A VOYAGE TO YUCATAN.
For five days after Kit’s arrival on board the _North Cape_
the steam winches were at work ten hours a day with their deafening
clatter, first in hoisting the remainder of the hemp bales out of the
hold, then in taking in what shipping men call a “general cargo,”
consisting in part of barrels of flour, boxes of tea, cases of cloth,
hats, shoes, and other things necessary in a country where little but
hemp is produced.
On the fifth day there came indications that the ship was about to
sail. The last of the piles of merchandise on the wharf disappeared,
the winches stopped, and two of the hatches were battened down. Kit was
prepared for this, for he was now a legal member of the ship’s family,
having signed the crew list. He had written home and had received his
mother’s permission to go to sea, coupled with many loving expressions
and much good advice; and had received, too, an affectionate letter
from Genevieve, and a little bundle containing the clothing he had left
at home.
Early in the afternoon the Captain’s bell rang, and it was Kit’s
business to answer it.
“Go tell the chief I want steam at eight o’clock,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Kit answered, and ran up to the chief engineer’s room to
deliver the order. When he left the chief’s room he was stopped near
the engine-room skylights by the boatswain.
“Here, youngster,” said he, “run up for’ard and ask the first officer
to send me the load-water-line; I’ve got to take soundings.”
“Yes, sir,” Kit answered again, and was about to start on the
errand when he was stopped by Tom Haines, the fourth engineer, a
pleasant-faced young Scotchman of about twenty, who was leaning against
the skylights.
“Don’t go, young ’un,” Haines said; “he’s trying to make a fool of you.
The load-water-line is painted on the side of the ship; besides, we
don’t take soundings lying at a wharf.”
Kit laughed good-naturedly at the joke, and Haines added:--
“They’ll soon get tired of playing tricks on you, as you don’t get mad.
Just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and you’ll soon know as
much about the ship as any of them.”
“Oh, I don’t intend to let them make me mad,” Kit answered, “no matter
how many tricks they play on me. A new boy has to expect that sort of
thing, I suppose.”
Before he reached the cabin companionway he was stopped by “Chocolate”
Cheevers, the engineer’s mess-room boy, whose nickname was generally
abbreviated to “Chock.” This boy had already played more tricks upon
Kit than all the rest of the crew combined, and the new cabin boy
felt sure that he would not be a pleasant companion on the voyage.
The curious nickname that the sailors had given him came, it was easy
to see, from the brown hue of his skin; and this and his tight-curled
black hair and velvety brown eyes marked him for a light West Indian
mulatto. He was about a year older than Kit, tall and slender.
“Say, farmer,” he said, laying a hand on Kit’s shoulder (disliking his
own nickname, he was anxious to attach one to Kit), “don’t you want to
go ashore with me and have a look at the town to-night? This will be
our last night in port.”
“Why, we’re going to sail at eight o’clock,” Kit answered.
“Well, you are a green one!” Chock laughed. “How can we sail before we
get our crew on board? We’ll not leave the wharf before midnight, and
then she’ll anchor out in the harbor till morning.”
“But I can’t go on shore without leave,” Kit protested, “nor you
either.”
“We can get leave fast enough, on the last night. Come along, and we’ll
take in some of the shows on the Bowery. It’s a gay old place, that
Bowery.”
“Oh, that’s what you mean by taking a look at the town, is it?” Kit
laughed. “I don’t care about that kind of a look, thank you. I saw a
little of the Bowery when I was looking for a job, and I’m not fond of
it; and I have no money to throw away on such things. We’d better both
stay on board and attend to our business.”
“Ah, the cabin boy is a preacher as well as a farmer, is he?” Chock
sneered. “Service of song every Sunday morning.”
“No, I am no preacher,” Kit answered pleasantly; “but I am not fool
enough to spend my money on Bowery shows, either.”
The Captain’s bell rang again, and he had to hurry away before Chock
had a chance to retort. He was wanted this time to help the Captain
get ready to go ashore; and after the Captain had gone he took the
opportunity to write his last letter home before sailing, as he always
had less to do when the Captain was away. There were writing-materials
on the big cabin table, and he sat down and wrote:--
DEAR MOTHER AND VIEVE:--We are getting up steam and will
be off to-night or to-morrow morning, so this is the last letter
you will get from me till I am back from Yucatan. And won’t I be a
regular old sailor by that time!
