ten in the morning, and hardly a sound was to be heard. The old man was
below asleep and the mate was at work on the main-deck. Old Kelly was
steering, and suddenly he leaned over and said, “Can you tell me about
where she is, sir?” in a whisper. Then he went on, “I want to tell
you somethin’; if ’twasn’t for you and the lady there’d be trouble in
this ship.” “There has been trouble,” said I. Kelly glanced askance at
me and answered disdainfully, “Ho! I don’t call _that_ trouble;
that’s what you expect when you ship in a Yankee. What I mean is real
trouble that begins with M. But the men, even the worst of ’em, have
got such a regard for your lady for the way she behaved off Cape Horn,
and all through the voyage for that matter, that they’re holdin’ in
for her sake.” Whether this was said with some ulterior motive it is
impossible to tell; but Kelly spoke in a calm voice as if he meant
what he said. What he suggested by his mysterious M. was a word that
I have never heard a sailor pronounce,--mutiny. To them it is a word
too full of deadly meaning for ordinary conversation. For, generally
speaking, there are only two things aboard ship,--one is duty, and the
other is mutiny. All that a seaman is ordered to do is duty; all that
he refuses to do is mutiny. Rarx is beginning to lose heart as well as
flesh, and says that if he lives to see the Farallones he’ll surprise
himself. This is unfortunate, and we are doing all we can to cheer him
up. Latitude, 12° 30′ north; longitude, 124° 30′ west.
+August 30+
Our course has been bad for twenty-four hours, as during the greater
part of that period we steered nothing to the northward of west,
and our present course would take us to Honolulu in 165°. Ships are
generally forced over to 140° or 145° even under ordinary conditions,
and if we do not find ourselves 20° west of San Francisco when the
Trades let go, we will do well. The weather, though, is perfect; warmer
certainly than in the southeast Trades, but not at all disagreeable in
the shade,--about 81° at mid-day. A very acceptable change since we
took this wind is that there have been no more rain-squalls. During
the late Doldrums these squalls were at times practically continuous;
and while the old man did finally rig up a bit of canvas, six feet by
six, to serve as an awning, under which we had to crouch as though in
the ’tween-decks, it was not of much use in the rain. It was extremely
annoying to have to gather up the backgammon-board, two novels, a lot
of sewing, a pillow, and two chairs and dash for the wheel-house half
a dozen times a watch. Often the squalls lasted only two or three
minutes, yet there was enough water in each shower to drench everything.
There is a very ingenious way of disposing of the main-top-sail and
top-gallant-halliards on the “Higgins.” They are always very bulky,
heavy ropes, and when coiled over a pin in the rail are very unsightly
objects. To obviate this, there are two large reels in the monkey-rail
at the forward end of the cabin-house, one on each side, upon which
the free end of these ropes are wound when the yards have been
mastheaded. A bit of twine then secures the reel to prevent the
halliards paying out, and another piece stops it (the rope) up to the
shrouds, clear of the men’s heads on the main-deck. When the yards have
to be lowered, a sharp jerk breaks the twine, and the halliards run
off without danger of fouling. It is a clever scheme and ought to be
in more general use, the only drawback to it being that a hand has to
mount the poop and reel up the halliards again when the yards have been
hoisted; but that is a small matter.
I went down into the lazarette yesterday afternoon, after Louis had
gone forward, and found that his quarters were not so stiflingly hot
as might have been expected; the Frenchman still bears his confinement
with extraordinary indifference. Mr. Rarx passed a very bad night.
Latitude, 13° 17′ north; longitude, 126° west.
+August 31+
On this, the last day of August, we have but little cause for
rejoicing. In the first place, the wind has been dead against us
and light at that; and, in the second place, the captain is in so
churlish a temper as to barely answer yes and no to civil questions.
Shortly before four o’clock yesterday the wind began to ease up, and
by nightfall had dwindled to a light air, and then whipped into the
north-northwest, so that our course up to eight this morning was west,
and we got that only by pinching her, so that our speed was seldom more
than two knots. The night was a gorgeous one, with a sky that glistened
with golden stars, while a new moon hung low down in the west; and far
away in the southeast, over the face of a black cloud, shimmered waves
of heat-lightning, lovely in the extreme.
