, perfect sea order.

After speaking the Carolina, on the 21st August, nothing occurred to break the monotony of our life until—

_Friday, Sept. 5th_, when we saw a sail on our weather (starboard) beam. She proved to be a brig under English colors, and passing under our stern, reported herself as forty-nine days from Buenos Ayres, bound to Liverpool. Before she had passed us, “Sail ho!” was cried again and we made another sail, far on our weather bow, and steering athwart our hawse. She passed out of hail, but we made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, with Brazilian colors in her main rigging. By her course, she must have been bound from Brazil to the south of Europe, probably Portugal.