SOME SUPERIOR OLD NAIL-ROD AND _PIG-TAIL_
It has been mentioned how advantageously my shipmates disposed of their
tobacco in Liverpool; but it is to be related how those nefarious
commercial speculations of theirs reduced them to sad extremities in
the end.
True to their improvident character, and seduced by the high prices
paid for the weed in England, they had there sold off by far the
greater portion of what tobacco they had; even inducing the mate to
surrender the portion he had secured under lock and key by command of
the Custom-house officers. So that when the crew were about two weeks
out, on the homeward-bound passage, it became sorrowfully evident that
tobacco was at a premium.
Now, one of the favorite pursuits of sailors during a dogwatch below at
sea is cards; and though they do not understand whist, cribbage, and
games of that kidney, yet they are adepts at what is called
_“High-low-Jack-and-the-game,”_ which name, indeed, has a Jackish and
nautical flavor. Their stakes are generally so many plugs of tobacco,
which, like rouleaux of guineas, are piled on their chests when they
play. Judge, then, the wicked zest with which the Highlander’s crew now
shuffled and dealt the pack; and how the interest curiously and
invertedly increased, as the stakes necessarily became less and less;
and finally resolved themselves into _“chaws.”_
So absorbed, at last, did they become at this business, that some of
them, after being hard at work during a nightwatch on deck, would rob
themselves of rest below, in order to have a brush at the cards. And as
it is very difficult sleeping in the presence of gamblers; especially
if they chance to be sailors, whose conversation at all times is apt to
be boisterous; these fellows would often be driven out of the
forecastle by those who desired to rest. They were obliged to repair on
deck, and make a card-table of it; and invariably, in such cases, there
was a great deal of contention, a great many ungentlemanly charges of
nigging and cheating; and, now and then, a few parenthetical blows were
exchanged.
But this was not so much to be wondered at, seeing they could see but
very little, being provided with no light but that of a midnight sky;
and the cards, from long wear and rough usage, having become
exceedingly torn and tarry, so much so, that several members of the
four suits might have seceded from their respective clans, and formed
into a fifth tribe, under the name of _“Tar-spots.”_
Every day the tobacco grew scarcer and scarcer; till at last it became
necessary to adopt the greatest possible economy in its use. The
modicum constituting an ordinary _“chaw,”_ was made to last a whole
day; and at night, permission being had from the cook, this self-same
_“chaw”_ was placed in the oven of the stove, and there dried; so as to
do duty in a pipe.
In the end not a plug was to be had; and deprived of a solace and a
stimulus, on which sailors so much rely while at sea, the crew became
absent, moody, and sadly tormented with the hypos. They were something
like opium-smokers, suddenly cut off from their drug. They would sit on
their chests, forlorn and moping; with a steadfast sadness, eying the
forecastle lamp, at which they had lighted so many a pleasant pipe.
With touching eloquence they recalled those happier evenings—the time
of smoke and vapor; when, after a whole day’s delectable _“chawing,”_
they beguiled themselves with their genial, and most companionable
puffs.
One night, when they seemed more than usually cast down and
disconsolate, Blunt, the Irish cockney, started up suddenly with an
idea in his head—“Boys, let’s search under the bunks!” Bless you,
Blunt! what a happy conceit! Forthwith, the chests were dragged out;
the dark places explored; and two sticks of _nail-rod_ tobacco, and
several old _“chaws,”_ thrown aside by sailors on some previous voyage,
were their cheering reward. They were impartially divided by Jackson,
who, upon this occasion, acquitted himself to the satisfaction of all.
Their mode of dividing this tobacco was the rather curious one
generally adopted by sailors, when the highest possible degree of
impartiality is desirable. I will describe it, recommending its earnest
consideration to all heirs, who may hereafter divide an inheritance;
for if they adopted this nautical method, that universally slanderous
aphorism of Lavater would be forever rendered nugatory—“Expect _not to
understand any man till you have divided with him an inheritance.”_
The _nail-rods_ they cut as evenly as possible into as many parts as
there were men to be supplied; and this operation having been performed
in the presence of all, Jackson, placing the tobacco before him, his
face to the wall, and back to the company, struck one of the bits of
weed with his knife, crying out, “Whose is this?” Whereupon a
respondent, previously pitched upon, replied, at a venture, from the
opposite corner of the forecastle, “Blunt’s;” and to Blunt it went; and
so on, in like manner, till all were served.
