At two o’clock in the afternoon of October 11th we weighed our anchor,
and, with a fair wind, stood out to sea. Twenty-four hours afterwards
we sighted a school of sperm whales, consisting of cows and calves.
After some little manœuvering, we lowered away all four boats; but the
whales going to windward, the captain and mate, after an hour’s chase,
deemed farther pursuit useless, and returned aboard. The other boats,
however, continued the chase; and at about 5 P. M. the third mate’s
boatsteerer fastened, killing the whale with his irons. Whilst hauling
up to him, the line became entangled in the jaws of another whale,
and was severed. The third mate then lanced and killed three more;
but night coming on, and the weather becoming rugged, he was unable
to save any of them, and obliged to return to the ship empty-handed.
The mate, in the interim, had fastened to a cow, and killed her and
her calf, both of which were saved; but it was midnight before we had
them secured alongside. These two were the most diminutive whales it
has been our fortune to capture. The cow, which was the first female
of the species we have had alongside, was about thirty-five feet in
length, and of much inferior bulk to the male. Her skin was smoother,
glossier, and of a deeper color; and, taken altogether, she was a much
handsomer fish than the bull sperm-whale. The calf was about fifteen
feet long--lacking none of the peculiarities of the older fish, except
the teeth, which as yet were not cut; but on getting the jaw on deck we
penetrated the gum, and found perfectly-shaped teeth, about an inch and
a half in length. The following day we cut them in, and tried them out.
They yielded, altogether, a trifle over twenty barrels of oil.
After taking these whales, we ran several degrees to the eastward, and
spent a week in cruising, during which we saw whales three times--in
each case going to windward eyes out, without giving us the shadow of
a chance to lower for them. We retraced our course, and on the 23d
passed Mauritius. The following day we coasted along the Isle Reunion,
or Bourbon--an island under the dominion of France, and so beautifully
fertile as to be called the Garden of the Indian Ocean. From hence the
Mauritians obtain most of their agricultural supplies, and quite a
fleet of coasting vessels is employed in the carrying trade between the
two islands. Some idea may be formed of the amount of this trade when I
quote the remark of one of the citizens of Port Louis, that, “were it
not for the productions of Bourbon, all the inhabitants of Port Louis
would starve to death.” All the tillage and other laborious work on
this island is performed by the natives of Madagascar, introduced here
by the French, under the same apprentice-system as that practised by
Great Britain.
The island, like Mauritius, is composed principally of very high land,
some points being elevated many thousand feet above the level of the
sea. A volcano, for the name of which I am at a loss, towers far above
all. It being a moonlight night when we passed, we saw but little of
its eruption, which is continual--lighting up the surface of the ocean
for miles. This island has since been made the French Naval Depot for
the Indian Ocean.
There is no good harbor on this island, which, together with the fact
of there being no resident American consul, is the reason for the
rarity of whaleships visiting it.
The three islands, Bourbon, Mauritius, and Rodrique, were first taken
possession of by the French, and for many years were known as the
French East India Islands. During the wars between France and Great
Britain, Mauritius was the naval depot for the former power, from
which her cruisers were fitted out for the annoyance of the East
India commerce of the enemy; but during the time of Napoleon, (when
England’s operations were restricted to the ocean,) as an offset to the
conqueror’s successes on land, the wooden walls of Old England were
busily employed in making captures of the various colonial possessions
of France, both in the East and West Indies. Many of these, subsequent
to the negotiations for peace, were restored. But Mauritius was too
important a place to let slip, after being once occupied; wherefore a
British regiment became part of its population, and the meteor-flag
of England waved over its battlements. This group is often called the
Mascarenha Isles.
On Sunday (October the 31st) we spoke the ship Brewster, of
Mattapoissett. A few days before, she had a man killed by a sperm
whale: the officer in command of the boat having been foolhardy enough
to run on the fish whilst in his flurry, his amidship oar’s man was
instantly swept from time into eternity by a stroke of its flukes; but,
fortunately, no others of the crew were injured.
October the 25th we sighted the southern part of the Island of
Madagascar, which was to be our cruising-ground for the next two
months. It is anything but a comfortable latitude to make a prolonged
stay in; for, on an average, once every twenty-four hours, violent
rain-storms of from one to four hours’ duration thoroughly drench
the crew and vessel. These squalls are attended with any quantity of
thunder and lightning, which adds very much to the disagreeableness of
their visitations.
This ground is the point to which we endeavored to beat up three years
ago, with the intention of whaling, before visiting New Holland. It
bears a good reputation as to the presence of whales; but the fish are
noted for their fighting on being struck, so that it is no easy matter
to make a capture, after once striking. Whether we should have been any
the more successful had we visited and cruised on this ground in the
earlier portion of our voyage, deponent, from his ignorance, saith not.
I omitted to mention that on account of the extension of the term of
our voyage, meat had been purchased in Mauritius; also, ten barrels
and a half of colonial beef (of a very inferior quality) packed in
Melbourne, and thirteen barrels of American pork purchased from the
ship Robert Patton, of Boston: which, together with what we already had
aboard, was deemed amply sufficient for our consumption on the short
cruise off Madagascar, and during our passage home.
