Behold
The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus' horse.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
It was on a fine Sunday morning, in the month of December, 179-, that
the oblique beams of the sun were reflected back by the snow white
canvass of a stately ship of about six hundred tons, that with a fair
wind, a good breeze, and all sail set, was steadily pursuing her course,
somewhat east of north. She was in, or about, the latitude of eighteen
north, and one hundred and fifteen degrees west of Greenwich;
consequently, she was in the Pacific Ocean, and not far from the west
coast of Mexico. The north-east trade-wind, which is generally almost
due east, was sufficiently _free_ to allow her to carry her starboard
studding-sails, under which she flew gracefully and swiftly on her
appointed course.
The weather, as usual within the limits of either trade-wind, was
extremely beautiful and mild; the heat, that on shore in the same
latitude would have been excessive, was moderated by the refreshing
breeze. Indeed, it has never been my lot to find such lovely weather in
any other part of this round world, as we meet with through the whole
course of the trade winds. The long, regular swell, so peculiar to that
part of the ocean, gave the noble ship a peculiarly easy, rolling
motion, extremely grateful to a seaman, as the regularity and length of
the swell is a certain indication of a continuance of good weather. As
she lifted her huge bows above the foaming, sparkling wave, her bright
copper, polished by dashing so long and so fast through the water,
flashed in the sunbeams like burnished gold; at the same time, her
temporary and partial elevation above the surface, revealed a sharpness
of model below the water's edge, that at once accounted for the graceful
and majestic swiftness of her motion. The whiteness of her canvass, and
her bright-varnished sides, sufficiently indicated her to be a Yankee,
without the trouble of hoisting the "gridiron."
Her stern "flared" a great deal; that is, its outline formed a very
acute angle with the horizon, which was the fashion of building ships
forty years since. It was ornamented with a great profusion of carved
work, some of which was hieroglyphical, to a degree that would have
puzzled Champollion; but over the centre were two figures in bas-relief,
that could not well be mistaken, inasmuch as the sword and scales
plainly indicated that the one on the starboard side was Justice, while
the cap on the point of a lance "seemed to fructify" that her companion
was no other than Miss Liberty.
Liberty goes bare-headed now--our rulers, wisely reflecting that she is
upwards of fifty years old, and has arrived at years of discretion, have
ordered her to leave off her child's cap. There are among us those who
think that the stripping will go further, and that, in a short time, she
will be as bare as Eve.
The noses of both goddesses had been knocked off shortly after they
condescended to mount guard on the stern of the good ship Albatross, in
consequence of coming into frequent collision with the gunwale of the
jolly-boat, as she ascended and descended to and from her station at the
stern davits. At her quarter davits, on each side, hung one of those
light, swift, and somewhat singularly shaped boats, called whale-boats.
Eight iron nine-pounders on each side, thrust their black muzzles
through their respective ports, and gave her, in spite of her
bright-varnished sides, a warlike appearance.
The upper part of her cut-water was fashioned into a scroll, like the
volute of an Ionic pillar, forming what is called, by naval architects,
a "billet head;" and which, for its neatness and beauty, is very
generally adopted, both in national vessels and merchantmen. Nor was the
bow without its share of hieroglyphics; on one side were displayed a
bee-hive, a bale of cotton, and a crate of crockery; and on the other, a
globe, an anchor, a quadrant, and a chart partly unrolled.
Her royals were set flying, a technicality that I shall not attempt to
explain; she had no flying-jib, nor any of those pipe-stem spars that
are got aloft only in port, to make a ship look more like the devil than
she otherwise would, and are always sent down and stored away when she
goes to sea. Ships, forty years since, carried no spars aloft but such
as were stout enough to carry sail upon, in fair weather or
foul--sliding-gunter sky-sail masts, and other useless sticks, were as
much unknown to ship-builders and riggers, as railroads and steam-boats.
Sitting upon the weather hen-coop, attached to the companion, or entrance
to the cabin, with spectacles on nose, and a well-worn bible on his
knees, sat an elderly man, the commander of the ship. He was tall, and
very strongly built; long exposure to the weather, in every variety of
climate, had bronzed his countenance, and given him an older look than
his real years would have done under other circumstances; but at the
same time, long exposure to the weather had hardened his frame, and
strengthened his constitution, points of some importance forty years
since; so that his chances for a long life were much better than those
of a man of forty, especially one of modern date, who had never allowed
"the winds of heaven to visit his face too roughly." His age was, in
short, about sixty. His countenance, notwithstanding the rude and
ungenteel manner with which the winds and the weather had treated it,
was indicative of much good-nature and benevolence of disposition. He
raised his head from time to time, looked aloft at the sails,
occasionally addressed a word or two to the mate of the watch, who was
walking fore and aft the quarter-deck, and then resumed his reading.
