in the last sixty minutes, ten knots! Glorious work; it is the fastest
that we have gone through the water in several weeks; for the last time
that we flew along at this speed was off the coast of Patagonia, with
a west-northwest gale over the quarter. The grand easterly wind did
not reach us until the morning watch, however, so that the whole day’s
run was not so great as the heading of this day’s log would indicate.
Yesterday, from 4 to 8 +P.M.+, we lounged about in an almost
perfect calm; and the stars came out of a clear, placid sky, and,
quivering and trembling, peered down upon an ocean nearly motionless,
for nothing but the ghost of the southwest swell remained. At the
present moment even the last vestige of it has vanished under the
influence of the east wind, and the sea is silent and undisturbed save
for the ruffling caused by the fast-freshening breeze. Strange weather
for 60° south, only four hundred and fifty miles from the South Polar
Circle, in a locality world-famous for its seas and storms. Sometimes,
as in our case, enormous seas are encountered in sight of Cape Horn
itself; but usually the largest are seen to the westward of the Diego
Ramirez, where the sea sinks again to great depths. This easterly wind
is quite surprising to us also; for, barring one day of southeasterly
winds when we first spoke the French ship, four weeks ago, we have
had almost continuous westerly gales. Even for Cape Horn a month of
such implacable winds is a bad record, for on an average an easterly
blow should come every two or three weeks. Our joy, therefore, is very
great, now that we are going so finely and heading our true course,
with the wind on the quarter, and all possible sail set and drawing.
Another unusual, and to our eyes an extremely beautiful, spectacle
was the bright, clear sky of last night, with the shining path of
the Milky Way encircling the heavens with its girdle of gold-dust;
the stately form of the Crux Australis, now at the zenith; and in the
south, forty-five degrees above the horizon, those two weird nebulæ,
the Magellan Clouds, gazing down at us with wan, dim eyes.
Still another source of delight is the fact that for the first time
in three weeks I have been able to wear foot-gear other than rubber
boots. My leather ones cracked from being hung too near the stove,
so that ever since we passed Cape Virgins it has either been raining
so hard or the sea has been so heavy, even on the poop, that nothing
but rubber would keep the feet dry; and three steady weeks of rubber
boots is somewhat monotonous. And sleep! Heavens! what a grand one last
night was for peaceful, deep rest, the first that we have had since
we showed our nose outside of Cape St. John. Instead of the customary
rolling through an arc of about forty degrees, there was nothing in the
ship’s motion to indicate that we were afloat except an occasional deep
breath, rather pleasant than otherwise. But I am writing as though we
were in the Tropics and in fine weather for good and all; instead of
which, there are hundreds, almost thousands of miles to cover before
the fine, warm days begin. At this season fine weather cannot be
looked for till we cross 30° south in about 100° west, a difference of
latitude alone of eighteen hundred miles, not to mention longitude at
all.
Would that some stranger could have heard the mate’s conversation at
dinner to-day and witnessed his gesticulations. The old man commenced
on the subject of the men who manned sailing ships in these days, a
topic that invariably has him in a helpless rage in a few minutes.
“Why,” said he, after a long speech, “I had a crew once in the
‘Priscilly Waters’ that was sailors, not farmers; one watch of those
fellows would do more work in four hours than the whole of the eighteen
men here in a day, and there was only ten of ’em before the mast. Why,
all hands on the ‘Waters’ used to nearly yank the masts out of her.”
As in duty bound, the mate agreed with the skipper, which he did by
sharp jerks and winks in the old man’s direction; and even went him one
better by telling how, in ancient days on the Pacific coast, _he_
had had a crew in the “Jacob Billings,” for nineteen months on end,
who used to lift the ship clean out of the water. But his manner of
speech at meals in the captain’s presence! His absurd, grotesque ways!
He is always much embarrassed how to begin when he has anything on his
mind; and I can see him now, grinning and simpering like a fool, gazing
intently out of the forward window. At last his meditations overwhelm
him; and, drawing his greasy sleeve several times across his mouth
from ear to ear, he begins to utter odd sounds in his throat, still
staring out on the main-deck. Gradually he grows bolder, and fragments
of sentences can be here and there detected; when suddenly, carried
entirely away, he turns his bleary eyes full upon you and finishes in a
violent shout, instantly collapsing, like an exhausted bellows.