The time of our leaving for home was now set to be New Year’s Day,
1859. This period, so long and devoutly prayed for, we were assured
would not under any circumstances be again postponed, and we hoped that
it would not; for we had been out very long, and all were thoroughly
convinced that longer cruising for whales would be entirely useless.
To be plain; all wanted to get home. The whole ship’s company, too,
felt and expressed the opinion, that the voyage was unlucky, and they
wished to begin a new one, under better auspices. Our continual ill
fortune in not seeing whales, and having our boats stoven, had so
deeply engendered this feeling that a general lukewarmness prevailed,
which could only be dissipated by a notice from the masthead that sperm
whales were about, when indeed all would again become as eager as we
were at the commencement of the voyage.
There were now, of the thirty who sailed from home in the vessel, but
twenty-one remaining; yet even this is a much larger proportion of
the original crew than is usually carried home from a voyage of such
length as ours. The cabin had lost one of its members; the steerage was
intact--the same boatsteerers remaining as when we first set sail; and
of the foremast hands ten, besides the cook, remained: making twenty
one in all. We had now been so long together, that the withdrawal of
one of our number would produce a feeling like that caused by the
separation from a member of one’s own family; and it was not without
much regret that we thought on having parted with the two of our
original crew in Port Louis.
We continued off the Island of Madagascar up to November 27th, without
aught to mar, or rather improve, the general and almost uninterrupted
bad weather--thunder and lightning storms following each other with
scarce any intermission. During this time we occasionally saw a
whale-ship, and, if the weather permitted, failed not to while away a
part of this dreary period in gammoning. One day, whilst so engaged,
we learned that the chief mate of the ship Martha, of Fairhaven, had
lost his life in much the same manner as did the seaman belonging to
the Brewster. The mate was not seen to leave the boat, neither was any
other of the boat’s crew injured; but it appears that the boat had
been rashly carried into a perilous and unwarrantable situation by
the mate, and, in the bustle attendant to extricating the boat under
such circumstances, it is supposed that whilst the others were busy in
trimming boat and attending to the line, the whale, by a sweep of the
flukes, struck the officer so suddenly and so severely as to put it
out of his power to give an alarm, whereby to attract their attention.
Undoubtedly his death was instantaneous; but little exertion on the
part of the whale would be required to supply a sufficiency of force to
crush vitality from the frame of the strongest or proudest of the human
race.
This accident is attributed to carelessness, and, from my own
observation, I should say that at least two-thirds of the fatal
accidents that occur to whalemen, in pursuit of their prey, result from
gross carelessness or recklessness on the part of the boat-header.
Some years ago it was unusual to hear of a fatal accident to those
engaged in the pursuit of the whale. At that time the fish were plenty,
and boatheaders, as a class, were cool, sagacious, and experienced men,
who had been accustomed to and occupied in the whaling business for
years. These men would not risk their boat and crew to almost certain
destruction to strike a whale, or to be the first boat fast, or to
get a fatal lance before another boat arrived; but, working carefully
and securely, they bided the time until a fit opportunity presented
itself, and then, guided by their long experience, applied the lance
expeditiously and fatally. This race of whalemen has, however, been
supplanted by another of younger men, who were brought into the field
by the prolific grounds of the Arctic Ocean and Ochotsk Sea, inhabited
as they were by myriads of bowhead whales that had never been chased
or interfered with by whalemen; consequently, they had not learned
from the past to use all the expedients furnished them by nature to
avoid and combat against the wiles and stratagems of men. Hence,
little else was necessary to capture the bowhead but to have a boat
and crew, pull alongside the fish, dart the irons into him, and, ere
the bewildered creature had recovered from his astonishment, drive in
the lance and kill him; but now that the bowhead has grown more wary,
and to take him is a work of difficulty and danger, ships do not make
such remunerative voyages in their pursuit as formerly; therefore their
owners, instead of directing their vessels only to the Arctic and
Ochotsk, began again to turn their attention to the, for a few years,
comparatively neglected grounds of the Indian Ocean; but they do not
venture without many misgivings as to the probable success of their
vessels. A few ships are fitted out, they sail, and in the course of
a few years return with excellent cargoes--the whales, having enjoyed
somewhat of a respite, again resorted to their former haunts. All
is now hurry and bustle in New Bedford and the other whaling ports.
