SOUNDINGS--SIGHTS FROM HOME--BOSTON HARBOR--LEAVING THE SHIP
Friday, Sept. 16th. Lat. 38° N., long. 69° 00' W. A fine south-west
wind; every hour carrying us nearer in toward land. All hands on deck
at the dog watch, and nothing talked about, but our getting in; where
we should make the land; whether we should arrive before Sunday; going
to church; how Boston would look; friends; wages paid;--and the like.
Every one was in the best of spirits; and, the voyage being nearly at
an end, the strictness of discipline was relaxed; for it was not
necessary to order in a cross tone, what every one was ready to do with
a will.
The little differences and quarrels which a long voyage breeds on board
a ship, were forgotten, and every one was friendly; and two men, who
had been on the eve of a battle half the voyage, were laying out a plan
together for a cruise on shore. When the mate came forward, he talked
to the men, and said we should be on George's Bank before to-morrow
noon; and joked with the boys, promising to go and see them, and to
take them down to Marblehead in a coach.
Saturday, 17th. The wind was light all day, which kept us back
somewhat; but a fine breeze springing up at nightfall, we were running
fast in toward the land. At six o'clock we expected to have the ship
hove-to for soundings, as a thick fog, coming up showed we were near
them; but no order was given, and we kept on our way. Eight o'clock
came, and the watch went below, and, for the whole of the first hour,
the ship was tearing on, with studding-sails out, alow and aloft, and
the night as dark as a pocket. At two bells the captain came on deck,
and said a word to the mate, when the studding sails were hauled into
the tops, or boom-ended, the after yards backed, the deep-sea-lead
carried forward, and everything got ready for sounding. A man on the
spritsail yard with the lead, another on the cathead with a handful of
the line coiled up, another in the fore chains, another in the waist,
and another in the main chains, each with a quantity of the line coiled
away in his hand. "All ready there, forward?"--"Aye, aye,
sir!"--"He-e-e-ave!"--"Watch! ho! watch!" sings out the man on the
spritsail yard, and the heavy lead drops into the water. "Watch! ho!
watch!" bawls the man on the cat-head, as the last fake of the coil
drops from his hand, and "Watch! ho! watch!" is shouted by each one as
the line falls from his hold; until it comes to the mate, who tends the
lead, and has the line in coils on the quarter-deck. Eighty fathoms,
and no bottom! A depth as great as the height of St. Peter's! The
line is snatched in a block upon the swifter, and three or four men
haul it in and coil it away. The after yards are braced full, the
studding-sails hauled out again, and in a few minutes more the ship had
her whole way upon her. At four bells, backed again, hove the lead,
and--soundings! at sixty fathoms! Hurrah for Yankee land! Hand over
hand, we hauled the lead in, and the captain, taking it to the light,
found black mud on the bottom.
Studding-sails taken in; after yards filled, and ship kept on under
easy sail all night; the wind dying away.
The soundings on the American coast are so regular that a navigator
knows as well where he has made land, by the soundings, as he would by
seeing the land. Black mud is the soundings of Block Island. As you
go toward Nantucket, it changes to a dark sand; then, sand and white
shells; and on George's Banks, white sand; and so on. Being off Block
Island, our course was due east, to Nantucket Shoals, and the South
Channel; but the wind died away and left us becalmed in a thick fog, in
which we lay the whole of Sunday. At noon of
Sunday, 18th, Block Island bore, by calculation, N. W. 1/4 W. fifteen
miles; but the fog was so thick all day that we could see nothing.
Having got through the ship's duty, and washed and shaved, we went
below, and had a fine time overhauling our chests, laying aside the
clothes we meant to go ashore in and throwing overboard all that were
worn out and good for nothing. Away went the woollen caps in which we
had carried hides upon our heads, for sixteen months, on the coast of
California; the duck frocks, for tarring down rigging; and the worn-out
and darned mittens and patched woollen trowsers which had stood the tug
of Cape Horn.
We hove them overboard with a good will; for there is nothing like
being quit of the very last appendages and remnants of our evil
fortune. We got our chests all ready for going ashore, ate the last
"duff" we expected to have on board the ship Alert; and talked as
confidently about matters on shore as though our anchor were on the
bottom.
"Who'll go to church with me a week from to-day?"
"I will," says Jack; who said aye to everything.
"Go away, salt water!" says Tom. "As soon as I get both legs ashore,
I'm going to shoe my heels, and button my ears behind me, and start off
into the bush, a straight course, and not stop till I'm out of the
sight of salt water!"
"Oh! belay that! Spin that yarn where nobody knows your filling! If
you get once moored, stem and stern, in old B----'s grog-shop, with a
coal fire ahead and the bar under your lee, you won't see daylight for
three weeks!"
"No!" says Tom, "I'm going to knock off grog, and go and board at the
Home, and see if they won't ship me for a deacon!"
"And I," says Bill, "am going to buy a quadrant and ship for navigator
of a Hingham packet!"
These and the like jokes served to pass the time while we were lying
waiting for a breeze to clear up the fog and send us on our way.
Toward night a moderate breeze sprang up; the fog however continuing as
thick as before; and we kept on to the eastward. About the middle of
the first watch, a man on the forecastle sang out, in a tone which
showed that there was not a moment to be lost,--"Hard up the helm!" and
a great ship loomed up out of the fog, coming directly down upon us.
She luffed at the same moment, and we just passed one another; our
spanker boom grazing over her quarter. The officer of the deck had
only time to hail, and she answered, as she went into the fog again,
something about Bristol--probably, a whaleman from Bristol, Rhode
Island, bound out. The fog continued through the night, with a very
light breeze, before which we ran to the eastward, literally feeling
our way along. The lead was heaved every two hours, and the gradual
change from black mud to sand, showed that we were approaching
Nantucket South Shoals. On Monday morning, the increased depth and
deep blue color of the water, and the mixture of shells and white sand
which we brought up, upon sounding, showed that we were in the channel,
and nearing George's; accordingly, the ship's head was put directly to
the northward, and we stood on, with perfect confidence in the
soundings, though we had not taken an observation for two days, nor
seen land; and the difference of an eighth of a mile out of the way
might put us ashore. Throughout the day a provokingly light wind
prevailed, and at eight o'clock, a small fishing schooner, which we
passed, told us we were nearly abreast of Chatham lights.
Just before midnight, a light land-breeze sprang up, which carried us
well along; and at four o'clock, thinking ourselves to the northward of
Race Point, we hauled upon the wind and stood into the bay,
west-north-west, for Boston light, and commenced firing guns for a
pilot. Our watch went below at four o'clock, but could not sleep, for
the watch on deck were banging away at the guns every few minutes.
