Part 1

BY WAY OF CAPE HORN

_FOURTH EDITION_

[Illustration: Cape Horn bearing northwest, distant fifteen miles]

BY WAY OF CAPE HORN

FOUR MONTHS IN A YANKEE CLIPPER

BY

PAUL EVE STEVENSON

AUTHOR OF “A DEEP-WATER VOYAGE”

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY THE AUTHOR

[Illustration]

PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1908

+Copyright, 1898+

BY

+J. B. Lippincott Company+

TO

MY MOTHER

PREFACE

As in the case of our first “Deep-Water Voyage” to Calcutta, the present one was undertaken with the sole idea of enjoyment. The pleasure which such a voyage affords the fortunate few in whom there is a real affection for the sea is quite indescribable. To such there is no monotony, for there is always something interesting and amusing going on aboard ship, if one’s eyes are open; the men themselves present an inexhaustible field for study and reflection, and it is well known that a more jovial and witty fraternity does not exist.

But there is also a sombre, tragic side to a voyage in a Yankee deep-water ship, and that is the cruel and brutal treatment accorded that most popular individual just now,--the American sailor; by which is meant the men who sail before the mast under our flag. The merchant service has ever been regarded as the navy’s nursery, and a faithful account by an impartial observer will be found in these pages, showing the manner in which our seamen are treated,--the brothers, as it were, of those who won our victories at Manila and Santiago.

P. E. S.

+New York+, October 10, 1898.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Cape Horn bearing northwest, distant fifteen miles _Frontispiece_

PAGE The course of the “Hosea Higgins” 13

The companion-way 18

Plan of cabin 28

Forty to the minute 48

Mending sails in fine weather 53

Overhauling the “Venturer” 84

“Blow, my bully boys, blow” 104

“Eight bells” 127

A fifty-foot Cape Horn gray-beard 212

The ablest seaman in the ship 303

The four-masted British ship “Loch Torridon” 333

Tarring down 358

Hauling taut the braces 387

[Illustration: The course of the “Hosea Higgins”]

BY WAY OF CAPE HORN

It would have been reasonable to suppose that, having made one long voyage in a sailing ship, my wife and I would have been content to stop ashore for the rest of our lives, or at least to limit the length of our voyages to the distance which separates the United States and Europe. For a while, indeed, after our return to America from India, we were contented enough on land, and were kept busy answering the innumerable questions of interested relatives and friends concerning the voyage just ended. But restlessness presently attacked us again; and it was not hard to perceive by the avidity with which my wife searched the _Herald’s_ ship-news columns every morning for tidings of deep-water vessels that no persuasion on my part would be necessary in the event of our undertaking another voyage. Therefore, when two years had passed away, we began to discuss the advisability of once more tempting the elements in another sea-journey to far-distant lands. Japan loomed up before us in a particularly rosy light as a destination for this voyage; but there was one great objection to it: a voyage to Yokohama would have taken us around the Cape of Good Hope a second time, and it was our cherished desire to double Cape Horn, and thus overcome the two most celebrated and tempestuous promontories on the globe. Indeed, as far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to accomplish the westerly passage around the southernmost extremity of the earth’s continents. The very name of Cape Horn is enough to fire the imagination of a true lover of the sea, and fills the mind with pictures of ships battling with gales of wind and giant seas and visions of bleak, iron-bound shores wrapped in the gloom which enshrouds that desolate region. After much discussion, then, we decided on the voyage from New York to San Francisco. It was January when we first broached the matter, and, after arguing the pros and cons of the subject, concluded to try and get away in May, as that would take us to the Horn in July, the middle of the antarctic winter. At this our friends stood aghast. “It is quite bad enough,” they said, “to tempt Providence at all on so foolhardy an excursion, but to double Cape Horn in midwinter is going beyond the limits of reason.” But we stood our ground in spite of the hurricane of objections (and it required some moral courage to do it), and forthwith commenced systematic preparations for the journey. We were making the voyage to a great extent for the purpose of experiencing the weather and seas off Cape Horn, and as the latter would, no doubt, be larger and grander in winter than in summer, I don’t think that our idea was so very preposterous after all.