Often, during an evening, when I go on deck for a breath of air before
turning in, he will discourse thus: “I tell you, Mr. Stevens, Noo York
carn’t touch San Francisco for cheap livin’. Why, sir, I can git a meal
in a ’igh-toned rest’rant there for less nor a quarter of what I can
East. Me and the wife was passin’ along the street in San Francisco one
evenin’ (yer’d never take me for the mate of a ship, sir, if you was
to meet me ashore), and she says to me, says she, ‘’Arry, I’m ’ungry,’
says she. ‘Hall right,’ I says, ‘so am I.’ So we goes into a ’igh-toned
rest’rant and has a bowl er soup, a bit er fish, a pick er veal, some
vegetables, a piece er pie, and a big cupper corfee. And ’ow much d’ye
think it were? Ten cents apiece. ‘Pretty good,’ says I to th’ old
woman; ‘we’ll try it in Noo York.’ So w’en we got East ag’in, we went
into a rest’rant on Fulton Street, near the ferry, up two flights.
Oh, it were ’igh-toned, too, sir. They ’ad niggers for waiters. So I
picked one out and says to ’im, ‘’Ere, you, bring a bit er steak,’ I
says, ‘some pertaters, and corfee.’ Well, I ’ad to leave the steak, I
couldn’t eat it; and I says to the nigger, ‘Take them pertaters back; I
never eats warmed-over vegetables.’ And wot d’ye think they stuck me?
Fifty cents each!”
His talking of restaurants puts me in mind of a rather amusing incident
that happened to my wife and me in Boston a year or two ago. We were
walking through Washington Street one evening, and being extremely
hungry, stepped into one of the many dairy kitchens that adorn that
thoroughfare. We found, upon seating ourselves, that it was a religious
institution, with biblical mottoes upon the walls, and we were amusing
ourselves watching the amazement of the prim, gray old couples from the
country, almost stunned by the bevelled mirrors and electric lamps,
when we became aware of two glaring legends hung cheek by jowl high
up on the wall. One read, “Only the righteous shall see God.” Its
neighbor, “Keep your eye on your hat and coat.” Latitude, 59° 9′ south;
longitude, 79° 15′ west.
+July 28+
Course, northwest true, distance run in the twenty-four hours, two
hundred and seventy-eight miles! Hurrah for the fair wind! Long live
the easterly gale! What better conditions could be desired than those
that now prevail? A fair, fresh gale, a sea which, while rough, is
nothing out of the way, and a splendid position in which to take
the expected northwesterly gales in a day or two. Every square inch
of canvas is drawing to its utmost capacity, and we averaged only a
fraction less than twelve knots for the twenty-four hours. Now, in
spite of all the old records of more than three hundred and fifty miles
a day, a run of two hundred and eighty is an extremely good one. It is
certainly no great feat for a ship to make fifty or fifty-five miles
in a watch, but when she maintains twelve knots for twenty-four hours,
sailors call it fast going.
Some heavy water has come aboard in the last three hours, as all
sailing vessels are very wet running before a strong wind and sea.
At this very moment we shipped a comber over the quarter that broke
entirely over the cabin-house with a crash that shook the bulkheads,
and the skipper has just sung out, “Clew up the royals.” This is
still another fine example of the difference between on and off the
wind. It is blowing a fresh gale, as noted before, which means about
forty-five miles an hour; yet until this moment we have lugged the
three royals without trouble, and only clewed them up because the sea
is getting ugly; by the wind we would be under reefed topsails. The
“Hosea Higgins” doesn’t seem to run well. Even in this sea, which
certainly is not really heavy yet, she is emphatically a wet ship. The
“Mandalore,” a “diving-bell,” was drier than the “Higgins” is now, when
she was running before a sixty-mile gale. We had no business to take
that sea over the quarter a moment ago; indeed, ever since noon we have
had heavy, green water on the poop, and an idea of the quantity may
be gained when it is said that while the captain was standing by the
weather mizzen-shrouds after dinner, a sea washed his legs from under
him, and his grip on the mizzentop-sail-halliards was the only thing
that prevented his being swept down on the main-deck. All the square
windows in the weather-side of the house have been covered with the
heavy, solid wooden shutters, as though they were ports in the ship’s
side, instead of being inside of and protected by the bulwarks. The
glass, which has been wonderfully steady for sixty hours, has commenced
to fall, and a heavy gale is probably overhauling us, for easterly
gales off the Horn have a hard name.