The Captain has gone ashore, and we expect the rest of the crew
this evening. You see only about half the crew stay by the ship
all the time; the rest are shipped new for every voyage. The
regular ones are the Captain, the first and second mates, the
chief engineer and his three assistants, the boatswain, the cabin
steward, cabin boy (that’s the undersigned!), cook, galley boy
(that boy is about thirty!), and the engineers’ mess-room boy.
Then before sailing we ship six men “before the mast,” and four
firemen, or stokers. That will make twenty-three of us on board
when we sail.
I think I have given the Captain satisfaction so far, and I like
it first-rate. Of course we are only in port yet, but I shall like
it at sea too. We have a beautiful little cabin, and the Captain’s
room is about half as large as the cabin. I have to take care of
his room, keep it clean, and keep his clothes in order; clean the
cabin every morning, fill and polish the big lamp, run when the
Captain’s bell rings, and, as he says, “do whatever I’m told,”
which of course I do.
At the other end of the cabin, across a little alley, are three
good staterooms. The first and second mates have one together, and
the cabin steward and I have another. He sleeps in the lower berth,
and I in the upper. It makes fine quarters for us; but we would
have to move out if there were passengers on board.
At meal times the Captain and first mate eat together first, then
the second mate comes down and eats, and after he is done the
steward and I eat together. The engineers have their own mess-room.
Of course there is plenty to eat, and our china is all marked N.
C., for _North Cape_. You wouldn’t think things would be
so grand on a freight ship. Why, the cabin is all furnished in
mahogany, with soft leather cushions. Oh, I forgot to say that I
have to help the steward wash the dishes, so it’s well you taught
me how.
Don’t think I am off on a pleasure trip. I didn’t leave you
both for that. I have lots of work to do; and I hope to do it
faithfully, so that before long I may be something better than a
cabin boy. But cabin boy isn’t so bad for just now.
The _North Cape_’s size is 2850 tons, and she is a very strong
iron ship; so you need not be worried about me. Shake dear old
Turk’s paw good-by for me. You know how much love I send to you
both. Good-by for a month or six weeks.
Your loving
KIT.
That was the longest letter he had ever written; and by the time it was
finished he had to help set the supper table, for the ship’s meals must
go on whether the Captain was on board or not. Then the dishes were
hardly washed and put away after supper before the Captain returned,
to be followed in a few minutes by a shipping agent who brought the
crew--the six sailors and four stokers, most of whom had been supplied
with enough liquor to make them willing to sign orders for advances on
their pay, for the benefit of the agent and boarding-house keeper. Some
of them were quite sober, however, and there was one young man of good
appearance whom Kit thought he should like.
It was nine o’clock by the time the sailors were aboard and quartered
down in the forecastle, but still there were no further signs of the
ship’s moving; on the contrary, the Captain went ashore again, and the
usual harbor lights were kept burning in the rigging. About eleven
o’clock, having nothing to do, but feeling too much excited over the
start to turn in, Kit went up on deck, and was glad to find Tom Haines
taking the air while he waited for his watch to begin at midnight.
“I wonder why we don’t get off, sir,” Kit said, going up to the young
engineer.
“You mustn’t say ‘sir’ to me, young ’un,” Haines laughed. “It’s only
the Captain and the two mates and the chief engineer that you’re to say
‘sir’ to. But we’ll be off in a few minutes now.”
“Then we’ll be out at sea in two or three hours!” Kit exclaimed.
“Not a bit of it,” Haines answered. “We’d hardly go to sea without the
Captain, and he is spending the night on shore. We’ll drop down below
the Statue of Liberty and anchor there, and some time to-morrow we’ll
get off.”
“What delays us so long, when everything is ready?” Kit asked.
“Everything is not ready,” Haines replied. “We have to give the crew
a few hours to sober up in, for one thing; they are not fit for duty
now. It’s an outrageous shame the way the sailors are brought on board
drunk; but that’s always the way, so I suppose there’s no use worrying
about it. Then we can’t go till the charterers of the ship tell us to;
the minute they say go, we’re off. You may as well turn in, young ’un,
for you’ll not see her fairly under way much before noon to-morrow.”
Kit went down to the cabin and did such odd jobs as he could find, for
he knew it was useless for him to try to sleep when the ship was about
to move. When everything was straightened up, he sat down by the big
table under the lamp and took out the little book in which his mother
had written his name.
