ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
Officers and men were at their posts, and the good steamer _Oceanic_ was
ready for departure. It was a few minutes before noon.
As the first note was sounded on the bell, the gangway plank was drawn
in. "One," "two," "three," "four," "five," "six," "seven," "eight," rang
out from the sonorous metal.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM SAN FRANCISCO.]
The captain gave the order to cast off the lines. Hardly had the echo of
his words ceased before the lines had fallen. Then he rang the signal to
the engineer, and the great screw began to revolve beneath the stern of
the ship. Promptly at the advertised time the huge craft was under way.
The crowd on the dock cheered as she moved slowly on, and they cheered
again as she gathered speed and ploughed the water into a track of foam.
The cheers grew fainter and fainter; faces and forms were no longer to
be distinguished; the waving of hats and kerchiefs ceased; the long dock
became a speck of black against the hilly shore, and the great city
faded from sight.
Overhead was the immense blue dome of the sky; beneath and around were
the waters of San Francisco Bay. On the right was Monte Diablo, like an
advanced sentinel of the Sierras; and on the left were the sand-hills of
the peninsula, covered with the walls and roofs of the great city of the
Pacific Coast. The steamer moved on and on through the Golden Gate; and
in less than an hour from the time of leaving the dock, she dropped her
pilot, the gangway passage was closed, and her prow pointed to the
westward for a voyage of five thousand miles.
[Illustration: DROPPING THE PILOT.]
"What a lovely picture!" said the Doctor, as he waved his hand towards
the receding shore.
"Why do they call that the Golden Gate?" Fred asked.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE.]
"Because," was the reply, "it is, or was, the entrance to the land of
gold. It was so named after the discovery of gold in California, and
until he completion of the Overland railway it was the principal pathway
to the country where everybody expected to make a fortune."
"It is very wide, and easy of navigation," the Doctor continued, "and
yet a stranger might not be aware of its existence, and might sail by it
if he did not know where to look for the harbor. A ship must get well in
towards the land before the Golden Gate is visible."
"How long shall we be on the voyage, Doctor?"
"If nothing happens," he answered, "we shall see the coast of Japan in
about twenty days. We have five thousand miles to go, and I understand
the steamer will make two hundred and fifty miles a day in good
weather."
"Will we stop anywhere on the way?"
"There is not a stopping-place on the whole route. We are not yet out of
sight of the Golden Gate, and already we are steering for Cape King, at
the entrance of Yeddo Bay. There's not even an island, or a solitary
rock on our course."
"I thought I had read about an island where the steamers intended to
stop," Fred remarked.
"So you have," was the reply; "an island was discovered some years ago,
and was named Brook's Island, in honor of its discoverer. It was thought
at first that the place might be convenient as a coaling station, but it
is too far from the track of the steamers, and, besides, it has no
harbor where ships can anchor.
"There is a curious story in connection with it. In 1816 a ship, the
_Canton_, sailed from Sitka, and was supposed to have been lost at sea,
as she never reached her destination. Fifty years later this island was
discovered, and upon it was part of the wreck of the _Canton_. There
were traces of the huts which were built by the crew during their stay,
and it was evident that they constructed a smaller vessel from the
fragments of the wreck, and sailed away in it."
"And were lost in it, I suppose?"
"Undoubtedly, as nothing has ever been heard from them. They did not
leave any history of themselves on the island, or, at any rate, none was
ever found."
[Illustration: IN THE FIRE-ROOM.]
At this moment the steward rang the preparatory bell for dinner, and
the conversation ended. Half an hour later dinner was on the table, and
the passengers sat down to it.
The company was not a large one, and there was abundant room and
abundant food for everybody. The captain was at the head of the table,
and the purser at the foot, and between them were the various passengers
in the seats which had been reserved for them by the steward. The
passengers included an American consul on his way to his post in China,
and an American missionary, bound for the same country. There were
several merchants, interested in commercial matters between the United
States and the Far East; two clerks, going out to appointments in China;
two sea-captains, going to take command of ships; a doctor and a mining
engineer in the service of the Japanese government; half a dozen
"globe-trotters," or tourists; and a very mysterious and nondescript
individual, whom we shall know more about as we proceed. The consul and
the missionary were accompanied by their families. Their wives and
daughters were the only ladies among the passengers, and, according to
the usual custom on board steamers, they were seated next to the captain
in the places of highest honor. Doctor Bronson and his young companions
were seated near the purser, whom they found very amiable, and they had
on the opposite side of the table the two sea-captains already
mentioned.
