CLIPPERS AND STEAMERS.
Whoever has taken the trouble to read the “Wise Saws” of Mr Slick, will
be prepared to resume the thread of his narrative without explanation,
if indeed these unconnected selections deserve the appellation. But as
this work may fall into the hands of many people who never saw its
predecessor, it may be necessary to premise that our old friend Sam,
having received a commission from the President of the United States,
to visit the coast of Nova Scotia, and report to him fully on the state
of the fisheries, their extent and value, the manner in which they were
prosecuted, and the best mode of obtaining a participation in them, he
proceeded on his cruise in a trading vessel, called the “Black Hawk,”
whereof Timothy Cutler was master, and Mr Eldad Nickerson the pilot.
The two preceding volumes contained his adventures at sea, and in the
harbours of the province, to the westward of Halifax. The present work
is devoted to his remarks on “nature and human nature.”
While amusing himself fishing within three miles of the coast, off La
Haive, in contravention of the treaty, he narrowly escaped capture by
the British cruiser “Spitfire,” commanded by Captain Stoker. By a
skilful manoeuvre, he decoyed the man-of-war, in the eagerness of the
chase, on to a sand-bar, when he dexterously slipt through a narrow
passage between two islands, and keeping one of them in a line between
the “Black Hawk” and her pursuer, so as to be out of the reach of her
guns, he steered for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, and was soon out
of sight of the islands behind which his enemy lay embedded in the
sand; from this point the narrative is resumed in Mr Slick’s own
words.1
1 His remarks on the fisheries I have wholly omitted, for they have now
lost their interest. His observations on “nature and human nature” are
alone retained, as they may be said to have a universal
application.—ED.
“I guess,” said I, “Captain, the ‘Spitfire’ will have to put into
Halifax to report herself and be surveyed, so we may pursue our course
in peace. But this ‘Black Hawk’ is a doll, ain’t she? don’t she skim
over the water like a sea gull? The truth is, Cutler, when you ain’t in
a hurry, and want to enjoy yourself at sea, as I always do, for I am a
grand sailor, give me a clipper. She is so light and buoyant, and the
motion so elastic, it actilly exilerates your spirits. There is
something like life in her gait, and you have her in hand like a horse,
and you feel as if you were her master, and directed her movements. I
ain’t sure you don’t seem as if you were part of her yourself. Then
there is room to show skill and seamanship, and if you don’t in reality
go as quick as a steamer, you seem to go faster, if there is no visible
object to measure your speed by, and that is something, for the white
foam on the leeward side rushes by you in rips, raps, and rainbows like
Canadian rapids.
“Then if she is an atrysilly1 like this, and she is doing her
prettiest, and actilly laughs again, she is so pleased, why you are
satisfied, for you don’t make the breeze, you take it as you find it,
like all other good gifts of Providence, and say, ‘ain’t she going like
wink, how she forges ahead, don’t she?’ Your attention is kept alive,
too, watchin’ the wind, and trimmin’ sail to it accordingly, and the
jolly ‘Oh, heave oh,’ of the sailors is music one loves to listen to,
and if you wish to take a stretch for it in your cloak on deck, on the
sunny or shady side of the companion-way, the breeze whistles a nice
soft lullaby for you, and you are off in the land of Nod in no time.”
1 The Atricilla, or laughing sea-gull. Its note resembles a coarse
laugh. Hence its name. It is very common in the Bahamas.
“Dreaming of Sophy Collingwood,” sais the Captain, “and the witch of
Eskisooney, eh?”
“Yes, dreamin’ of bright eyes and smilin’ faces, or anythin’ else
that’s near and dear, for to my idea, the heart gives the subject for
the head to think upon. In a fair wind and a charmin’ day like this, I
never coiled up on the deck for a nap in my life, that I had’nt
pleasant dreams. You feel as if you were at peace with all the world in
general, and yourself in partikeler, and that it is very polite of
folks to stay to home ashore, and let you and your friends enjoy
yourselves without treadin’ on your toes, and wakin’ of you up if
asleep, or a jostlin’ of you in your turn on the quarter-deck, or
over-hearin’ of your conversation.