These voyages act as an incentive to further operations--mechanics are
incited, by liberal offers, to extreme exertion; and in a short time
the vessels are ready for sea. The north-west whalemen have also heard
of these voyages; they apply for berths, and the owner, or agent, in
making inquiry as to their qualifications, learns that he or they got
so many whales during the last voyage. In the absence of information,
the shipper, supposing that if the applicant can strike and kill one
description of whale, he will have no trouble in capturing the others,
engages him at a good price, which he commands on the strength of
his reputation. The ship sails; but when the north-wester gets into
the Indian Ocean, he finds many ships, but few whales, and those few
requiring different manipulation on his part, if he wishes to capture
them, than those with which he is better acquainted. He strives to
become familiar with their habits, but, unfortunately, the whales being
chased daily, and almost hourly, by some one or another of the various
vessels that occupy every nook and corner of the ocean where there is
any likelihood of seeing fish, afford him but few opportunities of
adding to his stock of experience; so that it is not until near the
close of the voyage that he becomes _au fait_ in the discharge of his
duties. By this time the golden opportunity has passed, and, but a few
months remaining, he strives to make up by rashness what he lacks in
skill, exposing himself and crew in situations against which his better
judgment, in cooler moments, would revolt; but this is a losing game,
as his crew, who, with equal opportunities and equal intelligence, well
know when a whale is approached in the proper manner, and, following
the precept that self-preservation is the first law of nature, hesitate
to pull anywhere and everywhere, without satisfying themselves that
they are right, which they would not if they had full confidence in
their officer. Hence, the want of a perfect understanding between the
boatheader and crew is another prolific source of accidents. To sum
up, every day increases the difficulties and dangers presented to
those whose calling is the pursuit of the whale: the fish are either
becoming much less numerous, or else they are retreating to the frozen
North or South, where the climate forbids man’s encroaching. They are
also becoming more wary, and it is only by the most careful management
that a boat can approach so as to strike them; they taking the alarm
at the least variation in the motions of the waves, and the slightest
noise being sufficient to alarm them. Formerly, if we are to believe
tradition, such was not the case; and certainly the following anecdote,
which, I engage, will be told for many years to come by men who will
attest to its perfect reliability, will, to some minds--though I must
confess they will be of small caliber if they give credence to it--go
to substantiate such a premise, to wit:
It formerly was the practice to provide each boat from a whale-ship
with a number of bricks. On lowering for, and approaching within a
respectable distance of the whale, the boatsteerer was directed to
heave one of these bricks at him. If he took no notice of the insult,
he was pronounced perfectly safe and tractable, the boat was then laid
on and the irons darted; but if, on the contrary, he used his flukes
or fins, and made the white water fly, the boat was pointed for the
ship; the fishermen being perfectly satisfied with the display of his
belligerent powers without a nearer approach, and very well contented
to await a more safe and favorable opportunity of increasing their
store of oil.
On the 27th of November we gammoned the ship Plover, of New Bedford;
her mate and his boat’s crew being on board our ship, and our captain
and a boat’s crew aboard of her. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, our
masthead’s man sung out for sperm whales. After a short observation our
mate lowered away, and in less than ten minutes fastened. Immediately
the Plover’s mate and our second mate dropped their boats, and several
boats from the Plover pulled for the scene of operations. After some
little difficulty, a second boat fastened. Our mate, going on to lance
the whale, had his boat crushed to pieces, the whale having turned
towards him suddenly and grasped the boat in his jaw, making it a wreck
in a moment; the crew were pitched head over heels into the water,
whilst the boat, being so much damaged, as to be useless, floated away
without being taken notice of. The crew were soon picked up, and in
other boats were trying to revenge their sense of injury on the whale.
The third mate of the Plover now essayed to lance the whale, but with
no better success, his boat being stove in the same manner. Our second
mate next tried and succeeded; the other boats, having encircled the
whale, diverted his attention, and we turned him up. The whales on the
Madagascar ground are notorious for their belligerent propensities,
and I have been assured by old habitues of the vicinity, that if a
boat-header escapes once in three times from having his boat stove,
more or less, he is either an admirable manager, or a wonderfully lucky
fellow.
The Plover is but five months from home, and her crew had previously
done no whaling--she having taken no oil; therefore it was amusing to
watch the woebegone and rueful countenances with which the boats’ crews
obeyed the order of their officers to pull up to the whale, whilst, on
the contrary, when ordered to pull in the opposite direction, their
faces would brighten up with an expression of heartfelt relief; and
then to look at our own fellows, inured to all the vicissitudes of
this adventurous pursuit, taking everything as coolly as if engaged in
the most ordinary occupation; making sport of hardships and a jest of
danger; eager as the most insatiate sportsman to be in at the death;
assisting their boat-sheader to the utmost, anticipating his orders,
and acting out all his requirements; so that boat, officer, and crew,
seemed to be a nicely constructed machine, working by a secret spring
actuating the muscles of each of its occupants with the self-same
power. Even when their boat was stoven they had a jest to crack at
the greenhorns. Poor fellows, they were much more entitled to our
commiseration than derision; we have been through the mill, and have
seen and suffered, whilst they, unless circumstances should very much
favor them, are doomed to a three years’ stay in the Indian Ocean,
where, if “forthcoming events cast their shadows before,” they are
fated to discover that their one stoven boat is but a foretaste of what
they will experience in that line before their time is up.
Before we saw the whale we observed a ship some five miles to windward,
with her boats down, and another about the same distance to windward of
her, manœuvering as if for whales. We subsequently ascertained that,
between noon and the time we struck, five vessels had attempted to
capture this whale. All these vessels being in a direct line with our
own ship, the whale following a straight course and going to windward,
they gave up the chase as useless. We only succeeded by dropping our
boat when he was a short distance to leeward, and at a time when the
sun’s rays favored a near approach to him. He was a noble fellow, and
well worthy the trouble we had with him.