In all our experience at sea we never saw anything like the dampness
during the late light weather. No rain fell then, but so heavily
charged with moisture was the atmosphere that the water actually ran
off the poop as during a shower; and from the top of the wheel-house,
in size ten by fifteen feet, we filled two ten-gallon tubs in twelve
hours with the moisture that condensed upon it; while down the walls of
our room, separated from the dining-room, where the hot stove is, only
by the after-cabin, moisture trickled in glistening beads.
The men have slightly improved, though they are still a badly used-up
lot of sailors. To what an apparently infinite number and variety of
ailments and mishaps they are liable! There is the tough and hardy
second mate, even he has lost the entire use of one hand by a trivial
accident. He had a small wart or something of that sort on the back
of his right hand a few days ago, and on one occasion, while slacking
off the weather lower maintop-sail-brace, one of the ropes knocked off
this tiny excrescence. Mr. Rarx paid no heed to it; but in twenty-four
hours his hand had swollen dreadfully, puffing up like a huge biscuit,
and where the wart had been there formed a large sore that had to be
lanced. Cold salt-water and friction must be looked to as accountable
for this, for Rarx is as lean and healthy-looking as a prize-fighter.
Louis Jacquin, the Frenchman, too, another specimen of rugged health,
had a finger caught in a main-brace block and jammed, drawing blood;
and in two days an ugly purple rising appeared at the base of the nail,
as large and shining as a hot-house grape--so hard, withal, that a
lance penetrated it with difficulty.
The best men in the ship are sent to the helm now, for an awkward,
false turn of the wheel in such a sea would broach the ship to in a
moment, and then, good-by pumps, rail, and everything else on the
main-deck. Latitude, 55° 53′ south; longitude, 85° 20′ west.
+July 29+
_Salve lux benigna!_ Yesterday morning daybreak came perceptibly
earlier than it used to, and by seven o’clock it was sufficiently
light to distinguish faces at a short distance; while this morning, so
much northing had we made, that at seven it was broad daylight; and we
will soon be able to eat our quarter-to-eight breakfast without the
palsied yellow glare of the lamp. It is true that the sky is still
of a Saturnian lead color, but the dark, heavy _feel_ of the
atmosphere has disappeared. To-morrow we will cut the fiftieth parallel
if this easterly breeze holds. It has let go to a certain extent, yet
it blew us over two hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours,
and in three days we have done six hundred and fifty miles to the
northwest-ward, which is extraordinarily good work for this locality;
our position is simply splendid.
The desire of Captain Scruggs for wishing to appear that he knows
everything, especially in the presence of the mate, is still very
remarkable. Sometimes it is amusing, but more often extremely annoying.
Frequently, when I tell him something that he has never heard of
before, he will nod his head slightly, and, with an alteration of my
own words, repeat the sentence aggressively and dogmatically, as
though it came directly from him, and he was giving us the information.
The mate is completely deceived, and always looks admiringly toward
him, simultaneously winking and leering atrociously. Moreover, Captain
Scruggs is a man whom you cannot possibly surprise by any statement;
and he is always unmoved in the face of the most unusual occurrences.
As an example, we found, one morning, having taken the precaution of
glancing into the pitcher, that the syrup contained a quantity of
foreign substances which floated about in it.
“There seems to be a number of curious things in the syrup,” I humbly
ventured; “looks like long-cut tobacco.” Disturbed? Indeed, no. He only
clutched the pitcher from me, peered ferociously into it, and growled,
“Steward, see if you can’t get this dust out with a knife.”
The skipper is likewise completely destitute of imagination. Shortly
after we sailed I started to read an extract to him (I was bold in
those days) from a collection of excellent sea stories called “The
Port of Missing Ships,” in which mention is made of a mate who was so
zealous that he “tried to see how near he could come to standing in two
places at the same time without splitting himself.” Here I paused and
glanced with a smile at the old man. But, with a face as expressionless
as a tadpole’s, he asked, “Isn’t that a little overdrawn?”
The mate rises to the most sublime heights of his absurdities when
he observes at dinner, as he frequently does, with a smirk perfectly
diabolical, “Hi knows the secrets of hall the codfish haristocracy
of San Francisco. My old woman used to work in the Wite ’Ouse”
(_i.e._, that city’s branch of the Parisian Maison Blanc) “as a
fitter; and be gar’s sakes, sir, the things wot I’ve ’eerd is hawful.”