Everybody appeared to realize that the voyage was to be a long one, and
the sooner the party became acquainted, the better. By the end of dinner
they had made excellent progress, and formed several likes and dislikes
that increased as time went on. In the evening the passengers sat about
the cabin or strolled on deck, continuing to grow in acquaintance, and
before the ship had been twenty-four hours at sea it was hard to realize
that the company had been assembled so recently. Brotherly friendships
as well as brotherly hatreds grew with the rapidity of a beanstalk, and,
happily, the friendships were greatly in the majority.
[Illustration: THE ENGINEER AT HIS POST.]
Life on a steamship at sea has many peculiarities. The ship is a world
in itself, and its boundaries are narrow. You see the same faces day
after day, and on a great ocean like the Pacific there is little to
attract the attention outside of the vessel that carries you. You have
sea and sky to look upon to-day as you looked upon them yesterday, and
will look on them to-morrow. The sky may be clear or cloudy; fogs may
envelop you; storms may arise, or a calm may spread over the waters; the
great ship goes steadily on and on. The pulsations of the engine seem
like those of the human heart; and when you wake at night, your first
endeavor, as you collect your thoughts, is to listen for that ceaseless
throbbing. One falls into a monotonous way of life, and the days run on
one after another, till you find it difficult to distinguish them apart.
The hours for meals are the principal hours of the day, and with many
persons the table is the place of greatest importance. They wander from
deck to saloon, and from saloon to deck again, and hardly has the table
been cleared after one meal, before they are thinking what they will
have for the next. The managers of our great ocean lines have noted this
peculiarity of human nature; some of them give no less than five meals a
day, and if a passenger should wish to eat something between times, he
could be accommodated.
Our young friends were too much absorbed with the novelty of their
situation to allow the time to hang heavy on their hands. Everything was
new and strange to them, but, of course, it was far otherwise with
Doctor Bronson. They had many questions to ask, and he was never weary
of answering, as he saw they were endeavoring to remember what they
heard, and were not interrogating him from idle curiosity.
"What is the reason they don't strike the hours here as they do on
land?" Frank inquired, as they reached the deck after dinner.
The Doctor explained that at sea the time is divided into watches, or
periods, of four hours each. The bell strikes once for each half-hour,
until four hours, or eight bells, are reached, and then they begin
again. One o'clock is designated as "two bells," half-past one is "three
bells," and four o'clock is "eight bells." Eight o'clock, noon, and
midnight are also signalled by eight strokes on the bell, and after a
little while a traveller accustoms himself to the new mode of keeping
time.
Fred remembered that when they left San Francisco at noon, the bell
struck eight times, instead of twelve, as he thought it should have
struck. The Doctor's explanation made it clear to him.
The second day out the boys began to repeat all the poetry they could
remember about the sea, and were surprised at the stock they had on
hand. Fred recalled something he had read in _Harper's Magazine_, which
ran as follows:
"Far upon the unknown deep,
'Mid the billows circling round,
Where the tireless sea-birds sweep;
Outward bound.
Nothing but a speck we seem,
In the waste of waters round,
Floating, floating like a dream;
Outward bound."
Frank was less sentimental, and repeated these lines:
"Two things break the monotony
Of a great ocean trip:
Sometimes, alas! you ship a sea,
And sometimes see a ship."
Then they called upon the Doctor for a contribution, original or
selected, with this result:
"The praises of the ocean grand,
'Tis very well to sing on land.
'Tis very fine to hear them carolled
By Thomas Campbell or Childe Harold;
But sad, indeed, to see that ocean
From east to west in wild commotion."
[Illustration: THE WIND RISING.]
