Saturday, the 13th of September, 1851, at five o'clock in the evening,
we went on board the Carolina, then lying at the wharf, and all
ready for sea. She was a propeller of six hundred tons, built as a
two-decker, but had afterwards been raised by her present proprietors,
who, in their disinterested anxiety to promote the comfort of their
passengers, would gladly have gone on adding story to story till she
was as high as the Astor House or the Tower of Babel, if they could
only have devised a plan for making her as firm as either of those
centres of wealth and fashion. She seemed now as crowded as a well
filled pincushion; but it is a curious though well authenticated fact,
and one of which the various steamboat companies have not failed to
take advantage, that five hundred passengers returning from California
occupy little more room than half that number from the Atlantic
States; either because the disappointment that most of them meet with
operates like the prick of a pin on an inflated bladder, or because,
and this I apprehend is after all the true reason, the hot and arid
temperature of that country so dries up the fluids and juices of the
body that it gradually wizzles away till it is reduced to the same
condition as a mummy or dried apple.
Be this as it may, on looking round among my fellow passengers I saw
many who seemed to feel as if they could easily creep into a rat-hole;
and, for my own part, if it had not been for the belt round my waist,
I have no doubt I could have squeezed through a crack or into a
bottle without the slightest inconvenience. But gaunt, and wizzled,
and woe-begone as was the appearance of our company, it was nothing to
what was brought about by a few weeks' confinement on shipboard; so
that if the voyage had been long enough, a good sized pea-pod would
have furnished a craft amply sufficient for our shrunken mortality.
The Carolina went to sea with four hundred passengers, of whom nearly
three-fourths were in the steerage. The accommodations provided for
this class consisted of a large cabin on the lower deck, and a smaller
one directly above it, both furnished with berths similar to those
of a river steamboat, with this difference, that though scarcely
any wider, they were intended to be occupied by two persons. In
cold weather this would have been hardly tolerable, and the reader
can imagine the delights of such intimate fellowship in the sultry
sluggish air of the tropics. After one or two trials I gave up in
despair, and spreading my blankets on deck, slept there every night
during the remainder of the voyage. At least half of my companions had
the same choice--we made the vast Pacific our bed-chamber, and strewed
the lofty deck of our steamer thicker than leaves in Vallambrosa.
By eight o'clock every spot was occupied, and it was then almost
impossible to cross the deck, especially in rough weather, without
tripping over some unlucky nose, or flattening it level with the
astonished cheeks. The ship now became silent as the dawn of creation,
except the hoarse coffee-mill grinding of the propeller, and the
palpable stillness of the passing ripple. We could almost hear the
stars twinkling in the sky, and the hum-top spin of the round-faced
moon. This was delightful--delicious--enchanting--excessively
fine--but several hours later, about the time that the milk-cart
rattles o'er the stony street, and the fisherman's horn splits the
dull ear of night--when the punctual plodding Phoebus, climbing his
eastern ladder, streaks the wide horizon with his floating golden
hair--a mimic deluge, commencing at the forecastle, comes drowning
out our little world. Onto the hencoops! up into the rigging! down
into the steerage! every man for himself, and the long crawling hose,
a veritable sea-serpent, take the hindmost! "Oh! preserve us!" cries
some heavy dreamer, striking out as if to swim--"oh--ah--whooo! I
thought the ship was sinking;" and now wide awake, "Bless us! if I
don't wish she would."
This was pleasant weather, but sometimes it rained and blew. Then the
labouring ship, making more angles with the horizon than Sir Isaac
Newton ever dreamed of, rolled our loose disjointed bodies crunching
over the oaken planks--the sullen soddening rain hung every bristle on
our blankets with conglobing drops--or a phosphorescent wave drenched
us to the skin, filling our eyes, our mouths, our pockets, with its
briny flood. If all the resolutions made at such times should be kept,
few would ever trust themselves again to the treacherous element.