In the weather mizen-shrouds was a remarkably handsome young man, of
four or five and twenty, busily engaged in hanging out to air his
"go-ashore" clothes; a very common Sunday morning occupation at sea,
when the weather is fine. Apparently the sight of his gay garments had
called up a train of ideas of a very varied and checkered hue, to judge
from the different expressions that flitted across his fine manly
countenance, at one moment shaded with anxiety and doubt, at another
bright with hope and joy. In height he was about five feet eight or nine
inches, strongly and compactly built, but far too stout and athletic,
too broad-shouldered and thin-flanked, to pass muster as an exquisite in
Broadway; as his form, though anatomically perfect, a model for a
statuary, and considered very fine by the ladies of his acquaintance
forty years since, would be altogether out of date at the present day.
His countenance, of an oval form, and shaded by rich, curling, chesnut
hair, from exposure to the weather, had acquired that healthy brown
that ladies do not dislike in a young man's face, though they carefully
eschew any thing that will in reality or imagination produce it in their
own lovely physiognomies.
It may be a mere old bachelor's whim of mine, but it always has appeared
to me that ladies who have had the advantage of mixing much in society,
and seeing something of human nature, are _not_ peculiarly partial to
that effeminate fairness of complexion that many fashionable gentlemen
are so careful to preserve, when they have it by nature, or, when nature
has been unkind, to obtain by artificial means; so that Dogberry's
axiom, that "to be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune," is not
altogether absurd. At any rate, I have seen many a "cherry ripe" lip
curled with an expression of irrepressible scorn when the owner of the
lip was accosted by one of these very fair, delicate-skinned gentlemen.
Girls just let out of a boarding-school generally run mad after these
animals; but ladies who have gone through one or two husband-hunting
campaigns, are not to be taken in by such painted butterflies: they very
wisely conclude that a man who takes such a reverend care of his
complexion worships none but himself, and of course he will have no
devotion to spare to his wife.
But to return to the gentleman we have left dangling in the starboard
mizzen-rigging of the ship Albatross: his countenance was indeed
somewhat tanned, but his forehead was as clear and white as ivory; its
breadth and openness gave an expression of frankness and candor to his
face,--so that, taken altogether, his physiognomy, though not regularly
perfect, was exceedingly prepossessing.
The second officer, who was walking the deck, being the officer of the
watch, was also a very good-looking young man, with large black
whiskers, and was two or three years younger than his messmate in the
rigging. His frequent stoppages at the caboose-house, to confer with the
cooks, indicated the second mate, who is always, for some reason or
other, a sort of "Betty," or "cot-quean," as Shakspeare calls it,
continually quiddling about the galley, to the annoyance of the doctor,
as the ship's cook is generally called.
About the after-hatchway were seated the gunner and sailmaker, both
engaged patching old clothes,--while the old carpenter, like the
captain, was reading the bible,--and the armorer was lying flat on his
back, and singing. A very pretty boy of fourteen, an apprentice to the
captain, was playing, or in sea language "skylarking," with a huge
Newfoundland dog. I might as well complete the _role d'equipage_ of the
good ship Albatross, by observing that Mr. Jonathan Bolton, M.D., the
surgeon of the ship, and Mr. Elnathan Bangs, the supercargo, were
neither of them on deck. Perhaps they were engaged with their
breakfasts, or their toilets, or their devotions, or their studies,
or--in short they were below.
Just forward of the mainmast were what a painter would call the deeper
shades of the picture, for there the black cook and his equally sable
adjunct, the cook's mate, held their vaporous and dish-washing levee;
while forth from the cloudy sanctuary occasionally pealed a burst of
obstreporous laughter, that the most unpractised hearer might swear came
from the lungs of a negro, without the trouble of invading their
premises for further evidence. Upon either of these culinary worthies,
to use the somewhat hyperbolical language of sailors, "lampblack would
make a white mark."
