These things do not occur in all vessels, but even yet they occur so
frequently that an English sailor would, as a general rule, rather sail
with the devil himself than an American skipper. What the state of
affairs was some twenty or thirty years ago one can hardly imagine, but
it certainly was much worse then. Shanghai-ing is not so much practised.
There is a story current among seamen, though I know not how true it is,
that it was checked owing to the lieutenant of an English man-of-war
being drugged and carried on board an American merchant-man. However,
there is now, or was but lately, a boarding-house keeper in San
Francisco whose Christian or first name had been abolished in favour of
"Shanghai." I had the very doubtful honour of knowing him, and could
easily believe any stories told of his chicanery and treachery to
sailormen.
TRAMPS
The poor tramp is a much-abused person, and I have no doubt that he
often deserves what is said of him, but, in spite of that, his life is
often so hard that he might extort at the least a little sympathy--and
something to eat. All Americans are too ready to confound two distinct
classes of tramps--those who take the road to look for work, and those
(the larger number, I confess) who look for work and pray to heaven that
they may never find it. In this preponderance of the lazy traveller over
the industrious lies the distinction between the state of affairs in
America and Australia, for in the latter country the "sundowner," or
"murrumbidgee whaler," or "hobo" proper, is in the minority.
When I was on the tramp myself in Oregon I was much annoyed by being
taken for one of the truly idle kind. I remember at Roseberg, or a
little to the north of it, I once stopped and had a talk with a farmer
whom I had asked for work. Although he had none to give me he was very
civil, and we talked of tramps and tramping. He looked at me keenly. "I
can see you are not of the regular professionals," said he. "Thank you
for your perspicacity," I answered, and though perspicacity fairly
floored him, he saw it was not an insult, and went on talking. "Now look
here, my boy, they say we're hard on tramps, and perhaps some of us are,
but I reckon we sometimes get enough to make us rough. Last summer I was
in my orchard, picking cherries, I think, and a likely-looking, strong
young fellow comes along the road. Seeing me, he climbs the fence, and
says to me, 'Say, boss, could you give me something to eat? I haven't
had anything to-day.' I looked at him. 'Why, yes,' said I. 'If you'll go
up to the house I'll be up there in a few minutes when I've filled this
pail; and while you're waiting just split a little wood. The axe is on
the wood pile.' Now, look you, what d'ye think he said. 'I don't split
wood. I ain't going to do any work till I get to Washington Territory.'
'Oh!' said I, 'that's it, is it? Then look here, young fellow, don't you
eat anything till you get there either; for I won't give you anything,
and just let me see you climb that fence in a hurry.' So he went off
cursing. Ain't that kind of thing enough to make us rough on
tramps?--let alone that they steal the chickens; and if you look as you
go down the road you'll see feathers by every place they camp." That was
true enough, and south of the Umpqua I used to find goose feathers every
few hundred yards. On that same tramp down through Oregon I once met
four men travelling north. There had been a murder committed by a tramp
in the south of Roseberg, and we stopped under an old scrubby oak to
talk it over. Three of them were working men, but the fourth was a true
professional, about fifty years of age, whose clothes were ragged to the
last extremity of tatters. His hands were brown at the backs, but I
noticed, when I gave him some tobacco, which he very promptly asked for,
that the palms were perfectly soft. He told us how long he had
travelled, and how many years it was since he had done any work; and,
finally rising, he picked up a wretched-looking blanket, and said,
"Well, good-day, gentlemen. I'm off to call on the Mayor of Portland and
a few rich friends of mine up there." He winked good-humouredly and
shambled off.
I met a lame young fellow near Jacksonville, who told me he had come all
the way from New York State, and was thinking of going back. He was in
very good spirits, and did not appear in the least dismayed at the
prospect of tramping 2000 miles, for he was one of those who do not use
the railroad and "beat their way." When I was at work in Sonoma County,
California, a little fellow came and worked for ten days, who once
travelled 200 miles inside the cowcatcher of an engine. Most English
people know the wedge-shaped pilot in front of the American engine well
enough by repute to recognise it. When the engine was in the yard over
the hollow track he crawled in, taking a board to sit on inside. When
the locomotive once ran out on the ordinary track it was impossible to
remove him, although the fireman soon discovered his presence there, and
poured some warm water over him. On coming to a little town about fifty
miles from his destination the constable came down to the train. "He
came," said Hub (that was our tramp's name) "to see that no tramps get
off there, or, if they did, to advise them to clear out. He walked to
the engine and said 'Good day' to the driver. 'Got any tramps on board
to-day, Jack?' he said. 'We've got one,' he answered; 'but we can't get
him off.' 'Why? how's that?' said the constable. 'Go and look at the
pilot.' So he came round and looked at me, and he burst into a laugh.