“And ain’t you always ready for your meals, and don’t you walk into
them in rael right down earnest? Oh, nothing ever tastes so good to me
as it does at sea. The appetite, like a sharp knife, makes the meat
seem tender, and the sea air is a great friend of digestion, and always
keeps company with it. Then you don’t care to sit and drink after
dinner as you do at an hotel of an idle day, for you want to go on
deck, light your cigar, take a sweep round the horizon with your glass
to see if there is any sail in sight, glance at the sky to ascertain if
the breeze is likely to hold, and then bring yourself to anchor on a
seat, and have a dish of chat for a dessert with the captain, if he is
a man of books like you, Cutler, or a man of reefs, rocks, and
sandbars, fish, cordwood, and smugglin’, or collisions, wracks, and
salvage, like the pilot.
“Then, if you have a decent sample or two of passengers on board, you
can discuss men and things, and women and nothings, law, physick, and
divinity, or that endless, tangled ball of yarn, politicks, or you can
swap anecdotes, and make your fortune in the trade. And by the same
trail of thought we must give one or two of these Blue-Noses now and
then a cast on board with us to draw them out. “Well, if you want to
read, you can go and turn in and take a book, and solitudinise to it,
and there is no one to disturb you. I actilly learned French in a
voyage to Calcutta, and German on my way home. I got enough for common
use. It warn’t all pure gold; but it was kind of small change, and
answered every purpose of trade or travel. Oh, it’s no use a talkin’;
where time ain’t the main object, there’s nothin’ like a sailin’ vessel
to a man who ain’t sea-sick, and such fellows ought to be cloriformed,
put to bed, and left there till the voyage is over. They have no
business to go to sea, if they are such fools as not to know how to
enjoy themselves.
“Then sailors are characters; they are men of the world, there is great
self-reliance in them. They have to fight their way in life through
many trials and difficulties, and their trust is in God and their own
strong arm. They are so much in their own element, they seem as if they
were born on the sea, cradled on its billows, and, like Mother Carey’s
chickens, delighted in its storms and mountain waves. They walk, talk,
and dress differently from landsmen. They straddle as they pace the
deck, so as to brace the body and keep their trowsers up at the same
time; their gait is loose, and their dress loose, and their limbs
loose; indeed, they are rather too fond _of slack._ They climb like
monkeys, and depend more on their paws than their legs. They tumble up,
but never down. They count, not by fingers, it is tedious, but by
hands; they put a part for the whole, and call themselves hands, for
they are paid for the use of them, and not their heads.
“Though they are two-handed they are not close-fisted fellows. They
despise science, but are fond of practical knowledge. When the sun is
over the foreyard, they know the time of day as well as the captain,
and call for their grog, and when they lay back their heads, and turn
up the bottom of the mug to the sky, they call it in derision taking an
observation. But though they have many characteristics in common, there
is an individuality in each that distinguishes him from the rest. He
stands out in bold relief—I by myself, I. He feels and appreciates his
importance. He knows no plural. The word ‘our’ belongs to landsmen;
‘my’ is the sailor’s phrase—my ship, my captain, my messmate, my watch
on deck, ‘my eyes!’ ‘you lubber, don’t you know that’s _me?’_ I like to
listen to their yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their
simple ditties. The odd mixture of manliness and childishness—of
boldness and superstitious fears; of preposterous claims for wages and
thoughtless extravagance; of obedience and discontent—all goes to make
the queer compound called ‘Jack.’ How often have I laughed over the fun
of the forecastle in these small fore and aft packets of ourn! and I
think I would back that place for wit against any bar-room in New York
or New Orleans, and I believe they take the rag off of all creation.
