THE CALM-BELTS, AND THE TRADE-WINDS--THE ARRIVAL OF THE ALABAMA AT THE
ISLAND OF MARTINIQUE--THE CURIOSITY OF THE ISLANDERS TO SEE THE SHIP--A
QUASI MUTINY AMONG THE CREW, AND HOW IT WAS QUELLED.
We captured the _Wales_, as described in the last chapter, on the 8th of
November. On the 10th of the same month, we observed in latitude 25 deg.
We were approaching the calm-belt of Cancer. There are three of these
calm-belts on the surface of the earth, and the phenomena which they
present to the eye of the seaman are very beautiful. A ship coming out of
New York, for instance, and bound south, will first encounter the
calm-belt which the _Alabama_ is now approaching--that of Cancer. She will
lose the wind which has brought her to the "belt," and meet with light
airs, and calms, accompanied, frequently, by showers of rain. She will
probably be several days in passing through this region of the "doldrums,"
as the sailors expressively call it, continually bracing her yards, to
catch the "cats-paws" that come, now from one, and now from another point
of the compass; and making no more than twenty, or thirty miles per day.
As she draws near the southern edge of the belt, she will receive the
first light breathings of the north-east trade-wind. These will increase,
as she proceeds farther and farther south, and she will, ere long, find
herself with bellying canvas, in a settled "trade." She will now run with
this wind, blowing with wonderful steadiness and regularity, until she
begins to near the equator. The wind will now die away again, and the ship
will enter the second of these belts--that of equatorial calms. Wending
her way slowly and toilsomely through these, as she did through those of
Cancer, she will emerge next into the south-east trade-wind, which she
will probably find somewhat stronger than the north-east trade. This wind
will hurry her forward to the tropic of Capricorn, in the vicinity of
which she will find her third and last calm-belt.
These three calm-belts enclose, the reader will have observed, two systems
of trade-winds. To understand something of these winds, and the calms
which enclose them, a brief reference to the atmospheric machine in which
we "live, and breathe, and have our being" will be necessary. A
philosopher of the East has thus glowingly described some of the beauties
of this machine: "It is," says he, "a spherical shell, which surrounds our
planet, to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing
tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own superincumbent
mass. Its surface cannot be nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be
more remote than five hundred miles. It surrounds us on all sides, yet we
see it not; it presses on us with a load of fifteen pounds on every square
inch of surface of our bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us,
in all, and yet we do not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the
softest down--more impalpable than the finest gossamer--it leaves the
cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on
the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of nations on its wings
around the world, and crushes the most refractory substances with its
weight. When in motion, its force is sufficient to level the most stately
forests, and stable buildings with the earth--to raise the waters of the
ocean into ridges like mountains, and dash the strongest ship to pieces
like toys.
"It warms and cools, by turns, the earth, and the living creatures that
inhabit it. It draws up vapors from the sea and land, retains them
dissolved in itself, or suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them
down again, as rain or dew when they are required. It bends the rays of
the sun from their path, to give us the twilight of evening, and of dawn;
it disperses, and refracts their various tints, to beautify the approach
and the retreat of the orb of day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine would
burst on us, and fail us at once, and at once remove us from midnight
darkness to the blaze of noon. We should have no twilight to soften, and
beautify the landscape; no clouds to shade us from the scorching heat, but
the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its tanned and
weakened front to the full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day.
"It affords the gas which vivifies, and warms our frames, and receives
into itself that which has been polluted by use, and thrown off as
noxious. It feeds the flame of life, exactly as it does that of the fire.
It is in both cases consumed, and affords the food of consumption,--in
both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires it for
combustion, and is removed by it, when this is over."
The first law of nature may be said to be _vis inertiae_, and the
atmosphere thus beautifully described, following this law, would be
motionless, if there were not causes, outside of itself, to put it in
motion. The atmosphere in motion is _wind_, with which the sailor has so
much to do, and it behooves him to understand, not only the causes which
produce it, but the laws which control it. "Whence cometh the wind, and
whither goeth it?" It comes from heat, and as the sun is the father of
heat, he is the father of the winds. Let us suppose the earth, and
atmosphere both to be created, but not yet the sun. The atmosphere, being
of equal temperature throughout the earth, would be in equilibrium. It
could not move in any direction, and there would not be the slightest
breeze to fan the brow. Now let us suppose the sun to be called into
existence, and to begin to dart forth his rays. If he heated the earth,
and the atmosphere in all parts alike, whilst there would be a swelling of
the atmosphere into greater bulk, there would still be no motion which we
could call wind. But the earth being placed in an elliptical orbit, and
made to revolve around the sun, with its axis inclined to the plane in
which it revolves, now approaching, and now receding from the sun, and now
having the sun in one hemisphere, and now in another, the atmosphere is
not only heated differently, in different parts of the earth, but at
different seasons of the year; and thus the winds are engendered.