Naturally, our first thought was of the vessel in which we were to sail, and we looked forward with much interest to a voyage in an American ship, having all our lives heard that our ships were run in a splendid manner, that the discipline on board was perfect, etc.; and it would also be interesting to compare this vessel with those of another nation, as our first voyage was made in the British ship “Mandalore.” Now, it happened that all of our largest deep-watermen were away from New York, and we were at a loss what to do, for, as a general rule, the larger the vessel the more comfortable she is in bad weather. There are many who will, no doubt, take exception to this, as being by no means true; yet it would be absurd to argue that the “Germanic,” for instance, is as easy in heavy weather as the “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” or a twelve-hundred-ton sailing ship as the “Potosi.” At length, one morning appeared the announcement in the marine news that the ship “Hosea Higgins,” Abner Scruggs, master, had arrived from San Francisco. She was not as large as the “Roanoke” by a thousand tons or more; but she was well known to us by name, and we went over to Brooklyn one day, where she was discharging a cargo of wine, canned salmon, and whale-oil, and introduced ourselves to the captain. Although gruff in the extreme at first, he subsequently thawed out sufficiently to warrant the belief that he was really quite an amiable individual, and we parted with his assurance that if the owners were willing he would take us around to San Francisco, and even went to the length of offering us his own room, which was very large and well ventilated. The owners raised no objections to our going, so we paid the passage-money of six hundred dollars and took possession of the captain’s room. I might remark parenthetically that this seemed to be a pretty good round sum to pay as passage-money, in view of the fact that we paid only three hundred dollars to Calcutta on the first voyage; however, in the latter case the money went to the captain, while in the present instance it went to the owners; besides, this passage would probably be somewhat longer. The captain received no recompense whatever, unless we should choose to make him a present.

The ship was advertised to sail on May 1, but there was the usual delay incident to the departure of a sailing ship taking out a general cargo, and it was nearly a fortnight after that date before we finally departed.

Under any conditions it is interesting to watch the loading of a large sailing ship, and when you are going to sea in that ship, a certain degree of interest seems to attach itself to each article, and the assortment of freight was bewildering. In a couple of hours, one morning when I was on board, there came down in rapid succession two large boilers for Spreckles’s sugar refinery in Honolulu, several hundred cases of starch, ditto kegs of nails, two wagon-loads of sewing-machines, two hundred bales of oakum, and four very large whale-boats, about thirty-five feet long, going out to Sitka. Strange that they can not or do not build good whale-boats on the Pacific coast; the best boats used by our whalers are all built in New Bedford, even down to the present time, and sent out to Alaska round the Horn.

It will be easily perceived how difficult it must be to stow a cargo of this sort so that in the heaviest of weather it will not shift. Imagine packing away four clumsy boats in a ship’s hold so that they will not be crushed by heavier objects, and yet in such a way as to prevent these very objects from shifting. If the various articles could be delivered on the pier to suit the stevedores, it would be plain sailing; but everything must be taken as it comes, and it calls for the greatest skill from the most experienced men. There is said to be only a single firm of this sort in New York whose men understand perfectly the art of stowing the cargo of a deep-water ship.

For several days we were tortured on the rack of expectation; but after the most aggravating delays and daily messages from the owners that the ship “would positively go to sea to-morrow,” we learned one Monday morning that the ship would be cleared that day and would sail the next morning, which was

+May 11+

Oh, the riot attendant upon the departure of a ship on a long voyage! The distraction and tumult are at some moments terrific, in spite of everything that has been written about a vessel’s being in perfect order to a sailor’s eye when leaving port. We have been on two large ships now when getting under way, and all I have to say on the subject is, that it is wonderful how much disturbance and disorder can be gathered into so small a space as a ship’s deck. We were told to be on board by nine o’clock, as the tide would serve soon afterward, and we would haul out about ten. At the stipulated hour, then, we went over the side and found that the crew had just come down. They were collected together in the waist, and in the centre of the group stood a hard-looking individual whom I took for the shipping-master. He was haranguing the men, who seemed to listen intently, though I couldn’t hear what was said; and when I strolled to the break of the poop to be nearer to him, he gruffly commanded me to “go way from there, will you.” Why he did so it is impossible to say, unless he was engaged in some unlawful transaction. This was, no doubt, the reason, as there is no attempt made by the United States authorities to enforce the laws relating to the shipping of seamen. By and by this creature took his disagreeable countenance over the side, and immediately those who were not too drunk were turned to at various odd jobs about the decks. Some of the men, however, were too far gone to even stand upright alone, so the two mates seized half a dozen of them and drove them forward and into the forecastle, the door of which was then locked, and the men were left to themselves to sleep off some of the effects of South Street grog. Those who come aboard in this condition generally have a bottle or two each of rum concealed about them, and after a vigorous search the mate found himself possessed of several quarts of very bad grog, which he hove into the river.

