CHAPTER XXXIII
Cracking on—Progress Homeward—A Pleasant
Sunday—A Fine Sight—By-Play
It is usual, in voyages round the Cape from
the Pacific, to keep to the eastward of the Falkland Islands; but
as it had now set in a strong, steady, and clear south-wester, with
every prospect of its lasting, and we had had enough of high
latitudes, the captain determined to stand immediately to the
northward, running inside the Falkland Islands. Accordingly, when
the wheel was relieved at eight o’clock, the order was given to
keep her due north, and all hands were turned up to square away the
yards and make sail. In a moment, the news ran through the ship
that the captain was keeping her off, with her nose straight for
Boston, and Cape Horn over her taffrail. It was a moment of
enthusiasm. Every one was on the alert, and even the two sick men
turned out to lend a hand at the halyards. The wind was now due
south-west, and blowing a gale to which a vessel close hauled could
have shown no more than a single close-reefed sail; but as we were
going before it, we could carry on. Accordingly, hands were sent
aloft, and a reef shaken out of the topsails, and the reefed
foresail set. When we came to mast-head the topsail yards, with all
hands at the halyards, we struck up “Cheerily, men,” with a chorus
which might have been heard halfway to Staten Land. Under her
increased sail, the ship drove on through the water. Yet she could
bear it well; and the captain sang out from the
quarter-deck—“Another reef out of that fore-topsail, and give it to
her!” Two hands sprang aloft; the frozen reef-points and earings
were cast adrift, the halyards manned, and the sail gave out her
increased canvas to the gale. All hands were kept on deck to watch
the effect of the change. It was as much as she could well carry,
and with a heavy sea astern, it took two men at the wheel to steer
her. She flung the foam from her bows; the spray breaking aft as
far as the gangway. She was going at a prodigious rate. Still,
everything held. Preventer braces were reeved and hauled taut;
tackles got upon the backstays; and each thing done to keep all
snug and strong. The captain walked the deck at a rapid stride,
looked aloft at the sails, and then to windward; the mate stood in
the gangway, rubbing his hands, and talking aloud to the
ship—“Hurrah, old bucket! the Boston girls have got hold of the
tow-rope!” iu and
the like; and we were on the forecastle, looking to see how the
spars stood it, and guessing the rate at which she was going,—when
the captain called out—“Mr. Brown, get up the topmast
studding-sail! What she can’t carry she may drag!” The mate looked
a moment; but he would let no one be before him in daring. He
sprang forward—“Hurrah, men! rig out the topmast studdingsail boom!
Lay aloft, and I’ll send the rigging up to you!”—We sprang aloft
into the top; lowered a girt-line down, by which we hauled up the
rigging; rove the tacks and halyards; ran out the boom and lashed
it fast, and sent down the lower halyards, as a preventer. It was a
clear starlight night, cold and blowing; but everybody worked with
a will. Some, indeed, looked as though they thought the “old man”
was mad, but no one said a word. We had had a new topmast
studding-sail made with a reef in it,—a thing hardly ever heard of,
and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal, saying that when
it was time to reef a studding-sail, it was time to take it in. But
we found a use for it now; for, there being a reef in the topsail,
the studding-sail could not be set without one in it also. To be
sure, a studding-sail with reefed topsails was rather a new thing;
yet there was some reason in it, for if we carried that away, we
should lose only a sail and a boom; but a whole topsail might have
carried away the mast and all.
While we were aloft, the sail had been got out,
bent to the yard, reefed, and ready for hoisting. Waiting for a
good opportunity, the halyards were manned and the yard hoisted
fairly up to the block; but when the mate came to shake the catspaw
out of the downhaul, and we began to boom-end the sail, it shook
the ship to her centre. The boom buckled up and bent like a
whip-stick, and we looked every moment to see something go; but,
being of the short, tough upland spruce, it bent like whalebone,
and nothing could break it. The carpenter said it was the best
stick he had ever seen. The strength of all hands soon brought the
tack to the boom-end, and the sheet was trimmed down, and the
preventer and the weather brace hauled taut to take off the strain.
Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the utmost, and every thread of
canvas; and with this sail added to her, the ship sprang through
the water like a thing possessed. The sail being nearly all
forward, it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed actually to
jump from sea to sea. From the time her keel was laid, she had
never been so driven; and had it been life or death with every one
of us, she could not have borne another stitch of canvas.
Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands
were sent below, and our watch remained on deck. Two men at the
wheel had as much as they could do to keep her within three points
of her course, for she steered as wild as a young colt. The mate
walked the deck, looking at the sails, and then over the side to
see the foam fly by her, slapping his hands upon his thighs and
talking to the ship—“Hurrah, you jade, you’ve got the scent!—you
know where you’re going!” And when she leaped over the seas, and
almost out of the water, and trembled to her very keel, the spars
and masts snapping and creaking,—“There she goes!—There she
goes,—handsomely!—as long as she cracks she holds!”—while we stood
with the rigging laid down fair for letting go, and ready to take
in sail and clear away, if anything went. At four bells we hove the
log, and she was going eleven knots fairly; and had it not been for
the sea from aft which sent the ship home, and threw her
continually off her course, the log would have shown her to have
been going much faster. I went to the wheel with a young fellow
from the Kennebec, who was a good helmsman; and for two hours we
had our hands full. A few minutes showed us that our monkey-jackets
must come off; and, cold as it was, we stood in our shirt-sleeves,
in a perspiration; and were glad enough to have it eight bells, and
the wheel relieved. We turned-in and slept as well as we could,
though the sea made a constant roar under her bows, and washed over
the forecastle like a small cataract.
At four o’clock, we were called again. The same
sail was still on the vessel, and the gale, if there was any
change, had increased a little. No attempt was made to take the
studding-sail in; and, indeed, it was too late now. If we had
started anything toward taking it in, either tack or halyards, it
would have blown to pieces, and carried something away with it. The
only way now was to let everything stand, and if the gale went
down, well and good; if not, something must go—the weakest stick or
rope first—and then we could get it in. For more than an hour she
was driven on at such a rate that she seemed actually to crowd the
sea into a heap before her; and the water poured over the spritsail
yard as it would over a dam. Toward daybreak the gale abated a
little, and she was just beginning to go more easily along,
relieved of the pressure, when Mr. Brown, determined to give her no
respite, and depending upon the wind’s subsiding as the sun rose,
told us to get along the lower studding-sail. This was an immense
sail, and held wind enough to last a Dutchman a week.—hove-to. It
was soon ready, the boom topped up, preventer guys rove, and the
idlers called up to man the halyards; yet such was still the force
of the gale, that we were nearly an hour setting the sail; carried
away the outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off the
swinging boom. No sooner was it set than the ship tore on again
like one that was mad, and began to steer as wild as a hawk. The
men at the wheel were puffing and blowing at their work, and the
helm was going hard up and hard down, constantly. Add to this, the
gale did not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds.
A sudden lurch threw the man from the weather wheel across the deck
and against the side. The mate sprang to the wheel, and the man,
regaining his feet, seized the spokes, and they hove the wheel up
just in time to save her from broaching to; though nearly half the
studding-sail went under water; and as she came to, the boom stood
up at an angle of forty-five degrees. She had evidently more on her
than she could bear; yet it was in vain to try to take it in—the
clewline was not strong enough; and they were thinking of cutting
away, when another wide yawiv and
a come-to, snapped the guys, and the swinging boom came in, with a
crash, against the lower rigging. The outhaul block gave way, and
the topmast studding-sail boom bent in a manner which I never
before supposed a stick could bend. I had my eye on it when the
guys parted, and it made one spring and buckled up so as to form
nearly a half circle, and sprang out again to its shape. The
clewline gave way at the first pull; the cleat to which the
halyards were belayed was wrenched off, and the sail blew round the
spritsail yards and head guys, which gave us a bad job to get it
in. A half hour served to clear all away, and she was suffered to
drive on with her topmast studding-sail set, it being as much as
she could stagger under.
