Richard H. Dana, Jr., 1815-1882, was the son of Richard H. Dana, the poet.
He was born in Cambridge, Mass. In his boyhood be had a strong desire to
be a sailor, but by his father's advice chose a student's life, and
entered Harvard University. At the age of nineteen an affection of the
eyes compelled him to suspend his studies. He now made a voyage to
California as a common sailor, and was gone two years. On his return, he
resumed his studies and graduated in 1837. He afterwards studied law, and
entered upon an active and successful practice. Most of his life was spent
in law and politics, although he won distinction in literature.
The following extract is from his "Two Years before the Mast," a book
published in 1840, giving an account of his voyage to California. This
book details, in a most clear and entertaining manner, the everyday life
of a common sailor on shipboard, and is the best known of all Mr. Dana's
works.
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It is usual, in voyages round the Cape from the Pacific, to keep to the
eastward of the Falkland Islands; but, as there had now set in a strong,
steady, and clear southwester, with every prospect of its lasting, and we
had had enough of high latitudes, the captain determined to stand
immediately to the northward, running inside the Falkland Islands.
Accordingly, when the wheel was relieved at eight o'clock, the order was
given to keep her due north, and all hands were turned up to square away
the yards and make sail.
In a moment the news ran through the ship that the captain was keeping her
off, with her nose straight for Boston, and Cape Horn over her taffrail.
It was a moment of enthusiasm. Everyone was on the alert, and even the two
sick men turned out to lend a hand at the halyards. The wind was now due
southwest, and blowing a gale to which a vessel close-hauled could have
shown no more than a single close-reefed sail; but as we were going before
it, we could carry on. Accordingly, hands were sent aloft and a reef
shaken out of the topsails, and the reefed foresail set. When we came to
masthead the topsail yards, with all hands at the halyards, we struck up,
"Cheerly, men," with a chorus which might have been heard halfway to
Staten Island.
Under her increased sail, the ship drove on through the water. Yet she
could bear it well; and the captain sang out from the quarter-deck--
"Another reef out of that fore topsail, and give it to her." Two hands
sprang aloft; the frozen reef points and earings were cast adrift, the
halyards manned, and the sail gave out her increased canvas to the gale.
All hands were kept on deck to watch the effect of the change. It was as
much as she could well carry, and with a heavy sea astern, it took two men
at the wheel to steer her.
She flung the foam from her bows; the spray breaking aft as far as the
gangway. She was going at a prodigious rate. Still, everything held.
Preventer braces were reeved and hauled taut; tackles got upon the
backstays; and everything done to keep all snug and strong. The captain
walked the deck at a rapid stride, looked aloft at the sails, and then to
windward; the mate stood in the gangway, rubbing his hands, and talking
aloud to the ship--"Hurrah, old bucket! the Boston girls have got hold of
the towrope!" and the like; and we were on the forecastle looking to see
how the spars stood it, and guessing the rate at which she was
going,--when the captain called out--"Mr. Brown, get up the topmast
studding sail! What she can't carry she may drag!"
The mate looked a moment; but he would let no one be before him in daring.
He sprang forward,--"Hurrah, men! rig out the topmast studding sail boom!
Lay aloft, and I'll send the rigging up to you!" We sprang aloft into the
top; lowered a girtline down, by which we hauled up the rigging; rove the
tacks and halyards; ran out the boom and lashed it fast, and sent down the
lower halyards as a preventer. It was a clear starlight night, cold and
blowing; but everybody worked with a will. Some, indeed, looked as though
they thought the "old man" was mad, but no one said a word.
We had had a new topmast studding sail made with a reef in it,--a thing
hardly ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal,
saying that when it was time to reef a studding sail it was time to take
it in. But we found a use for it now; for, there being a reef in the
topsail, the studding sail could not be set without one in it also. To be
sure, a studding sail with reefed topsails was rather a novelty; yet there
was some reason in it, for if we carried that away, we should lose only a
sail and a boom; but a whole topsail might have carried away the mast and
all.
While we were aloft, the sail had been got out, bent to the yard, reefed,
and ready for hoisting. Waiting for a good opportunity, the halyards were
manned and the yard hoisted fairly up to the block; but when the mate came
to shake the cat's-paw out of the downhaul, and we began to boom end the
sail, it shook the ship to her center. The boom buckled up and bent like a
whipstick, and we looked every moment to see something go; but, being of
the short, tough upland spruce, it bent like whalebone, and nothing could
break it. The carpenter said it was the best stick he had ever seen.
The strength of all hands soon brought the tack to the boom end, and the
sheet was trimmed down, and the preventer and the weather brace hauled
taut to take off the strain. Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the
utmost, and every thread of canvas; and with this sail added to her, the
ship sprang through the water like a thing possessed. The sail being
nearly all forward, it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed
actually to jump from sea to sea. From the time her keel was laid, she had
never been so driven; and had it been life or death with everyone of us,
she could not have borne another stitch of canvas.
Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands we're sent below, and our
watch remained on deck. Two men at the wheel had as much as they could do
to keep her within three points of her course, for she steered as wild as
a young colt. The mate walked the deck, looking at the sails, and then
over the side to see the foam fly by her,--slapping his hands upon his
thighs and talking to the ship--"Hurrah, you jade, you've got the scent!
you know where you're going!" And when she leaped over the seas, and
almost out of the water, and trembled to her very keel, the spars and
masts snapping and creaking, "There she goes!--There she
goes--handsomely!--As long as she cracks, she holds!"--while we stood
with the rigging laid down fair for letting go, and ready to take in sail
and clear away if anything went.
At four bells we have the log, and she was going eleven knots fairly; and
had it not been for the sea from aft which sent the chip home, and threw
her continually off her course, the log would have shown her to have been
going somewhat faster. I went to the wheel with a young fellow from the
Kennebec, who was a good helmsman; and for two hours we had our hands
full. A few minutes showed us that our monkey jackets must come off; and,
cold as it was, we stood in our shirt sleeves in a perspiration, and were
glad enough to have it eight bells and the wheels relieved. We turned in
and slept as well as we could, though the sea made a constant roar under
her bows, and washed over the forecastle like a small cataract.
NOTES.--The Falkland Islands are a group in the Atlantic just east of Cape
Horn.
Bells. On shipboard time is counted in bells, the bell being struck every
half hour.