Flint” (late steamer “Persian Monarch”), one of the largest sailing
vessels under our flag, when she was hove down and dismasted about a
year ago in a cyclone. Captain Nickels subsequently accomplished so
fine a piece of seamanship that a short account of the whole affair
might not prove uninteresting. The vessel left Philadelphia bound
to Hiogo with a cargo of case-oil on August 21, and on September 8,
about four hundred miles from the Azores, she encountered a gale
which gradually increased to a tremendous hurricane, in the centre of
which she became involved; and shortly afterward she was hove on her
beam ends and the fore and maintop-masts and mizzentop-gallant-masts,
together with all standing gear above the lower mast-heads went by
the board. Her condition was really terrible, as all hands were in
momentary expectation of seeing some of the broken spars alongside
stave in the hull, as the wreckage was battering and thumping
furiously against the ship. A steamer was sighted later on,--the
“Craftsman,”--which stood by the “Flint” till the weather moderated,
and then offered to tow her to New York. This offer Captain Nickels
refused, though at their request he transshipped his two passengers,
one a Boston and the other a Chicago man, and they returned to New York
on the “Craftsman.” It is reasonable to presume that neither of these
individuals will ever step over the side of another sailing ship.
When the cyclone had passed and the ship had come up on an even keel,
Captain Nickels surveyed the wreck aloft and then decided on his
course, which was as follows: a part of the spars and rigging having
been saved, a foretop-mast was made from a spare spar, and the stump
of an old mizzentop-gallant-mast was used for a foretop-gallant-mast.
The ship carried a spare fore-yard, the lower foretop-sail-yard was
intact, and the upper maintop-sail-yard was utilized for an upper fore;
the foretop-gallant- and royal-yards were saved, thus square-rigging
the vessel forward. A portion of the main-yard, which was broken, was
used for a maintop-mast, leaving the mainmast fore-and-aft rigged.
The mizzentop-gallant-mast, which was apparently hopelessly damaged,
was fished and repaired together with all the yards below it, so that
the vessel was square-rigged forward and aft, but schooner-rigged
amidships, presenting a most extraordinary appearance. She looked at a
distance somewhat like two hermaphrodite brigs, yet after the repairs
had been made, which occupied fifteen days, she was successfully
navigated into New York harbor, a distance of two thousand two hundred
miles, and on one day logged the extremely good run of two hundred and
forty knots. For this fine performance the underwriters presented the
gallant captain with a superb gold watch, and well he deserved it,
for it was an act of seamanship so bold and unusual as to command the
applause of Captain Nickels’s fellow ship-masters, a class of men who,
as a rule, are extremely reserved in their expressions of approbation.
Latitude, 31° 34′ north; longitude, 42° 10′ west.
+May 21+
Last night was windy, with a severe squall at one o’clock in the
morning, with much rain, and we haven’t seen the sky-sails since six
last evening.
As I was leaning against the rail yesterday afternoon, looking at the
mizzen-stay being set up by the starboard watch, the captain came up
and said, “I’ve found out we’ve got another cap’n aboard, a fellow
called Murphy, I believe. I’m going to send him aft to run the ship,
and I’m going forrad to sleep in the fo’c’sle.” The skipper has a
curious way of saying such things, and we never know whether to smile
or not. Presently, though, he cast joking aside and began to blackguard
Murphy in the language of the deep sea, saying that when he (the
captain) had gone forward to see that the regular weekly washing out
of the forecastle was properly done, some of the men did not seem to
relish the process, and he heard Murphy grumble. Now, when a foremast
hand has been somewhat disagreeable for a few days, and at length finds
audible fault with various things, it is almost certain that some one
hour in the succeeding twenty-four will be unpleasant for him. Thus
with Murphy. After supper we were sitting on the deck-house, when
Captain Scruggs came up and said that at eight bells the decision would
be reached, whether or not there were two captains aboard. He was very
nervous and couldn’t sit still; which reminds me that I have never
yet seen a long-voyage skipper who wasn’t nervous at even the mildest
encounter with the men.
The evening shades fell early, by reason of heavy clouds, and at eight
o’clock it was dark. Word was passed forward that both watches were to
muster aft, and when eight bells had been struck, the eighteen seamen
(including the bosuns) came trooping down from forward and grouped
themselves at the after hatch. Here I sent my wife below, fearing
scenes which she ought not to witness; while the captain at the same
moment passed out of the cabin to the main deck and faced the men.