During all this day and the next night, we went on
under the same sail, the gale blowing with undiminished force; two
men at the wheel all the time; watch and watch, and nothing to do
but to steer and look out for the ship, and be blown along;—until
the noon of the next day—
Sunday, july 24th, when we were in latitude
50°27’ S., longitude 62° 13’ W., having made four degrees of
latitude in the last twenty-four hours. Being now to northward of
the Falkland Islands, the ship was kept off, north-east, for the
equator; and with her head for the equator, and Cape Horn over her
taffrail, she went gloriously on; every heave of the sea leaving
the Cape astern, and every hour bringing us nearer to home, and to
warm weather. Many a time, when blocked up in the ice, with
everything dismal and discouraging about us, had we said,—if we
were only fairly round, and standing north on the other side, we
should ask for no more:—and now we had it all, with a clear sea,
and as much wind as a sailor could pray for. If the best part of
the voyage is the last part, surely we had all now that we could
wish. Every one was in the highest spirits, and the ship seemed as
glad as any of us at getting out of her confinement. At each change
of the watch, those coming on deck asked those going below—“How
does she go along?” and got for answer, the rate, and the customary
addition—“Aye! and the Boston girls have had hold of the tow-rope
all the watch, and can’t haul half the slack in!” Each day the sun
rose higher in the horizon, and the nights grew shorter; and at
coming on deck each morning, there was a sensible change in the
temperature. The ice, too, began to melt from off the rigging and
spars, and, except a little which remained in the tops and round
the hounds of the lower masts, was soon gone. As we left the gale
behind us, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, and sail made
as fast as she could bear it; and every time all hands were sent to
the halyards, a song was called for, and we hoisted away with a
will.
Sail after sail was added, as we drew into fine
weather; and in one week after leaving Cape Horn, the long
topgallant masts were got up, topgallant and royal yards crossed,
and the ship restored to her fair proportions.
The Southern Cross we saw no more after the first
night; the Magellan Clouds settled lower and lower in the horizon;
and so great was our change of latitude each succeeding night, that
we sank some constellation in the south, and raised another in the
northern horizon.
Sunday, July 31 st. At noon we were in lat.
36° 41’ S., long. 38° 08’ W.; having traversed the distance of two
thousand miles, allowing for changes of course, in nine days. A
thousand miles in four days and a half!—This is equal to
steam.
Soon after eight o’clock, the appearance of the
ship gave evidence that this was the first Sunday we had yet had in
fine weather. As the sun came up clear, with the promise of a fair,
warm day, and, as usual on Sunday, there was no work going on, all
hands turned-to upon clearing out the forecastle. The wet and
soiled clothes which had accumulated there during the past month,
were brought up on deck; the chests moved; brooms, buckets of
water, swabs, scrubbing-brushes, and scrapers carried down, and
applied, until the forecastle floor was as white as chalk, and
everything neat and in order. The bedding from the berths was then
spread on deck, and dried, and aired; the deck-tub filled with
water; and a grand washing begun of all the clothes which were
brought up. Shirts, frocks, drawers, trowsers, jackets, stockings,
of every shape and color, wet and dirty—many of them mouldy from
having been lying a long time wet in a foul corner—these were all
washed and scrubbed out, and finally towed overboard for half an
hour; and then made fast in the rigging to dry. Wet boots and shoes
were spread out to dry in sunny places on deck; and the whole ship
looked like a back yard on a washing day. After we had done with
our clothes, we began upon our own persons. A little fresh water,
which we had saved from our allowance, was put in buckets, and with
soap and towels, we had what sailors call a fresh-water wash. The
same bucket, to be sure, had to go through several hands, and was
spoken for by one after another, but as we rinsed off in salt
water, pure from the ocean, and the fresh was used only to start
the accumulated grime and blackness of five weeks, it was held of
little consequence. We soaped down and scrubbed one another with
towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it; and then, getting
into the head, threw buckets of water upon each other. After this,
came shaving, and combing, and brushing; and when, having spent the
first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the forecastle,
in the afternoon, with clean duck trowsers, and shirts on, washed,
shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it,
reading, sewing, and talking at our ease, with a clear sky and warm
sun over our heads, a steady breeze over the larboard quarter,
studdingsails out alow and aloft, and all the flying kites
aboard;—we felt that we had got back into the pleasantest part of a
sailor’s life. At sundown the clothes were all taken down from the
rigging—clean and dry—and stowed neatly away in our chests; and our
south-westers, thick boots, guernsey frocks, and other
accompaniments of bad weather, put out of the way, we hoped, for
the rest of the voyage, as we expected to come upon the coast early
in the autumn.