After turning the whale up, we took him alongside our ship. When ships’
boats in company take a whale, it is customary, either to give one
party the head and the body to the other, or else to release the ship
whose boat fastened first from all further trouble with the prize:
her companion taking the whale alongside, cutting him in, trying him
out, and then either stowing down, or rafting half the oil to her
companion. In case she stows it down, one-half of the barrels are
branded with the other vessel’s name, and credited to her account.
In the present case, Captain Perkins of the Plover wishing to make
through us a consignment to the owners, we took the whale, and a
boat’s crew of his assisted us to cut in. After trying out, one-half
the oil, amounting to forty-six barrels, was stowed between decks
in casks brought from his ship for the purpose and duly branded. We
engaged to carry it home as freight, charging six cents per gallon for
the carriage. We had also twelve hundred pounds of right whalebone on
freight, from the ship Martha, of Fairhaven. This freight-business pays
no one but the owners, and perhaps the captain: the proportion of it
that any one else gets being so small as to make it a trifling object.
On the same day that we stowed, we gammoned the barque Iowa, of
Fairhaven. She had been very successful, having filled up with
humpbacked oil at the Rosemary Islands. She was but a short time
from Mauritius, and brought us the sad news of the demise of John
Cunningham, of New Bedford, whom we had left at the hospital in
Mauritius. The cause of his death was to some degree enveloped in
mystery. It appears that on the day previous to his decease he applied
to the resident physician of the hospital for a discharge, stating as
his reason for it the many deaths that were daily occurring in the
same ward in which he was (the dysentery having assumed a fatal type
just after our leaving the port). The physician told him that he was
loath to discharge him as yet, for his stricture was not entirely
removed; but, after some urging on Cunningham’s part, the doctor
directed him to apply on the following day, and he would make out his
discharge. The morning following his attendants found him dead in
his bed, without an external sign to show why the spirit had fled.
The physicians, at a loss to account for so sudden and unexpected a
termination, held a post-mortem examination upon his body, and finding
all the organs free from disease, they gave in as their opinion that
he had died from fright. Poor fellow!--his health aboard ship had been
almost uninterruptedly good, and he bade fair to live as long as any
of us. But Providence, for His own wise purposes, saw fit to call him
away from life to (I trust) a better and happier sphere; and although
in this world he will no more hear the storm whistling through the
rigging, or the sudden boom of the tempest-tossed ocean, yet I hope
that he
“Shall find pleasant weather,
When He who all commands
Shall give, to call Life’s crew together,
The word to pipe all hands.”
This young man was the eldest son of a widow in New Bedford. His father
was for years engaged in whaling, and some eight years since, whilst
master of the ship Florida, was drowned in the surf, off the Island of
Rorotongu, in the Pacific Ocean; and now his poor relict is called upon
to weep over the untimely end of her eldest boy, in a foreign hospital,
unattended by a single friend to soothe his dying-pillow. He whom she
looked upon as the stay of her declining years, like her husband,
engaged in the same perilous pursuit, and died thousands of miles from
home, under painfully afflicting circumstances.
He was the third who has been called away out of our bonnie crew, who
in July, 1855, sailed from New Bedford full of life and hope: all at
that date feeling assured of returning with a well laden ship and
full crew--with stores of curiosities, gleaned from foreign ports, as
keepsakes for the loved ones at home: all were sanguine, and certainly
expected to make a good voyage and return by July, 1858.
But “man purposes--God disposes;” as a proof of which, let us review
our relative positions now, and then. One of our men was discharged,
sick, in King George’s Sound; from thence he went to Melbourne, since
which we have heard of his death. Our second mate was discharged at
Vasse, went home as mate of the barque Pamelia, and is now, I hope, in
the full enjoyment of every blessing, surrounded by an affectionate
family. Three of our original number deserted, and through the example
and influence of evil-minded associates, allowed themselves to be made
parties to the origination of a false report, according to which our
vessel had foundered on a tempestuous night, and the greater number of
the crew set afloat in open boats off the inhospitable coast of New
Zealand. Poor John Walters has gone to his long home! the blue waves of
the South Pacific having closed over him whilst in the discharge of his
duty. We learn from the Iowa’s report, that another one of our original
crew, whom we discharged at Port Louis, has shipped aboard the barque
Agnes, of New York, bound to Batavia for a cargo, thence homeward.
And, lastly, Cunningham too is gone! Whilst we, who are left, have
been forty months from home, and are still battling with the ocean’s
elements--alas! in pocket, poor indeed, and hopefully longing for home.
We also learned from the Iowa, that the New Yorker, whom we left at
Port Louis, had been discharged from the Hospital, perfectly recovered;
and that he, together with an Irishman, also discharged there by us,
had solicited and obtained employment in the police-force of that port.