Let us imagine this heating process to be going on for the first time. How
we should be astonished? The atmosphere having hitherto had no motion, in
our experience, we should have conceived it as immovable as the hills,
and would be quite as much astonished to see it putting itself in motion,
as to see the hills running away from us. But in what direction is the
atmosphere now moving? Evidently from the north, and south poles toward
the equator, because we know that the intertropical portions of the earth
are more heated, than the extratropical portions.
Thus far, we have not given the earth any diurnal motion around its axis.
Let us give it this motion. It is revolving now from west to east, at the
rate of fifteen miles in a minute. If the atmosphere had been perfectly
still when this motion was given to the earth, as we have supposed it to
have been before the creation of the sun, the consequence would be a
breeze directly from the east, blowing with different degrees of strength,
as it was nearer to, or further from the equator. For it is obviously the
same thing whether the atmosphere stands still, and the earth revolves, or
whether the earth stands still, and the atmosphere moves. In either case
we have a wind.
[Illustration]
But the atmosphere was not still, when we gave the diurnal motion to the
earth. There was already a breeze blowing, as we have seen, from the
north, and south poles toward the equator. We have thus generated two
winds--a north wind and an east wind. But these two winds cannot blow in
the same place at the same time; and the result will be a wind compounded
of the two. Thus in the northern hemisphere we shall have a north-east
wind, and in the southern hemisphere we shall have a south east-wind.
These are the two trade-winds, enclosed by the three calm-belts which have
been described to the reader. The three arrows on the preceding page will
illustrate the manner in which the north-east trade-wind is formed by the
north wind and the east wind, which our theory puts in motion.
Why it is that the trade-winds do not extend all the way from the poles to
the equator, but take their rise in about the thirtieth parallel of
latitude, north and south, we do not know. The theory would seem to demand
that they should spring up at the poles, and blow continuously to the
equator; in which case we should have but two systems of winds covering
the entire surface of the earth. This non-conformity of the winds of the
extra-tropical regions to our theory, does not destroy it, however, but
brings into the meteorological problem other and beautiful features.
Having put the winds in motion, our next business is to follow them, and
see what "circuits" they travel. The quantity of atmosphere carried to the
equator by the north-east and south-east trade-winds, must find its way
back whence it came, in some mode or other; otherwise, we should soon have
all the atmosphere drawn away from the poles, and piled up at the equator.
We can easily conceive this, if we liken the atmosphere to fleeces of
wool, and suppose an invisible hand to be constantly drawing away the
fleeces from the poles, and piling them up at the equator. But how to get
it back is the difficulty. It cannot go back on the surface of the earth,
within the tropics, for there is a constant surface current here toward
the equator. There is but one other way, of course, in which it can go
back, and that is, as an upper current, running counter to the surface
current. We may assume, indeed, we _must_ assume, that there are two upper
currents of air, setting out from the equator, and travelling, one of them
to the 30th degree of north latitude, and the other to the 30th degree of
south latitude.
What becomes of these two upper currents, when they reach these parallels
of latitude, is not quite so certain; but there is good reason for
believing that they now descend, become surface currents, and continue
their journey on to the poles. It is further supposed that, when they
reach the poles, they "whirl about" them, ascend, become upper currents
again, and start back to the 30th parallel; and that, when they have
returned to this parallel, they descend, become a surface current
again--in other words, the trade-wind--and proceed to the equator as
before.
[Illustration]
But there is another, and more beautiful problem still, connected with
these winds. It is their crossing each other at the equator, of which the
proofs are so abundant, that there can be but little doubt concerning it.
