At eight o'clock all hands were called aft, and the watches set
for the voyage. Some changes were made; but I was glad to find
myself still in the larboard watch. Our crew was somewhat
diminished; for a man and a boy had gone in the Pilgrim; another
was second mate of the Ayacucho; and a fourth, Harry Bennett, the
oldest man of the crew, had broken down under the hard work and
constant exposure on the coast, and, having had a stroke of the
palsy, was left behind at the hide-house, under the charge of
Captain Arthur. The poor fellow wished very much to come home in
the ship; and he ought to have been brought home in her. But a
live dog is better than a dead lion, and a sick sailor belongs to
nobody's mess; so he was sent ashore with the rest of the lumber,
which was only in the way. He had come on board, with his chest,
in the morning, and tried to make himself useful about decks; but
his shuffling feet and weak arms led him into trouble, and some
words were said to him by the mate. He had the spirit of a man,
and had become a little tender, perhaps weakened in mind, and
said, ``Mr. Brown, I always did my duty aboard until I was sick.
If you don't want me, say so, and I'll go ashore.'' ``Bring up his
chest,'' said Mr. Brown, and poor Bennett went down into a boat
and was taken ashore, with tears in his eyes. He loved the ship
and the crew, and wished to get home, but could not bear to be
treated as a soger or loafer on board. This was the only
hard-hearted thing I ever knew Mr. Brown to do.
By these diminutions, we were short-handed for a voyage round Cape
Horn in the dead of winter. Beside Stimson and myself, there were
only five in the forecastle; who, together with four boys in the
steerage, the sailmaker, carpenter, cook, and steward, composed
the crew. In addition to this, we were only four days out, when
the sailmaker, who was the oldest and best seaman on board, was
taken with the palsy, and was useless for the rest of the voyage.
The constant wading in the water, in all weathers, to take off
hides, together with the other labors, is too much for men even in
middle life, and for any who have not good constitutions. (Beside
these two men of ours, the second officer of the California and
the carpenter of the Pilgrim, as we afterwards learned, broke down
under the work, and the latter died at Santa Barbara. The young
man, too, Henry Mellus, who came out with us from Boston in the
Pilgrim, had to be taken from his berth before the mast and made
clerk, on account of a fit of rheumatism which attacked him soon
after he came upon the coast.) By the loss of the sailmaker, our
watch was reduced to five, of whom two were boys, who never
steered but in fine weather, so that the other two and myself had
to stand at the wheel four hours apiece out of every twenty-four;
and the other watch had only four helmsmen. ``Never mind,-- we're
homeward bound!'' was the answer to everything; and we should not
have minded this, were it not for the thought that we should be
off Cape Horn in the very dead of winter. It was now the first
part of May; and two months would bring us off the Cape in July,
which is the worst month in the year there; when the sun rises at
nine and sets at three, giving eighteen hours night, and there is
snow and rain, gales and high seas, in abundance.
The prospect of meeting this in a ship half manned, and loaded so
deep that every heavy sea must wash her fore and aft, was by no
means pleasant. The Alert, in her passage out, doubled the Cape in
the month of February, which is midsummer; and we came round in
the Pilgrim in the latter part of October, which we thought was
bad enough. There was only one of our crew who had been off there
in the winter, and that was in a whale-ship, much lighter and
higher than our ship; yet he said they had man-killing weather for
twenty days without intermission, and their decks were swept
twice, and they were all glad enough to see the last of it. The
Brandywine frigate, also, in her recent passage round, had sixty
days off the Cape, and lost several boats by the heavy seas. All
this was for our comfort; yet pass it we must; and all hands
agreed to make the best of it.
During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made and
mended everything for bad weather. Each of us had made for himself
a suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we got out, and gave
thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung upon the stays to dry.