“But the cook is my favourite. He is a scientific man, and so skilful
in compounds, he generally goes by the name of doctor. I like the daily
consultation with him about dinner: not that I am an epicure; but at
sea, as the business of life is eating, it is as well to be master of
one’s calling. Indeed, it appears to be a law of nature, that those who
have mouths should understand what to put in them. It gratifies the
doctor to confer with him, and who does it not please to be considered
a man of importance? He is therefore a member of the Privy Council, and
a more useful member he is too than many Right Honourables I know
of—who have more acres than ideas. The Board assembles after breakfast,
and a new dish is a great item in the budget. It keeps people in good
humour the rest of the day, and affords topics for the table. To eat to
support existence is only fit for criminals. Bread and water will do
that; but to support and gratify nature at the same time is a noble
effort of art, and well deserves the thanks of mankind. The cook too
enlivens the consultation by telling marvellous stories about strange
dishes he has seen. He has eaten serpents with the Siamese, monkeys in
the West Indies, crocodiles and sloths in South America, and cats,
rats, and dogs with the Chinese; and of course, as nobody can
contradict him, says they are delicious. Like a salmon, you must give
him the line, even if it wearies you, before you bag him; but when you
do bring him to land his dishes are savoury. They have a relish that is
peculiar to the sea, for _where there is no garden, vegetables are
always most prized._ The glorious onion is duly valued, for as there is
no mistress to be kissed, who will dare to object to its aroma?
“Then I like a Sunday at sea in a vessel like this, and a day like
this, when the men are all clean and tidy, and the bell rings for
prayers, and all hands are assembled aft to listen to the captain as he
reads the Church Service. It seems like a family scene. It reminds me
of dear old Minister and days gone by, when he used to call us round
him, and repeated to us the promise ‘that when two or three were
gathered together in God’s name, he would grant their request.’ The
only difference is, sailors are more attentive and devout than
landsmen. They seem more conscious that they are in the Divine
presence. They have little to look upon but the heavens above and the
boundless ocean around them. Both seem made on purpose for _them—_the
sun to guide them by day, and the stars by night, the sea to bear them
on its bosom, and the breeze to waft them on their course. They feel
how powerless they are of themselves; how frail their bark; how
dependent they are on the goodness and mercy of their Creator, and that
it is He alone who can rule the tempest and control the stormy deep.
Their impressions are few, but they are strong. It is the world that
hardens the heart, and the ocean seems apart from it.
“They are noble fellows, sailors, and I love them; but, Cutler, how are
they used, especially where they ought to be treated best, on board of
men-of-war? The moment a ship arrives in port, the anchor cast and the
sails furled—what dees the captain do? the popular captain too, the
idol of the men; he who is so kind and so fond of them? Why, he calls
them aft, and says, ‘Here, my lads, here is lots of cash for you, now
be off ashore and enjoy yourselves.’ And they give three cheers for
their noble commander—their good-hearted officer—the sailor’s
friend—the jolly old blue jacket,—and they bundle into the boats, and
on to the beach, like school-boys. And where do they go? Well, we won’t
follow them, for I never was in them places where they _do_ go, and so
I can’t describe them, and one thing I must say, I never yet found any
place answer the picture drawn of it. But if half only of the accounts
are true that I have heerd of them, they must be the devil’s own
seminaries of vice—that’s a fact. Every mite and morsel as bad as the
barrack scenes that we read of lately.
“Well, at the end of a week back come the sailors. They have had a
glorious lark and enjoyed themselves beyond anything in the world, for
they are pale, sick, sleepy, tired out, cleaned out, and kicked out,
with black eyes, broken heads, swelled cheeks, minus a few teeth, half
their clothes, and all their money.
“‘What,’ says the captain, ‘what’s the matter with you, Tom Marlin,
that you limp so like a lame duck?’
“‘Nothing, your honour,’ says Tom, twitching his forelock, and making a
scrape with his hind leg, ‘nothing, your honour, but a scratch from a
bagganet.’