'All right, Jack,' says he, 'you can keep him. He won't trouble us, I
can see.' And with that he poked me with his stick, and called everyone
to take a look. I said nothing, but you bet I felt mean to be cooped up
there, not able to move, with all the folks laughing at me."
But, in spite of Hub's sad experience, he went off on the tramp again as
soon as he had enough to buy a pair of new boots with.
Tramps--that is, the bad ones among them--are very often insolent when
they find no one but women in the house. Once a man I knew was working
in Indiana, but having a bad headache he remained in one morning.
By-and-by a truculent-looking tramp came along. "Kin you give us suthin'
to eat, ma'am?" he growled. "Certainly," said the woman, who was always
kind to travellers. She set about making him a meal and put out some
bread and meat. The tramp, who certainly did not look hungry, eyed it
with disfavour. "Bah!" said he at last, with intense contempt; "I don't
want that stuff. D'ye think I'm starving? A'nt you got suthing
nice--say, some strawberry shortcake and cream?" The woman stared with
astonishment, as well she might. But the man with the headache heard Mr
Tramp's remarks. There was a shot-gun hanging in the room where he was;
so, slipping off the bed, he reached for the weapon, walked out quietly,
and, thrusting the muzzle of the gun under the tramp's ear, he roared in
a fierce voice "Get!" And, to use the vernacular, the tramp "got"
instantly.
The last story I will tell of tramps is perhaps the most audacious of
all. I met the chief actor in British Columbia. It appears that he and
another man went one Sunday to a very respectable farmhouse in Illinois
to beg for food. They knocked and there was no answer. They knocked
again, and still without avail. Then they opened the unlocked door and
went in. The dining-table was laid ready for a feast, as it seemed, for
it was adorned with an admirable cold collation, including a turkey,
several fowls, and a number of pies. The eyes of my acquaintance and
his partner sparkled. Here was a chance, for the family was at church.
They went out, got a sack, and hastily tumbled into it the turkey, the
fowls, some bread, and the most substantial pies. Just as it was getting
full one looked out of the window and saw a man coming up the path. They
were struck with terror of discovery, but on watching they soon saw that
this was a tramp like themselves. He came up and knocked at the door.
"Can you give me something to eat, sir?" he asked humbly. "I guess so,"
said my acquaintance, coolly; "that is, if you ain't one of the tramps
that won't work. Will you cut some wood for your dinner?" "Of course I
will," said the tramp, gladly, and he went to the wood pile. While he
was at work the two spoilers of the Egyptians departed through the back
door, and went about a hundred yards to the corner of a wood, where they
laughed till they cried. The result of their manoeuvre was sure to be
too good to be lost, so one of them climbed up a tree and watched. In
about a quarter of an hour he saw a string of men and women coming
towards the house, and still the working tramp made the chips fly. On
entering the yard one of the men went up to interview him, and by the
tramp's gestures it was evident that he was explaining that he had been
set to work. Meanwhile, the women went in, but came out again in a
moment, shrieking with indignation. The next sight was the farmer armed
with a stick belabouring the astonished worker, who fled across the
fence incontinently. He was followed to the very verge of the wood, and
then the exhausted "mossback" left him to return to the house. "It was
just the funniest thing I ever saw," declared my unabashed friend; "and
to see that poor fellow get whipped for our sins nearly killed me. But I
tell you we rewarded him for his labour after all. We found him sitting
on a stump rubbing himself all over, and invited him to dinner with us.
So, you see, he got the grub we promised him, and he didn't work for
nothing, for that would just kill a tramp."