The rest of those whom we left at Port Louis, never having done
anything to entitle them to remembrance, we neither know nor care what
has become of them, with the exception of our late fourth mate, who
deserves mention singly on account of his utter uselessness. From the
same source, we learn that he shipped, and left Mauritius in the barque
Eagle, as boatsteerer. In this new position he will, no doubt, act with
about as much credit to himself, and receive as unenviable a name and
reputation, as he did among us.
A few days subsequent to the above date we saw and gammoned the
barque Coimbra. She had sailed from Mauritius a few days after our
leaving; but, owing to the sickness of her captain, was forced to
return, and remain ten additional days. The captain of this vessel,
quite an original, hailed from New Brunswick, and was a veritable Blue
Nose--long, lank, and parsimonious. He has had during the voyage three
different crews, who for some reason or other left him after a cruise
or two. Early in the voyage a veto was put by the authorities of Vasse
upon his entering any port on the coast of New Holland, owing to his
having carried a prisoner away in his vessel. This prisoner, who was
a thief, doing a good business at Freemantle, report says, paid one
thousand dollars for the accommodation. The captain of the Columbus had
little or no trouble with him--merely carrying him outside, and then
transferring him to a merchant-ship. Being debarred from entering these
ports, where the cost of recruiting ships is comparatively trifling,
and having kept his crew out of port as long as a wholesome dread of
the scurvy would allow, he, with an eye to economy, made the following
address to his men, to wit: “Boys, I would like to go into a good port,
where we could all enjoy ourselves. Such a port is Hobartown; but the
limits set to my expenses by my owners will not allow of my indulging
in such an outlay as lying with the ship in that harbor would occasion;
but, if you by subscription pay a certain sum apiece out of your
earnings, I will go there.” Several of the ship’s company assenting, a
document was drawn up, and most of them attached their names: agreeing
to contribute towards the port-expenses sums varying in amount from
two to twenty dollars. One of the foremast hands demurring to this
arrangement, the old fellow told him that he would get it out of him
some way or other; and so he did, by persisting in tormenting him until
his victim was glad to pay the two dollars, and thereby gain somewhat
of an exemption from further bad treatment.
This is not a solitary case of such sharp business-operations. A
certain captain once boasted aboard our barque, that by his finesse
in settling with those whom he discharged in Hobartown he had made the
clear sum of two thousand dollars for his owners; in other words, that
by misrepresenting the quantity of oil taken, he had cheated his crew
out of so much money. A most creditable boast! Of a piece with such
conduct was also his mode of serving out meat. A barrel was broken out,
brought on deck, and divided into so many portions as were equivalent
to his idea of a day’s allowance (which was about one-third of that
prescribed by law). It was then tied together, and strung up on deck;
whence if a remnant of it disappeared, it was charged to the steward
and cook.
We saw the vessel under the last-mentioned individual’s command on the
first day of December. She was then bound home, and had but ten barrels
of meat aboard for the consumption of the crew during the passage,
which, as she had been out about four years, will consume at least
ninety days. This quantity of meat would last us with the same number
in the ship’s company as she has, but thirty days. For such conduct
this man could not plead non-success, as he had on board one of the
best cargoes on the ocean--his quantity of oil being no less than two
thousand barrels, of which sixteen hundred contained sperm oil.
On learning that the Coimbra was bound direct for home, several of us
put letters aboard of her, and as she kept off and receded from our
sight we naturally wished that we were pursuing a course in the same
direction, and were agreeably astonished the next morning (December
5th) to find our captain keep off to the southward, and learned that
we were bound round the Cape. In the afternoon we saw the Coimbra,
overhauled and passed her; our studding-sails giving us a great
advantage over her when the wind is free. The following day, in order
to compete with us, she made and bent studding-sails; but this was as
far as she could go, and we were still to windward of her, as we had
made and bent mizzen, maintopmast, and maintopgallant staysails, which
gave us a slight advantage.
On account of the length of time, and the chafing of whales alongside
and under the ship, the copper was in a desperate condition. Looking
at her bottom, when the sea was calm and clear, nothing could be seen
but an irregular bunch of vegetable matter; looking, from her waterways
to the kelson, as much like a collection of old rags, as anything else
that I could compare it to, whilst in many places whole sheets of
copper were gone, and in others it was rolled up in scrolls. I hooked
up a piece, and, on examination, found it of an almost transparent
thinness. All these inequalities in the surface of the bottom naturally
tended to retard the speed; and, consequently, when whalers start for
home, they strive to make amends for all deficiencies by a greater
spread of canvass, and venture to carry it longer than any other class
of vessels afloat, relying on the number and skill of their men to
prevent disaster in time of emergency.
We kept on with a light fair wind to the southward and eastward for
some days, and, from the agreeableness of the weather, augured a
pleasant passage around; but when opposite Cape l’Agulhas the wind
hauled ahead, and we had it first light and clear, then strong and
cloudy, with showers of rain and thick fog. For the benefit of those
who imagine that sailors have but little to do when afloat, I will
copy from my log-book the proceedings of several days (whilst in this
baffling weather), _verbatim et literatum_.