It was an impressive, rugged scene. The wind was puffy and uncertain
and the decks were wet; and though it was too dark to see the men’s
expressions, their forms stood out clearly enough as they rolled from
side to side with the heave of the ship, two broad beams of light
shooting out from the cabin doors and illuminating the showers of
spray that flew incessantly over the weather side; the great main-sail
bridging over the scene with its huge curve, till lost in the gloom of
the upper sails.
As soon as the captain appeared, he began to pace athwartships between
the hatch and the poop, keeping it up for several minutes in a dead
silence. How well he knows how to handle a crew! Nothing is more
effective than such a silence, for it shows the men that the skipper is
about to act with deliberation. Suddenly he unexpectedly rapped out,
“Go forrad, the port watch”; and the nine men quickly disappeared,
wondrous glad to escape, no doubt. Now what the captain said to the
rest I could not hear, for the wind cut his words off short; but he
walked up among the men, shouldering his way roughly through them,
until he stood directly in front of Murphy, who, though putting on some
“side,” shrunk back from the glare that I knew shot from the old man’s
eye. He spoke to him in the fierce, intense tones of a thoroughly angry
man; and, after a considerable harangue, he seized Murphy by his nasal
extremity, the size of which afforded him excellent holding ground, and
led the recalcitrant youth around in a small circle, every few seconds
tweaking and twisting his nose, till I was surprised that it did not
part company with the rest of his face. This done, he sent the men
forward, entered the cabin, sat down, and joined us in a game of casino.
At first this seemed a very puerile manner of administering punishment,
but it is considered wonderfully effective, and, in truth, it is
humiliating to be hauled about by the nose in the presence of one’s
companions. I had expected that Murphy would have been floored with a
belaying-pin, that handy instrument of correction which most American
masters and mates know so well how to wield. But Captain Scruggs seems
to be restraining himself, owing in part, no doubt, to our presence
on board, though chiefly to the space which the newspapers have
been devoting lately to aggravated cases of cruelty at sea. Indeed,
the skipper himself said the other day, “What’s a ship-master to do
nowadays, when the press jumps on him when he gets ashore?” He forgets
that if the said ship-master conducted himself at sea like the captain
of a ship ought to, the press would have no cause for writing him up.
The course has been poor, with the wind at times to the southward of
east, and, horrible to relate, we made a degree of westing in the
twenty-four hours. If we don’t have a better chance than this, we’ll be
jammed on San Roque in earnest. Latitude 28° 30′ north; longitude, 43°
west.
+May 22+
It is necessary here to make an announcement of a very painful nature,
an announcement of a fact so lamentable and unfortunate that for a
long while we tried to believe that it could not be. Captain Scruggs
has several times in the last week been very much under the influence
of strong liquor! More than once we have noticed that he exhibited a
strange uncertainty in his gait, and for two days he has been unusually
aggressive and sometimes silly in his arguments. Still, neither of us
would acknowledge to the other that which we knew in our hearts was
true, until last evening at supper his conduct compelled us to admit
the shocking fact that the master of the ship in which we have but
just commenced one of the longest and stormiest of voyages was plainly
drunk. He had to steady himself against the mizzen-mast at the end
of the dining-room before he could sit down, and during the meal he
was for a time a drooling idiot. His chief amusement seemed to lie in
spilling small quantities of maple syrup over the table-cloth, in which
he then dabbled with his fingers, like a boy with his feet in a puddle.
The syrup appeared to revive memories of his childhood, for he told
us stories of his passion for this fluid when a youth. Said he: “Why,
I used to go out in the woods, tap a maple-tree, and let two gallons
of surrup run into me.” No one said a word. “Two gallons!” glaring
fiercely at the mate, who, of course, didn’t offer any objection.
Then he caught sight of a small wash-tub, and, turning on the mate
again, cried out violently, “When I was a boy, I used to could drink
that right down full er maple surrup. This ’ere hain’t surrup; h’its
mucilage.” Here we excused ourselves and went on deck.
Now, what is all this going to lead to? Pleasant thought, that of
knocking about in a gale of wind off Cape Horn with a groggy skipper in
charge! Indeed, when we first discovered his bibulous inclination, my
wife was in despair, and the only consolation we have is to be found
in the hope that the case of whiskey that we have seen is the only
one on board. We can account now, too, for the innumerable times that
the captain has popped into his little room, only to emerge in a few
seconds, smelling furiously of Florida-water. Well, we’ll probably have
fine, light weather through the northeast Trades, which we are now sure
that we have taken; and at the rate at which the grog is vanishing at
present, it will be gone before we reach the squally Doldrums, provided
that the skipper has but one case.