Our stout boots, too, we covered over with a thick mixture of
melted grease and tar. Thus we took advantage of the warm sun and
fine weather of the Pacific to prepare for its other face. In the
forenoon watches below, our forecastle looked like the workshop of
what a sailor is,-- a Jack-at-all-trades. Thick stockings and
drawers were darned and patched; mittens dragged from the bottom
of the chest and mended; comforters made for the neck and ears;
old flannel shirts cut up to line monkey-jackets; southwesters
were lined with flannel, and a pot of paint smuggled forward to
give them a coat on the outside; and everything turned to hand; so
that, although two years had left us but a scanty wardrobe, yet
the economy and invention which necessity teaches a sailor soon
put each of us in pretty good trim for bad weather, before we had
seen the last of the fine. Even the cobbler's art was not out of
place. Several old shoes were very decently repaired, and with
waxed ends, an awl, and the top of an old boot, I made me quite a
respectable sheath for my knife.
There was one difficulty, however, which nothing that we could do
would remedy; and that was the leaking of the forecastle, which
made it very uncomfortable in bad weather, and rendered half of
the berths tenantless. The tightest ships, in a long voyage, from
the constant strain which is upon the bowsprit, will leak more or
less round the heel of the bowsprit and the bitts, which come down
into the forecastle; but, in addition to this, we had an
unaccountable leak on the starboard bow, near the cat-head, which
drove us from the forward berths on that side, and, indeed, when
she was on the starboard tack, from all the forward berths. One of
the after berths, too, leaked in very bad weather; so that in a
ship which was in other respects unusually tight, and brought her
cargo to Boston perfectly dry, we had, after every effort made to
prevent it, in the way of calking and leading, a forecastle with
only three dry berths for seven of us. However, as there is never
but one watch below at a time, by ``turning in and out,'' we did
pretty well. And there being in our watch but three of us who
lived forward, we generally had a dry berth apiece in bad
weather.[1]
All this, however, was but anticipation. We were still in fine
weather in the North Pacific, running down the northeast trades,
which we took on the second day after leaving San Diego.
Sunday, May 15th, one week out, we were in latitude 14° 56' N.,
lon. 116° 14' W., having gone, by reckoning, over thirteen hundred
miles in seven days. In fact, ever since leaving San Diego, we had
had a fair wind, and as much as we wanted of it. For seven days our
lower and topmast studding-sails were set all the time,
and our royals and top-gallant studding-sails whenever she could
stagger under them. Indeed, the captain had shown, from the moment
we got to sea, that he was to have no boy's play, but that the ship
was to carry all she could, and that he was going to make up by
``cracking on'' to her what she wanted in lightness. In this way we
frequently made three degrees of latitude, besides something in
longitude, in the course of twenty-four hours. Our days we spent in
the usual ship's work. The rigging which had become slack from
being long in port was to be set up; breast backstays got up;
studding-sail booms rigged upon the main yard; and royal
studding-sails got ready for the light trades; ring-tail set; and
new rigging fitted, and sails made ready for Cape Horn. For, with
a ship's gear, as well as a sailor's wardrobe, fine weather must
be improved to get ready for the bad to come. Our forenoon watch
below, as I have said, was given to our own work, and our night
watches were spent in the usual manner,-- a trick at the wheel,
a lookout on the forecastle, a nap on a coil of rigging under the
lee of the rail; a yarn round the windlass-end; or, as was
generally my way, a solitary walk fore and aft, in the weather
waist, between the windlass-end and the main tack. Every wave that
she threw aside brought us nearer home, and every day's
observation at noon showed a progress which, if it continued,
would, in less than five months, take us into Boston Bay. This is
the pleasure of life at sea,-- fine weather, day after day,
without interruption,-- fair wind, and a plenty of it,-- and
homeward bound. Every one was in good humor; things went right;
and all was done with a will. At the dog watch, all hands came on
deck, and stood round the weather side of the forecastle, or sat
upon the windlass, and sung sea-songs and those ballads of pirates
and highwaymen which sailors delight in. Home, too, and what we
should do when we got there, and when and how we should arrive,
was no infrequent topic. Every night, after the kids and pots were
put away, and we had lighted our pipes and cigars at the galley,
and gathered about the windlass, the first question was,--
``Well, Dana, what was the latitude to-day?''