By morning, as there were no indications of coming up, the captain
concluded to tack ship, which was done between eight and nine o’clock;
and we discovered, when braced up on the port tack, that we looked up
to north-northeast, which was by no means bad. At the present time,
three in the afternoon, the wind is a fresh, even a strong breeze, and
we are doing pretty well except for a long head-swell, into which we
plunge so heavily that we are not doing more than five knots instead of
seven or eight.
The captain is in a worse humor than ever before, though it must be
said that the evolution of tacking ship this morning was accomplished
quietly, and, what is much more remarkable, without a single oath.
Conversation at meals has been almost completely suspended again,
except that my wife and I converse together, ignoring the captain
entirely; this would be childish behavior on our part were it not
that every remark that we have made lately has met with either a
rough denial or indifferent silence. He asked us the other day
whether Captain Kingdon of the “Mandalore” used to lose his temper
in calms and head-winds; a question which we found much pleasure in
answering in a vehement negative. The sailors have resumed most of
their erstwhile good humor, perhaps on account of the proximity of
the end of the voyage; it is reassuring to see them thus again, for
a score of brooding, scowling sailors aboard ship is an unpleasant
reminder of what the men could do if they were determined. Indeed,
from a passenger’s point of view, I would far rather see a captain in
a perpetual bad humor than the men. Considering all the ill-treatment
that sailors get, it is extraordinary at first sight that they do not
vindicate more frequently their wrongs at sea by quietly dropping
the after-guard over the side. It is perfectly feasible to dispose
of the officer of the watch at night. A single well-aimed blow of an
iron belaying-pin in the helmsman’s hand is all that is necessary;
and the captain and the other mate are asleep below and both could
be readily made away with. But on close inspection two very strong
reasons are disclosed showing why it is that the sailor does not more
readily appear in the _rôle_ of avenger. The first reason is, not
being a navigator, what is to become of the ship? and if they do reach
a port, what credible story can be concocted? Murder will out. The
second reason is to be found in that wonderful sense of obedience to
captain and officers apparent in even the most desperate and abandoned
seamen; so blind is their submission to authority, however grossly and
fiendishly it may be abused, that they sometimes at the present day, in
our own long-voyage ships, suffer death itself rather than resist him
whom the law has invested with power so absolute that the might of a
sultan suffers in comparison! But too few of our sailing-ship-masters
seem to be possessed of the ordinary feelings of humanity toward their
crews. After they have exhausted all other defences in upholding their
bad treatment of sailors, they nearly always conclude by saying, “Well,
what have we got in our ships? A lot of Dutch and English scum that
you’ve got to lick h---- out of afore they’ll obey an order.” But how
about the “S. P. Hitchcock” and the “St. James,” commanded respectively
by Captains Gates and Banfield? Here are two deep-water American
ships, who also have to take whatever crews the shipping masters give
them, so that they are not a whit better off in the quality of their
sailors than other vessels; yet there is never any trouble aboard of
them at sea, and good-will and cheerfulness pervade both vessels. They
have made some rattling good passages, and are positive proof that
discipline can be obtained without violence; and, after nearly four
months’ experience here, I believe that I am justified in expressing my
opinion, which is, that _brutality toward and the continual driving
and hazing of sailors do not conduce to order and discipline_.
Commands are not obeyed here with the precision that they were on the
“Mandalore,” and many and many a time I have seen the men make a great
show of hauling on the braces when in reality they were not pulling a
hundred pounds. Knock them over for this? No, it only makes them worse
next time, but that’s what Yankee mates generally do. If work is to be
got out of sailors, _they must be treated justly to begin with_;
if not, you will get no more out of them than out of any other class.
The apathy and ignorance of people ashore is more remarkable than
anything else in connection with this subject of brutality to sailors.
I even know a young man who owns shares in some of our largest
square-riggers who was utterly amazed when I told him of the record
of one of his own captains. In justice to him, though, I must say
that he took no personal interest in the ships other than that they
should pay good dividends, and he really was in total ignorance of the
_modus operandi_ of American captains. But it is not so with the
vast majority of our sailing-ship-owners, who are fully aware of the
manner in which their vessels are run, and who go bail to the extent
of many hundreds of dollars for their inhuman captains when the latter
are occasionally held to answer for some particularly atrocious deed,
and who in many cases connive at the disappearance of blackguard mates
when they are seeking to escape ashore from infuriated sailors whom
these mates have half killed at sea. Cannot something be done to compel
decent treatment of our long-voyage seamen? Sailors must be ruled with
a hand of iron, for there are desperate characters among them; but, in
heaven’s name, let him who wields the power be compelled to administer
justice in his punishment of the men under him, that the disgrace
and shame which now rest upon our long-voyage sailing ships may be
removed, and that the offensive name of “Yankee hell-ship,” by which
our deep-water vessels are known to foreign sailors, may be forever
obliterated. Latitude, 13° 43′ north; longitude, 127° west.