“‘What! a fight with the soldiers, eh? The cowardly rascals to use
their side arms!’
“‘We cleared the house of them, Sir, in no time.’
“‘That’s right. Now go below, my lads, and turn in and get a good
sleep. I like to see my _lambs_ enjoy themselves. It does my heart
good.’
“And yet, Cutler, that man is said to be a father to his crew.”
“Slick,” said Cutler, “what a pity it is you wouldn’t always talk that
way!” Now if there is any created thing that makes me mad, it is to
have a feller look admiren at me, when I utter a piece of plain common
sense like that, and turn up the whites of his eyes like a duck in
thunder, as much as to say, what a pity it is you weren’t broughten up
a preacher. It ryles me considerable, I tell you.
“Cutler,” said I, “did you ever see a colt in a pasture, how he would
race and chase round the field, head, ears, and tail up, and stop
short, snort as if he had seen the ghost of a bridle, and off again hot
foot?”
“Yes,” said he, “I have, but you are not a colt, nor a boy either.”
“Well, did you ever see a horse when unharnessed from a little, light
waggon, and turned out to grass, do nearly the same identical thing,
and kick up his heels like mad, as much as to say, I am a free nigger
now?”
“Well, I have,” said he.
“Stop,” said I, a touchin’ of him on his arm; “what in the world is
that?” and I pointed over the taffrail to the weather-bow.
“Porpoises,” said he.
“What are they a doin’ of?”
“Sportin’ of themselves.”
“Exactly,” sais I, “and do you place man below the beasts of the field
and the fishes of the sea? What in natur’ was humour given to us for
but for our divarsion? What sort of a world would this be if every
fellow spoke sermons and talked homilies, and what in that case would
parsons do? I leave you to cypher that out, and then prove it by
algebra; but I’ll tell you what they wouldn’t do, I’ll be hanged if
they’d strike for higher wages, for fear they should not get any at
all.”
“I knock under,” said he; “you may take my hat; now go on and finish
the comparison between Clippers and Steamers.”
“Well,” sais I, “as I was a sayin’, Captain, give me a craft like this,
that spreads its wings like a bird, and looks as if it was born, not
made, a whole-sail breeze, and a seaman every inch of him like you on
the deck, who looks you in the face, in a way as if he’d like to say,
only bragging ain’t genteel, Ain’t she a clipper now, and ain’t I the
man to handle her? Now this ain’t the case in a steamer. They ain’t
vessels, they are more like floating factories; you see the steam
machines and the enormous fires, and the clouds of smoke, but you don’t
visit the rooms where the looms are, that’s all. They plough through
the sea dead and heavy, like a subsoiler with its eight-horse team;
there is no life in ’em; they can’t dance on the waters as if they
rejoiced in their course, but divide the waves as a rock does in a
river; they seem to move more in defiance of the sea than as if they
were in an element of their own.
“They puff and blow like boasters braggin’ that they extract from the
ocean the means to make it help to subdue itself. It is a war in the
elements, fire and water contendin’ for victory. They are black, dingy,
forbiddin’ looking sea monsters. It is no wonder the superstitious
Spaniard, when he first saw one, said: ‘A vessel that goes against the
tide, and against the wind, and without sails, goes against God,’ or
that the simple negro thought it was a sea-devil. They are very well
for carrying freight, because they are beasts of burden, but not for
carrying travellers, unless they are mere birds of passage like our
Yankee tourists, who want to have it to say I was _‘thar.’_ I hate
them. The decks are dirty; your skin and clothes are dirty; and your
lungs become foul; smoke pervades everythin’, and now and then the
condensation gives you a shower of sooty water by way of variety, that
scalds your face and dyes your coat into a sort of pepper-and-salt
colour.