And, indeed, we cared very little about it, for we were in Boston Bay;
and if fortune favored us, we could all "sleep in" the next night, with
nobody to call the watch every four hours.
We turned out, of our own will, at daybreak, to get a sight of land.
In the grey of the morning, one or two small fishing smacks peered out
of the mist; and when the broad day broke upon us, there lay the low
sand-hills of Cape Cod, over our larboard quarter, and before us, the
wide waters of Massachusetts Bay, with here and there a sail gliding
over its smooth surface. As we drew in toward the mouth of the harbor,
as toward a focus, the vessels began to multiply until the bay seemed
actually alive with sails gliding about in every direction; some on the
wind, and others before it, as they were bound to or from the emporium
of trade and centre of the bay. It was a stirring sight for us, who had
been months on the ocean without seeing anything but two solitary
sails; and over two years without seeing more than the three or four
traders on an almost desolate coast. There were the little coasters,
bound to and from the various towns along the south shore, down in the
bight of the bay, and to the eastward; here and there a square-rigged
vessel standing out to seaward; and, far in the distance, beyond Cape
Ann, was the smoke of a steamer, stretching along in a narrow, black
cloud upon the water. Every sight was full of beauty and interest. We
were coming back to our homes; and the signs of civilization, and
prosperity, and happiness, from which we had been so long banished,
were multiplying about us. The high land of Cape Ann and the rocks and
shore of Cohasset were full in sight, the lighthouses, standing like
sentries in white before the harbors, and even the smoke from the
chimney on the plains of Hingham was seen rising slowly in the morning
air. One of our boys was the son of a bucket-maker; and his face
lighted up as he saw the tops of the well-known hills which surround
his native place. About ten o'clock a little boat came bobbing over
the water, and put a pilot on board, and sheered off in pursuit of
other vessels bound in.
Being now within the scope of the telegraph stations, our signals were
run up at the fore, and in half an hour afterwards, the owner on
'change, or in his counting-room, knew that his ship was below; and the
landlords, runners, and sharks in Ann street learned that there was a
rich prize for them down in the bay: a ship from round the Horn, with a
crew to be paid off with two years' wages.
The wind continuing very light, all hands were sent aloft to strip off
the chafing gear; and battens, parcellings, roundings, hoops, mats, and
leathers, came flying from aloft, and left the rigging neat and clean,
stripped of all its sea bandaging. The last touch was put to the
vessel by painting the skysail poles; and I was sent up to the fore,
with a bucket of white paint and a brush, and touched her off, from the
truck to the eyes of the royal rigging. At noon, we lay becalmed off
the lower light-house; and it being about slack water, we made little
progress. A firing was heard in the direction of Hingham, and the
pilot said there was a review there.
The Hingham boy got wind of this, and said if the ship had been twelve
hours sooner, he should have been down among the soldiers, and in the
booths, and having a grand time. As it was, we had little prospect of
getting in before night. About two o'clock a breeze sprang up ahead,
from the westward, and we began beating up against it. A full-rigged
brig was beating in at the same time, and we passed one another, in our
tacks, sometimes one and sometimes the other, working to windward, as
the wind and tide favored or opposed. It was my trick at the wheel
from two till four; and I stood my last helm, making between nine
hundred and a thousand hours which I had spent at the helms of our two
vessels. The tide beginning to set against us, we made slow work; and
the afternoon was nearly spent, before we got abreast of the inner
light. In the meantime, several vessels were coming down, outward
bound; among which, a fine, large ship, with yards squared, fair wind
and fair tide, passed us like a race-horse, the men running out upon
her yards to rig out the studding-sail booms. Toward sundown the wind
came off in flaws, sometimes blowing very stiff, so that the pilot took
in the royals, and then it died away; when, in order to get us in
before the tide became too strong, the royals were set again. As this
kept us running up and down the rigging all the time, one hand was sent
aloft at each mast-head, to stand-by to loose and furl the sails, at
the moment of the order. I took my place at the fore, and loosed and
furled the royal five times between Rainsford Island and the Castle.
At one tack we ran so near to Rainsford Island, that, looking down from
the royal yard, the island, with its hospital buildings, nice gravelled
walks, and green plats, seemed to lie directly under our yard-arms. So
close is the channel to some of these islands, that we ran the end of
our flying-jib-boom over one of the out-works of the fortifications on
George's Island; and had an opportunity of seeing the advantages of
that point as a fortified place; for, in working up the channel, we
presented a fair stem and stern, for raking, from the batteries, three
or four times. One gun might have knocked us to pieces.
We had all set our hearts upon getting up to town before night and
going ashore, but the tide beginning to run strong against us, and the
wind, what there was of it, being ahead, we made but little by
weather-bowing the tide, and the pilot gave orders to cock-bill the
anchor and overhaul the chain. Making two long stretches, which
brought us into the roads, under the lee of the castle, he clewed up
the topsails, and let go the anchor; and for the first time since
leaving San Diego,--one hundred and thirty-five days--our anchor was
upon bottom. In half an hour more, we were lying snugly, with all
sails furled, safe in Boston harbor; our long voyage ended; the
well-known scene about us; the dome of the State House fading in the
western sky; the lights of the city starting into sight, as the
darkness came on; and at nine o'clock the clangor of the bells, ringing
their accustomed peals; among which the Boston boys tried to
distinguish the well-known tone of the Old South.
We had just done furling the sails, when a beautiful little
pleasure-boat luffed up into the wind, under our quarter, and the
junior partner of the firm to which our ship belonged, jumped on board.
I saw him from the mizen topsail yard, and knew him well.
He shook the captain by the hand, and went down into the cabin, and in
a few moments came up and inquired of the mate for me.
The last time I had seen him, I was in the uniform of an undergraduate
of Harvard College, and now, to his astonishment, there came down from
aloft a "rough alley" looking fellow, with duck trowsers and red shirt,
long hair, and face burnt as black as an Indian's. He shook me by the
hand, congratulated me upon my return and my appearance of health and
strength, and said my friends were all well. I thanked him for telling
me what I should not have dared to ask; and if--
"the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after like a sullen bell--"
certainly I shall ever remember this man and his words with pleasure.
The captain went up to town in the boat with Mr. H----, and left us to
pass another night on board ship, and to come up with the morning's
tide under command of the pilot.
So much did we feel ourselves to be already at home, in anticipation,
that our plain supper of hard bread and salt beef was barely touched;
and many on board, to whom this was the first voyage, could scarcely
sleep. As for myself, by one of those anomalous changes of feeling of
which we are all the subjects, I found that I was in a state of
indifference, for which I could by no means account. A year before,
while carrying hides on the coast, the assurance that in a twelvemonth
we should see Boston, made me half wild; but now that I was actually
there, and in sight of home, the emotions which I had so long
anticipated feeling, I did not find, and in their place was a state of
very nearly entire apathy. Something of the same experience was
related to me by a sailor whose first voyage was one of five years upon
the North-west Coast. He had left home, a lad, and after several years
of very hard and trying experience, found himself homeward bound; and
such was the excitement of his feelings that, during the whole passage,
he could talk and think of nothing else but his arrival, and how and
when he should jump from the vessel and take his way directly home.