In a copy of a nautical magazine on board, I saw an account of a
singular fact that occurred a short while ago. The British ship
“Crompton” was homeward bound a few months since, from Calcutta to
Dundee, when one morning Captain Lloyd sighted something ahead which
seemed to be either a capsized vessel or the back of a whale. As the
vessel approached, however, the captain saw that it was neither, but
a rock, about sixty feet long, eight feet high, and the same broad.
He could scarcely believe his senses, for the position of the rock
was 47° north and 37° 20′ west! Imagine a rock’s existing in the most
crowded ocean on the globe, almost every square mile of which it was
reasonable that at least one vessel had traversed, which had never been
seen or reported before! For some time Captain Lloyd could not believe
that it really was a rock, and so to verify it he sailed as close to
it as possible; and as the morning was a perfectly clear one, and the
hour twenty minutes to eight, he was at last compelled to believe the
evidence of his eyes, that here was a large rock, extremely dangerous
to navigation, lying five hundred miles north-northwest of the Azores!
Speaking of those balmy isles reminds one of that ardent, skilful
yachtsman, the Prince of Monaco. About two years ago, while prosecuting
some deep-sea soundings in the vicinity of the Azores on his steam
yacht, he found a bank or ledge which rose from a depth of about
two thousand fathoms to one of something like fifty fathoms, which,
like the aforementioned rock, had never been charted or reported. So
extremely zealous is the prince in his pursuit of knowledge concerning
the floor of the Atlantic, that he shortly afterward gave an order
for a twelve-hundred-ton steam yacht (he can well afford it!) fitted
with the most recent inventions in connection with deep-sea sounding
apparatus. I wonder whether he will use the machine for this purpose
invented by Captain Sigsbee, who commanded the battleship “Maine” at
the time of her destruction. It is said that Lord Kelvin, who, when
Sir William Thompson, invented the famous sounding machine which bears
his name, has stated that Captain Sigsbee has adopted an idea in
his apparatus which he (Lord Kelvin) had vainly sought for years to
utilize in his mechanism. If this be true, Captain Sigsbee has reason
to be a very proud man, for Lord Kelvin is, perhaps, the most learned
individual now living on hydro-dynamics and kindred sciences.
Last voyage it took us exactly a month in which to reach this spot
where we are now, which illustrates how uncertain and erratic long
voyages are. All fear of being “stuck” in this region, as we were
before, has disappeared, for the Trades have come now without
question; and while they are quite fresh enough to suit us, we would
like to see the wind back two points to the northward. Latitude, 26°
18′ north; longitude, 41° 9′ west.
+May 23+
Last night was a windy one, and in the middle watch we split the
mizzen-royal in a severe squall; so we took in the fore- and
main-royals, the sea being choppy and the vessel plunging a good
deal. It is customary to cut the light sails in such a manner that a
fore-sky-sail will answer for a mizzen-royal; therefore, toward the
end of the morning watch the fore-sky-sail was unbent and stretched
on the mizzen-royal-yard, the royals having been set again an hour or
so previously. It didn’t fit particularly well, but it will do until
to-morrow, when the royal will be repaired, as such work is not done on
Sunday unless in case of urgent need. Sometimes there is necessity for
hard work on the Sabbath aboard ship, such an instance having occurred
on the “Hosea Higgins” on her last homeward voyage from San Francisco.
It might be first observed that, though it is the custom to give the
men a holiday on Sunday, still if the captain orders anything done, he
must be obeyed without murmur. On this particular occasion, Captain
Scruggs saw fit to order one of the bosuns to do some work aloft, which
he refused. The skipper went down on the main deck then and spoke to
the man, a lusty young German, asking him why he refused to turn to.
“Because it’s Soonday, zur,” he replied.
“Sunday? Never heard of it. What is Sunday? Who told you anything about
it?” quizzed the old man.
“I say, a man’s not supposed to turn to on Soonday, zur,” repeated the
bosun.
“Oh, he’s not,” quoth the skipper; “then we always put him where he’ll
have plenty of leisure. Mr. Goggins, the irons.”
(This same mate came around from California in the “Higgins.”)
