Two Years Before the Mast
and orders a man who has been employed aloft to send the royal halyards
over to windward, as he comes down. Breast backstays hauled taut,
and tackle got upon the martingale back-rope.--One of the boys furls
the mizen royal.--Cook thinks there is going to be "nasty work," and
has supper ready early.--Mate gives orders to get supper by the watch,
instead of all hands, as usual.--While eating supper, hear the watch on
deck taking in the royals.--Coming on deck, find it is blowing harder,
and an ugly head sea is running.--Instead of having all hands on the
forecastle in the dog watch, smoking, singing, and telling yarns, one
watch goes below and turns-in, saying that it's going to be an ugly
night, and two hours' sleep is not to be lost.
Clouds look black and wild; wind rising, and ship working hard against
a heavy sea, which breaks over the forecastle, and washes aft through
the scuppers. Still, no more sail is taken in, for the captain is a
driver, and, like all drivers, very partial to his top-gallant sails.
A top-gallant sail, too, makes the difference between a breeze and a
gale. When a top-gallant sail is on a ship, it is only a breeze,
though I have seen ours set over a reefed topsail, when half the
bowsprit was under water, and it was up to a man's knees in the
scuppers. At eight bells, nothing is said about reefing the topsails,
and the watch go below, with orders to "stand by for a call." We
turn-in, growling at the "old man" for not reefing the topsails when
the watch was changed, but putting it off so as to call all hands, and
break up a whole watch below. Turn-in "all standing," and keep
ourselves awake, saying there is no use in going asleep to be waked up
again.--Wind whistles on deck, and ship works hard, groaning and
creaking, and pitching into a heavy head sea, which strikes against the
bows, with a noise like knocking upon a rock.--The dim lamp in the
forecastle swings to and fro, and things "fetch away" and go over to
leeward.--"Doesn't that booby of a second mate ever mean to take in his
top-gallant sails?--He'll have the sticks out of her soon," says old
Bill, who was always growling, and, like most old sailors, did not like
to see a ship abused.--By-and-by an order is given--"Aye, aye, sir!"
from the forecastle;--rigging is heaved down on deck;--the noise of a
sail is heard fluttering aloft, and the short, quick cry which sailors
make when hauling upon clewlines.--"Here comes his fore-top-gallant
sail in!"--We are wide awake, and know all that's going on as well as
if we were on deck.--A well-known voice is heard from the mast-head
singing out the officer of the watch to haul taut the weather
brace.--"Hallo! There's S---- aloft to furl the sail!"--Next thing,
rigging is heaved down directly over our heads, and a long-drawn cry
and a rattling of hanks announce that the flying-jib has come in.--The
second mate holds on to the main top-gallant sail until a heavy sea is
shipped, and washes over the forecastle as though the whole ocean had
come aboard; when a noise further aft shows that that sail, too, is
taking in. After this, the ship is more easy for a time; two bells are
struck, and we try to get a little sleep. By-and-by, bang, bang, bang,
on the scuttle--"All ha-a-ands, a ho-o-y!"--We spring out of our
berths, clap on a monkey-jacket and southwester, and tumble up the
ladder.--Mate up before us, and on the forecastle, singing out like a
roaring bull; the captain singing out on the quarter-deck, and the
second mate yelling, like a hyena, in the waist. The ship is lying
over half upon her beam-ends; lee scuppers under water, and forecastle
all in a smother of foam.--Rigging all let go, and washing about decks;
topsail yards down upon the caps, and sails flapping and beating
against the masts; and starboard watch hauling out the reef-tackles of
the main topsail. Our watch haul out the fore, and lay aloft and put
two reefs into it, and reef the foresail, and race with the starboard
watch, to see which will mast-head its topsail first. All hands
tally-on to the main tack, and while some are furling the jib, and
hoisting the staysail, we mizen-topmen double-reef the mizen topsail
and hoist it up. All being made fast--"Go below, the watch!" and we
turn-in to sleep out the rest of the time, which is perhaps an hour and
a half. During all the middle, and for the first part of the morning
watch, it blows as hard as ever, but toward daybreak it moderates
considerably, and we shake a reef out of each topsail, and set the
top-gallant sails over them and when the watch come up, at seven bells,
for breakfast, shake the other reefs out, turn all hands to upon the
halyards, get the watch-tackle upon the top-gallant sheets and
halyards, set the flying-jib, and crack on to her again.
Our captain had been married only a few weeks before he left Boston;
and, after an absence of over two years, it may be supposed he was not
slow in carrying sail. The mate, too, was not to be beaten by anybody;
and the second mate, though he was afraid to press sail, was afraid as
death of the captain, and being between two fears, sometimes carried on
longer than any of them. We snapped off three flying-jib booms in
twenty-four hours, as fast as they could be fitted and rigged out;
sprung the spritsail yard; and made nothing of studding-sail booms.