+September 1+
Now in truth hath Disappointment come upon us and doth hover sullenly
o’erhead on sable pinions. The Trades, the lovely northeast Trades,
which we fondly imagined had reached us, did not materialize! For,
having blown fitfully for two days, driving us two degrees farther
west, they vanished, and in their stead a fresh westerly wind has
arisen, and the weather is once more sticky and showery and the heavens
are piled high-with huge wool-packs and glistening thunder-heads. But
this is not all. We are plunging into a steep, heavy swell, that is
surging down from the north in great, long, blue heaves; and it is a
grand thing to look forward and see the jib-boom now rearing up higher
and higher towards the zenith, now diving down, down into the deep
quiet hollows, as the ship tumbles heavily to the catheads into the
creamy waters.
We had quite a lively time at dinner to-day, for the westerly wind
had smoothed the kinks out of the old man’s temper and he commenced
a jocose argument with the mate about American politics. It will be
remembered that Mr. Goggins is by birth an Englishman, but his papers
give him the right to talk about “hour constitootion,” of which he
takes advantage at every opportunity. I laughed at everything they said
to egg them on, and at length they both began to wax wroth, the mate in
a few minutes being quite wet with perspiration, so that at last all
he could say was, “Be gar’s sake, sir,” which he repeated indefinitely
like a hungry parrot asking for a cracker. Finally, though, the skipper
spoiled the fun by getting really angry, and, gazing with piercing eye
at Goggins for the space of half a minute, he utterly extinguished him
with, “Well, I guess you’d better shut up; you don’t seem to know much
about it.” Latitude, 15° north; longitude, 126° west.
+September 2+
Very strong winds from west shifting to southeast; high, northerly sea;
excessive humidity and incessant rain-squalls. These have been the
weather conditions for twelve hours, to which must be added a fall of
thirty one-hundredths of an inch in the aneroid. Yesterday afternoon
at four o’clock there were plenty of cyclonic indications round about
us: a heavy swell, suffocating humidity, a wild, ferocious look in the
enormous cumulus clouds, and a curious hot wind that at times strangely
increased to strong gusts that hummed with a dreary drone in the
rigging and then instantly subsided. Towards five o’clock the windward
horizon grew to a uniform gray, oily, and dull as lead, with an
indescribably menacing aspect in the low, greasy scud that hurried in
tattered wisps just over the mast-heads. The captain was very uneasy,
and admitted the proximity (if not of a cyclone) of one of those
furious summer northers that often sweep across the North Pacific; and
it must be remembered that we are close to the cyclonic belt which
extends out into the ocean from the Central American seaboard.
At dusk both wind and sea had increased, and by eight o’clock we were
charging into a swell large enough to merit the term majestic, the
bowsprit rising and falling fully fifty feet, for the sea was from dead
ahead, and there was wind enough to drive the ship rapidly up the slope
of a billow and then far out into space, so that she fell full upon the
breast of the next sea with a crushing force that must have wrenched
every timber in her hull.
At 9.30, as the captain and I were on the poop discussing the second
mate, there came a report from aloft, and there was the mizzen-royal
in ribbons, snapping and popping merrily away in the darkness. Then
the skipper cast loose his deep-sea voice so that it must surely have
reached force 12 in Beaufort’s scale, and the sail was secured in
short order. Throughout the night we labored heavily, while the seas
thundered over the bows and dashed against the forward house with
alarming fury, and then washed aft, where the water in the waist was
to be measured in feet, not in inches. Broadhead said that at times,
in the middle watch, the ship buried herself to the light-houses, and
that he hadn’t seen much more water aboard off Cape Horn. At three this
morning came another discharge from aloft, and away went four whole
cloths out of the lee side of the upper foretop-sail, and when daylight
came we had to send up a new sail.
