far-distant Cape of Good Hope; at least, the skipper called them
lobsters, but the mate disgustedly muttered “Crawfish.” This sort of
thing the skipper cannot stand, as he considers it a crime for Mr.
Goggins to know more than he does, and actually resents any information
which the mate volunteers at table. He generally doesn’t care to
exhibit his knowledge in the skipper’s presence, and it is hard to see
why to-day he forgot himself in so unusual a manner. Yesterday, for
instance, I remarked what a particularly hot day it was for the Trades,
and the skipper promptly denied it on principle until furnished with
ocular proof by thermometers, while the mate discreetly observed, “I
feel like gettin’ out me warmer coat.”
Mr. Goggins is occupied during the first watch every other night in
teaching two of the men where the different ropes lead to on deck. One
of these hapless individuals is Louis Eckers, who doesn’t understand
much English, and the other is John Pettersen, an immensely tall, lean
Dane, who lives in such terror of the mate that he utterly loses his
head at every command. He is, besides, pitifully anxious to please, and
his awkwardness is really remarkable. If there happens to be a rope
yarn in his path he is sure to trip on it, and when he starts to move
in obedience to an order, he first stares all about as though just
recovering consciousness, and then suddenly perceiving that the men
are some distance off by this time, he laboriously gets his lank frame
under way after heavily tripping over some object, and, with elbows
squared and head bent low, he charges like a bull across the deck.
Neither of these men has ever been aboard of a square-rigger before,
and what little sense they have seems to vanish when anything is to be
done. I’ll never forget John’s appearance last night as he clattered
heavily forward toward the forecastle when the mate said ferociously,
“Show me the spanker-sheet.” Poor fellow! so rattled he knew not
whither he was going.
Speaking of ropes a moment ago reminds me of the largest one ever
made in England. It was of white manila, weighed five tons, and was
twenty-two inches in girth with a breaking strain of eighteen tons.
This huge rope was made a short time ago for the express purpose of
towing a floating dry-dock from the Tyne to Havana, which itself
weighed six thousand tons. Seventy men were required to haul in the
hawser and coil it away. Latitude 6° 18′ south; longitude, 33° 58′
west.
+June 10+
Oh, unhappy day! Oh, joyless hour! We could not weather South America
after all! Late yesterday afternoon when I had plotted the run off
on our own chart, I sought the skipper and said to him, “Unless my
chart is out, we’re not more than forty miles off the land.” “No,”
he answered, quietly; “we’re just thirty miles from the beach, and
I’m going to wear ship at six.” How bitter was his tone as he said
this! Bitter and calm with despair, for that which he said in jest
three weeks ago has truly come to pass. Far back in the North Atlantic
one morning, when we were not far enough to the eastward for that
latitude, I asked the captain if he weren’t generally farther east
than we were then. But he made light of it, trusting to his star of
luck, as he jocosely answered, “Oh, well, maybe we’ll have a chance to
look at Brazil.” Prophetic utterance. No one knows until he has “been
there” how it galls a skipper to be caught here, for it often puts
two or three weeks on the length of a voyage. At any rate, when six
o’clock came last evening we wore ship to a running and complicated
accompaniment of boisterous profanity, and stood away east on the
starboard tack. If the Trades were where the general average shows
that they ought to be at this season, east-southeast instead of
south-southeast as they are, we would have fetched by with two or three
degrees to spare.
The breeze was pretty strong when we turned in last night, and gave
evidence of freshening considerably; but no one looked for any such
wind as we had this morning. We were awakened by the loud voice of
Captain Scruggs, “Haul up the crojjick, Mr. Rarx,” and five minutes
afterwards, “Clew up the t’ga’nt-s’ls fore and aft,” while a sudden
headlong dive showed that something more than a strong breeze was
blowing. Dressing was difficult, and when we finally emerged from the
companion-way, behold the ocean almost white with breaking seas and
a moderate gale whistling from south-southeast. The seas were short
and we plunged heavily into them with an unpleasant jerk; but it was a
glorious sight to watch the billows as they came roaring at us, deep
blue in the hollows and crested with hissing froth. We hadn’t been more
than half an hour on deck when the captain sung out, “Haul down the
maintop-mast stay-sail and clew up the main-sail,” which meant that we
were going to wear again and stand in shore. We were nearly in the wind
on the other tack, and the second mate had just roared out, “Head-yards
now,” when crash! a tall sea fell over the weather side and full upon
the wee Chinese cook, the meekest, jolliest little fellow imaginable.