Yet when the vessel was made fast to the wharf and the crew dismissed,
he seemed suddenly to lose all feeling about the matter. He told me
that he went below and changed his dress; took some water from the
scuttle-butt and washed himself leisurely; overhauled his chest, and
put his clothes all in order; took his pipe from its place, filled it,
and sitting down upon his chest, smoked it slowly for the last time.
Here he looked round upon the forecastle in which he had spent so many
years, and being alone and his shipmates scattered, he began to feel
actually unhappy. Home became almost a dream; and it was not until his
brother (who had heard of the ship's arrival) came down into the
forecastle and told him of things at home, and who were waiting there
to see him, that he could realize where he was, and feel interest
enough to put him in motion toward that place for which he had longed,
and of which he had dreamed, for years. There is probably so much of
excitement in prolonged expectation, that the quiet realizing of it
produces a momentary stagnation of feeling as well as of effort. It
was a good deal so with me. The activity of preparation, the rapid
progress of the ship, the first making land, the coming up the harbor,
and old scenes breaking upon the view, produced a mental as well as
bodily activity, from which the change to a perfect stillness, when
both expectation and the necessity of labor failed, left a calmness,
almost of indifference, from which I must be roused by some new
excitement. And the next morning, when all hands were called, and we
were busily at work, clearing the decks, and getting everything in
readiness for going up to the wharves,--loading the guns for a salute,
loosing the sails, and manning the windlass--mind and body seemed to
wake together.
About ten o'clock, a sea-breeze sprang up, and the pilot gave orders to
get the ship under weigh. All hands manned the windlass, and the
long-drawn "Yo, heave, ho!" which we had last heard dying away among
the desolate hills of San Diego, soon brought the anchor to the bows;
and, with a fair wind and tide, a bright sunny morning, royals and
sky-sails set, ensign, streamer, signals, and pennant, flying, and with
our guns firing, we came swiftly and handsomely up to the city. Off
the end of the wharf, we rounded-to and let go our anchor; and no
sooner was it on the bottom, than the decks were filled with people:
custom-house officers; Topliff's agent, to inquire for news; others,
inquiring for friends on board, or left upon the coast; dealers in
grease, besieging the galley to make a bargain with the cook for his
slush; "loafers" in general; and last and chief, boarding-house
runners, to secure their men.
Nothing can exceed the obliging disposition of these runners, and the
interest they take in a sailor returned from a long voyage with a
plenty of money. Two or three of them, at different times, took me by
the hand; remembered me perfectly; were quite sure I had boarded with
them before I sailed; were delighted to see me back; gave me their
cards; had a hand-cart waiting on the wharf, on purpose to take my
things up: would lend me a hand to get my chest ashore; bring a bottle
of grog on board if we did not haul in immediately,--and the like. In
fact, we could hardly get clear of them, to go aloft and furl the
sails. Sail after sail, for the hundredth time, in fair weather and in
foul, we furled now for the last time together, and came down and took
the warp ashore, manned the capstan, and with a chorus which waked up
half the North End, and rang among the buildings in the dock, we hauled
her in to the wharf. Here, too, the landlords and runners were active
and ready, taking a bar to the capstan, lending a hand at the ropes,
laughing and talking and telling the news. The city bells were just
ringing one when the last turn was made fast, and the crew dismissed;
and in five minutes more, not a soul was left on board the good ship
Alert, but the old ship-keeper, who had come down from the
counting-house to take charge of her.
CONCLUDING CHAPTER
I trust that they who have followed me to the end of my narrative, will
not refuse to carry their attention a little farther, to the concluding
remarks which I here present to them.
This chapter is written after the lapse of a considerable time since
the end of my voyage, and after a return to my former pursuits; and in
it I design to offer those views of what may be done for seamen, and of
what is already doing, which I have deduced from my experiences, and
from the attention which I have since gladly given to the subject.
The romantic interest which many take in the sea, and in those who live
upon it, may be of use in exciting their attention to this subject,
though I cannot but feel sure that all who have followed me in my
narrative must be convinced that the sailor has no romance in his
every-day life to sustain him, but that it is very much the same plain,
matter-of-fact drudgery and hardship, which would be experienced on
shore. If I have not produced this conviction, I have failed in
persuading others of what my own experience has most fully impressed
upon myself.
There is a witchery in the sea, its songs and stories, and in the mere
sight of a ship, and the sailor's dress, especially to a young mind,
which has done more to man navies, and fill merchantmen, than all the
press-gangs of Europe. I have known a young man with such a passion
for the sea, that the very creaking of a block stirred up his
imagination so that he could hardly keep his feet on dry ground; and
many are the boys, in every seaport, who are drawn away, as by an
almost irresistible attraction, from their work and schools, and hang
about the decks and yards of vessels, with a fondness which, it is
plain, will have its way. No sooner, however, has the young sailor
begun his new life in earnest, than all this fine drapery falls off,
and he learns that it is but work and hardship, after all. This is the
true light in which a sailor's life is to be viewed; and if in our
books, and anniversary speeches, we would leave out much that is said
about "blue water," "blue jackets," "open hearts," "seeing God's hand
on the deep," and so forth, and take this up like any other practical
subject, I am quite sure we should do full as much for those we wish to
benefit. The question is, what can be done for sailors, as they
are,--men to be fed, and clothed, and lodged, for whom laws must be
made and executed, and who are to be instructed in useful knowledge,
and, above all, to be brought under religious influence and restraint?
It is upon these topics that I wish to make a few observations.
In the first place, I have no fancies about equality on board ship, It
is a thing out of the question, and certainly, in the present state of
mankind, not to be desired. I never knew a sailor who found fault with
the orders and ranks of the service; and if I expected to pass the rest
of my life before the mast, I would not wish to have the power of the
captain diminished an iota. It is absolutely necessary that there
should be one head and one voice, to control everything, and be
responsible for everything. There are emergencies which require the
instant exercise of extreme power. These emergencies do not allow of
consultation; and they who would be the captain's constituted advisers
might be the very men over whom he would be called upon to exert his
authority. It has been found necessary to vest in every government,
even the most democratic, some extraordinary, and, at first sight,
alarming powers; trusting in public opinion, and subsequent
accountability to modify the exercise of them. These are provided to
meet exigencies, which all hope may never occur, but which yet by
possibility may occur, and if they should, and there were no power to
meet them instantly, there would be an end put to the government at
once. So it is with the authority of the shipmaster. It will not
answer to say that he shall never do this and that thing, because it
does not seem always necessary and advisable that it should be done.