“You miss the sailors, too. There are none on board—you miss the nice
light, tight-built, lathy, wiry, active, neat, jolly crew. In their
place you have nasty, dirty, horrid stokers; some hoisting hot cinders
and throwing them overboard (not with the merry countenances of
niggers, or the cheerful sway-away-my-boys expression of the Jack Tar,
but with sour, cameronean-lookin’ faces, that seem as if they were
dreadfully disappointed they were not persecuted any longer—had no
churches and altars to desecrate, and no bishops to anoint with the oil
of hill-side maledictions as of old), while others are emerging from
the fiery furnaces beneath for fresh air, and wipe a hot dirty face
with a still dirtier shirt sleeve, and in return for the nauseous
exudation, lay on a fresh coat of blacking; tall, gaunt wretches, who
pant for breath as they snuff the fresh breeze, like porpouses, and
then dive again into the lower regions. They are neither seamen nor
landsmen, good whips nor decent shots, their hair is not woolly enough
for niggers, and their faces are too black for white men. They ain’t
amphibious animals, like marines and otters. They are Salamanders. But
that’s a long word, and now they call them stokers for shortness.
“Then steamers carry a mob, and I detest mobs, especially such ones as
they delight in—greasy Jews, hairy Germans, Mulatto-looking Italians,
squalling children, that run between your legs and throw you down, or
wipe the butter off their bread on your clothes; Englishmen that will
grumble, and Irishmen that will fight; priests that won’t talk, and
preachers that will harangue; women that will be carried about, because
they won’t lie still and be quiet; silk men, cotten men, bonnet men,
iron men, trinket men, and every sort of shopmen, who severally know
nothing in the world but silk, cotten, bonnets, iron, trinkets, and so
on, and can’t talk of anythin’ else; fellows who walk up and down the
deck, four or five abreast when there are four or five of the same
craft on board, and prevent any one else from promenadin’ by sweepin’
the whole space, while every lurch the ship gives, one of them tumbles
atop of you, or treads on your toes, and then, instead of apoligisin’,
turns round and abuses you like a pick-pocket for stickin’ your feet
out and trippin’ people up. Thinkin’ is out of the question, and as for
readin’, you might as well read your fortune in the stars.
“Just as you begin, that lovely-lookin’, rosy-cheeked, wicked-eyed
gall, that came on board so full of health and spirits, but now looks
like a faded striped ribbon, white, yeller, pink, and brown—dappled all
over her face, but her nose, which has a red spot on it—lifts up a pair
of lack-lustre peepers that look glazed like the round dull
ground-glass lights let into the deck, suddenly wakes up squeamish, and
says, ‘Please, Sir, help me down; I feel so ill.’ Well, you take her up
in your arms, and for the first time in your life hold her head from
you, for fear she will reward you in a way that ain’t no matter, and
she feels as soft as dough, and it seems as if your fingers left dents
in her putty-like arms, and you carry her to the head of the stairs,
and call out for the stewardess, and a waiter answers, ‘Stewardess is
tight, Sir.’
“‘I am glad of it, she is just the person I want. I wish all the other
passengers were tight also.’
“‘Lord, Sir, that ain’t it—she is mops and brooms.’
“‘Mops and brooms, I suppose she is, she must have plenty use for them,
I reckon, to keep all snug and tidy down there.’
“‘Good gracious, Sir, don’t you understand, she is half seas over.’
“‘True, so we all are, the captain said so to-day at twelve o’clock, I
wish we were over altogether. Send her up.’
“‘No, no, Sir, she is more than half shaved.’
“‘The devil! does she shave? I don’t believe she is a woman at all. I
see how it is, you have been putting one of the sailors into
petticoats.’ And the idea makes even the invalid gall laugh.
“‘No, no, Sir, she is tipsy.’
“‘Then why the plague couldn’t you say so at once. I guess you kinder
pride yourself in your slang. Help me to assist this lady down to her
friends.’
“Well, when you return on deck, lo and behold, your seat is occupied,
and you must go and stand by the rail till one is vacant, when another
gall that ain’t ill, but inconveniently well, she is so full of chat,
says, ‘Look, look, Sir, dear me, what is that, Sir? a porpoise. Why you
don’t, did you ever! well, I never see a porpoise afore in all my born
days! are they good to eat, Sir?’