He was standing outside of the galley door when that sea claimed him.
It slammed him first against the main hatch; washed him back into the
scuppers; then aft nearly to the cabin bulkhead, and finally sat him
fiercely down by the pumps, during which evolutions the frail little
fellow could be perceived shooting about in the surging waters, his
long, black, thin pig-tail curling and writhing several feet behind
him. After the water had partly run off, half burying the men on the
lee foresheet, our little Chinaman lay very still, and we feared that
he was badly hurt, though the men were roaring with laughter, while the
skipper thundered “Why in h---- don’t yer pick him up?” to the mates,
who stood as though petrified, gazing at a cask of sea-water bearing
down on the cook which would have flattened him like one of his own
pancakes. All at once he came to, however, saw the barrel almost on
him, and skilfully rolled out of the way of it, escaping with some
painful bruises on his arms.
This was the only sea that boarded us, and we were soon straightened
out on the old port tack, steering southwest, and doing scarcely four
knots, for we were under short canvas and the seas pounded us back,
and even now we will hardly go free of the land; for in spite of our
twelve hours of easting during the night, a powerful northwest current
has set us back to such an extent that our noon sight showed us that we
were only ten miles farther off-shore than at the corresponding hour
yesterday, and that we had made only thirty miles of southing. If the
wind shifts only a point, though, we might be able to weather the land
after all.
Last night the mate and I had a conversation about fast passages, and
he said to me, “I can tell yer, there was plenty of smart ships thirty
or forty years ago that yer never hear tell of nowadays. There’s the
Boston ship ‘Siren,’ as I was mate of; we were comin’ around from
Coquimbo, bound to Liverpool, when we were caught in a pampero off the
river Plate. It come in a squall as usual, and the fust thing I know,
there was the fore- and maint’-gallant-masts over the side. We didn’t
have no spare spars aboard, but, in spite of that, we went from 3°
south right into Liverpool in nineteen days. Pretty good for a lame
duck, and considering the Doldrums, too.
“Then there was a smart passage I heered tell of the other day about a
modern ship, the British ship ‘King George’; she went from Cape Town up
to the Delaware Capes in forty-seven days.”
This last was really a fine performance, for the distance which she
covered was six thousand eight hundred miles. Compare this passage
with the voyages of sailing vessels to the westward across the North
Atlantic in winter. They are nearly always fifty days coming across,
and not infrequently seventy, or nearly a month longer than the “King
George” was from South Africa, while the distance is less than half.
In the Gulf of Mexico trade there is a wonderfully fast little
fore-and-aft schooner called the “Margaret S. Smith,” of Portland,
Maine. This vessel ran on one occasion from Ruatan, Honduras, to
Mobile in seventy-two hours, which was an hourly average of twelve and
one-half knots; and considering that the net tonnage of this schooner
is only one hundred and twelve, her performance must be regarded as
almost phenomenal. There are not very many large sailing ships in these
days which can show a record of three hundred miles per diem for three
consecutive days; yet the “Smith” is doubtless less than one hundred
feet long.
The other day I managed to get a large dollop of slush on a pair of
thick trousers, and I asked the skipper if Sammie, the boy, couldn’t
get it out, thinking that he could do so with some soap and a little
warm water. But lo! fifteen minutes later I saw my trousers soaking
away in a tub of water like a pair of dungaree breeches! This, as I
observed before, is the way with seafaring people: whenever there is
aught amiss with a garment, pop it goes into the wash-tub. Latitude, 6°
49′ south; longitude, 33° 48′ west.
+June 11+
“All hands wear ship; all hands ’bout ship.” These are the cries
which ring constantly through the vessel now. Woful to tell, the
Trades are still from the south-southeast, though the captain in some
way has contrived to control his temper to a wonderful degree; such
unlooked-for and devilish a performance of the Trades is enough to
finally ruin any skipper’s chances of entrance into Heaven’s Gate, or
the Golden Gate either.