The first four days of our voyage passed pleasantly enough. The sea
was smooth, the sky was fair, a favouring breeze pushed us gently
on our way, and we ran in that time nearly nine hundred miles. The
thoughts of home with which all were occupied, though they produced a
silence and reserve strangely in contrast with the noisy hilarity of
the voyage out, at the same time disposed all to bear the hardships
and annoyances incident to their situation with patience and good
humour. We became by degrees, like a barrel of apples, shaken and
jolted into our places until we were able to move about the deck
without displacing another at every step. The prospect of a speedy
run, and the hope of beating the Panama that was to start two days
after us, heightened the general satisfaction.
But this scene was changed with the capricious suddenness of a play.
The fifth night I had spread my blankets on a hencoop, and fell asleep
with the stars burning undimmed in the firmament. I was awakened
about midnight by a dismal uproar for which no place on land is big
enough unless it be the desert of Sahara, or one of our western
prairies. A sudden squall had sprung up from the south, directly in
our teeth. The canvass awnings stretched across the deck twisted and
writhed as if in torture. The sailors, at the hoarse cry of "all hands
ahoy," came trampling along the deck, knocking down the stupid wakers
who sat upright on their blankets like half animated right angles, and
rubbed their sleepy eyes. Two hundred piles of bedding at one and the
same moment seemed endowed with the power of locomotion, and began to
walk, and creep, and tumble towards the steerage.
And now the mighty Pacific seemed bent on showing us what she could do
with our cockle-shell of a boat. After the first angry burst, as if
sounding the charge, she went to work with a coolness and deliberation
well suited to her royalty and power. She tossed us from one hand
to another with stunning violence. Her winds blew not wearily, but
with that fierce energy as if they had just been let loose from their
stalls. The sea went up, and the sky came down, as if, like the man in
the iron cage, we were to be crushed between the walls of our dungeon.
A sensation of sea-sickness--of stupidity--of utter loathing and yet
desire of life--of wet clothes clinging heavily to the shrunken,
shivering body--of breathing an atmosphere half air half water--a
feeling as if one had fins and scales--a constant holding on to hats,
or watching them with strange melancholy as they fly away in the
distance--these things, together with a dreamy, ill-defined sublimity
over all, make up a storm at sea.
But this was not the end. Our ship, after skilfully dodging for a
long time the tremendous blows aimed at her by the furious waves, at
length received such a punch in the breast as seemed fairly to knock
the breath out of her body. No outward injury was at first discovered,
but she bled inwardly and had evidently sprung a dangerous leak. I
was sitting like a perpendicular mummy on the deserted quarter-deck,
about two o'clock in the morning, watching the dim billows that sent
a constant flood of foam over the bows, when St. John came up, and
steadying himself by my chair, informed me in a sepulchral whisper
that there were ten feet of water in the hold, that the leak was
gaining fast, and threatened to put out the fires. Instinctively I
put my hand to the leathern belt around my waist, and groaned aloud.
Was it for this that I had braved the hardships of a six months'
voyage and the sickness and toil of two years in the mines? Was it
for this that I had spoilt forever the beauty of my hands and the
delicacy of my complexion? Had I stood day after day in those ice-cold
rivers, like a man with his feet on the pole and his head under the
equator--had I swallowed doses innumerable of oil and laudanum, of
blue mass and quinine, only to feed the fishes at last? If I had got
nothing, it would have been less matter; but as it was, how I hated
the ugly shark who would gulp me at a single mouthful, the richest
supper since Cleopatra's pearl. I got up, and unrolling myself from
my blankets, walked forward and looked down the hatchway above the
furnaces. A red and angry glare from the crevices around the doors
showed a mass of water black as pitch rolling and swashing with the
motion of the vessel within a foot of the fires. It was Phlegethon
shedding its baleful light on the dark and melancholy Styx. A group
of passengers stood leaning against the iron railing, watching with
strange interest the firemen below standing knee deep in the inky
flood, and still plying their task with sullen resolution. As they
threw open the clanging doors, we caught glimpses of the fires burning
with a fierceness of purpose that seemed to defy the ocean to put it
out; but still the insidious element crept on, and we already heard
the ominous hiss like the skirmishes before a great battle, as the
foremost of the assailants dashed against the bars of the furnace.