“‘Excellent food for whales, Miss.’
“‘Well I never! do they swallow them right down?’
“‘I guess they do, tank, shank, and flank, at one gulp.’
“‘Why how in the world do they ever get—’ but she don’t finish the
sentence, for the silk man, cotten man, iron man, or trinket man, which
ever is nearest, says, ‘There is a ship on the lee-bow.’ He says that
because it sounds sailor-like, but it happens to be the weather-bow,
and you have seen her an hour before.
“‘Can you make her out?’ sais he; that’s another sea tarm he has picked
up; he will talk like a horse-marine at last.
“‘Yes,’ sais you, ‘she is a Quang-Tonger.’
“‘A Quang-Tonger?’ sais the gall, and before the old coon has disgested
that hard word, she asks, ‘what in natur is that?’
“‘Why, Miss, Quang-Tong is a province of China, and Canton is the
capital; all the vessels at Canton are called Quang-Tongers, but
strangers call them Chinese Junks. Now, Miss, you have seen two new
things to-day, a bottle-nosed porpoise and—’
“‘Was that a bottle-nosed porpoise, Sir? why you don’t say so! why, how
you talk, why do they call them bottle-noses?’
“‘Because, Miss, they make what is called velvet corks out of their
snouts. They are reckoned the best corks in the world. And then, you
have seen a Chinese Junk?’
“‘A Chinese Junk,’ sais the astonished trinket man. ‘Well I vow! a
Chinese Junk, do tell!’ and one gall calls Jeremiah Dodge, and the
other her father and her sister, Mary Anne Matilda Jane, to come and
see the Chinese Junk, and all the passengers rush to the other side,
and say, ‘whare, whare,’ and the two discoverers say, ‘there, there;’
and you walk across the deck and take one of the evacuated seats you
have been longin’ for; and as you pass you give a wink to the officer
of the watch, who puts his tongue in his cheek as a token of
approbation, and you begin to read again, as you fancy, in peace.
“But there is no peace in a steamer, it is nothin’ but a large
calaboose,1 chock full of prisoners. As soon as you have found your
place in the book, and taken a fresh departure, the bonnet man sais,
‘Please, Sir, a seat for a lady,’ and you have to get up and give it to
his wife’s lady’s-maid. His wife ain’t a lady, but having a lady’s-maid
shows she intends to set up for one when she gets to home. To be a
lady, she must lay in a lot of airs, and to brush her own hair and
garter her own stockins is vulgar; if it was known in First Avenue,
Spruce Street, in Bonnetville, it would ruin her as a woman of fashion
for ever.
1 Calaboose is a Southern name for jail.
“Now bonnet man wouldn’t ask you to get up and give your place to his
wife’s hired help, only he knows you are a Yankee, and we Yankees, I
must say, are regularly fooled with women and preachers; just as much
as that walking advertisement of a milliner is with her lady’s-maid.
All over America in rail carriages, stage coaches, river steamers, and
public places, of all sorts, every critter that wears a white choker,
and looks like a minister, has the best seat given him. He expects it,
as a matter of course, and as every female is a lady, every woman has a
right to ask you to quit, without notice, for her accommodation. Now
it’s all very well and very proper to be respectful to preachers; and
to be polite and courteous to women, and more especially those that are
unprotected; but there is a limit, tother side of which lies absurdity.
“Now if you had seen as much of the world as I have, and many other
travelled Yankees, when bonnet man asked you to give up your seat to
the maid, you would have pretended not to understand English, and not
to know what he wanted, but would have answered him in French and
offered him the book, and said certainly you would give it to him with
pleasure, and when he said he didn’t speak French, but what he desired
was your place for the lady, you would have addressed her in German,
and offered her the book, and when they looked at each other, and
laughed at their blunder, in thus taking you for a Yankee, perhaps the
man next to you would have offered his seat, and then when old bonnet
man walked off to look at the Chinese Junk, you would have entered into
conversation with the lady’s-maid, and told her it was a rise you took
out of the old fellow to get her along-side of you, and she would enjoy
the joke, and you would have found her a thousand times more handsome
and more conversational and agreeable than her mistress.