Last evening at five o’clock we descried the land from aloft on the lee
or starboard bow, and after supper it was very plain from the deck, so
that at six we tacked and stood off shore again. At that time the sun
had just sank behind the sandy wastes of the Brazilian coast, casting
a deep crimson light over the sea; while dead ahead, at the extremity
of a profound curve in the coast-line, Point Pedras rose out of the
ocean in a low headland, with a tremendous mass of gloomy cloud above
it, lending to that part of the scene a sombre and awful aspect. Though
the land did not show up sufficiently well to allow us to perceive any
of its characteristics, it was plain enough to permit us to say that
we distinctly saw the shore-line of this vast and torrid land. Point
Pedras, it might be well to state, is not only the easternmost point of
Brazil, but of the entire Western Hemisphere, being forty-five miles
farther east than Cape San Roque.
This afternoon we perceived a disturbance at the end of the
fishing-line which is always towing astern, and it was presently seen
that we had hooked a fine specimen of the sailor’s dolphin, the most
beautiful in coloring of all deep-water fish. I think that it might be
as well to apply the name dolphin to this fish from now forward, if
there should be occasion to mention one again. Of course it isn’t a
dolphin at all, but as sailors call it so, and this is supposed to be a
book about sailors, this name is as good as any other.
Carefully we coaxed him up beneath the counter and then tried to kill
him by holding his mouth out of water, for he would have parted the
line if we had attempted to haul him aboard. As he sheared about on the
end of the line he presented a spectacle which was actually gorgeous,
and, being immediately above him, our view was perfect. His motions
were the very ideal of grace, and as he moved swiftly from side to side
he exhibited in succession all of his wonderful hues, vivid greens and
yellows merging into silver and Prussian blue. His antics were cut
short, however, by the arrival of the mate with the grains, which he
skilfully drove into the creature’s side (what a useless slaughter!),
and he was hauled up over the stern. Then we stood by for the dying
colors. Out upon them! Not for a single instant can they compare with
those of the fish in his natural condition, when, darting about a
fathom or so beneath the surface, he positively enchants the eye with
his brilliancy. He will yield us fresh food for supper, such as it is;
but all deep-sea fish are poor and dry, save one, the flying-fish,
which, if served in a restaurant with tartare sauce, I’m sure could not
be detected from a smelt.
One often hears the discussion in shipping and yachting circles as
to the seaworthiness of fore-and-aft schooners in comparison with
square-riggers for deep-water work, and the question is often raised,
“Which would make the faster passage to San Francisco from New York,
the ship or the schooner?” Naturally there are points in favor of each;
the advantage lying with the ship when off the wind in strong breezes,
and with the schooner when by the wind. In the case of a voyage to,
say, Hong-Kong, in the southwest monsoons, the ship would probably
arrive at her destination ahead of the other, as there would be five
thousand miles of hard westerly (fair) winds in the Southern Ocean,
and another long stretch of free wind from the Straits of Sunda to
Hong-Kong. On the other hand, in a westerly passage of Cape Horn, in
which the vessel would be probably close-hauled for two or three weeks
in the Southern Ocean, or perhaps more than a month, the schooner would
have an immense advantage in being able to lie at least two points
closer than the ship, if the wind allowed her to carry enough sail to
go ahead. The wind is generally too heavy in the vicinity of Cape Horn,
though, to allow a small vessel to show much canvas when close-hauled,
and the passages of four schooners to San Francisco found below
indicate that in reality there is not much difference between the
voyages of these schooners and the average of square-riggers. They were
all Gloucester fishermen, and were sent out by Mr. Horatio Babson,
of Boston, loaded with fishing supplies, rosin, pork, and hardware,
between 1868 and 1873.
Tons. Days.
“Urania” 92 125
“Varuna” 92 131
“Laura M. Mangam” 85 131
“Reunion” 90 148
The average of these vessels was one hundred and thirty-four days, as
against one hundred and forty-five for square-riggers; so that whatever
advantage they may have gained off Cape Horn and in the northeast
Trades in the Pacific, they, doubtless, lost in the long stretches
of southeast Trades on both sides of the continent. It must also be
added that all the schooners sailed during the month of November, so
as to reach Cape Horn in the middle of the southern summer. This fact
seems to me to be a good answer to those ship-masters who are wont
to assert that they would rather double Cape Horn in July than in
January,--_i.e._, in winter than in summer,--saying that the gales
are harder in the latter month than in June and July. But the fact
that November was chosen for the schooners by a man who was no doubt
familiar with the Southern Ocean would indicate that the weather there
is better in January.