“I wish they’d had steamships in these Bible times,” he said to
himself; “I’d like to see what they had to say about them. There’s a
good deal here about ships, but they were all such little ones; and I
don’t see anything about cabin boys; maybe they didn’t have any cabins.”
He had not been reading long before the blowing of the big whistle
and the noise on deck told him that the ship was about to move, and
he hurried out. But that first little stage of the journey was a
disappointment. She merely crawled over to the Statue of Liberty and
dropped her anchor, and there was nothing to be seen but the great
blazing torch over the statue, and the twinkling lights on shore.
It was hardly daylight in the morning when Kit felt himself roughly
shaken, and heard the voice of the steward saying:--
“Come, hustle out here, boy. We’re away from the wharf now, and you’ve
got to stir yourself. Don’t lie there and say ‘yes, sir,’ but jump.
I’ll have no lazy boys about my cabin.”
Kit sprang up and dressed as fast as he could, but nothing he did
satisfied the steward, who ordered him here and there apparently for
the sake of showing his authority, scolded him, and once took him by
the shoulders and shook him.
“I’d rather hate to sail with the steward for captain!” Kit said to
himself, laughing inwardly at the little man’s feeble attempt at
violence. He did not even know the man’s name, for he was always
addressed as “steward”; but he was a middle-aged, dried-up little
fellow, his yellowish face marked from small-pox, and his body so
thin that his coat always hung like a bag. He spoke with a strong
foreign accent, and Kit had noticed already that the Captain did not
seem to like to have him about him; but he was a capital steward, and
understood his business from top to bottom.
“I ought to have brought a note-book along to keep a list of the things
I learn,” Kit said to himself after several hours of this nagging;
“I’ve learned a fresh thing this morning, anyhow--not to make a show
of myself by giving unnecessary orders if I’m ever put in any little
position of authority.”
How differently the Captain managed things! About ten o’clock a little
tug came alongside, and the Captain and the pilot climbed aboard.
“Put her under way, Mr. Mason,” he said to the first mate as he passed
him, as quietly as if he had been saying “It’s a fine day.” The steward
would have made more fuss over having the carving-knife cleaned.
It was a grand thing to be steaming out to sea in a fine ship like the
_North Cape_; but now that the moment had come Kit felt a little
more serious over it than he expected. He had never been away from home
before, and a thousand recollections of the old place crowded into
his mind. What were his mother and Vieve doing, and how long would it
be before he should see them again? Having little to do in the middle
of the morning, he went up on deck and leaned over the rail while the
steamer ran down through the Narrows and into the lower bay. Everything
was new and beautiful to him; but he would have enjoyed it more if
there had not been, somehow, a little bit of a haze before his eyes.
Suddenly he felt a friendly clap on the back, and heard the kindly
voice of Tom Haines:--
“Brace up, young ’un. You might as well start your first voyage
laughing as crying.”
“Oh, I’m not crying,” Kit protested; and he proved it by wiping the
back of his hand across his eyes. “You’ll think I’m a big baby, won’t
you?”
“Not at all,” Haines answered; “I salted the ocean myself a little when
I first left home. You’ll soon get used to being away.”
“It’s not only that,” Kit said thoughtfully. “This is the first time
I’ve ever seen the big ocean, and I can’t help thinking that my father
is lying at the bottom of it somewhere. He was lost at sea about a year
ago.”
“All the more reason for you to keep up a bold front, young ’un,”
Haines insisted. “If you have no father, you have to shift for
yourself, and for your family too, like enough. Keep at work and don’t
stop to think about such things. If you want to send a line home to let
them know you’re all right, you can send it ashore by the pilot, you
know, when we’re outside the Hook.”
Captain Griffith was not the man to leave his ship in the hands of the
pilot, as some captains do. He was up on the bridge, glass in hand, and
remained there till he had seen the flags run up that announced to the
signal station at Sandy Hook, “_North Cape_, for Sisal,” so that
her departure would be announced to the owners and all interested. Then
he went below, and the chief mate took his place on the bridge.
Kit was surprised, perhaps almost disappointed, to find that the sea
was as smooth as the bay. It was one of those days that come sometimes
even in winter, when there is hardly a ripple on the surface. There was
not a sign of the seasickness he expected, and while the Captain was on
the bridge he had an opportunity to write another “last line” home.
