HE HAS A FINE DAY AT SEA, BEGINS TO LIKE IT; BUT CHANGES HIS MIND
The second day out of port, the decks being washed down and breakfast
over, the watch was called, and the mate set us to work.
It was a very bright day. The sky and water were both of the same deep
hue; and the air felt warm and sunny; so that we threw off our jackets.
I could hardly believe that I was sailing in the same ship I had been
in during the night, when every thing had been so lonely and dim; and I
could hardly imagine that this was the same ocean, now so beautiful and
blue, that during part of the night-watch had rolled along so black and
forbidding.
There were little traces of sunny clouds all over the heavens; and
little fleeces of foam all over the sea; and the ship made a strange,
musical noise under her bows, as she glided along, with her sails all
still. It seemed a pity to go to work at such a time; and if we could
only have sat in the windlass again; or if they would have let me go
out on the bowsprit, and lay down between the _manropes_ there, and
look over at the fish in the water, and think of home, I should have
been almost happy for a time.
I had now completely got over my sea-sickness, and felt very well; at
least in my body, though my heart was far from feeling right; so that I
could now look around me, and make observations.
And truly, though we were at sea, there was much to behold and wonder
at; to me, who was on my first voyage. What most amazed me was the
sight of the great ocean itself, for we were out of sight of land. All
round us, on both sides of the ship, ahead and astern, nothing was to
be seen but water—water—water; not a single glimpse of green shore, not
the smallest island, or speck of moss any where. Never did I realize
till now what the ocean was: how grand and majestic, how solitary, and
boundless, and beautiful and blue; for that day it gave no tokens of
squalls or hurricanes, such as I had heard my father tell of; nor could
I imagine, how any thing that seemed so playful and placid, could be
lashed into rage, and troubled into rolling avalanches of foam, and
great cascades of waves, such as I saw in the end.
As I looked at it so mild and sunny, I could not help calling to mind
my little brother’s face, when he was sleeping an infant in the cradle.
It had just such a happy, careless, innocent look; and every happy
little wave seemed gamboling about like a thoughtless little kid in a
pasture; and seemed to look up in your face as it passed, as if it
wanted to be patted and caressed. They seemed all live things with
hearts in them, that could feel; and I almost felt grieved, as we
sailed in among them, scattering them under our broad bows in
sun-flakes, and riding over them like a great elephant among lambs. But
what seemed perhaps the most strange to me of all, was a certain
wonderful rising and falling of the sea; I do not mean the waves
themselves, but a sort of wide heaving and swelling and sinking all
over the ocean. It was something I can not very well describe; but I
know very well what it was, and how it affected me. It made me almost
dizzy to look at it; and yet I could not keep my eyes off it, it seemed
so passing strange and wonderful.
I felt as if in a dream all the time; and when I could shut the ship
out, almost thought I was in some new, fairy world, and expected to
hear myself called to, out of the clear blue air, or from the depths of
the deep blue sea. But I did not have much leisure to indulge in such
thoughts; for the men were now getting some _stun’-sails_ ready to
hoist aloft, as the wind was getting fairer and fairer for us; and
these stun’-sails are light canvas which are spread at such times, away
out beyond the ends of the yards, where they overhang the wide water,
like the wings of a great bird.
For my own part, I could do but little to help the rest, not knowing
the name of any thing, or the proper way to go about aught. Besides, I
felt very dreamy, as I said before; and did not exactly know where, or
what I was; every thing was so strange and new.
While the stun’-sails were lying all tumbled upon the deck, and the
sailors were fastening them to the booms, getting them ready to hoist,
the mate ordered me to do a great many simple things, none of which
could I comprehend, owing to the queer words he used; and then, seeing
me stand quite perplexed and confounded, he would roar out at me, and
call me all manner of names, and the sailors would laugh and wink to
each other, but durst not go farther than that, for fear of the mate,
who in his own presence would not let any body laugh at me but himself.
However, I tried to wake up as much as I could, and keep from dreaming
with my eyes open; and being, at bottom, a smart, apt lad, at last I
managed to learn a thing or two, so that I did not appear so much like
a fool as at first.
People who have never gone to sea for the first time as sailors, can
not imagine how puzzling and confounding it is. It must be like going
into a barbarous country, where they speak a strange dialect, and dress
in strange clothes, and live in strange houses. For sailors have their
own names, even for things that are familiar ashore; and if you call a
thing by its shore name, you are laughed at for an ignoramus and a
landlubber. This first day I speak of, the mate having ordered me to
draw some water, I asked him where I was to get the pail; when I
thought I had committed some dreadful crime; for he flew into a great
passion, and said they never had any _pails_ at sea, and then I learned
that they were always called _buckets._ And once I was talking about
sticking a little wooden peg into a bucket to stop a leak, when he flew
out again, and said there were no _pegs_ at sea, only _plugs._ And just
so it was with every thing else.
But besides all this, there is such an infinite number of totally new
names of new things to learn, that at first it seemed impossible for me
to master them all. If you have ever seen a ship, you must have
remarked what a thicket of ropes there are; and how they all seemed
mixed and entangled together like a great skein of yarn. Now the very
smallest of these ropes has its own proper name, and many of them are
very lengthy, like the names of young royal princes, such as the
_starboard-main-top-gallant-bow-line,_ or the
_larboard-fore-top-sail-clue-line._
I think it would not be a bad plan to have a grand new naming of a
ship’s ropes, as I have read, they once had a simplifying of the
classes of plants in Botany. It is really wonderful how many names
there are in the world. There is no counting the names, that surgeons
and anatomists give to the various parts of the human body; which,
indeed, is something like a ship; its bones being the stiff
standing-rigging, and the sinews the small running ropes, that manage
all the motions.
I wonder whether mankind could not get along without all these names,
which keep increasing every day, and hour, and moment; till at last the
very air will be full of them; and even in a great plain, men will be
breathing each other’s breath, owing to the vast multitude of words
they use, that consume all the air, just as lamp-burners do gas. But
people seem to have a great love for names; for to know a great many
names, seems to look like knowing a good many things; though I should
not be surprised, if there were a great many more names than things in
the world. But I must quit this rambling, and return to my story.
At last we hoisted the stun’-sails up to the top-sail yards, and as
soon as the vessel felt them, she gave a sort of bound like a horse,
and the breeze blowing more and more, she went plunging along, shaking
off the foam from her bows, like foam from a bridle-bit. Every mast and
timber seemed to have a pulse in it that was beating with life and joy;
and I felt a wild exulting in my own heart, and felt as if I would be
glad to bound along so round the world.
Then was I first conscious of a wonderful thing in me, that responded
to all the wild commotion of the outer world; and went reeling on and
on with the planets in their orbits, and was lost in one delirious
throb at the center of the All. A wild bubbling and bursting was at my
heart, as if a hidden spring had just gushed out there; and my blood
ran tingling along my frame, like mountain brooks in spring freshets.
Yes! yes! give me this glorious ocean life, this salt-sea life, this
briny, foamy life, when the sea neighs and snorts, and you breathe the
very breath that the great whales respire! Let me roll around the
globe, let me rock upon the sea; let me race and pant out my life, with
an eternal breeze astern, and an endless sea before!
But how soon these raptures abated, when after a brief idle interval,
we were again set to work, and I had a vile commission to clean out the
chicken coops, and make up the beds of the pigs in the long-boat.
Miserable dog’s life is this of the sea! commanded like a slave, and
set to work like an ass! vulgar and brutal men lording it over me, as
if I were an African in Alabama. Yes, yes, blow on, ye breezes, and
make a speedy end to this abominable voyage!