_December 16th._--This day opens with a strong breeze from the
eastward, cloudy. At midnight running before it, with maintopgallant
sail, fore, and foretopmast studding sails set. At 1 o’clock A. M.
the breeze increasing to a gale, we took in the studding-sails and
topgallantsail; at three, double-reefed the topsails; at 6 A. M. the
wind hauling forward, loosed and set the mainsail; at 8, were obliged
to furl it; at 9, shook a reef out of each topsail, and set jib,
spanker, and mainsail; at 11, the wind hauled to the S. S. W., clewed
down the topsails and close-reefed them--thus remained for the balance
of the day.
_December 17th._--At 1 A. M. shook a reef out of each topsail; at 4¹⁄₂,
struck by a squall that hove her down rail to, hauled up the courses,
kept the ship off to haul down the jib, which was done, and furled the
sail; then furled the spanker, luffed to, close-reefed the topsails
and furled the mainsail amid torrents of rain; at 3 P. M. furled the
foretopsail; at 6 P. M., after having shipped a sea that filled it
full, took in the bowboat; at 6¹⁄₂, furled the foresail; at 7, clewed
down the maintopsail, shook out the reefs and reefed it over; at 7¹⁄₂,
loosed the foretopsail, shook out the reefs, reefed it over, sheeted it
home and set it.
_December 18th._--At 1¹⁄₂ A. M., furled foretopsail; at 4, set
close-reefed foretopsail and foresail; at 7, made all sail; at 3 P. M.,
furled the light sails, and double-reefed the foretopsail; at 7 P. M.,
shook the reefs out, and set the flying-jib and maintopgallantsail; at
10, furled the light sails and double-reefed the fore topsail, and at
midnight double-reefed the maintopsail.
Here was work enough for three days, and hard work, as any one may
discover, who doubts the fact, by, like me, participating in it; but
handling, reefing, and steering, are by no means all the employments
of the seamen when afloat. Everything being kept taut, the strain on
the rigging, in heavy weather, is tremendous, so that some little thing
or other always needs repair; and in fine weather the sailor is sent
with his marlinespike, slush, and tar-bucket, into the rigging, where
he not unusually stays a whole watch, busily employed in putting a
seizing here, or seizing on a ratline there, repairing the service, or
other chafing gear. These, with other duties of a like description,
keep a merchantman’s crew continually on the move; but where there are
so many, as with us, the labors are performed without making the task
irksome to any.
Wishing, in doubling the Cape, to near the land, so as to take
advantage of the westerly current (which here is said to run with a
speed of four knots hourly), we done all we could to hang on; but the
wind forbade us arriving at this desired position; and as we drifted
considerably to the southward, we were two degrees from Table Mountain
on the 21st, when, with a fair wind and plenty of it, a clear sky and
smooth sea, without let or hindrance, we passed into the blue waters
of the Atlantic Ocean; just three years, two months, and eleven days
from the time we passed from it into the Indian Ocean, with a prospect
of three years whaling before us; all buoyant with hope, and not a
doubt entering the thoughts of any that, by the time we were thus far
on our return passage, we should be full of oil. But it is needless to
say that such is far from being the case.
It cannot be supposed that we left the Indian Ocean, whose broad bosom
was our home for so many months, with any regret. Indeed, there was
little to endear it to the remembrance of any one who ever experienced
its changeable and heavy weather, and who has been obliged to visit its
miserable ports. We have had a pretty thorough acquaintance with it,
having navigated its entire length, and cruised, day after day, in its
waters, from latitude 8° to 42° south.
After entering the Atlantic Ocean we steered to the northward and
westward, until we arrived in latitude 32° south, longitude 7° east.
This locality is known as the Carroll ground, and is a favorite resort
of the South Atlantic whalemen. Here, as we had good weather, but
saw no whales, all hands were occupied in repairing and renewing the
rigging, to get the ship in order for a return home. It is a great
point of honor among seamen to return their rigging in as good, if not
better order than when they received it, with a view to commendation
from their owners; consequently the lower rigging was turned in anew,
particular care being taken to have everything as nice as possible:
blocks must be new-strapped, and neatly covered with canvas; all
service that looked in the least chafed, or white, must be removed;
the yards stripped and rigging-fitted; the ratlines taken off the
mizzen topmast and foretopgallant rigging; the rigging fore and aft,
alow and aloft, must be rattled down, and a coat of tar then applied to
all the hemp material; the paint-work, inside and out, from the copper
to the trucks must be renewed, and the spars scraped: then we will
be ready for home. All this must be done before the 27th of January,
at which time we are to leave the whaling-ground; so that we will
have nothing to occupy us after that date, except to make as speedy a
passage as possible to New Bedford.
On the Carroll ground we entered upon the New Year. On the 4th of
January we gammoned the ship Messenger, of New Bedford. She left the
Madagascar ground four days after us, and had been boxing off the
Cape for twenty-one days; so that we esteemed ourselves fortunate in
having escaped such miserable weather with no further detention than
we experienced. Her crew were affected by a peculiar malady, which
somewhat resembled moon-blindness: more or less of them had been
affected with it during the whole voyage; and at the present time there
were eight men in her forecastle who could not see each other after
dark, but whose vision during the day was perfectly good and clear.