I cannot avoid taking occasion to remark here, that sailors, like the
orientals, are exceedingly addicted to the use of tropes and figures of
speech, to similes and metaphors. In fact, if any gentleman was about
compiling a treatise on elocution, I would recommend to him to pass a
year or two on board one of our men of war, where he would daily hear
specimens of eloquence, known and unknown to exclusively terrestrial
orators, whether in the halls of Congress, at a public dinner-table, or
on a stump. There is the _narratio_, or anecdote, or sometimes the _long
yarn_; the _aprosiopesis_, or sudden pause, very powerful when in good
hands; the _apostrophe_, or addressing an absent person as though he was
present; the _obtestatio_ and _invocatio_, two different modes of
invoking the gods celestial or infernal; and lastly, the _simile_, or
comparison, in which sailors are a thousand times more fruitful than
Homer himself. The steward--who came up with the breakfast-dishes, &c.,
or "dog-basket," as it is called by them of the forecastle--was a
thought lighter skinned than the cooks.
The crew were lounging about the forecastle and weather gangway; some
walking fore and aft, with their hands in their jacket pockets, some
washing or mending their clothes, and some stretched out in the sun,
chatting and laughing in utter disregard and carelessness of what
to-morrow might bring forth, and most literally obeying the divine
command, to "take no thought of what they should eat, or what they
should drink, or wherewithal they should be clothed."
The crew mustered forty-four in number; for forty years since, ships
that traded to the coast of California, or any part of His Catholic
Majesty's American possessions, or to the North West Coast, calculated
upon a brush, either with the guarda-costas or the savages, before their
voyage was up, and accordingly went well manned and armed.
A group of ten or a dozen were collected around the fore-hatch, where
one of their number sat reading to them the twenty-seventh and
twenty-eighth chapters of Acts--two favorite chapters with seamen
generally, not that they contain any peculiarly glad tidings of great
joy, but because they give a sort of log-book account of almost the only
nautical transactions of moment recorded in holy writ.
The reader, like all who are so unfortunate as to be persuaded to read
to a company, was perpetually interrupted by some one of his auditors to
ask a question, or make a comment. He had, however, this advantage over
the ill-starred wight who essays to read to a party of ladies, that he
stopped and asked as many questions, and made as many remarks and
comments, as any of his auditors.
The reader, after a few verses, describing St. Paul's voyage, came to
the eighth verse of the twenty-seventh chapter: "And hardly passing it,
came unto a place which is called the Fair Havens," &c.; when old Tom
Jones, the boatswain, an old English man-of-war's man, who was lying on
his breast across the weather end of the windlass, interrupted:
"Now, as to all them places you've been reading about, I never heard of
none on 'em before, except Cyprus, and I've been cruising off there in a
frigate; but your Sea lashes and Pump fill ye (Cilicia and Pamphylia), I
never heard on in all my born days; and as for Fairhaven, why every body
knows that's right acrost the river from New Bedford; though how the
d--l they got there so soon I don't see, unless so be Paul worked a
marricle, and it's like enough he did, to let the rest on 'em know what
kind of a chap they'd got for a shipmate."
"Nevertheless," continued the reader, at the eleventh verse, "the
centurion believed the master and owner of the ship more than those
things that were spoken by Paul."
"Well, now I don't see no great harm in that," said one of the audience;
"Paul was nothing but a kind of Methodist parson, goin' about and
preachin' for his vittles and drink, and whatever folks was a mind to
give him; so 'taint likely he knowed any more about a ship than any
other minister."
"Yes, but you know he was a saint," said the reader, "and could foretell
the weather, aye, a year aforehand."
"Could he, faith?" said another, "then I wonder he did not make his
eternal fortin making almanacs."
"But what is a centurion?" asked a third.
"Centurion?" said old Jones, "why she's a sixty-four gun ship; I've seen
her often enough at Spithead, but I forget now whether she was in the
first of June[4] or not."
"Then I 'spose she was convoying the craft that Paul was in," observed
another blue-jacket.
This knotty point being satisfactorily cleared up, the reader proceeded:
"And when the south wind blew softly, supposing they had obtained their
purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete."
"Now you see," said the boatswain, "just so sure as you have gentle
breezes from the south'ard, you'll have a thundering Levanter at the
back of 'em."
"Yes, yes," said a tar, "I know that to my sorrow. I was up the Straits
last v'y'ge, 'way up to Smyrna and Zante, arter reasons,[5] and we
ketch'd one of these thundering Levanters, and was druv 'way to h--ll,
away up the Gulf of Venus (Venice); yes, I've been boxing about the Arch
of the Billy Goat[6] 'most too long, not to know a little so'thin' about
the weather there."
