I was not twelve hours on board--twelve minutes I might almost say--
before I was completely cured of my sea fever; and I would have parted
with the best tooth in my head to have set my legs once more on land
again. Almost on embarking I was overhauled by sea-sickness, and in
another hour it became so bad that I thought it would have turned me
inside out.
Sea-sickness is a malady not pleasant under any circumstances--even to a
first-cabin passenger, with a steward to wait upon him, and administer
soothing prescriptions and consoling sympathy. How much more painful to
a poor friendless boy treated as I was--sworn at by the surly captain--
cursed and cuffed by the brutal mate--jeered and laughed at by the
ruffian crew. Oh! it was horrid, and had the ship been sinking under me
at that moment I verily believe I should not have made the slightest
effort to save myself!
Forty-eight hours, however, gave me relief from the nauseous ailing, for
this like many other diseases is often short-lived where it is most
violent. In about two days I was able to stand up and move about the
decks, and I was made to move about them with a vengeance.
I have above characterised the captain as "surly," the mate "brutal,"
and the crew a set of "ruffians": I have spoken without exaggeration.
With an exception or two, a more villainous gang I never encountered--of
course not before that time--for that was not likely; but never since
either, and it has several times been the fortune of my life to mix in
very questionable and miscellaneous company.
The captain was not only surly, but positively ferocious when drunk or
angry, and one or both he generally was. It was dangerous to go near
him--at least for me, or any one that was weak and helpless--for it was
chiefly upon the unresisting that he ventured his ill-humour.
I was not long on board before I incurred his displeasure by some
mistake I could not possibly help--I had a taste of his temper then, and
many a one afterwards, for his spite once kindled against anyone was
implacable as the hate of a Corsican, and never became allayed.
He was a short, stout, "bluffy" man, with features perfectly regular,
but with fat round cheeks, bullet eyes, and nose slightly upturned--a
face which is often employed in pictures to typify good-nature, jollity,
and an honest heart; but with little propriety is it so employed in my
opinion, since under just such smiling faces have I, during a long
life's experience, encountered the greatest amount of dishonesty
combined with dispositions most cruel and brutal. Such a man was the
skipper into whose tender care I had so recklessly thrown myself.
The mate was an echo of his captain. When the one said "no" the other
said "no," and when either said "yes," the other affirmed it. The
principal difference between them was that the mate did not drink, and
perhaps this lengthened, if it did not strengthen, the bond of
friendship that existed between them. Had both been drinkers they must
have quarrelled at times; but the mate never "tasted" as he affirmed,
and when his superior was in his cups this enabled him to bear the abuse
which not unfrequently the captain treated him to. In all matters of
discipline, or of anything else, he was with the captain, for though
brutal he was but a cowardly fellow and ever ready to fawn upon his
master, "boot-lick" him as the sailors termed it.
There was a second mate, but this was a very secondary kind of a
character, not worth description, and scarcely to be distinguished from
the common "hands" over whom he exercised only a very limited control.
There was a carpenter, an old man with a large swollen rum-reddened
nose, another crony of the captain's; and a huge and very ugly negro,
who was both cook and steward, and who was vile enough to have held
office in the kitchen of Pluto. These were the officers of the ship,
and for the men, they were, as already stated, as villainous a crew as I
ever encountered. There were exceptions--only one or two,--but it was
some time before I discovered them.
In such companionship then did I find myself--I just fresh from the
tender protection of parents--from the company of kind friends, and
associates. Oh! I was well cured of the sea fever, and would have
given half my life to be on land again! How I reproached myself for my
folly! How I reproached that friend of the family--the old salt--whose
visionary adventures had no doubt been the cause of my sea longings! how
in my heart I now execrated both him, and his fanciful stories! Would I
had never heard them! would that I had never run away to sea!
Repentance had arrived too late to be of any use. I could no longer
return--I must go on, and how long? merciful heaven, the prospect was
horrible! Months of my painful life were to be endured. Months! nay
years,--for I now remembered that the wretch of a captain had caused me
to sign some agreement--I had not even read it, but I knew it was an
article of indenture; and I was told afterwards that it bound me for
years--for five long years--bound me not an apprentice but in reality a
slave. A slave for five years to this hideous brute, who might scold me
at will, cuff me at will, kick me at will, have me flogged or put in
irons whenever the fancy crossed his mind.
There was no retreating from these hard conditions. Filled with bright
visions of "life on the ocean wave," I had subscribed to them without
pause or thought. My name was down, and I was legally bound. So they
told me both captain and mate, and I believed it.
I could not escape, no matter how severe the treatment. Should I
attempt to run away from the ship, it would be desertion. I could be
brought back and punished for it. Even in a foreign port the chances of
desertion would be no better, but worse, since there the sailor finds it
more difficult to conceal himself. I had no hope then of escaping from
the cruel thrall in which I now found myself, but by putting an end to
my existence, either by jumping into the sea or hanging myself from the
yard-arm--a purpose which on more than one occasion I seriously
entertained; but from which I was diverted by the religious teachings of
my youth, now remembered in the midst of my misery.
It would be impossible for me to detail the number of cruelties and
indignities to which I was forced to submit. My existence was a series
of both.
Even my sleep, if sleep it could be called, I was not allowed to enjoy.
I possessed neither mattress nor hammock, for I had come aboard in my
common wearing clothes--in my school-jacket and cap--without either
money in my pocket or luggage in my hands. I had not even the usual
equipments of a runaway--the kerchief bundle and stick; I possessed
absolutely nothing--much less a mattress or hammock. Such things a
skipper does not find for his crew, and of course there was none for me.
I was not even allowed a "bunk" to sleep in, for the forecastle was
crowded and most of the bunks carried double. Those that were occupied
by only one chanced to have for their tenants the most morose and
ill-natured of the crew, and I was not permitted to share with them.
Even still more inhospitable were these fiends--for I cannot help
calling them so when I look back on what I suffered at their hands--I
was not even allowed to lie upon their great chests, a row of which
extended around the forecastle, in front of the respective bunks, and
covered nearly the whole space of the floor. The floor itself did not
leave room for me to lie down--besides it was often wet by dirty water
being spilled upon it, or from the daily "swabbing" it usually received.
The only place I could rest--with some slight chance of being left
undisturbed--was in some corner upon the deck; but there it was at times
so cold I could not endure it, for I had no blanket--no covering but my
scanty clothes; and these were nearly always wet from washing the decks
and the scud of the sea. The cold compelled me to seek shelter below,
where if I stretched my weary limbs along the lid of a chest, and closed
my eyes in sleep, I was sure to be aroused by its surly owner, who would
push me rudely to the floor, and sometimes send me out of the forecastle
altogether.
Add to this that I was almost constantly kept at work--by night as by
day. I may say there was no drudgery--no "dirty work"--that was not
mine. I was not only slave to captain, mates, and carpenter, but every
man of the crew esteemed himself my master. Even "Snowball" in the
"caboose"--as the cook was jocularly termed--ordered me about with a
fierce exultation, that he had one white skin that he could command!
I was boot-black for the captain, mates, and carpenter, bottle-washer
for the cook, and chamber-boy for the men--for it was mine to swab out
the forecastle, and wait upon the sailors generally.
Oh! it was a terrible life. I was well punished for my one act of
filial disobedience--well rewarded for my aspirations and longings for
the sea. But it is just the role that many a poor sailor boy has to
play--more especially if like me he has run away to sea.