“But this wouldn’t last long, for the sick gall would be carried up on
deck agin, woman like, though ill, very restless, and chock full of
curiosity to see the Chinese Junk also; so you are caught by your own
bam, and have to move again once more. The bell comes in aid, and
summons you to dinner. Ah, the scene in the Tower of Babel is
rehearsed; what a confusion of tongues! what a clatter of knives and
forks and dishes! the waiter that goes and won’t come back; and he who
sees, pities but can’t help you; and he who is so near _sighted,_ he
can’t _hear;_ and he who is intercepted, and made prisoner on his way.
“What a profusion of viands—but how little to eat! this is cold; that
under-done; this is tough; that you never eat; while all smell oily;
oh, the only dish you did fancy, you can’t touch, for that horrid
German has put his hand into it. But it is all told in one short
sentence; two hundred and fifty passengers supply two hundred and fifty
reasons themselves, why I should prefer a sailing vessel with a small
party to a crowded steamer. If you want to see them in perfection go
where I have been it on board the California boats, and Mississippi
river crafts. The French, Austrian, and Italian boats are as bad. The
two great Ocean lines, American and English, are as good as anything
bad can be, but the others are all abominable. They are small worlds
over-crowded, and while these small worlds exist, the evil will remain;
for alas, their passengers go backward and forward, they don’t
emigrate—they migrate; they go for the winter and return for the
spring, or go in the spring and return in the fall.
“Come, Commodore, there is old Sorrow ringing his merry bell for us to
go to dinner. I have an idea we shall have ample room; a good appetite,
and time enough to eat and enjoy it: come, Sir, let us, like true
Americans, never refuse to go where duty calls us.”
After dinner, Cutler reverted to the conversation we had had before we
went below, though I don’t know that I should call it conversation,
either; for I believe I did, as usual, most of the talking myself.
“I agree with you,” said he, “in your comparative estimate of a sailing
vessel and a steamer, I like the former the best myself. It is more
agreeable for the reasons you have stated to a passenger, but it is
still more agreeable to the officer in command of her on another
account. In a sailing vessel, all your work is on deck, everything is
before you, and everybody under your command. One glance of a seaman’s
eye is sufficient to detect if anything is amiss, and no one man is
indispensable to you. In a steamer the work is all below, the machinery
is out of your sight, complicated, and one part dependent on another.
If it gets out of order you are brought up with a round turn, all
standing, and often in a critical situation too. You can’t repair
damage easily; sometimes, can’t repair at all.
“Whereas carrying away a sail, a spar, a topmast, or anything of that
kind, impedes but don’t stop you, and if it is anything very serious
there are a thousand ways of making a temporary rig that will answer
till you make a port. But what I like best is, when my ship is in the
daldrums, I am equal to the emergency; there is no engineer to bother
you by saying this can’t be done, or that won’t do, and to stand jawing
and arguing instead of obeying and doing. Clippers of the right lines,
size, and build, well found, manned, and commanded, will make nearly as
good work, in ordinary times, as steamers. Perhaps it is prejudice
though, for I believe we sailors are proverbial for that. But, Slick,
recollect it ain’t all fair weather sailing like this at sea. There are
times when death stares you wildly in the face.”
“Exactly,” sais I, “as if he would like to know you the next time he
came for you, so as not to apprehend the wrong one. He often leaves the
rascal and seizes the honest man; my opinion is, he don’t see very
well.”
“What a droll fellow you are,” said he; “it appears to me as if you
couldn’t be serious for five minutes at a time. I can tell you, if you
were on a rocky lee-shore, with the wind and waves urging you on, and
you barely holding your own, perhaps losing ground every tack, you
wouldn’t talk quite so glibly of death. Was you ever in a real heavy
gale of wind?”