Several of our relatives and friends had come down to see us off, and, seated aft by the wheel-house, they seemed to take deep interest in the rakish fellows who were to be our companions, as it were, for four or five months. On the whole, they were a very decent-looking crowd; but when the second mate sung out, “Come up here a couple of you, and give us a hand with this tow line,” and all hands came stumbling up the poop ladders and lumbered aft with that fixed, idiotic stare of half-intoxicated men trying to show how very sober they are, we observed that our relatives shuddered as they thought of our being imprisoned for maybe half a year with this company of ruffians, as they, no doubt, supposed the men to be.

A remarkable feature of the departure of our ship was the crowd that had gathered to see us off. A body of men and boys to the number of at least two hundred were ranged along the pier, minutely criticising the ship and the way in which she was sparred, as well as the probable length of voyage. “It’ll be Cape Horn in July,” said one, “and she’ll never do it in less than a hundred and fifty.” “Guess you don’t know the old man, or you wouldn’t say that,” said his neighbor. “If Scruggs don’t take her out under a hundred and twenty, I’m a farmer.” Here a movement was perceptible among the crowd; somebody seemed to be elbowing his way through the midst, and in another moment we recognized the fierce whiskers of Abner Scruggs himself. With him was one of the agents, and they both seemed angry about something; but the captain greeted us very amiably, imparting to us at the same time the unwelcome news that he must now clear the ship of all who were not going along. Sad farewells were said, relatives and friends were handed over the gangway, which was instantly drawn on board, the powerful tow-boat “C. E. Evarts” started ahead, and we began to move slowly out, stern first, into the rapid current of the East River. So imperceptibly did we gather way that it was a minute or so before any one on the pier saw that we had started; some one in the crowd suddenly perceived it and shouted “she’s off;” and as our long, slender jib-boom glided out past the string-piece, we were saluted with a series of hearty cheers, which lasted until the tugs (for another joined us) had slued the ship around and headed her for Governor’s Island. On the way down the river we passed two splendid iron sailing vessels,--the German ship “H. Bischoff,” which had just arrived after an extraordinarily long passage of two hundred and eighteen days from Hong Kong; and the British ship “Walter H. Wilson,” being one of only a few English vessels named after individuals.

The second tow-boat left us at Governor’s Island, and afterward it was extremely slow work, as the speed at no time was greater than four knots an hour. Off Tompkinsville we passed the battle-ship “Indiana” and the cruiser “New York,” each of which we saluted with three dips of the ensign, which were returned in kind. We could see the sailors on the men-of-war gather in crowds to watch us drag slowly by, for it is not so very frequently nowadays that a large ship flying the stars and stripes is seen on her way to sea.

In the lower bay we found a very light southerly wind blowing, and a German iron bark with painted ports that had passed us outward bound, returned and anchored in the Horseshoe, not caring to continue under conditions somewhat unfavorable. However, we kept on, and commenced to make sail off the point of the Hook; and I must here assert that I never saw such confusion as reigned during this operation. The disorder when hauling into the stream was bad enough, but when the command was given to cast off the gaskets the ship was in a perfect whirl till the mizzen sky-sail had been swayed aloft, and as it takes several hours to make sail when first leaving port, the mates were almost out of their minds when the job had been finished. All hands began with the customary blackguarding of the men who had bent the sails, and the second mate passed the afternoon taking his oath that he “never did see quite the like of the mess them riggers had made aloft,” while the men were jumping about the decks like headless chickens, trying to find where the various ropes led to, for no two ships are rigged alike. It may be imagined how confusing it is for a man to come aboard of a ship and find that some of the sheets and clew-lines are not belayed in the same place as in the vessel that he left only a week ago. Indeed an intelligent second mate will often be two or three days getting the “hang” of a sailing vessel.