The reader continued: "But not long after, there arose against it a
tempestuous wind."
"There," said Jones, "didn't I tell you so? I knowed you'd have a real
sneezer in a varse or two."
"Called Euroclydon," continued the reader, finishing the verse.
"What! avast there! overhaul that last word again."
"A tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," repeated the reader.
"Well, you may call it a Rock-me-down, but I say the regular-built name
on't is Levanter; but then I s'pose them thunderin' printers puts in any
thing they're a mind to."
The reading proceeded without much more interruption, except that the
honest tars, who had been up the Mediterranean, were not a little
puzzled by the strange names of places, and could not imagine what part
of the world the saint had got into.
"About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country;
and sounded, and found it twenty fathoms; and when they had gone a
little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms."
"Egad, I should think they was drawin' nigh to some country pretty
thunderin' fast too, when they shoalened their water so quick, from
twenty to fifteen faddom."
"Then fearing lest they should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four
anchors out of the stern, and wished for day."
"Four anchors out of the starn!" shouted the boatswain, "what the h--was
that for?"
"Why, you see," said the reader, "they used to bring up by the head or
starn in them days--it didn't make a ropeyarn's odds which--they didn't
know no better."
"But four anchors out of the starn," continued the man-of-war's man,
"why, d--it, the very first sea would onhung the rudder, if she was
pitching into it, and knock the whole thunderin' starn-frame into
_smithareens_ in a quarter less no time."
"Now you see," said one of the audience, "I've a notion that the craft
in them days was built with goose starns, like a Dutch galliot."
"May be," said another, "she had all her anchors stowed aft, to bring
her down by the starn."
"But four anchors out of the starn!" murmured the still perplexed Tom
Pipes, "I wonder what old Lord Howe, or Admiral Duncan, would have said,
if they'd heard a first leftenant give out such orders in a gale of
wind."
"Why, there couldn't have been no sailors aboard the hooker, or they
would have let go one anchor first, and if that didn't bring her up,
then another, and so on; but letting all four anchors go at once right
under foot, is what I call a d--d lubberly piece of business, let who
will do it, whether St. Paul or St. Devil, and I don't believe they
could get insurance on the craft in any insurance office in the United
States."
"Yes they could, and I'll tell you why; if a ship goes ashore with an
anchor on her bows, the owners can't recover no insurance; but if the
skipper will swear that all his anchors were down, and good cables
clinched to 'em, he can get his insurance."
"Yes, but there's a thunderin' sight of odds betwixt letting go your
anchors in a ship-shape, sea-man-like manner, and bundling 'em all
overboard at once in such a lubberly way as that you was readin' about."
The reading proceeded, leaving the law question respecting insurance
"open for discussion" at some more appropriate season. Much indignation
was expressed by the round-jacketed audience at the thirty-second
verse: "Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her
fall off." A vast deal of satire was expended upon "the thunderin'
troops," of all classes, periods, and nations, the whole clinched and
concluded by a remark from the boatswain:
"Aye, sojers, and pigs, and women, is always in the way, or else always
in mischief, aboard a ship, more 'specially in bad weather."
The reading afterwards progressed without much interruption, except at
the fortieth verse: "They--hoised up the mainsail to the wind, and made
toward shore," and then only to remark, "Aye, she was a schooner, or
else a morfredite brig, and they was goin' to beach her; she'd steered
better if they'd sot the foresail too."
The eleventh verse of the twenty-eighth chapter gave occasion for
question and explanation.
"And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had
wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux."
"Sign!" said Tom Pipes, "what does that mean?"
"Why, her figure-head, I s'pose," said the _questionee_.
"Yes, but, d--n my buttons, there's two on 'em."
"Well, I s'pose they fixed 'em as the Dutchmen does De Ruyter and Von
Tromp, put one on the knight-heads and t'other on the rudder-head."
"Ay, that indeed."
The reader went on to the fifteenth verse:
"And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as
far as Appii-forum, and The Three Taverns; whom when Paul saw, he
thanked God, and took courage."
"Took courage?" said old Tom; "I don't know who the d--l wouldn't take
courage with three taverns all in sight at once. I wouldn't wish a
better land-fall if I'd been cast away."
"That there Happy afore 'em must have been a jovious kind of a place,"
observed a seaman, "to judge by the name on't; and then them three
taverns so handy--a fellow might shake a foot, and have a comfortable
glass of somethin' whenever he took a notion."