He also makes use of extraordinary syncopations in conversation. For
example, should my wife ask him a question about the weather, he
always says “Sam?” which, being done into English, signifies, “What
say, ma’am?”
Mr. Goggins is also abnormally addicted to stewed prunes, which we
often have for supper. He usually disposes of four or five at each
mouthful, and you wait to see him get rid of the pits; but you are
disappointed, because he seems to have swallowed them. At length he
has finished a large saucerful, pushes back his plate, draws his
sleeve heavily across his face, leans back in his seat, looks fixedly
at a point in the ceiling with a wooden face, draws in a long breath,
bends over, and gently blows a dozen or so of prune-stones into his
plate, like a shower of hail-stones. Then mumbling, “Hexcuse me, sir,”
wriggles off his seat and out of the door. Latitude, 52° 34′ south;
longitude, 89° 37′ west.
+July 30+
At last we have accomplished the arduous midwinter passage of the Horn,
having been twenty-two days off the stormy Cape, or just about the
average; but we would have been at least a week longer had it not been
for that friendly easterly wind. We actually saw the sun several times
to-day, too, were enabled to ascertain our exact location, and our
calculations proved to be only fifty miles out in longitude and thirty
in latitude. In consideration of the fact that for about a fortnight we
wrestled with powerful currents, and uncertain ones at that, the error,
especially in the departure, must be considered insignificant, in view
of the almost limitless sea-room. Whatever may be Captain Scruggs’s
failings, he is a first-rate seaman, and a keen, astute navigator; and
on many occasions near Cape Horn we had opportunities of observing his
accurate, almost infallible judgment.
To add to our increasing sense of comfort, the sun is mounting very
rapidly in the heavens, both on account of our northing and by reason
of the lengthening of the southern days. The noon altitude was 21° 20′,
a very respectable height, more than double that of a week ago, when at
meridian the sun, if we had been able to measure his altitude, would
not have been more than 9° 30′ above the horizon. The orb, besides, had
sufficient power to raise the mercury two degrees at mid-day when we
hung a thermometer in his rays.
Off Cape Horn in winter the temperature is usually somewhat lower
than that of the North Atlantic between the British Isles and the
Newfoundland Banks in January. It is only between the latter point
and New York that vessels experience such an intensity of frost as to
contract the mercury to zero and sheath them in several feet of solid
ice. That is, in the deepest seclusions of the open sea, the weather,
even in the coldest season in high latitudes, is generally mild and
soft compared with that found at the same parallel near a great expanse
of land. Indeed, the comparatively high temperature of the entire
Southern Ocean in winter is due to the preponderance of sea, the long,
narrow finger of Patagonia being the only land south of 45°, save some
diminutive clusters of islands.
On the other hand, though, owing to the uniformity of temperature
produced by such a waste of ocean, Cape Horn summers are but little
warmer than the winters; the difference between the lowest of July
and the highest of December being only 18°, the average for the year
being 42°; whereas in Canada, far away from the mellowing influence of
salt-water, there is an extreme thermometrical range of 150° between
the seasons. Compare Cape Horn’s winter temperature of 30° in the
latitude of 56° and that of Minnesota of 55° below zero, though St.
Paul is six hundred and fifty miles nearer the equator. St. Paul’s
average for the year, 44°, is almost identical with that of the Horn,
the intense heat of the northern summers almost exactly balancing
a degree of cold not exceeded by 20° on the Arctic Ocean. Contrary
to the general opinion, the most intense cold is not to be found in
the far northern sea where Nansen travelled, but in Siberia. In the
centre of that desolate country is a town called Irkutsk in 52° north,
or fifteen degrees south of the Polar Circle, at which the lowest
natural temperature ever recorded by man has been observed, the spirit
thermometers once showing a temperature of 93° below zero, or 53-1/2°
below the freezing point of mercury. Artificial cold, though, has far
exceeded this reading, as Professor Dewar obtained a temperature of
about 370° below zero in the liquefaction of oxygen. This latter figure
is about as conceivable as the unit of measure of the astronomer, who
adopts as his basis of calculation for celestial distances that extent
of space which a ray of light would cover in a year, moving at the rate
of one hundred and eighty thousand miles per second. In other words,
instead of using one mile, his unit of distance is 5,676,480,000,000
miles, which is known as a light year; and he further crushes us with
the information that stars of the seventeenth magnitude are thirty
thousand light years away.