TEXAS ANIMALS
The fauna of Texas is very varied, and a naturalist may find plenty
there for his note-book, and much to reflect on, if he be a
contemplative man. A hunter may satisfy himself, too, if he goes into
the extreme west and north-west, but he must be quick about it, for I
received a letter years ago from a friend of mine in the south part of
the Panhandle of Texas, in which he told me that all the land was
getting fenced in, even in those parts that I knew in 1884 as wide and
open prairie, and when fences come the beasts go, deer and antelope
retreat, and "panther" or cougar are hunted and shot by those who own
sheep, cattle and horses. I am no naturalist, and no great hunter. At
the risk of causing a smile of contempt I must confess that I can hold a
shot-gun, a "double-pronged scatter-gun," or a rifle in my hands without
shooting at anything I see. I have let antelope and deer pass me without
even letting the gun off, and have spared squirrels and birds
innumerable that most of my friends would have promptly slain; but I
take great interest in animal life, and am fond of watching the denizens
of prairie or forest.
When on my friend Jones's ranche in 1884 I sometimes went wild turkey
hunting or potting; we used to choose a moonlight night and lie under
the trees, where they roosted, and shoot them on the branches. It was
mere butchery, and the sole excitement consisted in the doubt as to
whether any of the big birds would come or not, and the chief interest
to me was the conversation of my wild Texan friends, who were stranger
than turkeys to me.
There were not many birds of prey around us, except the big slow-sailing
turkey-buzzards, which are protected by law as useful scavengers.
Nevertheless, I shot at one once, and having missed it I never tried
again.
My great friends were the hares or jackrabbits, which are fast, but very
easy to shoot, for if I saw one coming my way, loping or cantering
along, I stood stock-still, and he would come past me without taking the
least notice of my presence, probably imagining I was only a
curious-shaped stump. Sometimes I found them in the dry arroyos or
water-courses, and threw stones at them. They rarely ran away at once
at full speed, but for the most part went a little distance and sat up
to look at me, waiting for two or three stones, until they made up their
minds that I was decidedly dangerous.
Another little animal was the cotton-tail rabbit, so called from the
white patch of fur under the tail, which is as bright as cotton bursting
from the pod, I killed one once more by impulse than anything else. It
ran from under my feet when I had a knife in my hand. I threw it at the
rabbit, and to my surprise knocked it over, for I am a very bad shot
with that sort of missile.
The prairie dogs or marmots were in tens of thousands round us, and I
used to amuse myself by shooting at one in particular with the rifle.
His hole was a hundred yards from our camp, and he would come out and
sit on his hill every now and again, and then go nibbling round at the
grass. I shot at him a dozen times, and once cut the ground under his
belly, but never killed him. They are extremely hard to get even if
shot, for they manage to run into their burrows somehow, even if
mortally wounded. The Texans believe they go back even when quite dead;
but then they are rather credulous, for some of them believe that the
rattlesnake lives on friendly terms with the inmates of the burrows. The
rattlesnakes were very numerous, for one day I killed seven. The first
one I saw threw me into a curious instinctive state of fury, and I
smashed it into pieces, while I trembled like a horse who has nearly
stepped on a venomous snake. Those Texans who do not believe in the
friendship of snake and prairie dog say that it is possible to make the
rattler come out of a hole he has taken refuge in by rolling small
pieces of dirt and earth down it. For they assert that the prairie dogs
earth up the mouth of the burrow when they know a snake is in it, and
the reptile knows what is about to happen.
Of other snakes there were the moccasins, water snakes, and esteemed
very deadly. It is said that when an Indian is bitten by one of these he
lies down to die without making any effort to save his life, whereas if
a rattlesnake has harmed him he usually cures himself. Besides these
there were the omnipresent garter snakes, and the grey or silver
coach-whip, both harmless. The bull snake is said to grow to an enormous
size, and is a kind of North American python or boa. About five miles
from our camp was an old hut, which was occupied by a sheep-herder whom
I knew. One night he heard a noise, and looking out of his bunk saw by
the dim light of the fire an enormous snake crawling out of a hole in
the corner of the room. He jumped out of bed and ran outside, and found
a stick. He killed it, and it measured nearly eleven feet. It is called
bull snake because it is popularly supposed to bellow, but I never heard
it make any noise of such description.