``Why, fourteen, north; and she has been going seven knots ever
since.''
``Well, this will bring us to the line in five days.''
``Yes, but these trades won't last twenty-four hours longer,''
says an old salt, pointing with the sharp of his hand to leeward;
``I know that by the look of the clouds.''
Then came all manner of calculations and conjectures as to the
continuance of the wind, the weather under the line, the southeast
trades, &c., and rough guesses as to the time the ship would be up
with the Horn; and some, more venturous, gave her so many days to
Boston Light, and offered to bet that she would not exceed it.
``You'd better wait till you get round Cape Horn,'' says an old
croaker.
``Yes,'' says another, ``you may see Boston, but you've got to
`smell hell' before that good day.''
Rumors also of what had been said in the cabin, as usual, found
their way forward. The steward had heard the captain say something
about the Straits of Magellan, and the man at the wheel fancied he
had heard him tell the ``passenger'' that, if he found the wind
ahead and the weather very bad off the Cape, he should stick her
off for New Holland, and come home round the Cape of Good Hope.
This passenger-- the first and only one we had had, except to go
from port to port, on the coast-- was no one else than a gentleman
whom I had known in my smoother days, and the last person I should
have expected to see on the coast of California,-- Professor
Nuttall, of Cambridge. I had left him quietly seated in the chair
of Botany and Ornithology in Harvard University, and the next I
saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor's
pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his
trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells. He
had travelled overland to the Northwest Coast, and come down in a
small vessel to Monterey. There he learned that there was a ship
at the leeward about to sail for Boston, and, taking passage in
the Pilgrim, which was then at Monterey, he came slowly along,
visiting the intermediate ports, and examining the trees, plants,
earths, birds, &c., and joined us at San Diego shortly before we
sailed. The second mate of the Pilgrim told me that they had an
old gentleman on board who knew me, and came from the college that
I had been in. He could not recollect his name, but said he was a
``sort of an oldish man,'' with white hair, and spent all his time
in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells
and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels full of them. I
thought over everybody who would be likely to be there, but could
fix upon no one; when, the next day, just as we were about to
shove off from the beach, he came down to the boat in the rig I
have described, with his shoes in his hand, and his pockets full
of specimens. I knew him at once, though I should hardly have been
more surprised to have seen the Old South steeple shoot up from
the hide-house. He probably had no more difficulty in recognizing
me. As we left home about the same time, we had nothing to tell
each other; and, owing to our different situations on board, I saw
but little of him on the passage home. Sometimes, when I was at
the wheel of a calm night, and the steering required little
attention, and the officer of the watch was forward, he would come
aft and hold a short yarn with me; but this was against the rules
of the ship, as is, in fact, all intercourse between passengers
and the crew. I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to
know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him
and his business. They were as much at a loss as our old sailmaker
was with the captain's instruments in the cabin. He said there
were three,-- the chro-nometer, the chre-nometer, and the
the-nometer. The Pilgrim's crew called Mr. Nuttall ``Old
Curious,'' from his zeal for curiosities; and some of them said
that he was crazy, and that his friends let him go about and amuse
himself in this way. Why else a rich man (sailors call every man
rich who does not work with his hands, and who wears a long coat
and cravat) should leave a Christian country and come to such a
place as California to pick up shells and stones, they could not
understand. One of them, however, who had seen something more of
the world ashore, set all to rights, as he thought; ``O, 'vast
there! You don't know anything about them craft. I've seen them
colleges and know the ropes. They keep all such things for
cur'osities, and study 'em, and have men a purpose to go and get
'em. This old chap knows what he's about. He a'n't the child you
take him for. He'll carry all these things to the college, and if
they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head
of the college. Then, by and by, somebody else will go after some
more, and if they beat him he'll have to go again, or else give up
his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covey knows the
ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here
where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of
coming.'' This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr.