During the morning watch the wind shifted suddenly to southeast, and
when we went on deck it was blowing half a gale from that desirable
quarter, and the ship, with braces well rounded in, was fairly skipping
from sea to sea, save when her speed was momentarily checked by an
extra heavy one that smote her rudely full in the face and then fell
in glorious showers over the forecastle. Another fine spectacle was
afforded whenever one of the short seas, occasioned by the shift of
wind, struck the big, clumsy main-channels, when the spray shot far
into the air and was swept across the deck in snowy clouds. Altogether,
it was a scene of wonderful beauty, and we rejoiced to observe that the
dun, threatening look of the heavens had given place to dense masses
of trade-clouds and promises of plenty of clear sunshine; and if the
night was a boisterous one and the port watch had to pass the whole of
the forenoon at the pumps, our run of two hundred miles wreathed every
one’s face in jolly smiles, and “’Frisco” was heard repeatedly in the
men’s conversation.
Writing of hurricanes awhile ago, reminds me of the pertinacity with
which the great majority of the people in our Western States allude to
their terrible tornadoes as cyclones. It would be reasonable to presume
that the inhabitants of a district subject to any peculiar atmospheric
disturbance would know and make use of the proper term for such a
phenomenon, but it seems not. Hurricane and cyclone are synonymous, and
are applied to circular storms having a diameter of from three hundred
to one thousand miles, in which the wind seldom attains a velocity of
over one hundred miles per hour, a pressure of about fifty pounds per
square foot. They have also a progressive motion varying in speed from
twenty-eight miles per hour in the United States to only eight or nine
miles in the Bay of Bengal.
Tornadoes are also gyratory storms that progress in a straight line
at a mean speed of thirty miles an hour, but their path is almost
infinitesimal compared with the cyclone’s, for it is generally between
one thousand and six thousand feet in width and about forty miles
long, each individual storm completely dissolving and vanishing like a
thunder-squall in less than an hour. A cyclone may blow for days.
In the fury of its rotary motion and upward suction a tornado is the
most appalling of all natural phenomena save, perhaps, the earthquake,
and the passing of one causes the most incredible and seemingly
impossible freaks. Chickens are stripped of their feathers, straws
are driven firmly into planks, and locomotives weighing fifty tons
have been over-turned without effort, the latter being possible by the
formation of a partial vacuum. Straws, however, have been driven an
eighth of an inch into a plank by an artificial blast of air moving
at the rate of one hundred and sixty miles per hour. The presence of a
vacuum is proved by the violent bursting outward of the closed windows
and shutters of a house in or near the track of a tornado.
Many people will remember the dire results of the famous St. Louis
tornado of May, 1896, which resulted in the death of two hundred and
twenty-five persons and the loss of twelve million dollars in property
destroyed; yet there is no reason to suppose that this storm was an
unusually severe one; it simply happened to pass over a more or less
densely populated region. As usual, this tornado left behind some
remarkable mementos, the strangest of all being that a piece of pine
plank was driven by the wind head-on through the five-sixteenths inch
web of an iron girder in the approach to the St. Louis bridge! This
is a performance well known to the government Weather Bureau. Immense
blocks of sandstone set in cement were dislodged and thrown down (in
all, five hundred and eighty tons of it), together with two hundred
and eighty tons of flooring and girders, some of the latter weighing
thirteen thousand pounds each. In Lafayette Park, St. Louis, another
example of tornadic vagaries was shown by the fact that, right in the
path of the storm, surrounded closely by forest-trees which had been
wrenched bodily from the earth, stood unharmed a flimsy, straw-thatched
structure upon six light posts!
Unfortunately, from the very violence of the wind, no accurate estimate
of the velocity of the gyratory movement of a tornado can be made, as
an anemometer would be useless, even if it were not destroyed. Experts
calculate, however, that the speed of the wind approximates five
hundred or six hundred miles per hour. At any rate, the destructive
force of a tornado is ten or perhaps twenty times that of a cyclone;
and if cyclones blew with the violence of tornadoes, the earth would
be devastated in a short while.