Beside the natural desire to get home, we had another reason for urging
the ship on. The scurvy had begun to show itself on board. One man
had it so badly as to be disabled and off duty, and the English lad,
Ben, was in a dreadful state, and was daily growing worse. His legs
swelled and pained him so that he could not walk; his flesh lost its
elasticity, so that if it was pressed in, it would not return to its
shape; and his gums swelled until he could not open his mouth. His
breath, too, became very offensive; he lost all strength and spirit;
could eat nothing; grew worse every day; and, in fact, unless something
was done for him, would be a dead man in a week, at the rate at which
he was sinking. The medicines were all, or nearly all, gone; and if we
had had a chest-full, they would have been of no use; for nothing but
fresh provisions and terra firma has any effect upon the scurvy. This
disease is not so common now as formerly; and is attributed generally
to salt provisions, want of cleanliness, the free use of grease and fat
(which is the reason of its prevalence among whalemen,) and, last of
all, to laziness. It never could have been from the latter cause on
board our ship; nor from the second, for we were a very cleanly crew,
kept our forecastle in neat order, and were more particular about
washing and changing clothes than many better-dressed people on shore.
It was probably from having none but salt provisions, and possibly from
our having run very rapidly into hot weather, after having been so long
in the extremest cold.
Depending upon the westerly winds, which prevail off the coast in the
autumn, the captain stood well to the westward, to run inside of the
Bermudas, and in the hope of falling in with some vessel bound to the
West Indies or the Southern States. The scurvy had spread no farther
among the crew, but there was danger that it might; and these cases
were bad ones.
Sunday, Sept. 11th. Lat. 30° 04' N., long. 63° 23' W.; the Bermudas
bearing north-north-west, distant one hundred and fifty miles. The next
morning, about ten o'clock, "Sail ho!" was cried on deck; and all hands
turned up to see the stranger. As she drew nearer, she proved to be an
ordinary-looking hermaphrodite brig, standing south-south-east; and
probably bound out, from the Northern States, to the West Indies; and
was just the thing we wished to see. She hove-to for us, seeing that we
wished to speak her; and we ran down to her; boom-ended our
studding-sails; backed our main topsail, and hailed her--"Brig,
ahoy!"--"Hallo!"--"Where are you from, pray?"--"From New York, bound to
Curaçoa."--"Have you any fresh provisions to spare?"--"Aye, aye! plenty
of them!" We lowered away the quarter-boat, instantly; and the captain
and four hands sprang in, and were soon dancing over the water, and
alongside the brig. In about half an hour, they returned with half a
boat-load of potatoes and onions, and each vessel filled away, and kept
on her course. She proved to be the brig Solon, of Plymouth, from the
Connecticut river, and last from New York, bound to the Spanish Main,
with a cargo of fresh provisions, mules, tin bake-pans, and other
notions. The onions were genuine and fresh; and the mate of the brig
told the men in the boat, as he passed the bunches over the side, that
the girls had strung them on purpose for us the day he sailed. We had
supposed, on board, that a new president had been chosen, the last
winter, and, just as we filled away, the captain hailed and asked who
was president of the United States. They answered, Andrew Jackson; but
thinking that the old General could not have been elected for a third
time, we hailed again, and they answered--Jack Downing; and left us to
correct the mistake at our leisure.
It was just dinner-time when we filled away; and the steward, taking a
few bunches of onions for the cabin, gave the rest to us, with a bottle
of vinegar. We carried them forward, stowed them away in the
forecastle, refusing to have them cooked, and ate them raw, with our
beef and bread. And a glorious treat they were. The freshness and
crispness of the raw onion, with the earthy taste, give it a great
relish to one who has been a long time on salt provisions.
We were perfectly ravenous after them. It was like a scent of blood to
a hound. We ate them at every meal, by the dozen; and filled our
pockets with them, to eat in our watch on deck; and the bunches, rising
in the form of a cone, from the largest at the bottom, to the smallest,
no larger than a strawberry, at the top, soon disappeared.
The chief use, however, of the fresh provisions, was for the men with
the scurvy. One of them was able to eat, and he soon brought himself
to, by gnawing upon raw potatoes; but the other, by this time, was
hardly able to open his mouth; and the cook took the potatoes raw,
pounded them in a mortar, and gave him the juice to drink. This he
swallowed, by the tea-spoonful at a time, and rinsed it about his gums
and throat. The strong earthy taste and smell of this extract of the
raw potato at first produced a shuddering through his whole frame, and
after drinking it, an acute pain, which ran through all parts of his
body; but knowing, by this, that it was taking strong hold, he
persevered, drinking a spoonful every hour or so, and holding it a long
time in his mouth; until, by the effect of this drink, and of his own
restored hope, (for he had nearly given up, in despair) he became so
well as to be able to move about, and open his mouth enough to eat the
raw potatoes and onions pounded into a soft pulp. This course soon
restored his appetite and strength; and in ten days after we spoke the
Solon, so rapid was his recovery, that, from lying helpless and almost
hopeless in his berth, he was at the mast-head, furling a royal.
With a fine south-west wind, we passed inside of the Bermudas; and
notwithstanding the old couplet, which was quoted again and again by
those who thought we should have one more touch of a storm before our
voyage was up,--
"If the Bermudas let you pass,
You must beware of Hatteras--"
we were to the northward of Hatteras, with good weather, and beginning
to count, not the days, but the hours, to the time when we should be at
anchor in Boston harbor.
Our ship was in fine order, all hands having been hard at work upon her
from daylight to dark, every day but Sunday, from the time we got into