If the waters prevailed, as they were sure to do in this unequal
contest, our only hope of salvation was gone; for the pump attached
to the engine, though sadly out of order, and able to work but
about half the time, was still superior in effective service to the
united strength of all in the ship. As long as that could be kept in
operation there was no danger of the leak gaining upon us, and it
was owing simply to its having partially failed, that the state of
affairs now looked so threatening. One of the passengers, "a darned
bluenose," as he was styled by the ungrateful Yankees whose lives he
had volunteered to save at the risk of his own, had ventured out under
the bowsprit and nailed some canvass over the principal leak; but
there was another he could not reach, and the situation of which was
not exactly known. One declared it was under the engine--another, with
equal confidence, asserted that it was somewhere about the bows. It
was now discovered that the ship was known to be leaky when we sailed;
the first mate had said that they had been obliged to keep the pumps
going even while she lay at the wharf--the engineer confirmed this
story, and added, moreover, that the engine was in an equally unsafe
condition. It had in some way broken loose from its fastenings and
threatened to knock a hole through the ship's bottom, but by tying it
up with ropes they were enabled to maintain a sufficient weight of
steam to keep the ship's head to the wind; and in this situation we
lay for several days without making a single mile.
Still the services of the engine were indispensible to our safety, and
it was necessary under such a pressing emergency to take immediate
measures for its relief. Two of the passengers descended into the
hold and took their station by the side of the firemen. Others were
ranged at convenient intervals on the slender iron ladders that led
to the upper decks--a large number of buckets were provided, and the
work commenced. The undertaking was greatly impeded by the rolling and
pitching of the ship that rendered it at times extremely difficult to
maintain a footing upon the ladders, and now and then threw half a
bucket of water, that had nearly reached the top, down onto the heads
of those below.
But now the anxious question arose, would they be able to lower the
water in the hold or even to prevent its rising higher. For a long
time the scale hung in doubtful balance, but at last the cheerful news
was shouted up to us that the water was lowered about an inch. It
was now suggested to draw the supply for the boilers from within the
ship instead of taking that without. The pump used for this purpose
was accordingly set in operation, and by the united powers of men and
steam all fear of immediate danger was at length removed. The storm
had spent its violence, the sea became smooth, and in a few days we
arrived at Acapulco, where the Panama had gone in just before us.
Like her we will also improve the opportunity, and gladly escaping
from these boisterous scenes of alarm and confusion, take refuge in
the quiet haven of more serene and peaceful meditations. Wars and
battles, though occupying so large a space in history, are after all
far less deserving of our sober study than the more domestic narrative
of private firesides; and I trust the reader will turn with equal
satisfaction from storm and shipwreck to the individual interests of
our little community.
I take it for granted that all will agree with me in considering the
subject on which we are about entering, of paramount importance;
and this conviction, while it inflames my desire, at the same time
heightens my sense of my inability to do justice to a question of such
universality of interest.
The clerk of whom we bought our tickets was a remarkably handsome
man, and when he assured us with an air of sincerity an angel might
have envied, that the steerage passengers would have the same fare
as that provided for the cabin, though in a little different shape,
I was simple enough to believe that it was at least one-half true.
This was the more inexcusable, as I had already been once deceived in
a similar manner, and had had the lesson, one would suppose, pretty
effectually ground into my stomach during our never-to-be-forgotten
voyage in the Leucothea. But as some one, I think it is the amiable
Pecksniff, feelingly observes, it is my nature to be deceived, and a
hundred voyages would probably have had no more effect. However, when
the handsome clerk had received our money, and had turned us over to
the tender mercies of a captain who knew nothing, and a parcel of
blacks who cared nothing what the steerage had to eat, we found that
the agent, who was probably a pleasant fellow, or a philosopher, had,
to say the least, indulged in a figure of speech when he made use of
the expression quoted above.