I put it to you, lawyers—shade of Blackstone, I invoke you—if a more
impartial procedure could be imagined than this?
But the nail-rods and last-voyage _“chaws”_ were soon gone, and then,
after a short interval of comparative gayety, the men again drooped,
and relapsed into gloom.
They soon hit upon an ingenious device, however—but not altogether new
among seamen—to allay the severity of the depression under which they
languished. Ropes were unstranded, and the yarns picked apart; and, cut
up into small bits, were used as a substitute for the weed. Old ropes
were preferred; especially those which had long lain in the hold, and
had contracted an epicurean dampness, making still richer their
ancient, cheese-like flavor.
In the middle of most large ropes, there is a straight, central part,
round which the exterior strands are twisted. When in picking oakum,
upon various occasions, I have chanced, among the old junk used at such
times, to light upon a fragment of this species of rope, I have ever
taken, I know not what kind of strange, nutty delight in untwisting it
slowly, and gradually coming upon its deftly hidden and aromatic
_“heart;”_ for so this central piece is denominated.
It is generally of a rich, tawny, Indian hue, somewhat inclined to
luster; is exceedingly agreeable to the touch; diffuses a pungent odor,
as of an old dusty bottle of Port, newly opened above ground; and,
altogether, is an object which no man, who enjoys his dinners, could
refrain from hanging over, and caressing.
Nor is this delectable morsel of _old junk_ wanting in many
interesting, mournful, and tragic suggestions. Who can say in what
gales it may have been; in what remote seas it may have sailed? How
many stout masts of seventy-fours and frigates it may have staid in the
tempest? How deep it may have lain, as a hawser, at the bottom of
strange harbors? What outlandish fish may have nibbled at it in the
water, and what un-catalogued sea-fowl may have pecked at it, when
forming part of a lofty stay or a shroud?
Now, this particular part of the rope, this nice little “cut” it was,
that among the sailors was the most eagerly sought after. And getting
hold of a foot or two of old cable, they would cut into it lovingly, to
see whether it had any _“tenderloin.”_
For my own part, nevertheless, I can not say that this tit-bit was at
all an agreeable one in the mouth; however pleasant to the sight of an
antiquary, or to the nose of an epicure in nautical fragrancies.
Indeed, though possibly I might have been mistaken, I thought it had
rather an astringent, acrid taste; probably induced by the tar, with
which the flavor of all ropes is more or less vitiated. But the sailors
seemed to like it, and at any rate nibbled at it with great gusto. They
converted one pocket of their trowsers into a junk-shop, and when
solicited by a shipmate for a _“chaw,”_ would produce a small coil of
rope.
Another device adopted to alleviate their hardships, was the
substitution of dried tea-leaves, in place of tobacco, for their pipes.
No one has ever supped in a forecastle at sea, without having been
struck by the prodigious residuum of tea-leaves, or cabbage stalks, in
his tin-pot of bohea. There was no lack of material to supply every
pipe-bowl among us.
I had almost forgotten to relate the most noteworthy thing in this
matter; namely, that notwithstanding the general scarcity of the
genuine weed, Jackson was provided with a supply; nor did it give out,
until very shortly previous to our arrival in port.
In the lowest depths of despair at the loss of their precious solace,
when the sailors would be seated inconsolable as the Babylonish
captives, Jackson would sit cross-legged in his bunk, which was an
upper one, and enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, would look down
upon the mourners below, with a sardonic grin at their forlornness.
He recalled to mind their folly in selling for filthy lucre, their
supplies of the weed; he painted their stupidity; he enlarged upon the
sufferings they had brought upon themselves; he exaggerated those
sufferings, and every way derided, reproached, twitted, and hooted at
them. No one dared to return his scurrilous animadversions, nor did any
presume to ask him to relieve their necessities out of his fullness. On
the contrary, as has been just related, they divided with him the
_nail-rods_ they found.
The extraordinary dominion of this one miserable Jackson, over twelve
or fourteen strong, healthy tars, is a riddle, whose solution must be
left to the philosophers.