Two Years Before the Mast
he thought was a "smooth spell," started to go forward. He had just
got to the end of the windlass, when a great sea broke over the bows,
and for a moment I saw nothing of him but his head and shoulders; and
at the next instant, being taken off of his legs, he was carried aft
with the sea, until her stern lifting up and sending the water forward,
he was left high and dry at the side of the long-boat, still holding on
to his tin pot, which had now nothing in it but salt water. But
nothing could ever daunt him, or overcome, for a moment, his habitual
good humor. Regaining his legs, and shaking his fist at the man at the
wheel, he rolled below, saying, as he passed, "A man's no sailor, if he
can't take a joke." The ducking was not the worst of such an affair,
for, as there was an allowance of tea, you could get no more from the
galley; and though sailors would never suffer a man to go without, but
would always turn in a little from their own pots to fill up his, yet
this was at best but dividing the loss among all hands.
Something of the same kind befell me a few days after. The cook had
just made for us a mess of hot "scouse"--that is, biscuit pounded fine,
salt beef cut into small pieces, and a few potatoes, boiled up together
and seasoned with pepper. This was a rare treat, and I, being the last
at the galley, had it put in my charge to carry down for the mess. I
got along very well as far as the hatchway, and was just getting down
the steps, when a heavy sea, lifting the stern out of water, and
passing forward, dropping it down again, threw the steps from their
place, and I came down into the steerage a little faster than I meant
to, with the kid on top of me, and the whole precious mess scattered
over the floor. Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of
everything at sea; and if you were to fall from aloft and be caught in
the belly of a sail, and thus saved from instant death, it would not do
to look at all disturbed, or to make a serious matter of it.
Friday, Nov. 14th. We were now well to the westward of the Cape and
were changing our course to the northward as much as we dared, since
the strong south-west winds, which prevailed then, carried us in toward
Patagonia. At two, P.M., we saw a sail on our larboard beam, and at
four we made it out to be a large ship, steering our course, under
single-reefed topsails. We at that time had shaken the reefs out of
our topsails, as the wind was lighter, and set the main top-gallant
sail. As soon as our captain saw what sail she was under, he set the
fore top-gallant sail and flying jib; and the old whaler--for such, his
boats and short sail showed him to be--felt a little ashamed, and shook
the reefs out of his topsails, but could do no more, for he had sent
down his top-gallant masts off the Cape. He ran down for us, and
answered our hail as the whale-ship, New England, of Poughkeepsie, one
hundred and twenty days from New York. Our captain gave our name, and
added, ninety-two days from Boston. They then had a little conversation
about longitude, in which they found that they could not agree. The
ship fell astern, and continued in sight during the night. Toward
morning, the wind having become light, we crossed our royal and skysail
yards, and at daylight we were seen under a cloud of sail, having royal
and skysails fore and aft. The "spouter," as the sailors call a
whaleman, had sent up his main top-gallant mast and set the sail, and
made signal for us to heave to. About half-past seven their whale-boat
came alongside, and Captain Job Terry sprang on board, a man known in
every port and by every vessel in the Pacific ocean. "Don't you know
Job Terry? I thought everybody knew Job Terry," said a green-hand, who
came in the boat, to me, when I asked him about his captain. He was
indeed a singular man. He was six feet high, wore thick, cowhide
boots, and brown coat and trowsers, and, except a sun-burnt complexion,
had not the slightest appearance of a sailor; yet he had been forty
years in the whale trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships,
built ships, and sailed ships. His boat's crew were a pretty raw set,
just out of the bush, and as the sailor's phrase is, "hadn't got the
hayseed out of their hair." Captain Terry convinced our captain that
our reckoning was a little out, and, having spent the day on board, put
off in his boat at sunset for his ship, which was now six or eight
miles astern. He began a "yarn" when he came on board, which lasted,
with but little intermission, for four hours. It was all about himself,
and the Peruvian government, and the Dublin frigate, and Lord James
Townshend, and President Jackson, and the ship Ann M'Kim of Baltimore.