The wind had been freshening since noon, and the rolling motion of the
ship was not altogether agreeable to the inexperienced boys. They were
about to have their first acquaintance with sea-sickness; and though
they held on manfully and remained on deck through the afternoon, the
ocean proved too much for them, and they had no appetite for dinner or
supper. But their malady did not last long, and by the next morning they
were as merry as ever, and laughed over the event. They asked the Doctor
to explain the cause of their trouble, but he shook his head, and said
the whole thing was a great puzzle.
"Sea-sickness is a mystery," said he, "and the more you study it, the
less you seem to understand it. Some persons are never disturbed by the
motion of a ship, no matter how violent it may be, while others cannot
endure the slightest rocking. Most of the sufferers recover in a short
time, and after two or three days at sea are as well as ever, and
continue so. On the other hand, there are some who never outlive its
effects, and though their voyage may last a year or more, they are no
better sailors at the end than at the beginning.
"I knew a young man," he continued, "who entered the Naval Academy, and
graduated. When he was appointed to service on board a ship, he found
himself perpetually sick on the water; after an experience of two years,
and finding no improvement, he resigned. Such occurrences are by no
means rare. I once travelled with a gentleman who was a splendid sailor
in fine weather; but when it became rough, he was all wrong, and went to
bed."
"Were you ever sea-sick, Doctor?" queried Frank.
"Never," was the reply, "and I had a funny incident growing out of this
fact on my first voyage. We were going out of New York harbor, and I
made the acquaintance of the man who was to share my room. As he looked
me over, he asked me if I had ever been to sea.
"I told him I never had, and then he remarked that I was certain to be
sea-sick, he could see it in my face. He said he was an old traveller,
and rarely suffered, and then he gave me some advice as to what I should
do when I began to feel badly. I thanked him and went on deck.
"As the ship left the harbor, and went outside to the open Atlantic, she
encountered a heavy sea. It was so rough that the majority of the
passengers disappeared below. I didn't suffer in the least, and didn't
go to the cabin for two or three hours. There I found that my new friend
was in his bed with the very malady he had predicted for me."
"What did you do then, Doctor?"
"Well, I repeated to him the advice he had given me, and told him I saw
in his face that he was sure to be sea-sick. He didn't recover during
the whole voyage, and I never suffered a moment."
The laugh that followed the story of the Doctor's experience was
interrupted by the breakfast-bell, and the party went below. There was a
light attendance, and the purser explained that several passengers had
gone ashore.
"Which is a polite way of saying that they are not inclined to come
out," the Doctor remarked.
"Exactly so," replied the purser, "they think they would make the best
appearance alone."
Captain Spofford, who sat opposite to Frank, remarked that he knew an
excellent preventive of sea-sickness. Frank asked what it was.
"Always stay at home," was the reply.
"Yes," answered Frank, "and to escape drowning you should never go near
the water."
Fred said the best thing to prevent a horse running away was to sell him
off.
Everybody had a joke of some kind to propose, and the breakfast party
was a merry one. Suddenly Captain Spofford called out, "There she
blows!" and pointed through the cabin window. Before the others could
look, the rolling of the ship had brought the window so far above the
water that they saw nothing.
"What is it?" Fred asked.
"A whale," Captain Spofford answered. "What he is doing here, I don't
know. This isn't a whaling-ground."
They went on deck soon after, and, sure enough, several whales were in
sight. Every little while a column of spray was thrown into the air,
and indicated there was a whale beneath it.
[Illustration: SPOUTS.]
Frank asked why it was the whale "spouted," or blew up, the column of
spray. Captain Spofford explained that the whale is not, properly
speaking, a fish, but an animal. "He has warm blood, like a cow or
horse," said the Captain, "and he must come to the surface to breathe.
He takes a certain amount of water into his lungs along with the air,
and when he throws it out, it makes the spray you have seen, and which
the sailors call a spout."
It turned out that the Captain was an old whaleman. The boys wanted to
hear some whaling stories, and their new friend promised to tell them
some during the evening. When the time came for the narration, the boys
were ready, and so was the old mariner. The Doctor joined the party, and
the four found a snug corner in the cabin where they were not likely to
be disturbed. The Captain settled himself as comfortably as possible,
and then began the account of his adventures in pursuit of the monsters
of the deep.
[Illustration: WHALE-SHIP OUTWARD BOUND.]