At sea the tornado with its terrible cloud-funnel has its counterpart
in the water-spout; though in the latter the wind does not seem to
attain the same fury, as many vessels have passed through a water-spout
without very great damage. Two curious instances, however, are on
record of atmospheric freaks at sea; one of them was reported by the
American ship “Reaper.” She was proceeding toward Cape Horn in the
equatorial North Pacific, the day being perfectly fine and clear, save
for a few small, detached clouds, and the wind a light breeze, when she
suddenly lost all of her light sails in a blast that came apparently
out of a clear sky, while at the moment there was nothing but the
light wind on deck. Again, the ship “Sintram,” Captain Woodside, was
almost totally dismasted off the West Indies, homeward bound from
the East; the weather was fine and a four-knot breeze was blowing
on deck when the upper spars seemed to melt away, she having been
struck by a similar blast from a clear sky. Subsequently I wrote to
the forecast official at New York asking whether any such accidents
ever happened ashore; he answered that in Nebraska and Kansas similar
strong whirlwinds have been known, in perfectly clear weather, to tear
the upper portions of forest-trees completely off, including large
branches, while the leaves and twigs nearer the ground were untouched.
This indisputably proves that only a few feet mark the boundary-line
between atmosphere in a state of rest and wind of inconceivable
violence. As has been shown, such instances occur also in tornadoes,
which, of course, are nothing but immense whirlwinds.
It is my earnest hope that the reader has not been worried by this long
meteorological dissertation, which has nothing to do with the voyage;
but as the forecasting of the weather has lately been of increasing
interest to the public, perhaps I may be pardoned for my digression.
Latitude, 17° 55′ north; longitude, 125° 30′ west.
+September 3+
It seems to be tolerably safe to say now that at last we have picked
up the northeast Trades. During yesterday afternoon the wind hauled
constantly to the northward, and at ten last night it was northeast by
north, blowing a fresh breeze; indeed, by this morning it had increased
so that we have not been able to carry the sky-sails since, and we did
another three degrees of latitude; imagine three hundred and fifty
miles of latitude here in forty-eight hours. It is very refreshing,
and even the skipper has recovered his equanimity. Up to noon to-day,
though, the weather was very showery, the fine rain blowing in level
clouds across the ship, as dense as fog. The greatest change, however,
is in the temperature, for the air has fallen 15° and the sea 10°,
so that we begin to appreciate that in thirty-six hours, if this
wind holds, we will have emerged from the torrid zone. It is quite
impossible for us to realize that in another fortnight this voyage will
probably be an event of the past. No one who has not made a long voyage
can imagine the excitement, actually the excitement, occasioned by the
speculation as to how much longer the passage will last, when only
ten days or so remain. There is continuously present such an element
of luck when solely dependent upon the wind, that you are constantly
estimating and calculating how far the Trades will extend, how the
winds will be afterward, the chances of fogs and calms on the coast,
and other equally important questions. This doesn’t mean necessarily
that you want to get ashore; it is the involuntary and irresistible
anticipation of an impending change, though my wife will probably
not regret the moment when the tow-boat gives us her line outside the
Heads. Latitude, 20° 52′ north; longitude, 126° 40′ west.
+September 4+
This was a perfectly ideal day, with brisk northeast winds, smooth sea,
cloudless sky, and a noon temperature of 72°, and 68° at midnight.
This is a very lucky chance that we are having here; we are going
well, about eight knots, and our course has been to the northward of
northwest by north, showing that the Trades are well to the eastward.
I wonder how many people have ever seen the scale of provisions as
laid down by the United States government for the vitualling of
long-voyage ships? As I have said, the curious part of it is, though,
that no attention is ever paid to it on our ships, except under unusual
conditions. Yet it is not so very curious that no attempt is made to
observe the scale, for almost everything in connection with our sailors
and ships is performed in an irregular manner. Behold the scale.
---------+------+-----+-----+------+------+-----+-------+------+------
|BREAD.|BEEF.|PORK.|FLOUR.|PEASE.|TEA. |COFFEE.|SUGAR.|WATER.
---------+------+-----+-----+------+------+-----+-------+------+------
|Lb. |Lbs. |Lbs. | Lb. | Pt. |Oz. | Oz. | Ozs. | Qts.
Sunday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Monday | 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Tuesday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Wednesday| 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Thursday | 1 |1-1/2| | 1/2 | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Friday | 1 | |1-1/4| | 1/8 |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
Saturday | 1 |1-1/2| | | |1/8 | 1/2 | 2 | 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------