The irons were brought, and the man, quietly enough, but with angry
eye and sneering lip, put his hands behind him; the irons were locked
on, and he was led down into the lazarette, where he sat calmly down,
and the key was turned. Six hours afterward the mate went to him with
some food and found that the man had in some way contrived to shift
his hands around in front and was disposed to be ugly. Therefore he
was taken up into the after part of the wheel-house (these structures
on American ships are divided into equal portions, one containing the
wheel and binnacle, the other the rudder-head, tiller, flag-locker,
etc.), where a staple was driven into a carling, to which the man’s
hands, still ironed, were secured, leaving him so that he could not
sit down, his wrists being about six inches above his head. Now, this
posture for twelve hours is enough to break the heart of a wild beast;
yet this bosun stood there without a word for thirty hours, refusing
food or drink during that time! At the end of every six hours or so the
mate went to him and asked if he had had enough, to which the Teuton
would answer “Naw.” His endurance yielded at the thirtieth hour and he
implored to be released, which he was six hours later, and for the rest
of the passage he was a model sailor.
At this time we are on or near a favorite whaling ground, great
numbers of these leviathans being taken in this vicinity every year
by schooners. In the old days a first-class whaling bark cost about
thirty-five thousand dollars, and was manned by perhaps thirty Western
Islanders, or natives of the Azores. They were owned by companies who
supplied the vessels with provisions, clothes, and outfits, and also
advanced certain sums of money to captain and crew (which did not go to
crimps as it does now) while they were away on a three years’ cruise.
No wages were ever paid to any one, but all hands received a percentage
when the ship returned, the bulk, which remained, being divided among
the stockholders. The most lucrative whaling voyage of which there is
any record was made by the “Onward” of New Bedford, which, after a
forty-one months’ voyage, stocked two hundred and seventy-five thousand
dollars, the captain’s share alone amounting to thirty-three thousand.
More startling even than that is the fact that during the fifty-two
years which formed the golden era of Massachusetts’s whaling industry
the total value of whale products landed in New Bedford alone amounted
to one hundred and forty-five million dollars!
We had quite an agreeable shock this morning when the carpenter walked
aft to breakfast with a clean, new, checked shirt on, it being Sunday.
He had combed the sawdust and other little inconveniences out of his
unctuous locks, and he made quite a respectable appearance as he
wabbled into the cabin.
Fresh Trades blew all day, and we have made good a course about
south-southeast. Latitude, 23° 28′ north; longitude, 40° 15′ west.
+May 24+
This day broke with a strong breeze and a cloudy sky; but, as usual,
the vapor cleared away at ten o’clock and a superb afternoon followed.
Nearly all wooden ships have to be pumped out twice every day, once
in the morning watch and again at six in the evening. It is almost
impossible to build a tight wooden vessel of any size, and the rougher
the sea the more water she will make, on account of laboring. Of
course, the leakage varies greatly, but I suppose that our own is an
average one, about one thousand strokes of the pumps being necessary
to free the ship at each session of thirty minutes, and the aperture
through which the water escapes is about as large as a fire-hose.
Last evening, sadly needing exercise, I descended to the main-deck
after supper and announced to Jimmie Rumps, the young starboard watch
bosun, that it was my intention to assist in pumping ship, if the men
had no objection; at which they smiled, while Rumps assured me that any
such assistance would be eagerly welcomed. A ship’s pumps are worked
by means of handle-bars attached to large, heavy fly-wheels, six feet
in diameter; and the motion of pumping is similar to the old-fashioned
way of lifting rock out of an excavation by man-power derricks. I
therefore grasped the handle-bar with the reckless assurance of a
man who knows not what he does, having opposite to me a raw-boned,
powerful Englishman, Coleman. “Shake her up” came from the second
mate in another moment; and, urged by the strong arms of the men, the
great wheels began to slowly revolve. As moments passed, though with
no indication of acceleration in the speed, I began to fear that after
all I was not to find much exercise in this way, when all at once there
was a distinct increase in the movement, and my breath came shorter and
quicker. Faster and yet faster flew the iron handles till we must have
been doing sixty revolutions to the minute. I was nearly pitched off
my feet at every turn, and my head commenced to swim. Usually, at the
end of fifteen minutes, a halt is called for a breathing-spell; but now
we went on and on with no signs of cessation, and the men wrought with
wooden faces. Then instantly I saw that they were having their joke,
initiating me, as it were, and that they had no intention of resting
till the trick was over. The pace was quite frightful; but I decided
to faint on the deck rather than yield. Round went the relentless,
cruel handles, carrying me with them, like a nautical Don Quixote
on the windmill, while Jimmie Rumps, that young limb of Satan, made
facetious observations, at which the men smiled compassionately.