Nuttall's credit, and was near enough to the truth for common
purposes, I did not disturb it.
With the exception of Mr. Nuttall, we had no one on board but the
regular ship's company and the live stock. Upon the stock we had
made a considerable inroad. We killed one of the bullocks every
four days, so that they did not last us up to the line. We, or
rather the cabin, then began upon the sheep and the poultry, for
these never come into Jack's mess.[2] The pigs were left for the
latter part of the voyage, for they are sailors, and can stand all
weathers. We had an old sow on board, the mother of a numerous
progeny, who had been twice round the Cape of Good Hope and once
round Cape Horn. The last time going round was very nearly her
death. We heard her squealing and moaning one dark night after it
had been snowing and hailing for several hours, and, climbing over
into the sty, we found her nearly frozen to death. We got some
straw, an old sail, and other things, and wrapped her up in a
corner of the sty, where she stayed until we came into fine
weather again.
Wednesday, May 18th. Lat. 9° 54' N., lon. 113° 17' W. The northeast
trades had now left us, and we had the usual variable winds, the
``doldrums,'' which prevail near the line, together with some rain.
So long as we were in these latitudes, we had but little rest in
our watch on deck at night; for, as the winds were light and
variable, and we could not lose a breath, we were all the watch
bracing the yards, and taking in and making sail, and ``humbugging''
with our flying kites. A little puff of wind on the larboard
quarter, and then-- ``larboard fore braces!''-- and studding-sail
booms were rigged out, studding-sails set alow and aloft, the yards
trimmed, and jibs and spanker in; when it would come as calm as a
duck-pond, the man at the wheel standing with the palm of his hand
up, feeling for the wind. ``Keep her off a little!'' ``All aback
forward, sir!'' cries a man from the forecastle. Down go the braces
again; in come the studding-sails, all in a mess, which half an
hour won't set right; yards braced sharp up, and she's on the
starboard tack, close-hauled. The studding-sails must now be
cleared away, and set up in the tops and on the booms, and the
gear cut off and made fast. By the time this is done, and you are
looking out for a soft plank for a nap,-- ``Lay aft here, and square
in the head yards!'' and the studding-sails are all set again on the
starboard side. So it goes until it is eight bells,-- call the
watch,-- heave the log,-- relieve the wheel, and go below the
larboard watch.
Sunday, May 22d. Lat. 5° 14' N., lon. 166° 45' W. We were now a
fortnight out, and within five degrees of the line, to which two
days of good breeze would take us; but we had, for the most part,
what the sailors call ``an Irishman's hurricane,-- right up and
down.'' This day it rained nearly all day, and, being Sunday and
nothing to do, we stopped up the scuppers and filled the decks with
rain water, and, bringing all our clothes on deck, had a grand wash,
fore and aft. When this was through, we stripped to our drawers,
and taking pieces of soap, with strips of canvas for towels, we
turned-to and soaped, washed, and scrubbed one another down, to
get off, as we said, the California grime; for the common wash in
salt water, which is all that Jack can get, being on an allowance
of fresh, had little efficacy, and was more for taste than
utility. The captain was below all the afternoon, and we had
something nearer to Saturnalia than anything we had yet seen; for
the mate came into the scuppers, with a couple of boys to scrub
him, and got into a contest with them in heaving water. By
unplugging the holes, we let the soapsuds off the decks, and in a
short time had a new supply of clear rain water, in which we had a
grand rinsing. It was surprising to see how much soap and fresh
water did for the complexions of many of us; how much of what we
supposed to be tan and sea-blacking we got rid of. The next day,
the sun rising clear, the ship was covered, fore and aft, with
clothes of all sorts, hanging out to dry.
