Two Years Before the Mast
strongly, until our feet were off the ground, we tumbled into the bows,
keeping perfectly still, from fear of hindering the others. For some
time it was doubtful how it would go. The boat stood nearly up and
down in the water, and the sea, rolling from under her, let her fall
upon the water with a force which seemed almost to stave her bottom in.
By quietly sliding two oars forward, along the thwarts, without
impeding the rowers, we shipped two bow oars, and thus, by the help of
four oars and the captain's strong arm, we got safely off, though we
shipped several seas, which left us half full of water. We pulled
alongside of the Loriotte, put her skipper on board, and found her
making preparations for slipping, and then pulled aboard our own ship.
Here Mr. Brown, always "on hand," had got everything ready, so that we
had only to hook on the gig and hoist it up, when the order was given
to loose the sails. While we were on the yards, we saw the Loriotte
under weigh, and before our yards were mast-headed, the Ayacucho had
spread her wings, and, with yards braced sharp up, was standing athwart
our hawse. There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged,
clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind. In a moment, our
slip-rope was gone, the head-yards filled away, and we were off. Next
came the whaler; and in a half an hour from the time when four vessels
were lying quietly at anchor, without a rag out, or a sign of motion,
the bay was deserted, and four white clouds were standing off to sea.
Being sure of clearing the point, we stood off with our yards a little
braced in, while the Ayacucho went off with a taut bowline, which
brought her to windward of us. During all this day, and the greater
part of the night, we had the usual south-easter entertainment, a gale
of wind, variegated and finally topped off with a drenching rain of
three or four hours. At daybreak, the clouds thinned off and rolled
away, and the sun came up clear. The wind, instead of coming out from
the northward, as is usual, blew steadily and freshly from the
anchoring-ground. This was bad for us, for, being "flying light," with
little more than ballast trim, we were in no condition for showing off
on a taut bowline, and had depended upon a fair wind, with which, by
the help of our light sails and studding-sails, we meant to have been
the first at the anchoring-ground; but the Ayacucho was a good league
to windward of us, and was standing in, in fine style. The whaler,
however, was as far to leeward of us, and the Loriotte was nearly out
of sight, among the islands, up the Canal. By hauling every brace and
bowline, and clapping watch-tackles upon all the sheets and halyards,
we managed to hold our own, and drop the leeward vessels a little in
every tack. When we reached the anchoring-ground, the Ayacucho had got
her anchor, furled her sails, squared her yards, and was lying as
quietly as if nothing had happened for the last twenty-four hours.
We had our usual good luck in getting our anchor without letting go
another, and were all snug, with our boats at the boom-ends, in half an
hour. In about two hours more, the whaler came in, and made a clumsy
piece of work in getting her anchor, being obliged to let go her best
bower, and finally, to get out a kedge and a hawser. They were
heave-ho-ing, stopping and unstopping, pawling, catting, and fishing,
for three hours; and the sails hung from the yards all the afternoon,
and were not furled until sundown. The Loriotte came in just after
dark, and let go her anchor, making no attempt to pick up the other
until the next day.
This affair led to a great dispute as to the sailing of our ship and
the Ayacucho. Bets were made between the captains, and the crews took
it up in their own way; but as she was bound to leeward and we to
windward, and merchant captains cannot deviate, a trial never took
place; and perhaps it was well for us that it did not, for the Ayacucho
had been eight years in the Pacific, in every part of it--Valparaiso,
Sandwich Islands, Canton, California, and all, and was called the
fastest merchantman that traded in the Pacific, unless it was the brig
John Gilpin, and perhaps the ship Ann McKim of Baltimore.
Saturday, Nov. 14th. This day we got under weigh, with the agent and
several Spaniards of note, as passengers, bound up to Monterey. We went
ashore in the gig to bring them off with their baggage, and found them
waiting on the beach, and a little afraid about going off, as the surf
was running very high. This was nuts to us; for we liked to have a
Spaniard wet with salt water; and then the agent was very much disliked
by the crew, one and all; and we hoped, as there was no officer in the
boat, to have a chance to duck them; for we knew that they were such
"marines" that they would not know whether it was our fault or not.
Accordingly, we kept the boat so far from shore as to oblige them to
wet their feet in getting into her; and then waited for a good high
comber, and letting the head slue a little round, sent the whole force
of the sea into the stern-sheets, drenching them from head to feet. The
Spaniards sprang out of the boat, swore, and shook themselves and
protested against trying it again; and it was with the greatest
difficulty that the agent could prevail upon them to make another
attempt. The next time we took care, and went off easily enough, and
pulled aboard. The crew came to the side to hoist in their baggage,
and we gave them the wink, and they heartily enjoyed the half-drowned
looks of the company.