He has great cares and responsibilities; is answerable for everything;
and is subject to emergencies which perhaps no other man exercising
authority among civilized people is subject to. Let him, then, have
powers commensurate with his utmost possible need; only let him be held
strictly responsible for the exercise of them. Any other course would
be injustice, as well as bad policy.
In the treatment of those under his authority, the captain is amenable
to the common law, like any other person. He is liable at common law
for murder, assault and battery, and other offences; and in addition to
this, there is a special statute of the United States which makes a
captain or other officer liable to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding five years, and to a fine not exceeding a thousand dollars,
for inflicting any cruel punishment upon, withholding food from, or in
any other way maltreating a seaman. This is the state of the law on
the subject; while the relation in which the parties stand, and the
peculiar necessities, excuses, and provocations arising from that
relation, are merely circumstances to be considered in each case. As
to the restraints upon the master's exercise of power, the laws
themselves seem, on the whole, to be sufficient. I do not see that we
are in need, at present, of more legislation on the subject. The
difficulty lies rather in the administration of the laws; and this is
certainly a matter that deserves great consideration, and one of no
little embarrassment.
In the first place, the courts have said that public policy requires
the power of the master and officers should be sustained. Many lives
and a great amount of property are constantly in their hands, for which
they are strictly responsible. To preserve these, and to deal justly
by the captain, and not lay upon him a really fearful responsibility,
and then tie up his hands, it is essential that discipline should be
supported. In the second place, there is always great allowance to be
made for false swearing and exaggeration by seamen, and for
combinations among them against their officers; and it is to be
remembered that the latter have often no one to testify on their side.
These are weighty and true statements, and should not be lost sight of
by the friends of seamen. On the other hand, sailors make many
complaints, some of which are well founded.
On the subject of testimony, seamen labor under a difficulty full as
great as that of the captain. It is a well-known fact, that they are
usually much better treated when there are passengers on board.
The presence of passengers is a restraint upon the captain, not only
from his regard to their feelings and to the estimation in which they
may hold him, but because he knows they will be influential witnesses
against him if he is brought to trial. Though officers may sometimes be
inclined to show themselves off before passengers, by freaks of office
and authority, yet cruelty they would hardly dare to be guilty of. It
is on long and distant voyages, where there is no restraint upon the
captain, and none but the crew to testify against him, that sailors
need most the protection of the law. On such voyages as these, there
are many cases of outrageous cruelty on record, enough to make one
heartsick, and almost disgusted with the sight of man; and many, many
more, which have never come to light, and never will be known, until
the sea shall give up its dead. Many of these have led to mutiny and
piracy,--stripe for stripe, and blood for blood. If on voyages of this
description the testimony of seamen is not to be received in favor of
one another, or too great a deduction is made on account of their being
seamen, their case is without remedy; and the captain, knowing this,
will be strengthened in that disposition to tyrannize which the
possession of absolute power, without the restraints of friends and
public opinion, is too apt to engender.
It is to be considered, also, that the sailor comes into court under
very different circumstances from the master. He is thrown among
landlords, and sharks of all descriptions; is often led to drink
freely; and comes upon the stand unaided, and under a certain cloud of
suspicion as to his character and veracity. The captain, on the other
hand, is backed by the owners and insurers, and has an air of greater
respectability; though, after all, he may have but a little better
education than the sailor, and sometimes, (especially among those
engaged in certain voyages that I could mention) a very hackneyed
conscience.
These are the considerations most commonly brought up on the subject of
seamen's evidence; and I think it cannot but be obvious to every one
that here, positive legislation would be of no manner of use. There
can be no rule of law regulating the weight to be given to seamen's
evidence. It must rest in the mind of the judge and jury; and no
enactment or positive rule of court could vary the result a hair, in
any one case. The effect of a sailor's testimony in deciding a case
must depend altogether upon the reputation of the class to which he
belongs, and upon the impression he himself produces in court by his
deportment, and by those infallible marks of character which always
tell upon a jury.
In fine, after all the well-meant and specious projects that have been
brought forward, we seem driven back to the belief, that the best means
of securing a fair administration of the laws made for the protection
of seamen, and certainly the only means which can create any important
change for the better, is the gradual one of raising the intellectual
and religious character of the sailor, so that as an individual and as
one of a class, he may, in the first instance, command the respect of
his officers, and if any difficulty should happen, may upon the stand
carry that weight which an intelligent and respectable man of the lower
class almost always does with a jury. I know there are many men who,
when a few cases of great hardship occur, and it is evident that there
is an evil somewhere, think that some arrangement must be made, some
law passed, or some society got up, to set all right at once. On this
subject there can be no call for any such movement; on the contrary, I
fully believe that any public and strong action would do harm, and that
we must be satisfied to labor in the less easy and less exciting task
of gradual improvement, and abide the issue of things working slowly
together for good.
Equally injudicious would be any interference with the economy of the
ship. The lodging, food, hours of sleep, etc., are all matters which,
though capable of many changes for the better, must yet be left to
regulate themselves. And I am confident that there will be, and that
there is now a gradual improvement in all such particulars. The
forecastles of most of our ships are small, black, and wet holes, which
few landsmen would believe held a crew of ten or twelve men on a voyage
of months or years; and often, indeed in most cases, the provisions are
not good enough to make a meal anything more than a necessary part of a
day's duty;[1] and on the score of sleep, I fully believe that the
lives of merchant seamen are shortened by the want of it. I do not
refer to those occasions when it is necessarily broken in upon; but,
for months, during fine weather, in many merchantmen, all hands are
kept, throughout the day, and, then, there are eight hours on deck for
one watch each night. Thus it is usually the case that at the end of a
voyage, where there has been the finest weather, and no disaster, the
crew have a wearied and worn-out appearance. They never sleep longer
than four hours at a time, and are seldom called without being really
in need of more rest. There is no one thing that a sailor thinks more
of as a luxury of life on shore, than a whole night's sleep. Still,
all these things must be left to be gradually modified by circumstances.
Whenever hard cases occur, they should be made known, and masters and
owners should be held answerable, and will, no doubt, in time, be
influenced in their arrangements and discipline by the increased
consideration in which sailors are held by the public.
It is perfectly proper that the men should live in a different part of
the vessel from the officers; and if the forecastle is made large and
comfortable, there is no reason why the crew should not live there as
well as in any other part. In fact, sailors prefer the forecastle. It
is their accustomed place, and in it they are out of the sight and
hearing of their officers.
