As we saw neither land nor sail from the time of leaving Juan
Fernandez until our arrival in California, nothing of interest
occurred except our own doings on board. We caught the southeast
trades, and ran before them for nearly three weeks, without so
much as altering a sail or bracing a yard. The captain took
advantage of this fine weather to get the vessel in order for
coming upon the coast. The carpenter was employed in fitting up a
part of the steerage into a trade-room; for our cargo, we now
learned, was not to be landed, but to be sold by retail on board;
and this trade-room was built for the samples and the lighter
goods to be kept in, and as a place for the general business. In
the mean time we were employed in working upon the rigging.
Everything was set up taut, the lower rigging rattled down, or
rather rattled up (according to the modern fashion), an abundance
of spun-yarn and seizing-stuff made, and finally the whole
standing-rigging, fore and aft, was tarred down. It was my first
essay at the latter business, and I had enough of it; for nearly
all of it came upon my friend Stimson and myself. The men were
needed at the other work, and Henry Mellus, the other young man
who came out with us before the mast, was laid up with the
rheumatism in his feet, and the boy Sam was rather too young and
small for the business; and as the winds were light and regular he
was kept during most of the daytime at the helm, so that we had
quite as much as we wished of it. We put on short duck frocks,
and, taking a small bucket of tar and a bunch of oakum in our
hands, went aloft, one at the main royal-mast-head, and the other
at the fore, and began tarring down. This is an important
operation, and is usually done about once in six months in vessels
upon a long voyage. It was done in our vessel several times
afterwards, but by the whole crew at once, and finished off in a
day; but at this time, as most of it, as I have said, came upon
two of us, and we were new at the business, it took several days.
In this operation they always begin at the mast-head, and work
down, tarring the shrouds, backstays, standing parts of the lifts,
the ties, runners, &c., and go out to the yard-arms, and come in,
tarring, as they come, the lifts and foot-ropes. Tarring the stays
is more difficult, and is done by an operation which the sailors
call ``riding down.'' A long piece of rope-- top-gallant-studding-sail
halyards, or something of the kind-- is taken up to the mast-head
from which the stay leads, and rove through a block for a girt-line,
or, as the sailors usually call it, a gant-line; with the end of
this, a bowline is taken round the stay, into which the man gets
with his bucket of tar and bunch of oakum; and the other end being
fast on deck, with some one to tend it, he is lowered down gradually,
and tars the stay carefully as he goes. There he ``swings aloft 'twixt
heaven and earth,'' and if the rope slips, breaks, or is let go, or
if the bowline slips, he falls overboard or breaks his neck. This,
however, is a thing which never enters into a sailor's calculation.
He only thinks of leaving no holidays (places not tarred),-- for,
in case he should, he would have to go over the whole again,-- or
of dropping no tar upon deck, for then there would be a soft word
in his ear from the mate. In this manner I tarred down all the
head-stays, but found the rigging about the jib-booms, martingale,
and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest.
Here you have to ``hang on with your eyelids'' and tar with your
hands.
This dirty work could not last forever; and on Saturday night we
finished it, scraped all the spots from the deck and rails, and,
what was of more importance to us, cleaned ourselves thoroughly,
rolled up our tarry frocks and trousers and laid them away for the
next occasion, and put on our clean duck clothes, and had a good
comfortable sailor's Saturday night. The next day was pleasant,
and indeed we had but one unpleasant Sunday during the whole
voyage, and that was off Cape Horn, where we could expect nothing
better. On Monday we began painting, and getting the vessel ready
for port. This work, too, is done by the crew, and every sailor
who has been long voyages is a little of a painter, in addition to
his other accomplishments. We painted her, both inside and out,
from the truck to the water's edge. The outside is painted by
lowering stages over the side by ropes, and on those we sat, with
our brushes and paint-pots by us, and our feet half the time in
the water. This must be done, of course, on a smooth day, when the
vessel does not roll- much. I remember very well being over the
side painting in this way, one fine afternoon, our vessel going
quietly along at the rate of four or five knots, and a pilot-fish,
the sure precursor of a shark, swimming alongside of us. The
captain was leaning over the rail watching him, and we went
quietly on with our work. In the midst of our painting, on--
Friday, December 19th, we crossed the equator for the second time.
I had the sense of incongruity which all have when, for the first
time, they find themselves living under an entire change of
seasons; as, crossing the line under a burning sun in the midst of
December.
Thursday, December 25th. This day was Christmas, but it brought us
no holiday. The only change was that we had a ``plum duff'' for
dinner, and the crew quarrelled with the steward because he did
not give us our usual allowance of molasses to eat with it. He
thought the plums would be a substitute for the molasses, but we
were not to be cheated out of our rights in that way.
Such are the trifles which produce quarrels on shipboard. In fact,
we had been too long from port. We were getting tired of one
another, and were in an irritable state, both forward and aft. Our
fresh provisions were, of course, gone, and the captain had
stopped our rice, so that we had nothing but salt beef and salt
pork throughout the week, with the exception of a very small duff
on Sunday. This added to the discontent; and many little things,
daily and almost hourly occurring, which no one who has not
himself been on a long and tedious voyage can conceive of or
properly appreciate,-- little wars and rumors of wars, reports of
things said in the cabin, misunderstanding of words and looks,
apparent abuses,-- brought us into a condition in which everything
seemed to go wrong. Every encroachment upon the time allowed for
rest appeared unnecessary. Every shifting of the studding-sails
was only to ``haze''[1] the crew.