One of them whilst aboard of our vessel complained of pain across the
temples in the daytime. He was the only one of those afflicted who
expressed a sense of pain or inconvenience, apart from loss of sight.
I have seen individual cases before, but never in such numbers aboard
a single ship. Their captain attributed it to moon-blindness; but
these men positively assured me that they had not slept with their
faces exposed to the moon’s rays. Again, it disappeared on their near
approach to land; and at one time they were completely relieved of it
by the use of Irish potatoes. The men themselves attributed the malady
either to the tarræ root, of which they had consumed a large quantity
on the voyage, or else to their water, which, as they stated, had been
for a long time brackish and unwholesome. I am inclined to think that
it originated from the bilge-water; for a similar case from this cause
came under my notice some years since.
Whilst amongst the Abrolhas’, I was called upon by the captain of
the Europa to administer to a Portuguese, whose eyes were affected
by sleeping in the moon’s rays. I bled him, and applied blisters to
the temples. This treatment produced almost instantaneous relief. I
informed the Messenger’s people of this; but their captain was one of
the old school, who believing that all the ailments mankind are heir to
can be cured by salts, would employ no other remedy; and, whether the
disease was a cold, a fever from a broken or dislocated member, or what
not, his prescription was a full dose of it, whereof he constantly kept
a large quantity on hand, of the denomination known as Glauber salts,
used ashore for horses.
On the 16th we gammoned with the ship Mary, of New Bedford. Her
captain requested me to go aboard of her, and administer to her
cooper, who had for a long time been very sick. In compliance with his
request I did so. In her steerage I found the wreck of an unusually
symmetrically-formed man, suffering from an affection of the liver.
I did what I could for him; but then, as the boat would not return
to our ship for several hours, I began to fear that the time would
pass tediously. My apprehension, however, was speedily banished by
the attention I found myself compelled to give to the yarns of my
patient, who, like all old seamen, was garrulous; and, as I was a
good listener, (of which I pride myself,) he was soon rehearsing his
manifold adventures from his youth upwards, embracing forty-five years
of sea life. He told me, that during this time he had served in every
situation aboard a whaler, from cabin-boy to master; and he mentioned
some half-a-dozen well-known whaling captains who had served their
novitiate in his boat. He stated, that during the South American
revolutions he had been privateering, and was for many years in both
the naval and merchant service. He had visited almost every country
of the globe to which commerce directs her conveyances: at times (to
use his own expression) flush, with plenty of money; at others, alone,
without a change of clothing, amongst semi-civilized nations. He was
a grandfather; and stated, that his first wife, with whom he had
lived for many years, had taken umbrage at his assuming the sailor’s
privilege of having a wife in every port, and left him. After the
legal forms had been gone through with, she consoled herself by taking
another spouse.
Her husband, not to be a whit behind her, took his ship home again,
sailed to the island of New Zealand, and in Mungunui married an
English girl, twenty years his junior. He then engaged in the English
whaling-service, wherein he accumulated considerable money, and after
the lapse of a few years returned to the States, taking his wife
and their two children with him. At home, he for some years rested;
but the continual yearning for the sea experienced by all who have
once been afloat, and not been disgusted with life thereon, induced
him, in his old age, to ship as cooper of the Mary. No sooner was he
afloat, however, than on exerting himself he found that his was not
now a system such as that which had carried him through so many years
of hardship and exposure. Fast living and imprudence had done their
work, and his constitution was gone. The bracing sea-air, instead of
invigorating, depressed and weakened him. Dispirited, he was at last
laid up, like a worn-out hulk, without power or will to be engaged in
aught but the most puerile employments. During his stay aboard the Mary
(rather over two years) he had not heard from home; and, being very
ingenious, he had, to occupy his mind and drive away heart-sickness,
employed himself by scrimschawing, and had completed a store of unique
and carefully-fabricated articles of various descriptions, from woods
he procured in the different ports he had visited, or from ivory and
bone.
The boat being now ready to return, I left the narrator, and went
aboard our own ship. I informed the captain that he must send him
into the nearest port, (St. Helena,) where he might procure rest and
good medical treatment. This he thought inexpedient; but, by dint of
pressing, I convinced him of the absolute necessity of such a course.
After carrying my point, I had the curiosity to ask him about the
cooper’s antecedents; because I had not given full credence to all
his story, inasmuch as old sailors are so famous for drawing a long
bow. The captain gave me a rehearsal of his past life, which fully
substantiated all that he had said of himself; and, after he had
finished it, I left him, with the conviction that I had seen the most
practical illustration possible of a career at sea, where Christianity
or morality had not held the helm. Here was a man, who had made
much more than a competency during life, and who had walked his own
quarter-deck, after having gained his position by his own unaided
personal exertion, reduced at the end of a life-time of battling
with the elements to a subordinate station--sick, debilitated, and
uncared-for--aged, weak, and careworn--far away from home, without
the fostering attentions of a wife or children to render the couch of
sickness other than a bed of thorns; and this lamentable situation
brought on, not by the villany or mismanagement of others, but,
according to his own confession, by his individual imprudence.