“Warn’t I,” said I; “the fust time I returned from England it blew
great guns all the voyage, one gale after another, and the last always
wuss than the one before. It carried away our sails as fast as we bent
them.”
“That’s nothing unusual,” said Cutler; “there are worse things than
that at sea.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” sais I, “what it did; and if that ain’t an
uncommon thing, then my name ain’t Sam Slick. It blew all the hair off
my dog, except a little tuft atween his ears. It did, upon my soul. I
hope I may never leave—”
“Don’t swear to it, Slick,” said he, “that’s a good fellow. It’s
impossible.”
“Attestin’ to it will make _your_ hair stand on eend too, I suppose,”
said I; “but it’s as true as preachin’ for all that. What will you bet
it didn’t happen?”
“Tut, man, nonsense,” said he, “I tell you the thing is impossible.”
“Ah!” said I, “that’s because you have been lucky, and never saw a
riprorious hurricane in all your life. I’ll tell you how it was. I
bought a blood-hound from a man in Regent’s Park, just afore I sailed,
and the brute got sea-sick, and then took the mange, and between that
and death starin’ him in the face, his hair all came off, and in course
it blew away. Is that impossible?”
“Well, well,” said he, “you have the most comical way with you of any
man I ever see. I am sure it ain’t in your nature to speak of death in
that careless manner, you only talked that way to draw me out. I know
you did. It’s not a subject however to treat lightly, and if you are
not inclined to be serious just now, tell us a story.”
“Serious,” sais I, “I am disposed to be; but not sanctimonious, and you
know that. But here goes for a story, which has a nice little moral in
it too.
“‘Once on a time, when pigs were swine, and turkeys chewed tobacco, and
little birds built their nests in old men’s beards.’
“Pooh!” said he, turning off huffy like, as if I was a goin’ to bluff
him off. “I wonder whether supper is ready?”
“Cutler,” sais I, “come back, that’s a good fellow, and I’ll tell you
the story. It’s a short one, and will just fill up the space between
this and tea-time. It is in illustration of what you was a sayin’, that
it ain’t always fair weather sailing in this world. There was a
jack-tar once to England who had been absent on a whaling voyage for
nearly three years, and he had hardly landed when he was ordered off to
sea again, before he had time to go home and see his friends. He was a
lamentin’ this to a shipmate of his, a serious-minded man, like you.
“Sais he, ‘Bill, it breaketh my heart to have to leave agin arter this
fashion. I havn’t seen Polly now goin’ on three years, nor the little
un either.’ And he actilly piped his eye.
“‘It seemeth hard, Tom,’ said Bill, tryin’ to comfort him; ‘it seemeth
hard; but I’m an older man nor you be, Tom, the matter of several
years;’ and he gave his trowsers a twitch (you know they don’t wear
galluses, though a gallus holds them up sometimes), shifted his quid,
gave his nor’wester a pull over his forehead, and looked solemncholly,
‘and my experience, Tom, is, that _this life ain’t all beer and
skittles.’_
“Cutler, there is a great deal of philosophy in that maxim: a preacher
couldn’t say as much in a sermon an hour long, as there is in that
little story with that little moral reflection at the eend of it.
“‘_This life ain’t all leer and skittles._’ Many a time since I heard
that anecdote—and I heard it in Kew Gardens, of all places in the
world—when I am disappointed sadly, I say that saw over, and console
myself with it. I can’t expect to go thro’ the world, Cutler, as I have
done: stormy days, long and dark nights, are before me. As I grow old I
shan’t be so full of animal spirits as I have been. In the natur of
things I must have my share of aches, and pains, and disappointment, as
well as others; and when they come, nothing will better help me to bear
them than that little simple reflection of the sailor, which appeals so
directly to the heart. Sam, _this life ain’t all beer and skittles,
that’s a fact.”_