On these prairies there are occasionally to be found cougars, commonly
called panthers or "painters," although erroneously. In British Columbia
they are called mountain lions, and the same name is applied to them in
California, unless they are called California lions. I am informed by a
naturalist friend that they are the same species as the South American
puma. I knew a man in Colorado City who was a great hunter of these
animals, and he had half a dozen hunting dogs torn and scratched all
over their bodies, with ears missing, and one with half a tongue, who
had suffered from the teeth and claws of these cougars. He kept one in a
cage which was much too small for it, and I was often tempted to poison
it to put an end to its misery. This man had a regular menagerie at the
back of his house, consisting of various birds, this cougar, and two
bears.
These bears are not infrequently to be met with on the prairies, and
while I was staying in a town one was brought in in a wagon. Bruin had
been captured by four cowboys, who had lassoed and tied it. He weighed
about 600 lbs., and was a black bear, for the cinnamon and grizzly do
not, I believe, range in open level country.
Besides these harmful animals there were plenty of antelopes to be
found, if one went to look for them, and the cowardly slinking coyote
was often to be seen as one rode across the prairie; and often in
walking I found tortoises with bright red eyes. These were small, about
six inches long. In the creeks were plenty of mud turtles, which are
fond of scrambling on to logs to sun themselves. If disturbed they drop
into the water instantly, giving rise to a saying to express quickness,
"like a mud turtle off a log."
I have said nothing of bison. Perhaps there are none now, but in 1884
there were supposed to be still a few on the Llano Estacado or Stakes
Plain. I knew one man who used to go hunting them every year and usually
killed a few. But the last time I saw him he was on a "jamboree," or
spree, and killed his unfortunate horse by tying it up without feeding
it or giving it water while he was drinking or drunk, and so he did not
make his usual trip. But I imagine there can be few or none left now,
and probably the only representatives of the race are in the National
Park.
IN A SAILORS' HOME
After coming back to England from Australia in the barque _Essex_ I
found "home" a curious place, which afforded very few prospects of a
satisfactory job. For if there is one thing more than another borne in
upon anyone who returns from the Colonies it is the apparent
impossibility of earning one's living in London. Every avenue is as much
choked as the entrance to the pit at a popular theatre on a first night.
And though it is said that we may always get a tooth-brush into a
portmanteau however full it is, there comes a time when not even a
tooth-brush bristle can be put there. I looked at London, wandered round
it, spent all my money, and determined to go to sea again, this time in
a steamer rather than in a "wind-jammer." With this notion in my mind I
went down to Hull, whither a shipmate of mine had preceded me. He had
been a quarter-master in the _Essex_ and was the melancholy possessor
of a cancelled master's certificate. He owed this to drink, of course,
as most men do who pile their ships up on the first reef that comes
handy. But when he was sober he was a good old fellow. He took me round
to the Sailors' Home in Salthouse Lane, and introduced me to the man who
ran it. I stayed there six weeks.
The Sailors' Home as an institution is not over-popular with seamen,
especially with the more improvident of them. And the improvident are
certainly ninety per cent. of the total sea-going race of man. As a rule
Homes cease to be such when a man's money is done. He is thrown out into
the street or into some equivalent of the notorious Straw House. There
is always much talk at sea about the relative advantages of
Boarding-Houses and Homes, and half the arguments about the subject end
in more or less of a "rough house" and a few odd black eyes. However
rude and brutal the boarding-house master may be, however much of a
daylight robber he is (and they mostly are "daylight robbers") it is to
his advantage to make his house popular. There is no surer way of doing
this than ensuring his boarder a ship at the end of his short spree on
shore. In many Homes the men look after this themselves. Jack is a
child and wants to be looked after. As far as the Home in Salthouse Lane
went, I think it combined some of the better qualities of both the
common resorts of men ashore. The boss of it knew something about
seamen; he was certainly not a robber, and he kept me and several others
when we did not possess a red cent among us to jingle on a tombstone. He
also kept order, for he had had some experience as a prize-fighter, and
could put the best of us on the floor at a moment's notice. Once or
twice he did so, and peace reigned in Warsaw.