And yet the proposition, looked at apart from the proofs, is a very
startling one. One would think that when the two winds met at the equator,
there would be a general intermingling, and confounding of particles, and
that when they ascended to form the upper currents, of which I have
spoken, the northern particle would be as likely to turn back to the
north, as to cross the equator and go south. The preceding figure will
illustrate the crossing. Let A represent the equator, the arrows near the
surface of the circle the two trade-winds, and the two cross arrows, two
particles of wind in the act of crossing. The difficulty is to conceive
how these particles should cross, without mixing with each other, and
losing their identity; or why they should not turn back, as well as
continue their course. What law of nature is it, that makes the particles
of atmosphere which have come from the north pole, so separate and
distinct from those which have come from the south pole, as to prevent the
two from fusing, and becoming one? Is it because the two particles, as
they have gyrated around their respective poles, have received a repulsive
polarity? Whatever may be the reason, there can be no doubt, as remarked,
that they do actually cross. One strong proof of their crossing is, that
we cannot conceive, otherwise, how the great atmospheric machine could
perform its office of distributing rain over the earth in due proportions.
The reader will recollect that there is from a fourth, to a third, more
land than water, in the northern hemisphere, and that there is from a
fourth to a third more water than land in the southern hemisphere. The
consequence of this unequal distribution of land and water in the two
hemispheres is, that the northern hemisphere requires more rain than the
southern, in the proportion in which it has more land to be rained upon.
Now it is these mysterious trade-winds, of which we have been speaking,
that are the water-carriers of the two hemispheres. These winds, on their
way to the equator, generally reach the 30th parallel as dry winds. These
dry winds, sweeping over the tropical seas, take up, in the shape of
vapor, the water with which, in due time, they are to fertilize the fields
of the farmer, and make the rose blossom. The quantity which they take up
is in proportion to the sea-surface, or evaporating surface, they have
respectively passed over. Now, if we will examine the jars of these
water-carriers, when they reach the equator, we shall find that the
northern jars are not nearly so full as the southern jars; the reason
being, that the northern winds have passed over less evaporating surface.
Now, if the two systems of winds, with their jars thus filled, were to
turn back to their respective hemispheres, and pour down upon them their
water, in the shape of rain, the consequence would be, as the reader sees,
that we should have less rain in the northern hemisphere, than they would
have in the southern hemisphere; whereas, we require more, having more
land to be watered. The atmospheric machine would thus be at fault. But
the all-wise and beneficent ruler of the universe, makes nothing faulty.
We know from the evidence of that silent witness, the rain-gauge, that
more water falls in the northern hemisphere, than in the southern; in
other words, that the more heavily laden of those jars which we examined,
a moment ago, at the equator, have come to us, instead of returning to the
south; the less heavily laden jars going south. The crossing of the winds
thus satisfies our theory, and nothing else can; which is, of course, the
most conclusive of all proofs.
But we have other proofs. For a number of years past, as the East India
ships would be returning home from their voyages, they would report a
curious phenomenon to have befallen them, as they passed the parallel of
the Cape de Verde. This was the falling, or rather silting down upon their
decks and rigging, of a brick-dust or cinnamon-colored powder. This dust,
which when rubbed between the thumb and forefinger would be impalpable,
would sometimes nearly cover the entire deck and rigging. The ships would
be hundreds of miles away from the land, and where could this dust come
from? The fact puzzled the philosophers, but having been reported so
often, it ceased to attract attention. Still it was a fact, and was laid
away carefully in the archives of philosophy for future use. Years passed
away, and the great traveller and philosopher, Humboldt, arose to instruct
and delight mankind. He travelled extensively in South America; and, among
other places, visited the lower valley of the Orinoco. He happened there
in the dry season, and gives a graphic account of the wild and weird
spectacle of desolation which met his eye in that season of universal
drought.
All annual vegetation lay dead and desiccated on the immense pampas or
plains. The earth was cracked open, gaping, as it were, for rain. The
wild cattle were roaming about in herds, bellowing for their accustomed
food and water; many of them perishing. Even the insect world, so numerous
and vivacious in all southern climates, had perished. Their tiny little
organisms lay in heaps, fast disintegrating, and being reduced to powder,
by the scorching and baking rays of a perpendicular sun, between which and
the parched earth, not so much as a speck of cloud appeared. The
philosopher examined a number of these little organisms with his
microscope. They were peculiar to the region in which he found them, and
he was struck with the fact. There was another phenomenon which he
observed. A number of little whirlwinds were playing their pranks about
the arid waste, sporting, as it were, with dead nature. These little
whirlwinds, as they travelled hither and thither, would draw up into their
vortices, and toss high into the upper air, the impalpable dust that lay
everywhere, and which was composed, in great measure, of the decomposed
and decomposing organisms of which I have spoken. The atmosphere, at
times, when filled with this dust, would assume a yellowish, or pale
straw-colored hue.