As we approached the line, the wind became more easterly, and the
weather clearer, and in twenty days from San Diego,--
Saturday, May 28th, at about three P.M., with a fine breeze from
the east-southeast, we crossed the equator. In twenty-four hours
after crossing the line, we took, which was very unusual, the
regular southeast trades. These winds come a little from the
eastward of southeast, and with us they blew directly from the
east-southeast, which was fortunate for us, as our course was
south-by-west, and we could thus go one point free. The yards were
braced so that every sail drew, from the spanker to the
flying-jib; and, the upper yards being squared in a little, the
fore and main top-gallant studding-sails were set, and drew
handsomely. For twelve days this breeze blew steadily, not varying
a point, and just so fresh that we could carry our royals; and
during the whole time we hardly started a brace. Such progress did
we make that at the end of seven days from the time we took the
breeze, on--
Sunday, June 5th, we were in lat. 19° 29' S., and lon. 118° 01' W.,
having made twelve hundred miles in seven days, very nearly upon a
taut bowline. Our good ship was getting to be herself again, and had
increased her rate of sailing more than one third since leaving San
Diego. The crew ceased complaining of her, and the officers hove the
log every two hours with evident satisfaction. This was glorious
sailing. A steady breeze; the light tradewind clouds over our heads;
the incomparable temperature of the Pacific,-- neither hot nor cold;
a clear sun every day, and clear moon and stars every night, and new
constellations rising in the south, and the familiar ones sinking
in the north, as we went on our course,-- ``stemming nightly
toward the pole.'' Already we had sunk the North Star and the
Great Bear, while the Southern Cross appeared well above the
southern horizon, and all hands looked out sharp to the southward
for the Magellan Clouds, which, each succeeding night, we expected
to make. ``The next time we see the North Star,'' said one, ``we
shall be standing to the northward, the other side of the Horn.''
This was true enough, and no doubt it would be a welcome sight,
for sailors say that in coming home from round Cape Horn, or the
Cape of Good Hope, the North Star is the first land you make.
These trades were the same that in the passage out in the Pilgrim
lasted nearly all the way from Juan Fernandez to the line; blowing
steadily on our starboard quarter for three weeks, without our
starting a brace, or even brailing down the skysails. Though we
had now the same wind, and were in the same latitude with the
Pilgrim on her passage out, yet we were nearly twelve hundred
miles to the westward of her course; for the captain, depending
upon the strong southwest winds which prevail in high southern
latitudes during the winter months, took the full advantage of the
trades, and stood well to the westward, so far that we passed
within about two hundred miles of Ducie's Island.
It was this weather and sailing that brought to my mind a little
incident that occurred on board the Pilgrim, while we were in the
same latitude. We were going along at a great rate, dead before
the wind, with studding-sails out on both sides, alow and aloft,
on a dark night, just after midnight, and everything as still as
the grave, except the washing of the water by the vessel's side;
for, being before the wind, with a smooth sea, the little brig,
covered with canvas, was doing great business with very little
noise. The other watch was below, and all our watch, except myself
and the man at the wheel, were asleep under the lee of the boat.
The second mate, who came out before the mast, and was always very
thick with me, had been holding a yarn with me, and just gone aft
to his place on the quarter-deck, and I had resumed my usual walk
to and from the windlass-end, when, suddenly, we heard a loud
scream coming from ahead, apparently directly from under the bows.