Chemically and philosophically he was undoubtedly correct, and a
chemist or a philosopher might have understood him; but a common
man, or any one taking his words in their every day meaning, would
have been wofully deceived. The cabin fare took the shape of roast
beef, and pork, and chickens--of pies and puddings--of soft tack and
butter--of nuts and fruit. By the time it reached the steerage, the
fresh had become salt--the soft tack had grown hard as the heart of
its owners--the puddings had degenerated into boiled rice, sometimes
raw, sometimes burnt, often both at once--while the pies and other
articles of the dessert were not there at all, either in their own
shape or any other.
There was another sense however in which the agent, who I never will
believe wilfully intended to deceive us, might have expected his
promise to be interpreted. All these various luxuries were prepared
in a single galley half sunk below the level of the deck and covered
by a grating and an open skylight. Around this grating the steerage
passengers were permitted to assemble, and snuff up as much of the
fragrant odours as mixed with other and less inviting exhalations,
found their way into the upper air. Sometimes, if one waited long
enough and humbled himself sufficiently, one of the black cooks would
extend to him graciously the royal favour, and bestow upon him a
pickle or a bit of bread, or even leave to him the superfluity of his
own repast. In addition to this inestimable privilege we dwellers in
the middle of the ship, half way between the aristocracy of the cabin
and the democracy of the forecastle, were allowed to feast our eyes
on the savoury messes carried past our quarters in tin pans of vast
circumference, and even to look on at a respectful distance while the
different watches ate and drank with the most sublime indifference.
The scene constantly reminded me of a huge mastiff gnawing a bone,
while a troop of curs and puppies walk about him, wistfully eyeing the
fragments as they disappear one after another in his capacious jaws,
and after he has finished carefully lick up every particle too small
for his magnanimous appetite.
But it would be necessary to descend still lower in the scale of
creation to find a fit illustration of the manner in which our meals
were conducted. Two narrow tables were suspended from the ceiling in
the upper cabin, capable of seating about seventy persons. As there
were nearly three hundred passengers, of course only one-fourth could
be accommodated at once, and the tables had to be set four times in
succession; so that each meal commonly occupied several hours. Out of
these three hundred at least two hundred and fifty were possessed with
an insane desire to sit down at the first table; either because they
fancied there would be a greater abundance, or from that abhorrence of
being last, which has come to be considered an American characteristic.
Long before the usual hour, a little knot of the more hungry, or
more determined sort, had collected round the hatch opening into the
steerage. At the same time various symptoms began to show that all
were in expectation of some important event. The readers shut up their
books and put them into their pockets--the card players swept up their
cards from the deck--the talkers stopped talking and pricked up their
ears--every thing foretold the impending dinner. The crowd around the
hatchway has grown larger and denser, and only waits the steward's
signal to precipitate itself almost bodily into the steerage below.
Those in the centre sit with their legs dangling down the hatch, and
from this elevated position eye the sluggish movements of the waiters
with ravenous impatience.
"What they got for dinner?" cries some unfortunate on the skirts of
the throng vainly striving to look over the shoulders of the circle.
"Roast turkey and plum pudding," answer half a dozen voices, "don't
you wish you could get some?" and this well-worn jest never fails to
be received with shouts of laughter. At last all the preparations
are completed--the step ladder is reared against the deck, and in
an instant eighty hungry bipeds drop, like apples from a tree when
violently shaken, down into the steerage. But at the same moment a
second party, who have lain all the while perdu in their berths,
suddenly emerge from their hiding-places and appropriate without
ceremony all the seats on one side of the tables, and half of the
eighty are obliged to return grumbling and swearing to the deck.
And now begins a scene of confusion such as fortunately is witnessed
nowhere except at sea. Half-a-dozen hands are at once stretched out
for the salt beef, but the dish is of tin and will bear hard pulling.
The one who prevails in the contest cuts off the choicest bit for
himself, and pushes the dish to his next neighbour. "Hand along them
pertaters"--"pass up that bread"--"here waiter! steward! the soup
is all gone"--"can't help it; it's all there is"--"give me a mug, I
say"--"what the d---- do you call this?"--"I haven't had a potato
these three days"--"faugh! the rice's burnt again"--"that feller's got
'em all"--"let me out o' this, I say"--such are the cries that, larded
with a plentiful sprinkling of oaths, go to make up the conversation
at this elegant repast.