The reader probably, by this time, sees my design of connecting the dusty
remains, described by Humboldt, with the rain dust reported by the
mariners to have fallen on the decks and rigging of their ships, in the
neighborhood of the Cape de Verde islands. But the "rain-dust" was of
brick-dust, or cinnamon color, when collected by the masters of the ships,
as specimens, and the heavens, when filled with the dust thrown up by the
whirlwinds, as described by Humboldt, appeared to him to be of a straw
color. Here is a discrepancy to be reconciled, and we must call in the aid
of another philosopher, Captain M. F. Maury, late Superintendent of the
National Observatory, at Washington, before alluded to in these pages, and
to whom I am indebted for many of the facts here quoted. Captain Maury was
struck with this discrepancy, and in reconciling it with the theory here
discussed, makes the following statement: "In the search for spider lines,
for the diaphragms of my telescopes, I procured the finest, and best
threads from a cocoon of a mud-red color; but the threads of this cocoon,
as seen singly in the diaphragm, were of a golden color; there would
seem, therefore, no difficulty in reconciling the difference between the
colors of the rain-dust, when viewed in little piles by the microscopist,
and when seen attenuated and floating in the wind by the regular
traveller."
There remains but another link in the chain of evidence, to render it
complete. It remains to be shown how the whirlwind dust, of the valley of
the lower Orinoco, can be identified with the rain-dust of the Cape de
Verde. Ehrenberg, a German philosopher, has done this, in our day. Some
specimens of the rain-dust having been sent him by ship-captains, he
brought them under his microscope, as Humboldt had done the
whirlwind-dust, and to his great astonishment, and delight, he found it to
be the same. These facts correspond entirely with our theory of the
crossing of the trade-winds at the equator. The reader has been with us
near the mouth of the Orinoco. This great river disembogues near the
island of Trinidad, which we visited in the _Sumter_, in about the
latitude of 9 deg. N. The vernal equinox is the dry season here, and at
this season, the north-east trade-wind is quite fresh. Running counter to
this wind, in the upper atmosphere, there is, according to our theory, a
strong south-west wind blowing. Now, if the reader will inspect a map, he
will find that a south-west wind, starting from the mouth of the Orinoco,
will blow over the Cape de Verde islands. The rest is plain. The
whirlwind-dust is tossed high enough into the upper atmosphere, to be taken
in charge by the counter south-west wind, is carried to the Cape de Verde,
and there silted down upon the decks and rigging of the passing ships, as
gently as so many snow-flakes, becoming the rain-dust which so long puzzled
the philosophers!
We have reasoned, hitherto, on the supposition, that the three calm-belts,
one of which the _Alabama_ is now passing, and the two systems of
trade-winds which they enclose, are stationary within certain limits. But
this is not so; the whole system of belts and winds is moved north and
south, as the sun passes now into one hemisphere, and now into another.
The calm-belt of Cancer is not always in the latitude of 30 deg. N.; nor
is the calm-belt of the equator always at the equator. The reader will
recollect that we observed, on board the _Alabama_, on the 10th of
November, in latitude 25 deg. N., and that we were only just then entering
the calm-belt of Cancer. The reason is, that the sun, on that day, was in
the southern hemisphere, well advanced toward his extreme limit in that
hemisphere, and that he had dragged, as it were, the whole system of belts
and winds after him. The figures below will make this idea plain. Let the
broad, dark lines in the circles represent the system of belts and winds,
all in one; and in circle A let the sun be in the northern hemisphere, and
in circle B let him be in the southern.
[Illustration]
The reader will see, how the sun, having hitched this system of belts and
winds to his chariot wheels, as it were, has drawn it after him. The
distances north and south, to which they have been drawn, are exaggerated
in the figures, but this is only for the purpose of better illustration.
The reader will see, from this diagram, how much farther South the
_Alabama_ will have to run, in November, to catch the north-east
trade-wind, than she would have had to run in May. We may now return to
our ship, and our cruise, and when I shall mention the trade-winds and the
calm-belts, hereafter, the reader will not, I hope, regret the time I have
consumed in refreshing his memory on so interesting a subject. We spoke
several English vessels after burning the _Wales_, and a couple of them,
bound to Demerara, kept company with us through the calm-belt. We sent a
boat on board one of them, from New York, but she had neither news nor
newspapers. At length, when we had reached the parallel of about 20 deg.,
we began to receive the first gentle breathings of the trade-wind. Our
light sails aloft began first to "belly out," and then a topsail would fill
for a moment, until the ship rising on the gentle undulations of the sea,
and falling again, would flap the wind out of it. The zephyr--for, as yet,
it was nothing more--visibly gained strength, however, from hour to hour,
and on the 16th of November, I find the following record in my journal:
"Beautiful, clear weather, with a moderate trade-wind, from about east by
south, and the well-known fleecy trade-clouds sailing leisurely over our
heads."
