With easterly winds we sailed away to the southward. In a fortnight the
sky became dull and gloomy--the rain fell, chill and cold--we tumbled
from our warm beds with a shock into the cold air, for we had been a
long time beneath the clear skies and warm suns of the tropics, and
rather magnified our hardships, in a thermometrical sense.
Still we were bound once more to the realms of civilization, which was
in itself consoling--we buttoned our jackets--declared it was fine
dumb-bell weather, and exercised those implements constantly. Doctor
Faustus, too, lighted his jovial lamp when the night closed around us,
and we blew the steam from a tumbler of _italia_ punch with much
thankfulness and gusto; and those of us who had watches, forthwith bent
our steps to the upper regions.
One cold November night, in a hard squall, whilst the topmen were
furling the lofty sails, two men were hurled from the main-top-gallant
yard, and falling through the lubber's hole of the top, were caught at
the junction of the futtock shrouds. One escaped with severe injuries,
but his unfortunate companion died in thirty minutes. He was a handsome,
active, young fellow, who made my acquaintance during the blockade of
Mazatlan, in old Jack's oyster-boat.
In speaking of the accident, the day after, to an old Swedish
quarter-gunner, called Borlan--"Vy, sir," said he, pulling aside his
huge whiskers and disclosing a broad, jagged seam, the whole length of
the face--"Vy, sir, see here! I vonce toombled vrom a brig's
mast-head--top-gallant yard and all--lying to in a gale of vind. Vell,
sir, I broke mine jaws and leg, but managed to get alongside again, and
was hauled on bort. Vell, sir--vat you dink?--the gott tarn skipper
vanted to lick me for not bringing der yard too!"
After making a latitude of 47 deg. South, the East winds departed, and
taking a gale from the opposite direction, we flew before it for eleven
days at ten miles the hour towards the Chilian coast. Oh! what a
"melancholy main" is this wide expanse of the Pacific! There is, may be,
in the feeling of being near continents or islands in less illimitable
seas, something a little pleasurable; but to be pursuing the same
wearisome, liquid track, for weeks and weeks, with nothing to relieve
the monotony of sky and water, is desolate, indeed!
In the long night-watches, when strong gusts of hail or rain were
whistling by our ears--the top-sails reefed down, though quivering and
struggling, like great birds with cramped pinions, to burst from the
stout cordage and fly away in flakes of snow--the gallant ship would,
like a mettled charger feeling the whip and spur, at times run lightly
and swiftly on the back of a mighty wave, almost as silently, too, as if
gliding on a lake--when, the instant after, heeling from side to side,
she would dash down impetuously amid the tumult of waters, cleaving a
wide road before her!
Mutter your last _ave_, Jack! if you leave the strong ship in nights
like these! Think of the keen-sighted albatross that will pick your eyes
out next morning, if the keener-scented shark has not already rasped
and grated your bones into white splinters within his merciless jaws!
Keep close under shelter of the solid bulwarks, Jack! Cling to your
life-lines! Feel a rope twice aloft before you swing your full weight
upon it! but hold on, Jack! Hold on!
Think of it, ye rich traders, when your big ships come gallantly into
port. Think of the hands that have strained and grasped upon those lofty
spars that now so motionless lift their taper heads, like needle-points,
to the sky. Think of the cold sleet and chilling rain--but above all,
think of poor Jack--take pity on his faults, and extend the helping hand
in his distress.
There was my old marine oracle, Harry Greenfield, muffled in his
pea-coat, braced firmly against the fife-rail, over the wheel, every now
and then slowly twisting his rosy face around the stern, taking a glance
through half-closed eyelids at the angry scud flying overhead, or during
a rapid succession of heavy lurches, when the high masts appeared to
describe three-fourths of a circle against the gloomy sky, he would
pleasantly hint to the briny forecastle-man who grasped the steering
spokes, or the old quartermaster at the compass, "Steady, old Tom
Scofield! Not so much, boys! Touch her lightly, Charley! don't you see
she's flying off?"--and again relapse within the folds of his
pea-jacket.