“Dear Mother,” he wrote with pencil, “I can write you another line to
send by the pilot. We are at sea now, just outside Sandy Hook, and it
is as smooth as Bonnibrook. I am not the least seasick. A little bit
homesick, but I’ll soon work that off. I have to help set the dinner
table now. Love to all. Kit.”
In another half-hour the pilot was gone, and they were fairly cut off
from the world till they reached the coast of Yucatan. The Atlantic
Highlands loomed up, and Seabright, and Long Branch, and so many more
places on the New Jersey coast, that it looked to Kit as if it must be
one continuous town. When darkness came they could still see the lights
on shore.
An hour after supper the Captain went into his stateroom, sat down at
his desk that had a bookcase over the top, and called Kit. He had a
bundle of very large sheets closely written in columns before him, and
more sheets of the same paper, blank.
“Can you read writing, my boy?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I know you can,”
he added, “for you read a letter to me. See whether you can read this
writing to me while I copy it,” and he handed Kit one of the big sheets.
Kit took it and began with the first line across the broad page:--
“‘Hernandez & Co., Merida,’” he read; “‘1 case dry goods; weight 168
pounds;’ then here’s some sort of a mark--a square with an ~H~
inside of it.”
“That’s what we call a diamond ~H~,” the Captain explained; “when
it’s in a circle, we call it a circle ~H~. Now go on.”
Kit read several more of the lines without difficulty, till the Captain
stopped him.
“You’ve been to school, then, have you?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, sir!” Kit answered. “I always went to school till about six
months ago. Since then I’ve been doing whatever work I could get.”
“Study geography?” the Captain asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you know about the place we’re going to--Sisal?”
“It is a small place on the coast of Yucatan, sir,” Kit answered
promptly; “a seaport for the city of Merida, which lies about twenty
miles inland. But I have learned most of that from your books here
since I came aboard, sir,” he added, blushing a little.
“Well, I am glad to see you are honest about it,” the Captain said,
with a smile. “I think you can stand there and read some of these
manifests to me while I copy them. These things are the plague of my
life. I have to make three copies of them before we reach Sisal, and
I’d rather navigate a ship around the world than do it. Go ahead, now,
and be very careful; for the least mistake will make no end of trouble.”
Kit began and read line by line with great care, while the Captain
laboriously copied. After fifteen or twenty minutes of the work the
Captain laid down the pen, and began to open and shut his hand and to
rub it.
“Ah, my fingers are not as nimble as they once were,” he said. “It
gives me cramp in the hand.”
For some time Kit had been revolving something in his mind while he
read, but could not quite determine to speak it out. This pause of the
Captain’s, however, decided him.
“I write a plain hand, sir,” he said; “if you could trust me, I think I
could copy them for you.”
The Captain looked up at him with one of the piercing looks that seemed
to go through him, and Kit was a little alarmed. Maybe it was presuming
too much for the cabin boy to suggest such a thing. Even then, though,
under that sharp gaze he thought it was worth the venture, for if he
succeeded, it would show that he was good for something better than
scouring the knives.
“Sit down here and let me see your handwriting,” the Captain said at
length, laying a bit of plain paper on top of the manifests.
Kit sat down and took up the pen, and had just begun to write when
something happened that gave him so much satisfaction that he could
hardly keep a straight face. There came a knock at the door, and the
engineers’ mess-room boy stepped in with the engineer’s report of the
number of tons of coal in the bunkers. For this boy to see him seated
in the Captain’s stateroom, writing at the Captain’s desk, with the
Captain himself standing by watching him, was the best answer he could
give to the assertion that he was a “farmer” and a “preacher.” Chock
Cheevers could not have looked more astonished if he had seen one of
the stokers on the bridge taking an observation.
The little interruption over, Kit wrote, as neatly and plainly as he
could, “Christopher Silburn, cabin boy, steamship _North Cape_,
for Sisal.”
“Yes, that is a good plain hand,” the Captain said, taking the paper.
“I will let you try it, at any rate. You can go ahead while I go up on
the bridge. Remember that you can’t be too careful.”
He hooked the stateroom door open as he went out; and he had hardly
been gone five minutes before Mr. Hanway, the big, powerful second
mate, went down to his room for a reefing jacket. Seeing the new boy at
the Captain’s desk, and being fond of a little quiet fun, he went up to
the open door, touched his cap in mock politeness, and said,
“She’s heading sou-sou-west, sir.”