But luckily it is of no long duration; in fifteen or twenty minutes
the last straggler has disappeared up the hatch, and the tables are
put in order for the second division. The excitement is now even
greater than before, and the same scenes as those last described are
repeated in a still more aggravated form on each successive occasion.
The last comers were sometimes too impatient to wait till the dishes
could be washed, and filled up the benches as fast as they were
vacated by their predecessors. Thus the same plate might be kept in
constant service, and the successive strata of beef and mustard, rice
and molasses, that had accumulated on its surface, would afford a very
accurate index of the number of times it had been employed.
To obviate as far as possible the evils arising from this state of
confusion, the passengers voluntarily divided into four sections, and
determined by lot the order of precedence. This order was to continue
until we reached Acapulco, when it was to be reversed, the first
division becoming last, and the last first. This arrangement, however,
was never carried into effect, inasmuch as the first and second
divisions suddenly discovered that it would not be for their advantage
to fulfil the contract; and accordingly all things returned to their
original chaos.
In hopes of obtaining a little improvement in our bill of fare we also
agreed to have but two meals a day, but this hope proving utterly
fallacious, this measure became extremely unpopular, and it was
impossible to find a single passenger who would allow that he had
voted in its favour. After various remonstrances made to the captain
and other officers by different individuals, a mass meeting was held
and a committee of three appointed to state our grievances to the
captain and solicit his interference. The great man received them
graciously, and promised after dinner to visit the steerage in person.
Accordingly about the middle of the afternoon he was seen advancing
towards our quarters. Attended by an eager crowd of followers he
descended the ladder, and looked curiously round on the novel and
interesting spectacle. A plate was presented to him containing a
portion of hot water with a little grease floating on the surface,
and dignified by the name of soup. With the flavour of roast chicken
and plum pudding yet lingering about his palate it was hardly to be
expected that he should find such a compound much to his liking; but
it was no slight proof of condescension even to taste it at all, and
manifested a freedom from vulgar prejudice and a willingness to be
convinced worthy of the highest praise.
As many of the passengers as could find standing room had followed
the captain down the ladder, and now stood peeping over each other's
shoulders and watching his movements in respectful silence. The rest
gathered round the hatch on deck, and as they could not see what was
going on one of their number would from time to time inquire of those
below, and then repeat the answer for the benefit of his companions.
"What's the cap'n doing?" says the telegraph on deck.
"He's lookin' round," returns the other in a loud whisper.
"An' what's he doing now?"
"He's tastin' the soup."
"An' what does he say?"
"He says it's first rate;" and at this a low murmur of disapprobation
runs through the crowd. "Hang his old pictur! I wish he had to eat
it," cries one, shrugging his shoulders.
"It's just what I expected," mutters another who looks as if he had a
fancy to play the part of Catiline. "I tell you nothing'll ever do any
good till we take the law into our own hands."
All those within hearing of these daring words instantly turn their
eyes towards the speaker, some with sympathetic admiration, others
to take his measure and see if his bearing corresponds with his
utterance; while he, conscious of the scrutiny, straightens himself
up and stares disdainfully into vacancy. Half-a-dozen of the same
kidney then work their way up to him, and they all begin in a low
tone to discuss the reasons why they should deprive the captain of
his command, and, if he resisted, put him in irons or even tow him
overboard for a mile or two. All seem greatly pleased with this last
suggestion, for the idea of a steamboat captain bobbing up and down
at the end of a long rope, and bubbling out his cries for help, and
promises of amendment is, it must be confessed, very facetious and
amusing. These arch conspirators thus mutually inflamed their noble
rage, and proved so conclusively that they ought to take command of
the ship, and the ease with which it could be done, that I never
exactly understood why they didn't do it.