"Well, old gentleman, what are you pondering on?" "Why, Mr. Blank, I'm
thinking how pleasant it must be to have a menagerie on board ship in a
breeze like this; in case the animals should break loose, the tigers,
bears, hyenas, and the elephant, and the monkeys flying around the decks
in heaps, yelling, howling, and fighting together! Ah! it must be a fine
sight on a dark night, with a lantern up the main rigging. I never
sailed with any of them chaps, 'cept once--he was a royal Bengal
tiger--ah! I made a good bit of money out of him--he had a difficulty
with the cook--." Here the old salt went into a series of chuckles, and
I was forced to beg him to proceed. Emptying his mouth of the grateful
weed, and wringing the sleet from his weather-beaten beard, he
continued: "You remember Jim Hughes, Mr. Blank, the captain of the old
ship's foretop." I nodded. "Well, I fell in with Jim one day in
Greenock; he was just from Orleans, with a pouch full of cash, for he
had been there in the height of the cholera season, and bagged twenty
dollars a day for driving the dead cart." Here old Harry chuckled again.
"Well, sir, Jim was Scotch, and among his people, and very decent they
were; they treated me all the same for being his shipmate. Well, after a
time a brig was ready for sea; Jim was taken as second mate, and me as
bo'sun. We were bound to Calcutta; off Java Head the first mate kicked
the bucket, was tossed overboard, Jim was promoted, for he had larnin',
and I stepped into his shoes." Another chuckle. "We staid in Calcutta
five months, taking in rice, cotton, indigo, and other products of them
countries, when, just before sailing, there came on board the tiger, a
present for the King of England! A noble beast he was: a big strong iron
front cage was built for him abaft the mainmast, and he never once
stopped licking his white tusks, gaping, walking, and lashing his rope
of a tail, for weeks and weeks after leaving the river. We all began to
take a fancy to him, and I believe he did for us, 'cept the cook, who
was a Nubian nigger, and black all the way down his throat. I never see
such an intense darkey! His royal tigership never could bear the sight
of him, probably because he had been trepanned by some of the nigger
race; and whenever 'Lamp Black,' that was his name, came near, his eyes
kindled like live coals, and he growled from the bottom of his belly.
We often cautioned cookey to be careful, and so he was. Well, we touched
at Saint Helena, and right glad old Bengal was, no doubt, for we had got
short of chickens--the only delicacies he seemed to relish--and he
couldn't be coaxed to touch salt junk. A few days after, the Nubian was
handing him his breakfast, with the galley tormentors, a pair of tongs
like, through the small trap door on top of the cage, and, like a fool,
he just took one little peep, to see how tenderly the tiger could suck
the last drop of blood from a chicken's body, when, by one rapid blow of
his paw, he sunk his sinewy claws into the darkey's neck, tore the head
from the trunk, and in a second was crunching the reeking mass between
his grinders. He scoffed bones, wool, and flesh, and there lay the
remains of poor 'Lamp Black' quivering on the rod decks. After this
little difficulty, he became quite civil and civilized, and never caused
us more trouble. By and by, we arrived in London docks, and as they were
a good while preparing a birth for him in the Zoological gardens, Jim
and me exhibited him from a ha'penny to half-a-crown, to men, women, and
children. So you see, sir, we made nigh forty pounds a piece, and had a
capital spree, I tell ye." Old Harry nearly choked, and did not
thoroughly recover until his throat had been cleared with a glass of
grog.
Thirty-six days from Tahiti, and we arrived in Valparaiso. Remaining in
port nearly a month, the anchor was again weighed, and our prow again
turned seaward. Passing the Point of Angels, the burnished keel bravely
ploughed the open ocean, the blue waves following in snowy crests, and,
in a few minutes, shores, town and hills had faded from sight.