It is Sunday, and muster-day, and the _Alabama_ has once more been put in
perfect order. She has had a coat of paint, inside and out, her masts have
been freshly scraped, and her rigging re-rattled, and tarred down. Her
guns are glistening in the new coat of "composition" which the gunner and
his mates have put upon them; her engine-room is all aglow with burnished
brass and steel; her decks are white and sweet, and her awnings are
spread. The muster is over, the men are lying listlessly about the decks,
and our lady passengers are comfortably seated on the quarter-deck, with
several of the young officers around them, and with the children playing
at their feet. Such was the contrast which the _Alabama_ presented, on
that quiet Sabbath day, with her former self only a few weeks back, when
we had been rolling and tumbling in the Gulf Stream, with crippled yards,
torn sails, and her now bright sides seamed and defaced with iron-rust
from her corroding chains.
We were soon ready to go into port--our first port since leaving Terceira.
Men and officers were all desirous of a little relaxation, and were pretty
soon on the look-out for land. On the next day, at two P. M., we made the
island of Dominica--the same Dominica that lay so fast asleep in the
gentle moonlight, on the night that the little _Sumter_ ran so close along
it, like a startled deer, after her escape from the _Iroquois_. We were
returning to our old cruising-ground, after an interval of just one year,
in a finer and faster ship, and we cared very little now about the
_Iroquois_, and vessels of her class. Having doubled the north-east end
of Dominica, during the night, at four o'clock, the next morning, we
lowered the propeller, put the ship under steam, and ran down for the
island of Martinique. We passed close enough to the harbor of St. Pierre,
where we had been so long blockaded, to look into it, and see that there
were no men-of-war of the enemy anchored there, and, continuing our
course, ran into the anchorage of Fort de France, and dropped our anchor
at about ten A. M.
Rear-Admiral Conde was still Governor, and I sent a lieutenant,
immediately, to call on him, and report our arrival. He received me
kindly, notwithstanding the little sharp-shooting that had passed between
us, in the way of official correspondence--and franked the ports of the
island to me as before. I had long since forgiven him, for the want of
independence and energy he had displayed, in not preventing the Yankee
skipper from making signals to the _Iroquois_ on the night of my escape,
as the said signals, as the reader has seen, had redounded to my benefit,
instead of Palmer's. In an hour or two, we had landed our prisoners; the
ladies and their husbands taking a very civil leave of us. In the course
of the afternoon, our decks were crowded with curious Frenchmen, come off
to look at the "pirate" ship, of which they had heard so much, through Mr.
Seward's interesting volumes of "English Composition," called "State
Papers," and the villification and abuse of the Northern press. They were
evidently a little puzzled at finding in the _Alabama_ a rather
stylish-looking ship of war, with polite young officers to receive them,
at the gangway, and show them round the ship, instead of the disorderly
privateer, or pirate, they had expected to find. I could see some of these
gentlemen eying me with curiosity, and with evident disappointment
depicted in their countenances, as my young officers would point me out to
them. They had come on board to see a Captain Kidd, or Blue Beard, at the
least, and had found only a common mortal, in no wise distinguished from
the officers by whom he was surrounded, except, perhaps, that his gray
coat was a little more faded, and his moustache a little more the color of
his coat.
The ship was surrounded with bum-boats, laden with fruits, and other
supplies for the sailors, and a brisk traffic was going on, alongside, and
in the port gangway, in pipes, and tobacco, orchata, and orange-water;
and, as we found as night began to set in, in something a little stronger.
We had no marine guard on board the _Alabama_, and there was,
consequently, no sentinel at the gangway in the daytime. We were
necessarily obliged to rely upon the master-at-arms, and the
quartermasters, for examining all boats that came alongside, to see that
no liquor was smuggled into the ship. These petty officers were old
sailors like the rest, and I have rarely seen a sailor who could be relied
upon, for any purpose of police, where his brother sailor was concerned.