Notwithstanding all that has been said about the
beauty of a ship under full sail, there are very few who have ever
seen a ship, literally, under all her sail. A ship coming in or
going out of port, with her ordinary sails, and perhaps two of
three studding-sails, is commonly said to be under full sail; but a
ship never has all her sail upon her, except when she has a light,
steady breeze, very nearly, but not quite, dead aft, and so regular
that it can be trusted, and is likely to last for some time. Then,
with all her sails, light and heavy, and studding-sails, on each
side, alow and aloft, she is the most glorious moving object in the
world. Such a sight, very few, even some who have been at sea a
great deal, have ever beheld; for from the deck of your own vessel
you cannot see her, as you would a separate object.
One night, while we were in these tropics, I went
out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, upon some duty, and, having
finished it, turned round, and lay over the boom for a long time,
admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from
the deck, I could look at the ship, as at a separate vessel;—and
there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black
hull, a pyramid of canvas, spreading out far beyond the hull, and
towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to
the clouds. The sea was as still as an inland lake; the light
trade-wind was gently and steadily breathing from astern; the dark
blue sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no sound
but the rippling of the water under the stem; and the sails were
spread out, wide and high;—the two lower studdingsails stretching,
on each side, far beyond the deck; the topmast studding-sails, like
wings to the topsails; the top-gallant studding-sails spreading
fearlessly out above them; still higher, the two royal
studdingsails, looking like two kites flying from the same string;
and, highest of all, the little sky-sail, the apex of the pyramid,
seeming actually to touch the stars, and to be out of reach of
human hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze,
that if these sails had been sculptured marble, they could not have
been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas;
not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail—so perfectly
were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight, that
I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he
said, (for he, too, rough old man-of-war’s -man as he was, had been
gazing at the show,) half to himself, still looking at the marble
sails—“How quietly they do their work!”
The fine weather brought work with it, as the ship
was to be put in order for coming into port. This may give a
landsman some notion of what is done on board ship.—All the first
part of a passage is spent in getting a ship ready for sea, and the
last part in getting her ready for port. She is, as sailors say,
like a lady’s watch, always out of repair. The new, strong sails,
which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old
set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in
their place; all the rigging to be set up, fore and aft; the masts
stayed; the standing rigging to be tarred down; lower and topmast
rigging rattled down, fore and aft; the ship scraped, inside and
out, and painted; decks varnished; new and neat knots, seizings and
coverings to be fitted; and every part put in order, to look well
to the owner’s eye, on coming into Boston. This, of course, was a
long matter; and all hands were kept on deck at work for the whole
of each day, during the rest of the voyage. Sailors call this hard
usage; but the ship must be in crack order, and “we’re homeward
bound” was the answer to everything.