By this time the exhausted reader has said to himself many times,
“What’s all this got to do with the Southern Ocean?” So, with apologies
for such an excursion into the infinite, let us continue.
We are now kept farther away than ever from the dining-room stove by a
new aggregation of garments, very different from the others, which need
a little explanation. All the oil-skins in the slop-chest were used up
by the men last week, and we have had to manufacture some for them.
Many ships make a practice of taking to sea several suits of heavy
cotton (which oil-skins are made of), but without being treated with
the usual mixture of wax and oil. When, therefore, a ship’s regular
stock of oil-skins has been exhausted, the captain produces some of
these cotton suits and has them well rubbed with three coats of boiled
linseed oil, allowing each coat to dry; the result being thoroughly
water-tight, pliable garments, which will not crack, as slop-chest
oil-skins have a curious habit of doing.
Around our stove for three or four days there have been suspended
several of these suits, so oil-sodden that to touch one means an
immense grease-spot. Nor is this the only inconvenience, for the whole
interior of the cabin reeks with the stifling fumes of hot, boiled oil.
As far as we have been able to discover, there is but one article sold
from a slop-chest to sailors that is worth paying for, and that is the
stiff, black sou’wester. They are very comfortable, though as rigid as
a fireman’s leather helmet, and are lined with heavy red flannel, with
a band of the same that extends over the ears and back of the neck,
to the exclusion of the most penetrating snow-squalls. The face is
protected by a wide visor of the same inflexible stuff, which extends
far down over the neck. As the old man remarked, “One o’ these things
would stop a battle-axe.” However exaggerated this may be, though, they
do most effectively preserve the cranium from the severest Cape Horn
hail-squalls; you might as well tie a handkerchief over your head as to
wear an ordinary yellow sou’wester in one of these squalls, as far as
protection from the hail is concerned.
We now have for tea every evening a dish entirely new to us. It is a
hind-quarter of pig steeped in brine for a fortnight; in other words,
an unsmoked ham; and it is the sweetest, juiciest pig meat imaginable.
I would rather eat it than the tenderest young sucking pig I ever
tasted. Another very successful article of food on board is the soup,
which is made as follows: Empty one of the large one-gallon tins of
mutton (put up in a liquor like canned sausages) into a saucepan; add
tinned carrots, tomatoes, rice, and barley, boil them together for
about thirty minutes, season well with a very little onion, pepper,
etc., and a rich, well-flavored soup will be obtained which would pass
for stock soup almost anywhere ashore. It is infinitely better than the
finest tinned soup. The mutton before alluded to is often purchased by
ships in large quantities and given to the men, alternating with salt
beef and pork; it is also much used for making meat pies for the cabin
table, for which it is well suited, the resemblance to fresh mutton
being remarkable. Our last pig has just been slaughtered; it seemed a
pity to kill the poor beast, for he was an intelligent, quaint little
fellow, very tame, and fond of being petted. Latitude, 50° 14′ south;
longitude, 90° 12′ west.
+July 31+
Our breeze from west-northwest has not been very strong for the past
twenty-four hours, and in addition we made two degrees of easting,
which is sad. This was the first morning for a month on which we were
able to eat our breakfast without lamplight, and in another week we
hope to dispense with it at supper also. The weather is by no means
clear yet, though, and we are now crossing the famous Roaring Forties,
that belt of fierce winds lying between the parallels of forty and
fifty on both sides of the equator, and clear skies cannot be expected
until we are north of 40° south at least.
I expect to suffocate with suppressed hilarity before long if Mr.
Goggins continues to grow more absurd. Last night I went on deck about
ten o’clock and found the mate silently pacing athwartships near the
wheel-house. It was raining, and his costume itself was enough to
generate mirth in an owl. He was wrapped as in a sable shroud, in some
one’s long black oil-skin coat, which was so much too large for him as
to touch the deck, and the sleeves hung down half-way to his knees like
the arms of a walrus, while his head was covered with a very old, limp
sou’wester, also black, which fitted him like a skull-cap; it possessed
not even an indication of a brim, so that the drizzling rain trickled
down along the musty creases of his face, glistening in the wake of the
binnacle-lamp. His forsaken appearance was further enhanced by a couple
of yards of ancient gray rattlin-stuff that girded up the folds of his
coat and prevented his tramping on it.