As to their food and sleep, there are laws, with heavy penalties,
requiring a certain amount of stores to be on board, and safely stowed;
and, for depriving the crew unnecessarily of food or sleep, the captain
is liable at common law, as well as under the statute before referred
to. Farther than this, it would not be safe to go.
The captain must be the judge when it is necessary to keep his crew
from their sleep; and sometimes a retrenching, not of the necessaries,
but of some of the little niceties of their meals, as, for instance,
duff on Sunday, may be a mode of punishment, though I think generally
an injudicious one.
I could not do justice to this subject without noticing one part of the
discipline of a ship, which has been very much discussed of late, and
has brought out strong expressions of indignation from many,--I mean
the infliction of corporal punishment. Those who have followed me in
my narrative will remember that I was witness to an act of great
cruelty inflicted upon my own shipmates; and indeed I can sincerely say
that the simple mention of the word flogging, brings up in me feelings
which I can hardly control. Yet, when the proposition is made to
abolish it entirely and at once; to prohibit the captain from ever,
under any circumstances, inflicting corporal punishment; I am obliged
to pause, and, I must say, to doubt exceedingly the expediency of
making any positive enactment which shall have that effect. If the
design of those who are writing on this subject is merely to draw
public attention to it, and to discourage the practice of flogging, and
bring it into disrepute, it is well; and, indeed, whatever may be the
end they have in view, the mere agitation of the question will have
that effect, and, so far, must do good. Yet I should not wish to take
the command of a ship to-morrow, running my chance of a crew, as most
masters must, and know, and have my crew know, that I could not, under
any circumstances, inflict even moderate chastisement. I should trust
that I might never have to resort to it; and, indeed, I scarcely know
what risk I would not run, and to what inconvenience I would not
subject myself, rather than do so. Yet not to have the power of
holding it up in terrorem, and indeed of protecting myself, and all
under my charge, by it, if some extreme case should arise, would be a
situation I should not wish to be placed in myself, or to take the
responsibility of placing another in.
Indeed, the difficulties into which masters and officers are liable to
be thrown, are not sufficiently considered by many whose sympathies are
easily excited by stories, frequent enough, and true enough of
outrageous abuse of this power. It is to be remembered that more than
three-fourths of the seamen in our merchant vessels are foreigners.
They are from all parts of the world. A great many from the north of
Europe, beside Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, men from all
parts of the Mediterranean, together with Lascars, Negroes, and,
perhaps worst of all, the off-casts of British men-of-war, and men from
our own country who have gone to sea because they could not be
permitted to live on land.
As things now are, many masters are obliged to sail without knowing
anything of their crews, until they get out at sea. There may be
pirates or mutineers among them; and one bad man will often infect all
the rest; and it is almost certain that some of them will be ignorant
foreigners, hardly understanding a word of our language, accustomed all
their lives to no influence but force, and perhaps nearly as familiar
with the use of the knife as with that of the marline-spike. No
prudent master, however peaceably inclined, would go to sea without his
pistols and handcuffs. Even with such a crew as I have supposed,
kindness and moderation would be the best policy, and the duty of every
conscientious man; and the administering of corporal punishment might
be dangerous, and of doubtful use. But the question is not, what a
captain ought generally to do, but whether it shall be put out of the
power of every captain, under any circumstances, to make use of, even
moderate, chastisement. As the law now stands, a parent may correct
moderately his child, and the master his apprentice; and the case of
the shipmaster has been placed upon the same principle. The statutes,
and the common law as expounded in the decisions of courts, and in the
books of commentators, are express and unanimous to this point, that
the captain may inflict moderate corporal chastisement, for a
reasonable cause. If the punishment is excessive, or the cause not
sufficient to justify it, he is answerable; and the jury are to
determine, by their verdict in each case, whether, under all the
circumstances, the punishment was moderate, and for a justifiable cause.
This seems to me to be as good a position as the whole subject can be
left in. I mean to say, that no positive enactment, going beyond this,
is needed, or would be a benefit either to masters or men, in the
present state of things. This again would seem to be a case which
should be left to the gradual working of its own cure. As seamen
improve, punishment will become less necessary; and as the character of
officers is raised, they will be less ready to inflict it; and, still
more, the infliction of it upon intelligent and respectable men, will
be an enormity which will not be tolerated by public opinion, and by
juries, who are the pulse of the body politic. No one can have a
greater abhorrence of the infliction of such punishment than I have,
and a stronger conviction that severity is bad policy with a crew; yet
I would ask every reasonable man whether he had not better trust to the
practice becoming unnecessary and disreputable; to the measure of
moderate chastisement and a justifiable cause being better understood,
and thus, the act becoming dangerous, and in course of time to be
regarded as an unheard-of barbarity--than to take the responsibility of
prohibiting it, at once, in all cases, and in what ever degree, by
positive enactment?
There is, however, one point connected with the administration of
justice to seamen, to which I wish seriously to call the attention of
those interested in their behalf, and, if possible, also of some of
those concerned in that administration. This is, the practice which
prevails of making strong appeals to the jury in mitigation of damages,
or to the judge, after a verdict has been rendered against a captain or
officer, for a lenient sentence, on the grounds of their previous good
character, and of their being poor, and having friends and families
depending upon them for support. These appeals have been allowed a
weight which is almost incredible, and which, I think, works a greater
hardship upon seamen than any one other thing in the laws, or the
execution of them. Notwithstanding every advantage the captain has
over the seaman in point of evidence, friends, money, and able counsel,
it becomes apparent that he must fail in his defence. An appeal is
then made to the jury, if it is a civil action, or to the judge for a
mitigated sentence, if it is a criminal prosecution, on the two grounds
I have mentioned. The same form is usually gone through in every case.
In the first place, as to the previous good character of the party.
Witnesses are brought from the town in which he resides, to testify to
his good character, and to his unexceptionable conduct when on shore.
They say that he is a good father, or husband, or son, or neighbor, and
that they never saw in him any signs of a cruel or tyrannical
disposition. I have even known evidence admitted to show the character
he bore when a boy at school. The owners of the vessel, and other
merchants, and perhaps the president of the insurance company, are then
introduced; and they testify to his correct deportment, express their
confidence in his honesty, and say that they have never seen anything
in his conduct to justify a suspicion of his being capable of cruelty
or tyranny. This evidence is then put together, and great stress is
laid upon the extreme respectability of those who give it. They are
the companions and neighbors of the captain, it is said,--men who know
him in his business and domestic relations, and who knew him in his
early youth. They are also men of the highest standing in the
community, and who, as the captain's employers, must be supposed to
know his character. This testimony is then contrasted with that of
some half dozen obscure sailors, who, the counsel will not forget to
add, are exasperated against the captain because he has found it
necessary to punish them moderately, and who have combined against him,
and if they have not fabricated a story entirely, have at least so
exaggerated it, that little confidence can be placed in it.
