As we have now had a long ``spell'' of fine weather, without any
incident to break the monotony of our lives, I may have no better
place for a description of the duties, regulations, and customs of
an American merchantman, of which ours was a fair specimen.
The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no
watch, comes and goes when he pleases, is accountable to no one,
and must be obeyed in everything, without a question even from his
chief officer. He has the power to turn his officers off duty, and
even to break them and make them do duty as sailors in the
forecastle.[1] Where there are no passengers and no supercargo, as
in our vessel, he has no companion but his own dignity, and few
pleasures, unless he differs from most of his kind, beyond the
consciousness of possessing supreme power, and, occasionally, the
exercise of it.
The prime minister, the official organ, and the active and
superintending officer is the chief mate. He is first lieutenant,
boatswain, sailing-master, and quartermaster. The captain tells
him what he wishes to have done, and leaves to him the care of
overseeing, of allotting the work, and also the responsibility of
its being well done. The mate (as he is always called, par
excellence) also keeps the log-book, for which he is responsible
to the owners and insurers, and has the charge of the stowage,
safe-keeping, and delivery of the cargo. He is also, ex officio,
the wit of the crew; for the captain does not condescend to joke
with the men, and the second mate no one cares for; so that when
``the mate'' thinks fit to entertain ``the people'' with a coarse
joke or a little practical wit, every one feels bound to laugh.
The second mate is proverbially a dog's berth. He is neither
officer nor man. He is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the
topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the
rest, and the men do not much respect him as an officer. The crew
call him the ``sailor's waiter,'' as he has to furnish them with
spun-yarn, marline, and all other stuffs that they need in their
work, and has charge of the boatswain's locker, which includes
serving-boards, marline-spikes, &c., &c. He is expected by the
captain to maintain his dignity and to enforce obedience, and
still is kept at a great distance from the mate, and obliged to
work with the crew. He is one to whom little is given and of whom
much is required. His wages are usually double those of a common
sailor, and he eats and sleeps in the cabin; but he is obliged to
be on deck nearly all his time, and eats at the second table, that
is, makes a meal out of what the captain and chief mate leave.
The steward is the captain's servant, and has charge of the
pantry, from which every one, even the mate himself, is excluded.
These distinctions usually find him an enemy in the mate, who does
not like to have any one on board who is not entirely under his
control; the crew do not consider him as one of their number, so
he is left to the mercy of the captain.
The cook, whose title is ``Doctor,'' is the patron of the crew,
and those who are in his favor can get their wet mittens and
stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the
night-watch. These two worthies, together with the carpenter (and
sailmaker, if there be one), stand no watch, but, being employed
all day, are allowed to ``sleep in'' at night, unless all hands
are called.
The crew are divided into two divisions, as equally as may be,
called the watches. Of these, the chief mate commands the
larboard, and the second mate the starboard. They divide the time
between them, being on and off duty, or, as it is called, on deck
and below, every other four hours. The three night-watches are
called the first, the middle, and the morning watch. If, for
instance, the chief mate with the larboard watch have the first
night-watch from eight to twelve, at that hour the starboard watch
and the second mate take the deck, while the larboard watch and
the first mate go below until four in the morning, when they come
on deck again and remain until eight. As the larboard watch will
have been on deck eight hours out of the twelve, while the
starboard watch will have been up only four hours, the former have
what is called a ``forenoon watch below,'' that is, from eight
A.M. till twelve M. In a man-of-war, and in some merchantmen, this
alternation of watches is kept up throughout the twenty-four
hours, which is called having ``watch and watch''; but our ship,
like most merchantmen, had ``all hands'' from twelve o'clock till
dark, except in very bad weather, when we were allowed ``watch and
watch.''
An explanation of the ``dog-watches'' may, perhaps, be necessary
to one who has never been at sea. Their purpose is to shift the
watches each night, so that the same watch shall not be on deck at
the same hours throughout a voyage. In order to effect this, the
watch from four to eight P.M. is divided into two half-watches,
one from four to six, and the other from six to eight. By this
means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead
of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the dog-watches
come during twilight, after the day's work is done, and before the
night-watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody is on
deck. The captain is up, walking on the weather side of the
quarter-deck, the chief mate on the lee side, and the second mate
about the weather gangway. The steward has finished his work in
the cabin, and has come up to smoke his pipe with the cook in the
galley. The crew are sitting on the windlass or lying on the
forecastle, smoking, singing, or telling long yarns. At eight
o'clock eight bells are struck, the log is hove, the watch set,
the wheel relieved, the galley shut up, and the watch off duty
goes below.