Whilst I was below, a little after sunset, taking a cup of tea, and
enjoying some of the delicious fruit which Bartelli had provided for me, I
heard some confusion of voices, and a tramping of feet on the deck over my
head, and soon afterward, the first lieutenant came into my cabin to tell
me, that there was considerable disorder in the ship. I repaired on deck
immediately, and saw at a glance that the crew was almost in a state of
mutiny. It was evidently a drunken mutiny, however, and not very alarming.
An officer had gone forward to quell some disturbance on the forecastle,
when one of the sailors had thrown a belaying-pin at him, and others had
abused him, and threatened him with personal violence. Some of the men,
when directed to assist in seizing and confining their more disorderly
comrades, had refused; and as I reached the deck, there was a surly, and
sulky crowd of half-drunken sailors gathered near the foremast, using
mutinous language, and defying the authorities of the ship. I immediately
ordered the first lieutenant to "beat to quarters." The drum and fife were
gotten up, and such was the effect of previous discipline upon the crew,
that the moment they heard the well-known beat, and the shrill tones of
the fife, they "fell in," mechanically, at their guns--some of them so
drunk, that their efforts to appear sober were quite ludicrous.
This was what I had reckoned upon. At quarters, the officers always
appeared armed, as if they were going into battle. There were very few
arms about the deck, upon which the sailors could lay their hands--the
cutlasses and pistols being kept locked up, in the arms-chests. Of course,
I now had it all my own way--thirty armed officers being more than a
match for 110 men armed with nothing but sheath-knifes and belaying-pins.
I began now to quell the mutiny; or rather it was already quelled, and I
began to bring Jack back to his senses. In company with my first
lieutenant and aide-de-camp, I passed along the platoons of men as they
stood at their guns, and stopping wherever I observed a drunken man, I
ordered his comrades to arrest him. This was immediately done, without
demur in any instance, and the culprit was ironed. In this way I got as
many as twenty disorderly fellows. These drunken men, the moment the
attempt was made to arrest them, began to show fight, and to be abusive in
their language. They were, however, soon overpowered, and rendered
harmless. In this way I passed forward and aft, two or three times, eying
the men as I passed, to be certain that I had gotten hold of all the
rioters.
When I had done this, I directed the mutineers to be taken to the gangway,
and calling two or three of the most active of the quartermasters, I made
them provide themselves with draw-buckets, and commencing with the most
noisy and drunken of the culprits, I ordered them to dash buckets of water
over them in quick succession. The punishment was so evidently novel to
the recipients, that they were at first disposed to deride it. With
drunken gravity they would laugh and swear by turns, and tell the "bloody
quartermasters" to "come on with their water, _they_ were not afraid of
it." But I was quite sure of my remedy, for I had tried it before; and as
the drunken fellows would call for more water, in contempt and derision, I
gratified them, and caused bucketsful to be dashed on them with such
rapidity, that pretty soon they found it difficult to catch their breath,
in the intervals between the showers. The more they would struggle and
gasp for breath, the more rapidly the buckets would be emptied upon them.
The effect was almost electric. The maudlin fellows, somewhat sobered by
the repeated shocks of the cold water, began now to swear less
vociferously. In fact, they had no voice to swear with, for it was as much
as they could do, to breathe. They no longer "bloodied" the
quartermasters, or called for more water. Being reduced thus to silence,
and still the water descending upon them as rapidly as ever, with
half-sobered brain, and frames shivering with the cold, they would now
become seriously alarmed. Did the captain mean to drown them? Was this the
way he designed to punish them for mutiny, instead of hanging them at the
yard-arm? They now turned to me, and begged me, for God's sake, to spare
them. If I would only let them go this time, I should never have cause to
complain of them again. I held off a little while, as if inexorable to
their prayers and entreaties, the better to impress upon them the lesson I
was teaching them, and then ordered them to be released. When their irons
were taken off, they were sober enough to go below to their hammocks,
without another word, and "turn in" like good boys! It took me some time
to get through with this operation, for I had the delinquents--about a
dozen of the most noisy--soused one at a time. The officers and crew were
all this while--some two hours--standing at their guns, at quarters, and I
could, now and then, overhear quite an audible titter from some of the
sober men, as the drunken ones who were undergoing the shower-bath would
now defy my authority, and now beg for mercy. When, at last, I had
finished, I turned to my first lieutenant, and told him to "beat the
retreat."
And this was the way, reader, in which I quelled my first, and only mutiny
on board the _Alabama_. It became a saying afterward, among the sailors,
that "Old Beeswax was h--ll upon watering a fellow's grog."