The darkness, and complete stillness of the night, and the
solitude of the ocean, gave to the sound a dreadful and almost
supernatural effect. I stood perfectly still, and my heart beat
quick. The sound woke up the rest of the watch, who stood looking
at one another. ``What, in the name of God, is that?'' said the
second mate, coming slowly forward. The first thought I had was,
that it might be a boat, with the crew of some wrecked vessel, or
perhaps the boat of some whale-ship, out over night, and we had
run it down in the darkness. Another scream! but less loud than
the first. This started us, and we ran forward, and looked over
the bows, and over the sides, to leeward, but nothing was to be
seen or heard. What was to be done? Heave the ship aback, and call
the captain? Just at this moment, in crossing the forecastle, one
of the men saw a light below, and, looking down the scuttle, saw
the watch all out of their berths, and afoul of one poor fellow,
dragging him out of his berth, and shaking him, to wake him out of
a nightmare. They had been waked out of their sleep, and as much
alarmed at the scream as we were, and were hesitating whether to
come on deck, when the second sound, proceeding directly from one
of the berths, revealed the cause of the alarm. The fellow got a
good shaking for the trouble he had given. We made a joke of the
matter; and we could well laugh, for our minds were not a little
relieved by its ridiculous termination.
We were now close upon the southern tropical line, and, with so
fine a breeze, were daily leaving the sun behind us, and drawing
nearer to Cape Horn, for which it behooved us to make every
preparation. Our rigging was all overhauled and mended, or changed
for new, where it was necessary; new and strong bobstays fitted in
the place of the chain ones, which were worn out; the spritsail
yard and martingale guys and back-ropes set well taut; bran-new
fore and main braces rove; top-gallant sheets, and wheelropes,
made of green hide, laid up in the form of rope, were stretched
and fitted; and new topsail clew-lines, &c. rove; new fore-topmast
backstays fitted; and other preparations made in good season, that
the ropes might have time to stretch and become limber before we
got into cold weather.
Sunday, June 12th. Lat. 26° 04' S., lon. 116° 31' W. We had now lost
the regular trades, and had the winds variable, principally from the
westward, and kept on in a southerly course, sailing very nearly
upon a meridian, and at the end of the week,--
Sunday, June 19th, were in lat. 34° 15' S., and lon. 116° 38' W.
[1] On removing the cat-head, after the ship arrived at Boston, it
was found that there were two holes under it which had been bored
for the purpose of driving treenails, and which, accidentally, had
not been plugged up when the cat-head was placed over them. This
provoking little piece of negligence caused us great discomfort.
[2] The customs as to the allowance of ``grub'' are very nearly the
same in all American merchantmen. Whenever a pig is killed, the
sailors have one mess from it. The rest goes to the cabin. The
smaller live stock, poultry, &c. the sailors never taste. And
indeed they do not complain of this, for it would take a great
deal to supply them with a good meal; and without the
accompaniments (which could hardly be furnished to them), it would
not be much better than salt beef. But even as to the salt beef
they are scarcely dealt fairly with; for whenever a barrel is
opened, before any of the beef is put into the harness-cask, the
steward comes up and picks it all over, and takes out the best
pieces (those that have any fat in them) for the cabin. This was
done in both the vessels I was in, and the men said that it was
usual in other vessels. Indeed, it is made no secret, and some of
the crew are usually called to help in assorting and putting away
the pieces. By this arrangement the hard, dry pieces, which the
sailors call ``old horse,'' come to their share.
There is a singular piece of rhyme, traditional among sailors,
which they say over such pieces of beef. I do not know that it
ever appeared in print before. When seated round the kid, if a
particularly bad piece is found, one of them takes it up, and
addresses it thus:--
```Old horse! old horse! what brought you here?'
`From Sacarap to Portland Pier
I've carted stone this many a year;
Till, killed by blows and sore abuse,
They salted me down for sailors' use.
The sailors they do me despise;
They turn me over and damn my eyes;
Cut off my meat, and scrape my bones,
And pitch me over to Davy Jones.'''
There is a story current among seamen, that a beef-dealer was
convicted, at Boston, of having sold old horse for ship's stores,
instead of beef, and had been sentenced to be confined in jail
until he should eat the whole of it; and that he is now lying in
Boston jail. I have heard this story often, on board other vessels
besides those of our own nation. It is very generally believed,
and is always highly commended, as a fair instance of retaliatory
justice.