The next thing to be done is to show to the court and jury that the
captain is a poor man, and has a wife and family, or other friends,
depending upon him for support; that if he is fined, it will only be
taking bread from the mouths of the innocent and helpless, and laying a
burden upon them which their whole lives will not be able to work off;
and that if he is imprisoned, the confinement, to be sure, he will have
to bear, but the distress consequent upon the cutting him off from his
labor and means of earning his wages, will fall upon a poor wife and
helpless children, or upon an infirm parent. These two topics, well
put, and urged home earnestly, seldom fail of their effect.
In deprecation of this mode of proceeding, and in behalf of men who I
believe are every day wronged by it, I would urge a few considerations
which seem to me to be conclusive.
First, as to the evidence of the good character the captain sustains on
shore. It is to be remembered that masters of vessels have usually
been brought up in a forecastle; and upon all men, and especially upon
those taken from lower situations, the conferring of absolute power is
too apt to work a great change. There are many captains whom I know to
be cruel and tyrannical men at sea, who yet, among their friends, and
in their families, have never lost the reputation they bore in
childhood. In fact, the sea-captain is seldom at home, and when he is,
his stay is short, and during the continuance of it he is surrounded by
friends who treat him with kindness and consideration, and he has
everything to please, and at the same time to restrain him. He would
be a brute indeed, if, after an absence of months or years, during his
short stay, so short that the novelty and excitement of it has hardly
time to wear off, and the attentions he receives as a visitor and
stranger hardly time to slacken,--if, under such circumstances, a
townsman or neighbor would be justified in testifying against his
correct and peaceable deportment. With the owners of the vessel, also,
to which he is attached, and among merchants and insurers generally, he
is a very different man from what he may be at sea, when his own
master, and the master of everybody and everything about him. He knows
that upon such men, and their good opinion of him, he depends for his
bread. So far from their testimony being of any value in determining
what his conduct would be at sea, one would expect that the master who
would abuse and impose upon a man under his power, would be the most
compliant and deferential to his employers at home.
As to the appeal made in the captain's behalf on the ground of his
being poor and having persons depending upon his labor for support, the
main and fatal objection to it is, that it will cover every case of the
kind, and exempt nearly the whole body of masters and officers from the
punishment the law has provided for them. There are very few, if any
masters or other officers of merchantmen in our country, who are not
poor men, and having either parents, wives, children, or other
relatives, depending mainly or wholly upon their exertions for support
in life. Few others follow the sea for subsistence. Now if this
appeal is to have weight with courts in diminishing the penalty the law
would otherwise inflict, is not the whole class under a privilege which
will, in a degree, protect it in wrong-doing? It is not a thing that
happens now and then. It is the invariable appeal, the last resort, of
counsel, when everything else has failed. I have known cases of the
most flagrant nature, where after every effort has been made for the
captain, and yet a verdict rendered against him, and all other hope
failed, this appeal has been urged, and with such success that the
punishment has been reduced to something little more than nominal, the
court not seeming to consider that it might be made in almost every
such case that could come before them. It is a little singular, too,
that it seems to be confined to cases of shipmasters and officers. No
one ever heard of a sentence, for an offence committed on shore, being
reduced by the court on the ground of the prisoner's poverty, and the
relation in which he may stand to third persons. On the contrary, it
had been thought that the certainty that disgrace and suffering will be
brought upon others as well as himself, is one of the chief restraints
upon the criminally disposed. Besides, this course works a peculiar
hardship in the case of the sailor. For if poverty is the point in
question, the sailor is the poorer of the two; and if there is a man on
earth who depends upon whole limbs and an unbroken spirit for support,
it is the sailor. He, too, has friends to whom his hard earnings may
be a relief, and whose hearts will bleed at any cruelty or indignity
practised upon him. Yet I never knew this side of the case to be once
adverted to in these arguments addressed to the leniency of the court,
which are now so much in vogue; and certainly they are never allowed a
moment's consideration when a sailor is on trial for revolt, or for an
injury done to an officer. Notwithstanding the many difficulties which
lie in a seaman's way in a court of justice, presuming that they will
be modified in time, there would be little to complain of, were it not
for these two appeals.
It is no cause of complaint that the testimony of seamen against their
officers is viewed with suspicion, and that great allowance is made for
combinations and exaggeration. On the contrary, it is the judge's duty
to charge the jury on these points strongly. But there is reason for
objection, when, after a strict cross-examination of witnesses, after
the arguments of counsel, and the judge's charge, a verdict is found
against the master, that the court should allow the practice of hearing
appeals to its lenity, supported solely by evidence of the captain's
good conduct when on shore, (especially where the case is one in which
no evidence but that of sailors could have been brought against the
accused), and then, on this ground, and on the invariable claims of the
wife and family, be induced to cut down essentially the penalty imposed
by a statute made expressly for masters and officers of merchantmen,
and for no one else.
There are many particulars connected with the manning of vessels, the
provisions given to crews, and the treatment of them while at sea, upon
which there might be a good deal said; but as I have, for the most
part, remarked upon them as they came up in the course of my narrative,
I will offer nothing further now, except on the single point of the
manner of shipping men. This, it is well known, is usually left
entirely to the shipping-masters, and is a cause of a great deal of
difficulty, which might be remedied by the captain, or owner, if he has
any knowledge of seamen, attending to it personally. One of the
members of the firm to which our ship belonged, Mr. S----, had been
himself a master of a vessel, and generally selected the crew from a
number sent down to him from the shipping-office. In this way he
almost always had healthy, serviceable, and respectable men; for any
one who has seen much of sailors can tell pretty well at first sight,
by a man's dress, countenance, and deportment, what he would be on
board ship. This same gentleman was also in the habit of seeing the
crew together, and speaking to them previously to their sailing. On
the day before our ship sailed, while the crew were getting their
chests and clothes on board, he went down into the forecastle and spoke
to them about the voyage, the clothing they would need, the provision
he had made for them, and saw that they had a lamp and a few other
conveniences. If owners or masters would more generally take the same
pains, they would often save their crews a good deal of inconvenience,
beside creating a sense of satisfaction and gratitude, which makes a
voyage begin under good auspices, and goes far toward keeping up a
better state of feeling throughout its continuance.
It only remains for me now to speak of the associated public efforts
which have been making of late years for the good of seamen: a far more
agreeable task than that of finding fault, even where fault there is.