To-day Mr. Rarx told me of a novel and very successful way of manning
a vessel with what is known as a checker-board crew. Two forecastles
are necessary, or one with a dividing bulkhead, all the men of one
watch being white and the others black. If they were together in
one forecastle, violent hostilities would continuously prevail; but
if separated, they will work against and try to outdo each other;
so that, with a little judicious flattery or word of encouragement,
such work as the making and shortening of sail, tacking and wearing,
will be done with incredible alacrity. All-negro crews are held in
esteem by some long-voyage skippers, but the men are said to be very
unruly at sea, though fearless sailors; while the singing on board of
a ship manned by darkies, both chanties and otherwise, is said to be
wonderfully good. Latitude, 7° 35′ south; longitude, 34° 20′ west.
+June 12+
No abatement of the southerly wind. We thought this morning that the
breeze was certainly going to haul to the eastward; but the wind,
though strong enough, yet hangs in the south-southeast, and we are,
therefore, still hammering away at it, tacking or wearing four times
in each twenty-four hours, so that in four days we have made only
ninety-eight miles of southing, a rate of nearly exactly a mile an
hour. Apropos of which Rumps made quite an original remark last
evening. For the full comprehension of the observation it must be
explained that if there is much wind and sea a ship will not make
better than a seven-point course,--that is, with the wind at south she
will do about west by south, or almost at a right angle. So the bosun
remarked, “Well, here we are, walking up and down the avenue, eh?” It
described what we were doing perfectly.
This morning, while on the starboard tack, the skipper, who has now
lost every vestige of the patience which he formerly exhibited, thought
that at last the wind was going to shift to southeast at least, so
he sung out to wear round; but when we were snugged down on the port
tack, we fell off to southwest half west, exactly as before. It seemed
impossible that a human being could have shown such boundless rage as
the captain did then. We could hear him muttering away at the farther
side of the poop, “What’s the use? No sort of use; no sort of use
at all.” And then, in a frenzy of sudden wrath, he stamped lustily
upon the deck and swore like the mouth of the pit, his wiry whiskers
bristling as though electrified, as he fiercely wagged his head; for he
wot not that we were hard by. Then his eye wandered to the main-deck,
and down the weather poop-ladder he clattered, looking for trouble, for
we could hear him growling and mumbling at the galley door.
In rough weather, instead of ordinary teacups we have large, flat,
china utensils, which look like shaving-mugs, so that at first I seemed
to miss the brush. The mate, thinking to have another go at merrie
England, cried, triumphantly, “I’ll bet you had nothin’ like them on
the ‘Mandalore.’” But we quite shocked him with the information that
on that good ship we were furnished not only with these useful pieces
of crockery, but with some which held an imperial quart, from which
we drank our soup in heavy weather as from Brobdingnagian teacups.
Perhaps Mr. Goggins was never so absurd as to-day after dinner, when
he confidentially called to me and said, “Say, did yer hear the cap’n
say ‘pressperation’ instead of ‘perspiration’ just now? There ain’t no
such a word, yer know”; this with an urbanity which would have floored
a Chinaman.
Mr. Rarx, too, sometimes favors us with some observations entirely
_sui generis_, and particularly droll in that he has a well-inflated
opinion of his own choice of English. He was telling of a painful
accident which happened to him several years ago, in which his back
was wrenched; “and, sir,” he concluded, “I didn’t know what to do; I
couldn’t stand, and I couldn’t lay, and I couldn’t set.” We wondered
whether he were possessed of any sort of ornithological accomplishments.
In windy weather wearing stirs up a lively scene. This is how it is
done on the “Higgins”: The skipper is pacing athwartships, undecided
whether to hold on any longer or not; then suddenly he stops, walks to
the break of the poop, and says quietly to the mate, “See the braces
clear for running, Mr. Goggins.” In five minutes or so the mate catches
the captain’s eye, and asks, “Are you ready, sir?”
“Am I ready, sir!” repeats the latter, who will have nothing suggested
to him; “most certainly I am _not_ ready; don’t you see that
squall to windward?”
