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It takes a skilful harpooner to overhaul a porpoise on its darting,
leaping course. When one is taken, there is great rejoicing. Fresh
meat will be served on board.
Near the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, and the Falkland Isles you
encounter many birds, albatross, cape pigeons, mulehogs, and all
varieties of gulls. They feed on the waste thrown overboard and
escort the ship halfway to Australia. You greet them as old friends
whom you met a year ago and are glad to see back again. The gull and
albatross are regarded as sacred, for it is the belief of the seaman
that some day he will return to earth as a gull or albatross. Each
one of these birds is the soul of a seaman. The white gulls are good
souls. The brown or black gulls are bad souls, the "sea devils."
When you are running before the trade wind south of the equator, the
appearance of the albatross is a great event in the monotony of the
voyage. Majestically the great white bird sweeps up and down, now
before the bow now behind the stern, and circles the ship. He is the
ruler of the Southern seas. It is a common belief among seamen that
nobody ever succeeded in bringing an albatross alive to the Northern
Hemisphere.
Sometimes off the coast of Africa hundreds of swallows that have lost
their way in a fog alight on a ship's rigging, exhausted. Sometimes
dozens of storks do. They never rise again. There is no suitable
food on board for them. It is pitiful to see them waste away and
drop dead on deck or into the sea. There is no help for it. They
die a seaman's death, like sailors adrift without food or water.
Our ship lay idle in Tampico. A comrade and I got shore leave. We
were allured by the romantic life of the lasso-throwing vaqueros,
with their herds of long-horned cattle, their fiery broncos, their
silver-mounted saddles. A German settler put two horses at our
disposal, and, to shame the idea that sailors cannot ride, we went
galloping around the country on a tour that lasted several days.
When we returned to Tampico, our ship had sailed.
In a country so rich as Mexico, it was not hard to make a living.
All you had to do was to stand around the market-place and lend a
hand. You earned enough to live and had a few coins left to squander
in the gambling houses. For a couple of weeks, we made our living by
carrying market baskets.
We joined the Mexican Army. Anybody could become a soldier. Life
was pleasant and lazy, although the quarters were poor. We were sent
to Mexico City, and there for several days stood on guard at the
palace of the great Porfirio Diaz, under whose dictatorship Mexico
was then enjoying her golden days.
We quit the army and worked on a railroad construction in the
interior. In a gang of Italians, Poles, Germans, and Jamaica Negroes
we transported sand, soil, and materials for railroad trestles. Then
we worked for a German who had a ranch on which he raised poultry and
fruit.
At Vera Cruz we signed on a petroleum tanker for Havana, and there
shipped on a Norwegian craft which made the old New York-Australia
run. The return voyage was via Honolulu to Vancouver, where we took
a cargo of lumber aboard for Liverpool. On this voyage I acquired a
fair knowledge of Norwegian, which was destined to play an important
part in running the British blockade with the _Seeadler_.
Back in Hamburg I tried my hand as a tavern keeper and bartender. I
frequented Mother Schroth's familiar old place. The _Frau_, a
typical old friend of Jack Tar ashore, suffered from asthma and had
put on too much weight altogether. She wanted to go to a watering
place. One of my pals, Ulhorn, and I, told her that we would take
over her place and run it while she was away. She was greatly
pleased.
It was easy enough to run the business, as only bottled beer was
handled. The food was brought from a near-by restaurant, each
portion in a pail, at sixty pfennigs a portion. All Ulhorn and I had
to do was to circulate among the guests and see that they drank
plenty of beer by drinking with them. In the evening a blind man
came and played the accordion.
Business boomed. The sailors came, and felt at home. We had to get
in an extra supply of beer. When we reckoned our accounts, however,
we were astonished to find that we had a deficit. We chalked on a
blackboard each bottle of beer that was drunk. That was all right so
long as we stayed sober. Then, when we began to feel good, we
allowed some of our guests to assist in the bookkeeping. They
chalked up their own accounts, but instead of increasing their scores
with every bottle of beer they drank, they reduced them. After a
short while at this, we quit with less money than when we started. I
decided that the saloon business was not the career for me.
After sundry other voyages, I shipped on the _Lisbon_, bound for the
Mediterranean. By now, a little sense had been knocked into my head.
I had saved 3,600 marks, which interest brought up to 3,800--enough
to see me through a period of special training that would enable me
to become a mate. This preparation called for a period of steamship
service and a course at a navigation school. The _Lisbon_ was a
steamer, the first on which I had served. My voyage on her marked a
turning point in my life.