The exertions of the general association, called the American Seamen's
Friend Society, and of the other smaller societies throughout the
Union, have been a true blessing to the seaman; and bid fair, in course
of time, to change the whole nature of the circumstances in which he is
placed, and give him a new name, as well as a new character. These
associations have taken hold in the right way, and aimed both at making
the sailor's life more comfortable and creditable, and at giving him
spiritual instruction. Connected with these efforts, the spread of
temperance among seamen, by means of societies, called, in their own
nautical language, Windward-Anchor Societies, and the distribution of
books; the establishment of Sailors' Homes, where they can be
comfortably and cheaply boarded, live quietly and decently, and be in
the way of religious services, reading and conversation; also the
institution of Savings Banks for Seamen; the distribution of tracts and
Bibles;--are all means which are silently doing a great work for this
class of men. These societies make the religious instruction of seamen
their prominent object. If this is gained, there is no fear but that
all other things necessary will be added unto them. A sailor never
becomes interested in religion, without immediately learning to read,
if he did not know how before; and regular habits, forehandedness (if I
may use the word) in worldly affairs, and hours reclaimed from
indolence and vice, which follow in the wake of the converted man, make
it sure that he will instruct himself in the knowledge necessary and
suitable to his calling. The religious change is the great object. If
this is secured, there is no fear but that knowledge of things of the
world will come in fast enough. With the sailor, as with all other men
in fact, the cultivation of the intellect, and the spread of what is
commonly called useful knowledge, while religious instruction is
neglected, is little else than changing an ignorant sinner into an
intelligent and powerful one. That sailor upon whom, of all others,
the preaching of the Cross is least likely to have effect, is the one
whose understanding has been cultivated, while his heart has been left
to its own devices. I fully believe that those efforts which have
their end in the intellectual cultivation of the sailor; in giving him
scientific knowledge; putting it in his power to read everything,
without securing, first of all, a right heart which shall guide him in
judgment; in giving him political information, and interesting him in
newspapers;--an end in the furtherance of which he is exhibited at
ladies' fairs and public meetings, and complimented for his gallantry
and generosity,--are all doing a harm which the labors of many faithful
men cannot undo.
The establishment of Bethels in most of our own seaports, and in many
foreign ports frequented by our vessels, where the gospel is regularly
preached and the opening of "Sailors' Homes," which I have before
mentioned, where there are usually religious services and other good
influences, are doing a vast deal in this cause. But it is to be
remembered that the sailor's home is on the deep. Nearly all his life
must be spent on board ship; and to secure a religious influence there,
should be the great object. The distribution of Bibles and tracts into
cabins and forecastles, will do much toward this. There is nothing
which will gain a sailor's attention sooner, and interest him more
deeply, than a tract, especially one which contains a story. It is
difficult to engage their attention in mere essays and arguments, but
the simplest and shortest story, in which home is spoken of, kind
friends, a praying mother or sister, a sudden death, and the like,
often touches the heart of the roughest and most abandoned. The Bible
is to the sailor a sacred book. It may lie in the bottom of his chest,
voyage after voyage; but he never treats it with positive disrespect.
I never knew but one sailor who doubted its being the inspired word of
God; and he was one who had received an uncommonly good education,
except that he had been brought up without any early religious
influence. The most abandoned man of our crew, one Sunday morning,
asked one of the boys to lend him his Bible. The boy said he would,
but was afraid he would make sport of it. "No!" said the man, "I don't
make sport of God Almighty." This is a feeling general among sailors,
and is a good foundation for religious influence.
A still greater gain is made whenever, by means of a captain who is
interested in the eternal welfare of those under his command, there can
be secured the performance of regular religious exercises, and the
exertion, on the side of religion, of that mighty influence which a
captain possesses for good, or for evil. There are occurrences at sea
which he may turn to great account,--a sudden death, the apprehension
of danger, or the escape from it, and the like; and all the calls for
gratitude and faith. Besides, this state of thing alters the whole
current of feeling between the crew and their commander. His authority
assumes more of the parental character; and kinder feelings exist.
Godwin, though an infidel, in one of his novels, describing the
relation in which a tutor stood to his pupil, says that the conviction
the tutor was under, that he and his ward were both alike awaiting a
state of eternal happiness or misery, and that they must appear
together before the same judgment-seat, operated so upon his naturally
morose disposition, as to produce a feeling of kindness and tenderness
toward his ward, which nothing else could have caused. Such must be
the effect upon the relation of master and common seaman.
There are now many vessels sailing under such auspices, in which great
good is done. Yet I never happened to fall in with one of them. I did
not hear a prayer made, a chapter read in public, nor see anything
approaching to a religious service, for two years and a quarter. There
were, in the course of the voyage, many incidents which made, for the
time, serious impressions upon our minds, and which might have been
turned to our good; but there being no one to use the opportunity, and
no services, the regular return of which might have kept something of
the feeling alive in us, the advantage of them was lost, to some,
perhaps, forever.
The good which a single religious captain may do can hardly be
calculated. In the first place, as I have said, a kinder state of
feeling exists on board the ship. There is no profanity allowed; and
the men are not called by any opprobrious names, which is a great thing
with sailors. The Sabbath is observed. This gives the men a day of
rest, even if they pass it in no other way. Such a captain, too, will
not allow a sailor on board his ship to remain unable to read his Bible
and the books given to him; and will usually instruct those who need
it, in writing, arithmetic, and navigation; since he has a good deal of
time on his hands, which he can easily employ in such a manner. He
will also have regular religious services; and, in fact, by the power
of his example, and, where it can judiciously be done, by the exercise
of his authority, will give a character to the ship and all on board.
In foreign ports, a ship is known by her captain; for, there being no
general rules in the merchant service, each master may adopt a plan of
his own. It is to be remembered, too, that there are, in most ships,
boys of a tender age, whose characters for life are forming, as well as
old men, whose lives must be drawing toward a close. The greater part
of sailors die at sea; and when they find their end approaching, if it
does not, as is often the case, come without warning, they cannot, as
on shore, send for a clergyman, or some religious friend, to speak to
them of that hope in a Saviour, which they have neglected, if not
despised, through life; but if the little hull does not contain such an
one within its compass, they must be left without human aid in their
great extremity. When such commanders and such ships, as I have just
described, shall become more numerous, the hope of the friends of
seamen will be greatly strengthened; and it is encouraging to remember
that the efforts among common sailors will soon raise up such a class;
for those of them who are brought under these influences will
inevitably be the ones to succeed to the places of trust and authority.
If there is on earth an instance where a little leaven may leaven the
whole lump, it is that of the religious shipmaster.