All further reading and commentary was suddenly put a stop to, by one of
those occurrences that frequently take place at sea, and cause so much
bustle and hurry as is very apt to frighten passengers. The good ship
Albatross was neither thrown on her beam-ends by a sudden squall, for
squalls are not fashionable in the trade-winds, nor did she strike upon
a rock, for there was none sufficiently near the surface; but still, for
a few minutes every thing seemed to be uppermost, and nothing at hand,
like the contents of a lady's travelling trunk.
One of the crew, who had been for some time lying on his breast on the
weather cat-head, crooning over some interminable "love-song about
murder," suddenly surceased his singing, raised himself up, and cast an
eager and hurried glance ahead of the ship, shouted "Fish ho!" at the
very top of his lungs, sprang from the cat-head, and ran down the
fore-scuttle. In an instant all was commotion and hurry. Captain Williams
threw down his bible with most anti-christian and unorthodox
carelessness, and hurried to the forecastle, shouting, "A bottle of rum
for the first fish;" the premium always offered formerly, though I
believe it is getting out of date now, and not only the first fish, but
all the fish caught, are seized and confiscated "for the benefit of
those whom it may hereafter concern," namely, the "cabin gentry;" the
claims of the captors being waived, set aside, and overruled. The two
mates soon followed their commander, "armed and equipped," the one with
the graves, (a sort of harpoon for taking smaller fish,) and the other
with a large reel of fish-line and hooks, baited with salt pork--the
commentators on the two last chapters of Acts broke up their conference,
leaving St. Paul and the centurion in comfortable quarters at The Three
Taverns; their reader carefully stowing away his bible in the bows of
the long-boat before he joined the groups of fishermen on and about the
bows--the great dog Pomp, so named after the illustrious Roman, Pompey
the Great, and not after the allegorical personage to whom Will
Shakspeare so earnestly recommends physic, came galloping forward and
ascended the heel of the bowsprit, where he stood whining, and yelping,
and wagging his tail, exceedingly delighted with the animation and
excitement of the scene; and looking up, from time to time, in the faces
of those nearest him, with an expression that said, as plain as mere
expression can speak, "Why the plague don't you catch some of them?"
Even those two privileged idlers, the doctor and supercargo, made shift
to get on deck, yawning and stretching themselves.
In the mean time, one of the most active seamen, who was perched upon
the jib-boom end, fishing with a bait made of a piece of white duck cut
into a "swallow-tail," hauled up a huge albicore, whose struggles had
well nigh thrown him overboard; but a dozen pair of eager hands were
ready, the fish was safely deposited in a bag, and passed on board, and
the bottle of rum was secured to the legal claimant. The sprit-sail
yard, bowsprit, and cat-heads were crowded with fishermen, and in half
an hour there were nearly seventy fine, large fish flouncing and
fluttering their last on the forecastle of the Albatross.
The cooks at the galley, who had quietly prepared the usual Sunday
dinner, which, forty years since, was generally the same for cabin or
forecastle, namely, flour pudding, called at sea, "duff," and salt beef;
the cooks did by no means contemplate this addition to the ship's bill
of fare with complacency or delight. They foresaw that there would be
fried fish, and broiled fish, and boiled fish, and fish stews, and fish
chowders, and fish sea-pies; in short, there would be no end to the
cooking of fish, till the fish were all eat up. They were not long kept
in suspense on that subject. Mr. Walker, the second officer, approached
their smoky temple--
"Doctor, is the beef for the people in the coppers?"
"Yes, sar, I put 'em in at three bell."
"Well, take and out with it, and get your coppers ready to make a
chowder for all hands; and you, Peter, come down in the steerage with
me, and I'll give you some pepper and onions, and the rest of the
combustibles."
"Yes, Massa Walker, I come ereckly. Dam fish! I wish all fish in 'a
world dead; den 'spose 'a want fish, let 'em eat cod-fish and tatoe."
With this pious ejaculation, which he took care not to give utterance to
till Mr. Walker was out of hearing, he followed that officer down the
after hatchway, while his helpmate, grasping his tormentors, proceeded
to transfer the half-boiled "salt junk" from the coppers to a tub, and
make preparations for a dinner of a more savory and agreeable
description.
[Footnote 4: June 1st, 1794, Lord Howe's victory over the French fleet,
off Ushant.]
[Footnote 5: _Quasi_ raisins.--_Printer's Devil_.]
[Footnote 6: The sailor probably meant the Ionian _Archipelago_; they
generally mistake the word as it stands in the text.--_P. D._]