Everything being now ready, and the passengers aboard, we ran up the
ensign and broad pennant, (for there was no man-of-war, and we were the
largest vessel on the coast,) and the other vessels ran up their
ensigns. Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of
each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard; at the word, the
whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity
possible, everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor
tripped and catheaded, and the ship under headway. We were determined
to show the "spouter" how things could be done in a smart ship, with a
good crew, though not more than half their number. The royal yards
were all crossed at once, and royals and skysails set, and, as we had
the wind free, the booms were run out, and every one was aloft, active
as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail
gear; and sail after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was
covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting
upon a black speck. Before we doubled the point, we were going at a
dashing rate, and leaving the shipping far astern. We had a fine
breeze to take us through the Canal, as they call this bay of forty
miles long by ten wide. The breeze died away at night, and we were
becalmed all day on Sunday, about half way between Santa Barbara and
Point Conception. Sunday night we had a light, fair wind, which set us
up again; and having a fine sea-breeze on the first part of Monday, we
had the prospect of passing, without any trouble, Point
Conception,--the Cape Horn of California, where it begins to blow the
first of January, and blows all the year round. Toward the latter part
of the afternoon, however, the regular northwest wind, as usual, set
in, which brought in our studding-sails, and gave us the chance of
beating round the Point, which we were now just abreast of, and which
stretched off into the Pacific, high, rocky and barren, forming the
central point of the coast for hundreds of miles north and south. A
cap-full of wind will be a bag-full here, and before night our royals
were furled, and the ship was laboring hard under her top-gallant
sails. At eight bells our watch went below, leaving her with as much
sail as she could stagger under, the water flying over the forecastle
at every plunge. It was evidently blowing harder, but then there was
not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had gone down bright.
We had been below but a short time, before we had the usual
premonitions of a coming gale: seas washing over the whole forward part
of the vessel, and her bows beating against them with a force and sound
like the driving of piles. The watch, too, seemed very busy trampling
about decks, and singing out at the ropes. A sailor can always tell,
by the sound, what sail is coming in, and, in a short time, we heard
the top-gallant sails come in, one after another, and then the flying
jib. This seemed to ease her a good deal, and we were fast going off
to the land of Nod, when--bang, bang, bang--on the scuttle, and "All
hands, reef topsails, ahoy!" started us out of our berths; and, it not
being very cold weather, we had nothing extra to put on, and were soon
on deck. I shall never forget the fineness of the sight. It was a
clear, and rather a chilly night; the stars were twinkling with an
intense brightness, and as far as the eye could reach, there was not a
cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a defined line. A
painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck
upon it. Yet it was blowing great guns from the north-west. When you
can see a cloud to windward, you feel that there is a place for the
wind to come from; but here it seemed to come from nowhere. No person
could have told, from the heavens, by their eyesight alone, that it was
not a still summer's night. One reef after another, we took in the
topsails, and before we could get them hoisted up, we heard a sound
like a short, quick rattling of thunder, and the jib was blown to atoms
out of the bolt-rope. We got the topsails set, and the fragments of
the jib stowed away, and the fore-topmast staysail set in its place,
when the great mainsail gaped open, and the sail ripped from head to
foot. "Lay up on that main-yard and furl the sail, before it blows to
tatters!" shouted the captain; and in a moment, we were up, gathering
the remains of it upon the yard. We got it wrapped, round the yard,
and passed gaskets over it as snugly as possible, and were just on deck
again, when, with another loud rent, which was heard throughout the
ship, the fore-topsail, which had been double-reefed, split in two,
athwartships, just below the reefband, from earing to earing. Here
again it was down yard, haul out reef-tackles, and lay out upon the
yard for reefing. By hauling the reef-tackles chock-a-block, we took
the strain from the other earings, and passing the close-reef earing,
and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting the sail,
close-reefed.
We had but just got the rigging coiled up, and were waiting to hear "go
below the watch!" when the main royal worked loose from the gaskets,
and blew directly out to leeward, flapping, and shaking the mast like a
wand. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must come in or be cut
adrift, or the mast would be snapped short off. All the light hands in
the starboard watch were sent up, one after another, but they could do
nothing with it. At length, John, the tall Frenchman, the head of the
starboard watch, (and a better sailor never stepped upon a deck,)
sprang aloft, and, by the help of his long arms and legs, succeeded,
after a hard struggle,--the sail blowing over the yard-arm to leeward,
and the skysail blowing directly over his head--in smothering it, and
frapping it with long pieces of sinnet. He came very near being blown
or shaken from the yard, several times, but he was a true sailor, every
finger a fish-hook. Having made the sail snug, he prepared to send the
yard down, which was a long and difficult job; for, frequently, he was
obliged to stop and hold on with all his might, for several minutes,
the ship pitching so as to make it impossible to do anything else at