Kit hardly knew whether he dared joke with the second mate or not; but
with an inspiration he looked up from his work without the least change
of countenance, and, returning the salute, replied,
“Very good, sir; keep her so, sir.”
More than an hour passed before the Captain returned from the bridge,
and in the interval Kit nearly filled one of the large sheets.
“That will do for to-night,” the Captain said, looking over the page.
“You have done it very well; but there’s more than one night; you can
do a little at it every evening.”
Then the steward had something to say when Kit went into the pantry,
which also opened from the cabin. The steward was not pleased to see
the new boy taken into the Captain’s favor.
“I want that cabin cleaned before six o’clock in the morning,” he
growled. “You needn’t think you’re going to shirk your work because you
write for the Captain.”
“Very well, sir,” Kit answered. “I don’t intend to shirk any work.”
It did not seem quite right, on his first voyage, that the sea should
be so smooth all the way down the coast. Even when the _North
Cape_ passed Hatteras there was no more than a little swell. When
she reached the Florida coast, in about four days, she kept so well in
shore that the sandy beach could be seen plainly, and the palm trees
just as he had seen them in pictures. He learned from Tom Haines that
steamers bound for the Gulf always run as close to the Florida coast
as they dare, to be inside of the Gulf Stream, which flows northward at
the rate of about four miles an hour, and retards a south-bound steamer
just that much when she runs against it.
On the seventh day they sighted the eastern cliffs of Yucatan; and
after two days of steaming along the coast, but so far out that they
could see nothing but the outlines of the low hills, Kit learned that
they were approaching Sisal. By that time he had made three copies of
the long manifest, working at it a little nearly every evening on the
cabin table.
It was early in a hot afternoon that they dropped anchor off Sisal;
and nowhere in the world is it more appropriate to say of a ship that
she lies “off” a port, for at Sisal a ship of any size must lie at
least three miles off. There is no harbor, and the shore slopes off so
gradually that no ship can approach the town.
“That must have been as smooth a voyage as ever a ship made,” Kit said
to Tom Haines, as they stood by the rail together when the anchor went
down. “I didn’t know it ever was so smooth for ten days at a time.”
“The Atlantic is a treacherous old pond,” Tom answered. “To-day it
makes you believe it’s only a big lake; to-morrow it knocks you all to
pieces. And this is a bad part of the coast we’re on, this south side
of the Gulf; when we get any bad weather here, we have to hoist anchor
and run to sea. But you want to keep your eyes open now; you’ll see
some queer people in a few minutes.”
“What are all those little boats coming out to us?” Kit asked;
“lighters to take off the cargo?”
“No indeed!” Tom laughed. “They don’t begin work as fast as that here.
Everything is ‘mañana’ here, which means ‘to-morrow’ in Spanish; these
people all speak Spanish, you know. That first boat, the one with the
flag at the stern and rowed by four men, is the government boat, that
brings out the Captain of the port, the health officer, and a lot of
custom-house men. After they have examined our papers and found that
we’re all well, the other boats will come up. They are what we call
‘bum-boats,’ with things to sell--cigars and tobacco, bead work, canes
plated with tortoise-shell, all sorts of nonsense; and they will be
on the lookout for passengers who may want to go ashore. But it’s the
officers in the first boat I want you to see; they’ll be aboard in a
minute.”
The gangway had been lowered, and after a great deal of shouting in
Spanish the government boat came up to it and made fast. Then there
came up the steps a dozen swarthy men whose appearance gave Kit more
surprise than anything else he had seen on the voyage. Each one, as
far as he could see, wore nothing but a white shirt and a high black
silk hat, with a belt around the waist with a big revolver stuck in
each side. They carried themselves with great dignity, which made their
costume all the more grotesque; and as they stood on deck shaking
hands with Captain Griffith, it was as much as Kit could do to restrain
his laughter.
“Don’t they wear trousers in this country?” he whispered to Tom.
“They all have trousers on--white linen ones,” Tom answered; “but they
roll them clear up so they won’t get wet in the boat. And it’s the
fashion in Yucatan to wear the end of the shirt outside instead of
inside the trousers. It wouldn’t be so bad in this hot climate, with
their bare feet and legs, if they didn’t wear the high black hats to
look stylish.”
The Captain took his visitors down into the cabin; and next minute his
bell rang, and Kit had to run.