The Mary, like the Messenger, had on board some half-a-dozen persons
whose eyes were affected mysteriously. She was down by the head, and
had (as was also the case with the Messenger) been so trimmed on
the whole voyage, which trim facilitates the collection of putrid
water in the forward part of the ship’s hold; hence, by taking into
consideration these singular coincidents of the vessels, together
with the fact that no one who lived abaft the mainmast had been so
affected in either, the disease may, I think, be safely attributed to
bilge-water.
After gammoning with the Mary, we ran close in to the African
coast, and fell in with several Atlantic whaling-vessels. These
crafts are usually small, and carry but two or three boats. By the
class who go farther from home, they are facetiously denominated
Plumpuddingers. The length of the voyage ranges from six to thirty
months. From the specimens of these cruisers, I should say, that there
is little difference in their arrangements and those of the whalemen
of the Indian and Pacific oceans. One characteristic was, however,
distinctive; that is, the greater proportion of foreigners before
the mast. In one vessel (the Cornelia of Edgartown) there was not a
single individual of American birth in her forecastle; and on board the
Keoka, of Westport, there was a large proportion of dark skins from
the islands of the North Pacific. Their voyages are shorter, their
crews generally fare better than those of the larger ships, and, as was
my impression up to the time we fell in with them, they made better
ports--but this, upon inquiry, I found to be a mistaken idea; for those
on board the Keoka stated that they had not been into a port where
English was spoken during the whole time (some eighteen months) they
were from home; and, furthermore, that they had only visited Walfisch
Bay, a Portuguese settlement on the coast.
These vessels averaged about the same amount of oil, considering their
time out, as other ships of their profession in the Indian Ocean.
Their crews were, also, just as much discontented with whaling, and as
anxious to get home, as we were. In unqualified terms they expressed
their envy of us lucky fellows, as they termed us, who they supposed
would in a few months be in New Bedford. Our diminutive cargo did not
seem to act as a damper upon their wishes. They said that they did
not care, when it came to the question of getting home, whether they
had anything coming to them, or not. Neither did the prospect of cold
weather appal them; for one enthusiastic fellow assured me, that he was
willing to be landed on a snow-bank, in a costume but little preferable
to a straw-hat without trimming, for the sake of being delivered from
the monotonous life he was now leading.
After leaving these vessels, we squared our yards, and rolled before
the delightful southeast trades (the elysium of the seafaring-man)
towards St. Helena, taking it very easy--only sending aloft the
studding-sails on the foremast and foretopmasts, and at night jogging
along under easy sail in that direction: it being our intention to make
a short stay at that rock-bound isle for letters, and then to crack on
everything for home.
On arriving within a few degrees of the world-renowned prison-rock
of the great Conqueror, sail was reduced, and the ship luffed to the
wind. The moon being on the change, our captain, anxious to get one
more sperm whale, determined to let no means within his power remain
unemployed for that purpose.
This halt in our homeward course was not received with a very good
grace. Except the captain, everybody else aboard our vessel had
calculated upon a direct passage homeward. But this was in perfect
keeping with his conduct throughout the voyage: at one time assuring
us that we would be bound homeward on a certain date, and inducing us
to write to that effect by his representations, in which at the time
of making them he was perhaps sincere. But he suffered his opinions
to be changed by the slightest cause. If he gammoned with a ship, he
found in her skipper an adviser, who recommended to him a prolific
whaling-ground--one on which, he was told, he could not fail to take
five hundred barrels of oil, probably, even altogether fill up. These
golden visions he received and credited, (although I cannot but
think that it was against his better judgment--for, certainly, if a
vacillating, he was not a stupid man,) and away he would go to the
promised El Dorado. Thus he exhausted his own as well as the patience
of every one else by a fruitless search for sperm whales that had been
long ago captured!
Where we were now stopping was the ground on which the barque Monmouth,
two years since, captured two hundred barrels of oil; and hence our
captain imagined that we would be likely to do the same; but in this
there was about as much probability of any success and remuneration at
all commensurate to the time and trouble expended, as the Kidd treasure
seekers have received for their laborious and chimerical search.
Under such phases of affairs, I have written some half-dozen different
times, stating to those whom I addressed that I would certainly be home
at the periods that had been severally and distinctly determined on.
Some of these letters bore the date of August, 1858; and I do not know
but that those who received them may have set down such disparities
to wilful misrepresentations, or a sickening anxiety on my part to
get home, leading me to believe in an early return, because it was
so much the more desirable, and in accordance with my hourly wishes.
But such, I can safely say, was not the case; for even now, at the
present writing, (January 31st, 1859,) I cannot, neither can any
other in the ship except the captain--all assurances to the contrary
notwithstanding--set a time, which they can firmly believe themselves
will be that at which we shall really start for home. So, I must be
absolved from the charge of writing at random; and the blame must rest,
where it should: upon the captain’s wavering, and his being so easily
influenced by others.