The morning begins with the watch on deck's ``turning to'' at
daybreak and washing down, scrubbing, and swabbing the decks.
This, together with filling the ``scuttled butt'' with fresh
water, and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until
seven bells (half after seven), when all hands get breakfast. At
eight the day's work begins, and lasts until sundown, with the
exception of an hour for dinner.
Before I end my explanations, it may be well to define a day's
work, and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a
sailor's life. Nothing is more common than to hear people say,
``Are not sailors very idle at sea? What can they find to do?''
This is a natural mistake, and, being frequently made, is one
which every sailor feels interested in having corrected. In the
first place, then, the discipline of the ship requires every man
to be at work upon something when he is on deck, except at night
and on Sundays. At all other times you will never see a man, on
board a well-ordered vessel, standing idle on deck, sitting down,
or leaning over the side. It is the officers' duty to keep every
one at work, even if there is nothing to be done but to scrape the
rust from the chain cables. In no state prison are the convicts
more regularly set to work, and more closely watched. No
conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty, and though
they frequently do talk when aloft, or when near one another, yet
they stop when an officer is nigh.
With regard to the work upon which the men are put, it is a matter
which probably would not be understood by one who has not been at
sea. When I first left port, and found that we were kept regularly
employed for a week or two, I supposed that we were getting the
vessel into sea trim, and that it would soon be over, and we
should have nothing to do but to sail the ship; but I found that
it continued so for two years, and at the end of the two years
there was as much to be done as ever. As has often been said, a
ship is like a lady's watch, always out of repair. When first
leaving port, studding-sail gear is to be rove, all the running
rigging to be examined, that which is unfit for use to be got
down, and new rigging rove in its place; then the standing rigging
is to be overhauled, replaced, and repaired in a thousand
different ways; and wherever any of the numberless ropes or the
yards are chafing or wearing upon it, there ``chafing gear,'' as
it is called, must be put on. This chafing gear consists of
worming, parcelling, roundings, battens, and service of all kinds,--
rope-yarns, spun-yarn, marline, and seizing-stuffs. Taking off,
putting on, and mending the chafing gear alone, upon a vessel,
would find constant employment for a man or two men, during
working hours, for a whole voyage.
The next point to be considered is, that all the ``small stuffs''
which are used on board a ship-- such as spun-yarn, marline,
seizing-stuff, &c., &c.-- are made on board. The owners of a
vessel buy up incredible quantities of ``old junk,'' which the
sailors unlay, and, after drawing out the yarns, knot them
together, and roll them up in balls. These ``rope-yarns'' are
constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is
manufactured into spun-yarn. For this purpose, every vessel is
furnished with a ``spun-yarn winch''; which is very simple,
consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard constantly
going on deck in pleasant weather; and we had employment, during a
great part of the time, for three hands, in drawing and knotting
yarns, and making spun-yarn.
Another method of employing the crew is ``setting-up'' rigging.
Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is
continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken
off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is bowsed well taut,
the seizings and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece
of work. There is also such a connection between different parts
of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring
a change in another. You cannot stay a mast aft by the back stays,
without slacking up the head stays, &c., &c. If we add to this all
the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and
scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and
also remember this is all to be done in addition to watching at
night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting
sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one
will hardly ask, ``What can a sailor find to do at sea?''
If, after all this labor,-- after exposing their lives and limbs
in storms, wet and cold,--
``Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their furs dry,''--
the merchants and captains think that the sailors have not earned
their twelve dollars a month (out of which they clothe
themselves), and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them
picking oakum-- ad infinitum. This is the usual resource upon a
rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when
it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand
about in sheltered places, and talk, and keep themselves
comfortable, they are separated to different parts of the ship and
kept at work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about
in different parts of the ship, so that the sailors might not be
idle in the snatches between the frequent squalls upon crossing
the equator. Some officers have been so driven to find work for
the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to
pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables.
The ``Philadelphia Catechism'' is
``Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh,-- holystone the decks and scrape the cable.''
This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape
of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have
seen the decks washed down and scrubbed when the water would have
frozen if it had been fresh, and all hands kept at work upon the
rigging, when we had on our pea-jackets, and our hands so numb that
we could hardly hold our marline-spikes.
I have here gone out of my narrative course in order that any who
read this may, at the start, form as correct an idea of a sailor's
life and duty as possible. I have done it in this place because,
for some time, our life was nothing but the unvarying repetition
of these duties, which can be better described together. Before
leaving this description, however, I would state, in order to show
landsmen how little they know of the nature of a ship, that a
ship-carpenter is kept constantly employed, during good weather,
on board vessels which are in what is called perfect sea order.