The mate withers; and when it has passed the idea of having to
break tacks again seems to have festered in the skipper’s mind,
for he suddenly snaps out, “All hands wear ship,” like a bunch of
fire-crackers going off. “All h-a-n-d-s wear ship” roar the mates,
running forward to rouse out the men, and aft they tumble and take
up their positions at the various ropes. Then the skipper begins his
harangue with voice of thunder and wind-mill arms: “Haul away on your
main and crojjick buntlines and clew-garnets; square the crojjick-yard;
you at the wheel, hard up yer hellum. Weather main-braces now; haul
away, you blasted old women; come in on those tops’l-braces. Head-yards
now; let go the foretack; foresheet now, all hands; forebraces; steady
your wheel.” The ship by this time has fallen off dead before the wind,
and the old man is in the zenith of his passion, whirling back and
forth across the poop, belching perfect volcanoes of profanity.
“Main-braces again now; overhaul those spilling-lines and that main lee
inner buntline; again your main-braces; crojjick-tack, ---- ---- it;
look alive there and get that main-sheet aft; lead it to the capstan;
heave; in she comes, that’s well. Main and crojjick bowlines now;
that’s the style. Haul taut the weather-braces fore and aft, and clear
up the decks.”
[Illustration: Hauling taut the braces]
This oration is delivered in a hurricane voice to an accompaniment
of roaring wind and flying spray, which sometimes enshrouds the whole
forecastle like a snow-squall; and the mates whiz about, driving the
men before them, and they in turn rend the air with their cries as they
come in on the braces. Each man seems to have an individual ejaculation
when hauling away, only one man, of course, singing out at each rope;
but as there are often half a dozen knots of men at work, there are as
many strange yells. Louis, the Frenchman, says, “Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho,”
beginning very deep and ending in a falsetto; Broadhead, one of
the youngest and smartest seamen in the ship, eases his mind with
“Hoo-oop, come in with her; oh, fiddle-strings; oh, split the wind”;
Olafsen cries, “Ha-joop, ha-joop”; while Timothy Powers, the wild,
carrot-topped Irishman, screams, “Yah ha-a-a-a, yah ha-a-a-a,” like a
freight train with the brakes on.
Best of all, though, are the chanties; and as the men know each other
well by this time, there are plenty of them; and good old songs they
are, songs of the days of ’49, into which the men throw heart and soul.
Some of the best ones for hauling are, “Blow, my Bully Boys, Blow,” “A
Long Time Ago,” and “A Poor Old Man,” which latter two I believe that I
mentioned before; while some of the melodies sung to pumping ship are
even better. One is “The Plains of Mexico,” entirely in the minor, with
a weird effect; another, “The Banks of the Sacramento,” each verse of
which ends,--
“For there’s plenty of gold,
So I am told,
On the banks of the Sacramento.”
[Illustration: “Blow, my bully boys, blow”]
Still another, “The Girls of Dublin Town,” is sung to the Southern tune
of the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” the final words of each stanza being,--
“Then it’s hurrah, hurrah,
For the girls of Dubberlin town;
Hurrah for the bonnie green flag,
And the harp without a crown.”
“John Brown’s Whiskey-Bottle’s Empty on the Shelf” and “Give a Man
Time to Roll a Man Down” are too well known to need comment. It is a
fine sight to see eight muscular fellows at the pump-handles in the
dusk of the evening, their broad backs standing forth against the dark
recesses, rising and falling as they sing their favorite choruses,
MacFoy of the port watch and Murphy of the starboard always supplying
the solo parts. Latitude, 7° 56′ south; longitude, 30° 4′ west.
+June 13+
Worse and worse! The wind is more ahead than ever, and in the last
twenty-four hours we made six thousand and eighty feet of southing, or
precisely one sea-mile. Between yesterday noon and six in the evening
we did make a few miles of latitude, for we tacked ship at the latter
hour close to Cape St. Agostinho in 8° 40′ south; but after standing
over on the starboard tack till one o’clock to-day, we went back again
to the northward, and at mid-day the sun told us that we had made only
one mile of latitude to the good. I thought that the captain intended
to stand off shore this time for at least two hundred and fifty miles;
but when both watches had dined at one o’clock, we wore round again and
once more stood in for the beach. What a pity it is that we can’t make
better use of this magnificent breeze, which is too strong for even a
main-royal! Free, eleven knots would be our speed now, instead of which
we go diving hard into it jammed on the wind, pegging along at never
more than six knots, four points off our course on the most favorable
tack.