Monday, November 17th. This was a black day in our calendar. At
seven o'clock in the morning, it being our watch below, we were
aroused from a sound sleep by the cry of ``All hands ahoy! a man
overboard!'' This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of
every one, and, hurrying on deck, we found the vessel hove flat
aback, with all her studding-sails set; for, the boy who was at
the helm leaving it to throw something overboard, the carpenter,
who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the
helm down and hove her aback. The watch on deck were lowering away
the quarter-boat, and I got on deck just in time to fling myself
into her as she was leaving the side; but it was not until out
upon the wide Pacific, in our little boat, that I knew whom we had
lost. It was George Ballmer, the young English sailor, whom I have
before spoken of as the life of the crew. He was prized by the
officers as an active and willing seaman, and by the men as a
lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate. He was going aloft to
fit a strap round the main topmasthead, for ringtail halyards, and
had the strap and block, a coil of halyards, and a marline-spike
about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock shrouds, and,
not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with all those
things round his neck, he probably sank immediately. We pulled
astern, in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew that
there was no hope of saving him, yet no one wished to speak of
returning, and we rowed about for nearly an hour, without an idea
of doing anything, but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that
we must give him up. At length we turned the boat's head and made
towards the brig.
Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A
man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and ``the
mourners go about the streets''; but when a man falls overboard at
sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a
difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful
mystery. A man dies on shore,-- you follow his body to the grave,
and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event.
There is always something which helps you to realize it when it
happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down
by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object,
and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you,-- at your
side,-- you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and
nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea-- to use a
homely but expressive phrase-- you miss a man so much. A dozen men
are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and
for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their
own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him
at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or
new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in
the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night-watch is
mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay
out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of
his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and
each of your senses feels the loss.
All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the
effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more
kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one
another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the
loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful, and the crew
go more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is
dismissed with a sailor's rude eulogy,-- ``Well, poor George is
gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew his work, and did his duty,
and was a good shipmate.'' Then usually follows some allusion to
another world, for sailors are almost all believers, in their way;
though their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends.
They say, ``God won't be hard upon the poor fellow,'' and seldom
get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their
sufferings and hard treatment here will be passed to their credit
in the books of the Great Captain hereafter,-- ``To work hard,
live hard, die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard
indeed!'' Our cook, a simple-hearted old African, who had been
through a good deal in his day, and was rather seriously inclined,
always going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his
Bible on a Sunday in the galley, talked to the crew about spending
the Lord's Days badly, and told them that they might go as
suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared.
Yet a sailor's life is at best but a mixture of a little good with
much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is
linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and
the solemn with the ludicrous.
Not long after we had returned on board with our sad report, an
auction was held of the poor man's effects. The captain had first,
however, called all hands aft and asked them if they were
satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if
they thought there was any use in remaining there longer. The crew
all said that it was in vain, for the man did not know how to
swim, and was very heavily dressed. So we then filled away and
kept the brig off to her course.
The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the
effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a
law or a custom, established for convenience, that the captain
should soon hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid
off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted from
their wages at the end of the voyage. In this way the trouble and
risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and the
clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on
shore. Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind,
than his chest was brought up upon the forecastle, and the sale
began. The jackets and trousers in which we had seen him dressed
so lately were exposed and bid off while the life was hardly out
of his body, and his chest was taken aft and used as a
store-chest, so that there was nothing left which could be called
his. Sailors have an unwillingness to wear a dead man's clothes
during the same voyage, and they seldom do so, unless they are in
absolute want.
As is usual after a death, many stories were told about George.
Some had heard him say that he repented never having learned to
swim, and that he knew that he should meet his death by drowning.
Another said that he never knew any good to come of a voyage made
against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his
advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but, not being
able to refund, was obliged to sail with us. A boy, too, who had
become quite attached to him, said that George talked to him,
during most of the watch on the night before, about his mother and
family at home, and this was the first time that he had mentioned
the subject during the voyage.
The night after this event, when I went to the galley to get a
light, I found the cook inclined to be talkative, so I sat down on
the spars, and gave him an opportunity to hold a yarn. I was the
more inclined to do so, as I found that he was full of the
superstitions once more common among seamen, and which the recent
death had waked up in his mind. He talked about George's having
spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without
having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories
of dreams, and of unusual behavior of men before death. From this
he went on to other superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, &c., and
talked rather mysteriously, having something evidently on his
mind. At length he put his head out of the galley and looked
carefully about to see if any one was within hearing, and, being
satisfied on that point, asked me in a low tone,--
``I say! you know what countryman 'e carpenter be?''
``Yes,'' said I; ``he's a German.''
``What kind of a German?'' said the cook.
``He belongs to Bremen,'' said I.
``Are you sure o' dat?'' said he.
I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no
language but the German and English.
``I'm plaguy glad o' dat,'' said the cook. ``I was mighty 'fraid
he was a Fin. I tell you what, I been plaguy civil to that man all
the voyage.''
I asked him the reason of this, and found that he was fully
possessed with the notion that Fins are wizards, and especially
have power over winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about
it, but he had the best of all arguments, that from experience, at
hand, and was not to be moved. He had been to the Sandwich Islands
in a vessel in which the sail-maker was a Fin, and could do
anything he was of a mind to. This sail-maker kept a junk bottle
in his berth, which was always just half full of rum, though he
got drunk upon it nearly every day. He had seen him sit for hours
together, talking to this bottle, which he stood up before him on
the table. The same man cut his throat in his berth, and everybody
said he was possessed.
He had heard of ships, too, beating up the gulf of Finland against
a head wind, and having a ship heave in sight astern, overhaul,
and pass them, with as fair a wind as could blow, and all
studding-sails out, and find she was from Finland.
``Oh, no!'' said he; ``I've seen too much o' dem men to want to
see 'em 'board a ship. If dey can't have dare own way, they'll
play the d---l with you.''
As I still doubted, he said he would leave it to John, who was the
oldest seaman aboard, and would know, if anybody did. John, to be
sure, was the oldest, and at the same time the most ignorant, man
in the ship; but I consented to have him called. The cook stated
the matter to him, and John, as I anticipated, sided with the
cook, and said that he himself had been in a ship where they had a
head wind for a fortnight, and the captain found out at last that
one of the men, with whom he had had same hard words a short time
before, was a Fin, and immediately told him if he didn't stop the
head wind he would shut him down in the fore peak. The Fin would
not give in, and the captain shut him down in the fore peak, and
would not give him anything to eat. The Fin held out for a day and
a half, when he could not stand it any longer, and did something
or other which brought the wind round again, and they let him up.
``Dar,'' said the cook, ``what you tink o' dat?''
I told him I had no doubt it was true, and that it would have been
odd if the wind had not changed in fifteen days, Fin or no Fin.
``O,'' says he, ``go 'way! You tink, 'cause you been to college,
you know better dan anybody. You know better dan dem as 'as seen
it wid der own eyes. You wait till you've been to sea as long as I
have, and den you'll know.''