We went on for several days, employed in this way,
nothing remarkable occurring; and, at the latter part of the week,
fell in with the south-east trades, blowing about east-south-east,
which brought them nearly two points abaft our beam. These blew
strong and steady, so that we hardly started a rope, until we were
beyond their latitude. The first day of “all hands,” one of those
little incidents occurred, which are nothing in themselves, but are
great matters in the eyes of a ship’s company, as they serve to
break the monotony of a voyage, and afford conversation to the crew
for days afterwards. These small matters, too, are often
interesting, as they show the customs and state of feeling on
shipboard.
In merchant vessels, the captain gives his orders
as to the ship’s work, to the mate, in a general way, and leaves
the execution of them, with the particular ordering, to him. This
has become so fixed a custom, that it is like a law, and is never
infringed upon by a wise master, unless his mate is no seaman; in
which case, the captain must often oversee things for himself.
This, however, could not be said of our chief mate; and he was very
jealous of any encroachment upon the borders of his
authority.
On Monday morning, the captain told him to stay the
fore-topmast plumb. He accordingly came forward, turned all hands
to, with tackles on the stays and backstays, coming up with the
seizings, hauling here, belaying there, and full of business,
standing between the knightheads to sight the mast,—when the
captain came forward, and also began to give orders. This made
confusion, and the mate, finding that he was all aback, left his
place and went aft, saying to the captain—
“If you come forward, sir, I’ll go aft. One is
enough on the forecastle.”
This produced a reply, and another fierce answer;
and the words flew, fists were doubled up, and things looked
threateningly.
“I’m master of this ship.”
“Yes, sir, and I’m mate of her, and know my place!
My place is forward, and yours is aft!”
“My place is where I choose! I command the whole
ship; and you are mate only so long as I choose!”
“Say the word, Capt. T.,iw and
I’m done! I can do a man’s work aboard! I didn’t come through the
cabin windows! If I’m not mate, I can be man,” etc., etc.
This was all fun for us, who stood by, winking at
each other, and enjoying the contest between the higher powers. The
captain took the mate aft; and they had a long talk, which ended in
the mate’s returning to his duty. The captain had broken through a
custom, which is a part of the common-law of a ship, and without
reason; for he knew that his mate was a sailor, and needed no help
from him; and the mate was excusable for being angry. Yet he was
wrong, and the captain right. Whatever the captain does is right,
ipso facto,ix and
any opposition to it is wrong, on board ship; and every officer and
man knows this when he signs the ship’s articles. It is a part of
the contract. Yet there has grown up in merchant vessels a series
of customs, which have become a well understood system, and have
almost the force of prescriptive law. To be sure, all power is in
the captain, and the officers hold their authority only during his
will; and the men are liable to be called upon for any service;
yet, by breaking in upon these usages, many difficulties have
occurred on board ship, and even come into courts of justice, which
are perfectly unintelligible to any one not acquainted with the
universal nature and force of these customs. Many a provocation has
been offered, and a system of petty oppression pursued towards men,
the force and meaning of which would appear as nothing to
strangers, and doubtless do appear so to many “ ’long-shore” juries
and judges.
The next little diversion, was a battle on the
forecastle one afternoon, between the mate and the steward. They
had been on bad terms the whole voyage; and had threatened a
rupture several times. This afternoon, the mate asked him for a
tumbler of water, and he refused to get it for him, saying that he
waited upon nobody but the captain: and here he had the custom on
his side. But in answering, he left off “the handle to the mate’s
name.” This enraged the mate, who called him a “black soger;” and
at it they went, clenching, striking, and rolling over and over;
while we stood by, looking on, and enjoying the fun. The darky
tried to butt him, but the mate got him down, and held him, the
steward singing out, “Let me go, Mr. Brown, or there’ll be blood
spilt!” In the midst of this, the captain came on deck, separated
them, took the steward aft, and gave him half a dozen with a rope’s
end. The steward tried to justify himself; but he had been heard to
talk of spilling blood, and that was enough to earn him his
flogging; and the captain did not choose to inquire any
further.