Two Years Before the Mast
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 back-stays, 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., 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, 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.
CHAPTER XXXIV
NARROW ESCAPES--THE EQUATOR--TROPICAL SQUALLS--A THUNDER STORM
The same day, I met with one of those narrow escapes, which are so
often happening in a sailor's life. I had been aloft nearly all the
afternoon, at work, standing for as much as an hour on the fore
top-gallant yard, which was hoisted up, and hung only by the tie; when,
having got through my work, I balled up my yarns, took my serving-board
in my hand, laid hold deliberately of the top-gallant rigging, took one
foot from the yard, and was just lifting the other, when the tie
parted, and down the yard fell. I was safe, by my hold upon the
rigging, but it made my heart beat quick. Had the tie parted one
instant sooner, or had I stood an instant longer on the yard, I should
inevitably have been thrown violently from the height of ninety or a
hundred feet, overboard; or, what is worse, upon the deck. However, "a
miss is as good as a mile;" a saying which sailors very often have
occasion to use. An escape is always a joke on board ship. A man
would be ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it. A sailor
knows too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish to be always
reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it to himself, or
makes a joke of it. I have often known a man's life to be saved by an
instant of time, or by the merest chance,--the swinging of a rope,--and
no notice taken of it. One of our boys, when off Cape Horn, reefing
topsails of a dark night, and when there were no boats to be lowered
away, and where, if a man fell overboard he must be left behind,--lost
his hold of the reef-point, slipped from the foot-rope, and would have
been in the water in a moment, when the man who was next to him on the
yard caught him by the collar of his jacket, and hauled him up upon the
yard, with--"Hold on, another time, you young monkey, and be d----d to
you!"--and that was all that was heard about it.
Sunday, August 7th. Lat. 25° 59' S., long. 27° 0' W. Spoke the
English bark Mary-Catherine, from Bahia, bound to Calcutta. This was
the first sail we had fallen in with, and the first time we had seen a
human form or heard the human voice, except of our own number, for
nearly a hundred days. The very yo-ho-ing of the sailors at the ropes
sounded sociably upon the ear. She was an old, damaged-looking craft,
with a high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and sawed off square, stem
and stern, like a true English "tea-wagon," and with a run like a
sugar-box. She had studding-sails out alow and aloft, with a light but
steady breeze, and her captain said he could not get more than four
knots out of her and thought he should have a long passage. We were
going six on an easy bowline.
The next day, about three P. M., passed a large corvette-built ship,
close upon the wind, with royals and skysails set fore and aft, under
English colors. She was standing south-by-east, probably bound round
Cape Horn. She had men in her tops, and black mast-heads; heavily
sparred, with sails cut to a t, and other marks of a man-of-war. She
sailed well, and presented a fine appearance; the proud,
aristocratic-looking banner of St. George, the cross in a blood-red
field, waving from the mizen. We probably were as fine a sight, with
our studding-sails spread far out beyond the ship on either side, and
rising in a pyramid to royal studding-sails and sky-sails, burying the
hull in canvas, and looking like what the whale-men on the Banks, under
their stump top-gallant masts, call "a Cape Horn-er under a cloud of
sail."
Friday, August 12th. At daylight made the island of Trinidad, situated
in lat. 20° 28' S., long. 29° 08' W. At twelve M., it bore N. W. 1/2
N., distant twenty-seven miles. It was a beautiful day, the sea hardly
ruffled by the light trades, and the island looking like a small blue
mound rising from a field of glass.
Such a fair and peaceful-looking spot is said to have been, for a long
time, the resort of a band of pirates, who ravaged the tropical seas.
Thursday, August 18th. At three P. M., made the island of Fernando
Naronha, lying in lat. 3° 55' S., long. 32° 35' W.; and between twelve
o'clock Friday night and one o'clock Saturday morning, crossed the
equator, for the fourth time since leaving Boston, in long. 35° W.;
having been twenty-seven days from Staten Land--a distance, by the
courses we had made, of more than four thousand miles.
We were now to the northward of the line, and every day added to our
latitude. The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of South latitude, were
sunk in the horizon, and the north star, the Great Bear, and the
familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens.
Next to seeing land, there is no sight which makes one realize more
that he is drawing near home, than to see the same heavens, under which
he was born, shining at night over his head. The weather was extremely
hot, with the usual tropical alternations of a scorching sun and
squalls of rain; yet not a word was said in complaint of the heat, for
we all remembered that only three or four weeks before we would have
given nearly our all to have been where we now were. We had plenty of
water, too, which we caught by spreading an awning, with shot thrown in
to make hollows. These rain squalls came up in the manner usual
between the tropics.--A clear sky; burning, vertical sun; work going