There were certainly very few of us in the Home. Hull was not quite as
full of sailors as hell is of devils, as a boarding-house master once
assured me that San Francisco was when I tried to get taken into his
house after being rejected even less politely by that eminent scoundrel
Shanghai Brown. Besides myself there were a sturdy blue-nose or
Nova-Scotian; a long-limbed, slab-sided herring-back or native of New
Brunswick, a big thick-headed ass of an Englishman and a smart thief of
a Cockney, known to us all as Ginger. We lived together without
quarrelling more than three times a day. This we thought was peace. It
was certainly more peaceful than my last boarding-house at
Williamstown, where we had a little bloodshed every night. But there the
very tables and benches were clamped to the floor; the windows were too
high above us for anyone to be thrown out, and on a board nailed beyond
our reach was the legend, "Order must and _will_ be preserved." But that
boarding-house was very exciting; my last excitement In it was tripping
up a man, treading on his wrist and taking away a razor with which he
meant to cut throats. In Hull we never went further than a good common
"scrap," though they happened fairly often.
Times were not very brisk in Hull just then. At anyrate, we did not find
them so. We had a "runner" at the Home, who was supposed to help us find
a ship, but certainly did not. He was a very curious person to look at.
He weighed eighteen stone and was a perfect giant of strength, with legs
like columns and a neck about twenty inches round. I never found out
what his nationality was. He looked like a Russian, but denied that he
was one. It was said that he once fought six men in the lane and downed
them all in sheer desperation. As a matter of fact, he was rather
cowardly, I think, and easily put on, though if he had really got mad
something would have had to give. We did not rely on him but looked for
ships ourselves in a very casual way. Most of us pretended to look for
them and loafed about the neighbouring slums. When sailormen are thrown
on their own resources they are pretty helpless creatures. The man who
is a lion on a topsail yard in a gale is too often like a wet cat in a
backyard when he is ashore. I was lazy enough myself, but as it happened
it was I who got something to do for Ginger, for the New Brunswicker and
myself.
I had not been living in the highly-desirable neighbourhood of Salthouse
Lane for a week before I found myself without a stiver. The rest were in
the same condition. Every three days or so I borrowed a penny from the
boss and got a shave in order to keep up my spirits. Three days' beard
is almost as depressing as three days' starvation, and the little shop
at the corner, which renewed my self-respect for a penny, seemed to me a
most admirable institution. As for drinks, we had none--we were sober
sailors indeed. The sun might get over the fore-yard and go down over
the cro'-jack but we never touched liquor. Nevertheless we had fights to
relieve the monotony of the situation. The Nova Scotian and I took to
being hostile. We disbelieved each other's lies. So one day while we
were in the smoking-room he said something which was not at all polite.
I could not knock him down with a chair because the careful and
provident boss had had them chained to the floor. So I hit him, and hit
him rather hard, for what he had said out of pure devilry. He was
sitting on the table and I knocked him off. His particular mate was the
very thick-headed Englishman. He did his best for the Nova Scotian by
holding me very tight while the blue-nose hammered me. This was awkward,
to say nothing about the unfairness of it. I got away but presently
found myself across a bench with my back in danger of being broken. More
by good luck than management I broke loose and got the blue-nose across
the bench, I am thankful to say I nearly broke his back. Then we waltzed
round the room in the wildest way, till the wife of the boss and the
servant girl flew in and broke up the party with the most amazing
energy. I was the youngest and the most civilised, and the women
naturally said it was the Nova Scotian's fault. They said so in the most
voluble manner, and the Nova Scotian did not like it. He said they took
my part because I was not so ugly as he was, and said it wasn't fair,
especially as I had spoilt what little beauty he had. He further
asserted that he would knock the stuffing out of me, and we were on
hostile terms for twenty-four hours. Two days later he got a job as
bo'sun in a barque and his mate shipped with him, and peace was assured
for a time.
The food they gave us was rough but fairly good and plentiful. Wherever
the meat came from it could be masticated with some effort. In Barclay's
boarding-house, in Williamstown, we had to take a spell in the middle of
a mouthful. I have seen steak there that would have pauled a
chaff-cutter. In the dining-room at Salthouse Lane there lived the
wildest, most eccentric clock I ever saw in all my travels. It had a
most remarkable way of striking quite peculiar to itself. We used to
dine at one o'clock. At noon the clock usually struck one. In very
extravagant days it struck two. But no one could guess what it would
strike when it was really one o'clock. I once counted seventy-two
strokes, and on a public holiday it went up to a hundred and twenty. It
was our only amusement.