It would probably never have come to an end, had not a good breeze
sprung up, which sent him off to his own vessel. One of the lads who
came in his boat, a thoroughly countrified-looking fellow, seemed to
care very little about the vessel, rigging, or anything else, but went
round looking at the live stock, and leaned over the pig-sty, and said
he wished he was back again tending his father's pigs.
At eight o'clock we altered our course to the northward, bound for Juan
Fernandez.
This day we saw the last of the albatrosses, which had been our
companions a great part of the time off the Cape. I had been
interested in the bird from descriptions which I had read of it, and
was not at all disappointed. We caught one or two with a baited hook
which we floated astern upon a shingle. Their long, flapping wings,
long legs, and large, staring eyes, give them a very peculiar
appearance. They look well on the wing; but one of the finest sights
that I have ever seen, was an albatross asleep upon the water, during a
calm, off Cape Horn, when a heavy sea was running. There being no
breeze, the surface of the water was unbroken, but a long, heavy swell
was rolling, and we saw the fellow, all white, directly ahead of us,
asleep upon the waves, with his head under his wing; now rising on the
top of a huge billow, and then falling slowly until he was lost in the
hollow between. He was undisturbed for some time, until the noise of
our bows, gradually approaching, roused him, when, lifting his head, he
stared upon us for a moment, and then spread his wide wings and took
his flight.
CHAPTER VI
LOSS OF A MAN--SUPERSTITION
Monday, Nov. 19th. This was a black day in our calendar. At seven
o'clock in the morning, it being our watch below, we were aroused from
a sound sleep by the cry of "All hands ahoy! a man overboard!" This
unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of every one, and hurrying
on deck we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her
studding-sails set; for the boy who was at the helm left it to throw
something overboard, and the carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing
that the wind was light, put the helm down and hove her aback. The
watch on deck were lowering away the quarter-boat, and I got on deck
just in time to heave myself into her as she was leaving the side; but
it was not until out upon the wide Pacific, in our little boat, that I
knew whom we had lost. It was George Ballmer, a young English sailor,
who was prized by the officers as an active lad and willing seaman, and
by the crew as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate. He was
going aloft to fit a strap round the main top-mast-head, for ringtail
halyards, and had the strap and block, a coil of halyards and a
marline-spike about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock
shrouds, and not knowing how to swim, and being heavily dressed, with
all those things round his neck, he probably sank immediately. We
pulled astern, in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew
that there was no hope of saving him, yet no one wished to speak of
returning, and we rowed about for nearly an hour, without the hope of
doing anything, but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that we must
give him up. At length we turned the boat's head and made towards the
vessel.
Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man
dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and "the mourners go
about the streets;" but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost,
there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it,
which give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore--you
follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are
often prepared for the event. There is always something which helps
you to realize it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed.
A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains
an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you--at
your side--you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and
nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea--to use a
homely but expressive phrase--you miss a man so much. A dozen men are
shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for
months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and
one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn.
It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill
up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one
man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less
to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You
miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them
almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss.
All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of
it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown
by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is
more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone.
The officers are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully aloft.
The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor's rude
eulogy--"Well, poor George is gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew his
work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate." Then usually follows
some allusion to another world, for sailors are almost all believers;
but their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They
say,--"God won't be hard upon the poor fellow," and seldom get beyond
the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard
treatment here will excuse them hereafter,--"To work hard, live hard,
die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard indeed!" Our cook, a
simple-hearted old African, who had been through a good deal in his
day, and was rather seriously inclined, always going to church twice a
day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley,
talked to the crew about spending their Sabbaths badly, and told them
that they might go as suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared.
Yet a sailor's life is at best, but a mixture of a little good with
much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is
linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the
solemn with the ludicrous.
We had hardly returned on board with our sad report, before an auction
was held of the poor man's clothes. The captain had first, however,
called all hands aft and asked them if they were satisfied that
everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought there was
any use in remaining there longer. The crew all said that it was in
vain, for the man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily
dressed. So we then filled away and kept her off to her course.
The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the
effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law