Captain W. having finished his inspection again mounted the ladder,
and unconscious of the dangers by which he was surrounded walked
calmly through the crowd that opened to give a passage. I expected at
every step to see rude hands laid on his collar, and a revolver at
each ear; but at this unlucky moment every one seemed seized with a
sudden attack of modesty that disposed him to remain in the background
and yield the post of honour to others. If it had not been for this
unfortunate coincidence I have no doubt I should have been gratified
by witnessing the entertaining spectacle suggested above; for the
captain, having stopped but a moment at the galley to give some orders
to the cooks, had no sooner passed the mainmast than his enemies all
at once regained their usual confidence, and shook their fists at him
behind his back with most alarming ferocity.
The result of this visit was the next day visible in a nondescript
dish, consisting of junks of fresh pork stewed with corresponding
junks of dough, and a large quantity of potatoes; after which
favourable symptom there was a relapse of our old complaint.
Under these circumstances an invitation we received to dine with a
select party in the lower steerage was naturally accepted with the
same eagerness with which a starving author in those days when
starving was the fashion would have hurried to dine with a noble
lord. One of our entertainers had already made my mouth water by
the rapturous terms in which he described the approaching banquet,
and I waited impatiently for the appointed hour of four. He and his
companions had in some way propitiated the sooty functionaries of the
cabin, either by flattery or Panama brandy, and had thus succeeded
in accumulating the materials for a repast of the most elegant and
_recherche_ description. It would be in vain, however, to attempt
to give a full and particular account; it will be sufficient to
indicate to the reader a few of the principal dishes, leaving to his
imagination the same work that we left to our own, that of supplying
the various accessories.
The first course consisted of beef, pork, and chicken, roast, boiled,
and stewed, served up with a soup of the most varied and exquisite
flavour. There was a scanty allowance of soft bread, and a plentiful
supply of fresh biscuit six months old. There were potatoes in
abundance, onions enough to smell of, and if spice were wanting, salt
and pepper were to be had for the asking.
Having thus set out my first course, I fancy the reader picturing to
his mind's eye a large table groaning under the weight of a dozen
or twenty dishes, and all the useless additions of an unnatural and
sickly civilization. But this would be doing gross injustice to a
feast whose most striking characteristic was a grand and massive
simplicity. The whole of the luxuries I have enumerated were comprised
in a single dish--a round tin pan of moderate circumference, resting
on the middle of a sailor's chest belonging to our host. If any one
should cavil at this explanation as being altogether monstrous and
incredible, I would refer him for an illustration to the tent of the
fairy Peribanon, which a sea-pie as our dish was denominated, doth
most closely resemble: inasmuch as it may, and sometimes doth, consist
of but a few articles, and at others affords comfortable lodgings
to a mighty host. But certain it is that a naturalist, on examining
the various bones that were exhumed from the bowels of our pasty,
would have been sadly puzzled to determine the animal to which it
had belonged, and would probably have astonished the world with a
marvellous account of some prodigious monster belonging neither to the
Saurians nor Ophidians, but more strange than either, with the head of
a swine, the liver of an ox, and the legs and gizzard of a bird.
Our second course consisted of oranges; the third varied indefinitely
according to the imaginative powers of the guests. A coffee-pot
two-thirds full of brandy, sugar, and water, supplied the
never-failing accompaniment. As chairs were wanting, as well as a
place to put them, we sat on trunks and boxes, or insinuated as large
a portion of our persons as was convenient into the berths on either
side; a very favourable position for the eating of soup, as it brings
the head almost down to the knees, and thus prevents those slips
between the cup and the lip that are nowhere else so many as at sea.
On the strength of this dinner I went as far as Acapulco; when, like
that wary old campaigner, Sir Dugald Dalgetty, we laid in a store of
provant sufficient to last for several days. The various hotels at
this place, The United States, The American House, and others with
less hospitable names, were at once invaded by a hungry swarm, and
the eggs, the chickens, the bread and milk that had been accumulating
since the departure of the last steamer, were stowed away with a
celerity that excited the mingled delight and consternation of our
entertainers. But we must leave this place for another chapter.