In the midst of this state of things, my messmate Stimson and I
petitioned the captain for leave to shift our berths from the
steerage, where we had previously lived, into the forecastle.
This, to our delight, was granted, and we turned in to bunk and
mess with the crew forward. We now began to feel like sailors,
which we never fully did when we were in the steerage. While
there, however useful and active you may be, you are but a
mongrel,-- a sort of afterguard and ``ship's cousin.'' You are
immediately under the eye of the officers, cannot dance, sing,
play, smoke, make a noise, or growl, or take any other sailor's
pleasure; and you live with the steward, who is usually a
go-between; and the crew never feel as though you were one of
them. But if you live in the forecastle, you are ``as independent
as a wood-sawyer's clerk'' (nauticé), and are a sailor. You hear
sailors' talk, learn their ways, their peculiarities of feeling as
well as speaking and acting; and, moreover, pick up a great deal
of curious and useful information in seamanship, ship's customs,
foreign countries, &c., from their long yarns and equally long
disputes. No man can be a sailor, or know what sailors are, unless
he has lived in the forecastle with them,-- turned in and out with
them, and eaten from the common kid. After I had been a week
there, nothing would have tempted me to go back to my old berth,
and never afterwards, even in the worst of weather, when in a
close and leaking forecastle off Cape Horn, did I for a moment
wish myself in the steerage. Another thing which you learn better
in the forecastle than you can anywhere else is, to make and mend
clothes, and this is indispensable to sailors. A large part of
their watches below they spend at this work, and here I learned
the art myself, which stood me in so good stead afterwards.
But to return to the state of the crew. Upon our coming into the
forecastle, there was some difficulty about the uniting of the
allowances of bread, by which we thought we were to lose a few
pounds. This set us into a ferment. The captain would not
condescend to explain, and we went aft in a body, with John, the
Swede, the oldest and best sailor of the crew, for spokesman. The
recollection of the scene that followed always brings up a smile,
especially the quarter-deck dignity and elocution of the captain.
He was walking the weather side of the quarter-deck, and, seeing
us coming aft, stopped short in his walk, and with a voice and
look intended to annihilate us called out, ``Well, what the d---l
do you want now?'' Whereupon we stated our grievances as
respectfully as we could, but he broke in upon us, saying that we
were getting fat and lazy, didn't have enough to do, and it was
that which made us find fault. This provoked us, and we began to
give word for word. This would never answer. He clinched his fist,
stamped and swore, and ordered us all forward, saying, with oaths
enough interspersed to send the words home, ``Away with you! go
forward every one of you! I'll haze you! I'll work you up! You
don't have enough to do! If you a' n't careful I'll make a hell of
heaven! . . . . You've mistaken your man! I'm Frank Thompson, all
the way from `down east.' I've been through the mill, ground and
bolted, and come out a regular-built down-east johnny-cake, when
it's hot, d---d good, but when it's cold, d---d sour and
indigestible;-- and you'll find me so!'' The latter part of this
harangue made a strong impression, and the ``down-east
johnny-cake'' became a byword for the rest of the voyage, and on
the coast of California, after our arrival. One of his nicknames
in all the ports was ``The Down-east Johnny-cake.'' So much for
our petition for the redress of grievances. The matter was,
however, set right, for the mate, after allowing the captain due
time to cool off, explained it to him, and at night we were all
called aft to hear another harangue, in which, of course, the
whole blame of the misunderstanding was thrown upon us. We
ventured to hint that he would not give us time to explain; but it
wouldn't do. We were driven back discomfited. Thus the affair blew
over, but the irritation caused by it remained; and we never had
peace or a good understanding again so long as the captain and
crew remained together.
We continued sailing along in the beautiful temperate climate of
the Pacific. The Pacific well deserves its name, for except in
the southern part, at Cape Horn, and in the western parts, near
the China and Indian oceans, it has few storms, and is never either
extremely hot or cold. Between the tropics there is a slight haziness,
like a thin gauze, drawn over the sun, which, without obstructing or
obscuring the light, tempers the heat which comes down with
perpendicular fierceness in the Atlantic and Indian tropics. We
sailed well to the westward to have the full advantage of the
northeast trades, and when we had reached the latitude of Point
Conception, where it is usual to make the land, we were several
hundred miles to the westward of it. We immediately changed our
course due east, and sailed in that direction for a number of
days. At length we began to heave-to after dark, for fear of
making the land at night, on a coast where there are no lighthouses
and but indifferent charts, and at daybreak on the morning of--
Tuesday, January 13th, 1835, we made the land at Point Conception,
lat. 34° 32' N., lon. 120° 06' W. The port of Santa Barbara, to
which we were bound, lying about fifty miles to the southward of
this point, we continued sailing down the coast during the day and
following night, and on the next morning,
January 14th, we came to anchor in the spacious bay of Santa Barbara,
after a voyage of one hundred and fifty days from Boston.