“Fine exercise this, mister”; and, “How’d you like to do this when
we’re turnin’ the Corner with two feet of water on deck?”
A ghastly smile was the only answer that I could summon, and in five
minutes more I should certainly have succumbed to dizziness and want
of breath, when I heard the voice of the mate, sounding strange and
distant, “That’ll do the pumps.” I let go the handle, grinned like
a skull to show how happy I was, summoned all my strength, tottered
to the poop ladder, crawled up, fell into a deck-chair and for five
minutes endured the bitter agonies of a man thoroughly “pumped.” This
was a good deal better than giving in, however, and it is my intention
to hammer away at it for the rest of the voyage.
To-day the sun was overhead at noon, the declination and latitude being
the same. We made a somewhat better course during the past twenty-four
hours, about south 30° east, and a heavy bank in the northeast presages
a breeze from that quarter, so that we may come up a couple of points
farther. The captain continues his libations with no indication of a
change; evil as the thing is, though, there is some compensation in it
for us, as he is usually asleep in his room all day. An ill wind, and
so on. Latitude 20° 3′ north; longitude, 38° 23′ west.
+May 25+
Last night we celebrated the Queen’s birthday for Mr. Goggins’
sake; and the old man had a fête all by himself with a bottle of
Monongahela. The first part of the proceedings consisted in burning
balls of tar-soaked oakum mounted on sticks secured to the weather
rail. Each ball was of the size of man’s head and burned with a
brilliant flame that lit up the whole ship with a red glare, sending
now and then a stream of sparks across the deck, quite alarming till we
remembered that everything in the waist was drenched with spray.
The second portion of the festivities was more elaborate and was begun
by carrying a barrel of oiled shavings up on the poop. The open end
of the barrel was headed up and a hole a foot square was then cut in
the side. Of course, the captain insisted on performing this piece of
carpentry, and he entertained himself for ten minutes, jabbing away at
the hard wood with a little key-hole saw till he was in quite a frenzy.
“Now gimme a match and I’ll show you some fireworks,” said he.
“Hi don’t think it’ll burn, Cap’n Scruggs: the hole ain’t big enough,”
meekly observed the mate.
“I didn’t ask you whether you thought ’twould burn or not,” responded
the skipper, who had snapped about an inch off the end of his little
saw. “I asked you for a match.”
Finally the contents of the barrel were ignited, and the skipper,
seizing the chimes at one end, bade the mate do the same at the other;
then to lift it horizontally, swing it to and fro, and when he said
“three,” to let it go over the stern. But the mate got it wrong in some
way, and let go at “two,” and as the captain hung on, there was a good
deal of excitement for a few seconds. The barrel all but hauled him
overboard after breaking off two or three finger nails, banged loudly
against the counter, turned over, and dropped into the water hole-side
down.
The scene which followed was too harrowing for reproduction, but it was
interrupted by the loud voice of the lookout, “Light right ahead, sir.”
Instantly all was silent. The skipper jumped up on the deck-house,
while the mate ran for the top-gallant-forecastle, whence he shouted
back, “All right, sir, she’s keeping away”; and in a few minutes, a
bark of about seven hundred tons under topsails passed us to leeward,
by the wind, bound north.
Mr. Goggins entertained us at dinner to-day with a new version of an
old sea-fight. The captain did not come to the table until supper,
owing to his celebrations, which he prolonged far into the night; so,
after the soup had been cleared away at dinner, the mate began, “Did
you ever hear, sir, and ma’am, of the true ’istory about Sims (Semmes)
in the battle of the ‘Kearsarge’ and ‘Halabama’?” “No,” said I; “let us
have it.”
“’Twon’t take long to tell,” said the mate. “He warn’t in the fight at
all. Where was he? Aboard o’ that English yacht, the ‘Greyhound,’ or
whatever she was, a-lookin’ on! Yes, sir; I was in Liverpool then, and
he come in and went on board the ‘Great Western,’ and her cap’n spit in
his face, and him without the courage to reply.”
Mr. Goggins had a sousing yesterday which diverted all hands for some
time. He was coming down from forward on the weather side, with that
peculiar confidence assumed by captains and mates when the spray is
flying, as if it were impossible for a drop of water to strike them.
The mate had reached the main hatch, when he heard the swash of an
unusually heavy sea, and casually turned his head in time to see a
perfect storm of spray flying down upon him. It hit him fairly between
the shoulders. He staggered, fluttered about for a moment, and then
flapped heavily and helplessly against the hatch-combing, where he sat
up finally in a foot of water, drenched to the bone.