It is to the progress of this work among seamen that we must look with
the greatest confidence for the remedying of those numerous minor evils
and abuses that we so often hear of. It will raise the character of
sailors, both as individuals and as a class. It will give weight to
their testimony in courts of justice, secure better usage to them on
board ship, and add comforts to their lives on shore and at sea. There
are some laws that can be passed to remove temptation from their way
and to help them in their progress; and some changes in the
jurisdiction of the lower courts, to prevent delays, may, and probably
will, be made. But, generally speaking, more especially in things which
concern the discipline of ships, we had better labor in this great
work, and view with caution the proposal of new laws and arbitrary
regulations, remembering that most of those concerned in the making of
them must necessarily be little qualified to judge of their operation.
Without any formal dedication of my narrative to that body of men, of
whose common life it is intended to be a picture, I have yet borne them
constantly in mind during its preparation. I cannot but trust that
those of them, into whose hands it may chance to fall, will find in it
that which shall render any professions of sympathy and good wishes on
my part unnecessary. And I will take the liberty, on parting with my
reader, who has gone down with us to the ocean, and "laid his hand upon
its mane," to commend to his kind wishes, and to the benefit of his
efforts, that class of men with whom, for a time, my lot was cast. I
wish the rather to do this, since I feel that whatever attention this
book may gain, and whatever favor it may find, I shall owe almost
entirely to that interest in the sea, and those who follow it, which is
so easily excited in us all.
[1] I am not sure that I have stated, in the course of my narrative,
the manner in which sailors eat, on board ship. There are neither
tables, knives, forks, nor plates, in a forecastle; but the kid (a
wooden tub, with iron hoops) is placed on the floor and the crew sit
round it, and each man cuts for himself with the common jack-knife or
sheath-knife, that he carries about him. They drink their tea out of
tin pots, holding little less than a quart each.
These particulars are not looked upon as hardships, and, indeed, may be
considered matters of choice. Sailors, in our merchantmen, furnish
their own eating utensils, as they do many of the instruments which
they use in the ship's work, such as knives, palms and needles,
marline-spikes, rubbers, etc. And considering their mode of life in
other respects, the little time they would have for laying and clearing
away a table with its apparatus, and the room it would take up in a
forecastle, as well as the simple character of their meals, consisting
generally of only one piece of meat,--it is certainly a convenient
method, and, as the kid and pans are usually kept perfectly clean, a
neat and simple one. I had supposed these things to be generally
known, until I heard, a few months ago, a lawyer of repute, who has had
a good deal to do with marine cases, ask a sailor upon the stand
whether the crew had "got up from table" when a certain thing happened.
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AFTER
It was in the winter of 1835-6 that the ship Alert, in the prosecution
of her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of
California, floated into the vast solitude of the Bay of San Francisco.
All around was the stillness of nature. One vessel, a Russian, lay at
anchor there, but during our whole stay not a sail came or went. Our
trade was with remote Missions, which sent hides to us in launches
manned by their Indians. Our anchorage was between a small island,
called Yerba Buena, and a gravel beach in a little bight or cove of the
same name, formed by two small projecting points. Beyond, to the
westward of the landing-place, were dreary sand-hills, with little
grass to be seen, and few trees, and beyond them higher hills, steep
and barren, their sides gullied by the rains. Some five or six miles
beyond the landing-place, to the right, was a ruinous Presidio, and
some three or four miles to the left was the Mission of Dolores, as
ruinous as the Presidio, almost deserted, with but few Indians attached
to it, and but little property in cattle. Over a region far beyond our
sight there were no other human habitations, except that an
enterprising Yankee, years in advance of his time, had put up, on the
rising ground above the landing, a shanty of rough boards, where he
carried on a very small retail trade between the hide ships and the
Indians. Vast banks of fog, invading us from the North Pacific, drove
in through the entrance, and covered the whole bay; and when they
disappeared, we saw a few well-wooded islands, the sand-hills on the
west, the grassy and wooded slopes on the east, and the vast stretch of
the bay to the southward, where we were told lay the Missions of Santa
Clara and San José, and still longer stretches to the northward and
northeastward, where we understood smaller bays spread out, and large
rivers poured in their tributes of waters. There were no settlements on
these bays or rivers, and the few ranchos and Missions were remote and
widely separated. Not only the neighborhood of our anchorage, but the
entire region of the great bay, was a solitude. On the whole coast of
California there was not a lighthouse, a beacon, or a buoy, and the
charts were made up from old and disconnected surveys by British,
Russian, and Mexican voyagers. Birds of prey and passage swooped and
dived about us, wild beasts ranged through the oak groves, and as we
slowly floated out of the harbor with the tide, herds of deer came to
the water's edge, on the northerly side of the entrance, to gaze at the
strange spectacle.
On the evening of Saturday, the 13th of August, 1859, the superb
steamship Golden Gate, gay with crowds of passengers, and lighting the
sea for miles around with the glare of her signal lights of red, green,
and white, and brilliant with lighted saloons and staterooms, bound up
from the Isthmus of Panama, neared the entrance to San Francisco, the
great centre of a world-wide commerce. Miles out at sea, on the
desolate rocks of the Farallones, gleamed the powerful rays of one of
the most costly and effective light-houses in the world. As we drew in
through the Golden Gate, another light-house met our eyes, and in the
clear moonlight of the unbroken California summer we saw, on the right,
a large fortification protecting the narrow entrance, and just before
us the little island of Alcatraz confronted us,--one entire fortress.
We bore round the point toward the old anchoring-ground of the hide
ships, and there, covering the sand-hills and the valleys, stretching
from the water's edge to the base of the great hills, and from the old
Presidio to the Mission, flickering all over with the lamps of its
streets and houses, lay a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants.
Clocks tolled the hour of midnight from its steeples, but the city was
alive from the salute of our guns, spreading the news that the
fortnightly steamer had come, bringing mails and passengers from the
Atlantic world. Clipper ships of the largest size lay at anchor in the
stream, or were girt to the wharves; and capacious high-pressure
steamers, as large and showy as those of the Hudson or Mississippi,
bodies of dazzling light, awaited the delivery of our mails to take
their courses up the Bay, stopping at Benicia and the United States
Naval Station, and then up the great tributaries--the Sacramento, San
Joaquin, and Feather Rivers--to the far inland cities of Sacramento,
Stockton, and Marysville.
The dock into which we drew, and the streets about it, were densely
crowded with express wagons and hand-carts to take luggage, coaches and
cabs for passengers, and with men,--some looking out for friends among
our hundreds of passengers,--agents of the press, and a greater
multitude eager for newspapers and verbal intelligence from the great
Atlantic and European world. Through this crowd I made my way, along
the well-built and well-lighted streets, as alive as by day, where boys
in high-keyed voices were already crying the latest New York papers;
and between one and two o'clock in the morning found myself comfortably
abed in a commodious room, in the Oriental Hotel, which stood, as well
as I could learn, on the filled-up cove, and not far from the spot
where we used to beach our boats from the Alert.