Before dark, though, everything had been straightened out, and the ropes coiled away over the pins, and the decks at length began to assume that well-ordered appearance so attractive in a large square-rigger.

The men are a far better lot than we expected to find in a Cape-Horner, and most of them are on the sunny side of thirty-five, though there are two or three old hulks among them. About three o’clock the drunken sailors were hauled out of the forecastle, and they were a sight as they yawed around, falling over ropes and capstan-bars. As the foretop-gallant-sail was being sheeted home, the captain went down on the main deck to have a look about the ship, when to our intense astonishment a young tow-headed sailor, the drunkest of the lot, lurched up to him, and, leaning against the skipper’s shoulder, poured some tale of woe into his ear. Now, Captain Scruggs doesn’t look like a particularly mild-tempered person, and when the man held out a ponderous fist to shake hands with him, we didn’t know what was going to happen. But the captain gravely gave him his hand and nodded his head, while the man lurched forward to his companions. At six o’clock Captain Scruggs said, “I don’t believe in giving grog to sailors at any time, but some of the men are feeling pretty well used up from the hard work after a long drunk ashore, so I’m going to give ’em a bracer.” Forthwith a bucketful of diluted Jamaica rum was served out at the cabin door, each man as his pannikin was filled nodding his thanks to the steward. One of them, however, a very sinister-looking man, tried to snatch the bucket away from the little steward; but the skipper caught him at the moment, and then for the first time we heard Captain Scruggs’s deep-sea voice. The man was so scared by the hurricane of words hurled at him that he dropped the bucket, which luckily didn’t capsize, and, pulling his front hair to the skipper, insisted that it wasn’t he “who was doin’ the funny business.”

Our first night on board began silently and peacefully, and we turned in early after the turmoil of the day.

+May 12+

“The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop, Below the kirk, below the hill, below the Light-house top.”

When we reached the deck this morning, the lofty Navesink highlands had vanished beyond the horizon and we floated alone upon the ocean. The day came on with a fresh southerly wind and a lively sea. My wife went to bed last night sea-sick, and this morning she was very ill and wholly given over to dismal reflections. The motion was quite severe, and I myself felt far happier on deck than below. Indeed, it generally takes me three or four days to grow fully accustomed to being at sea. The captain evidently saw that I wasn’t feeling particularly robust, so he instilled life into me by asking whether I wouldn’t like to keep the meteorological record during the voyage, the ship being provided with blanks for the purpose by the Hydrographic Office at Washington. This will be very interesting work for me, and I feel quite important.

If a man commenced guessing what we in the cabin had for breakfast to-day, he might keep on indefinitely without hitting the mark, for we had broiled sweet-breads! Ponder on this, ye landsmen; a week hence, though, will see the end of our ice and therefore of the fresh meat. To our surprise, one hundred pounds of prime beef, mutton, and chickens for broiling came down about an hour before we sailed, beautifully packed in a cask in alternate layers of meat and ice, and now repose under the forecastle head in a cool place. No doubt, by exercising a little care, much, for us aft, may be accomplished in the way of prolonging our Lucullian banquets. Imagine a fresh, juicy roast of beef off Cape Horn!

Before proceeding with the history of our voyage, there may be some readers who would like to know what sort of a ship this is in which we are journeying, and the following is a description of the vessel.

The “Hosea Higgins” is a powerful wooden ship, a fraction over two thousand tons net, with a length over all of two hundred and sixty feet, a beam of forty-four feet, and a draught of twenty-five; she was built at Waldoboro, Maine, in 1885, and is of course classed A 1. She is a three-master, very loftily rigged, as nearly all Yankee ships are, crossing three sky-sail-yards, and her mainyard is ninety-five feet long. There is but one house on the main-deck, but it is a very large one and contains the forecastle, sail-room, galley, and carpenter-shop, in which there is a twenty horse-power donkey engine. So many persons have asked us at various times about the cabins of sailing ships, that we have made a plan of the saloon and staterooms, which appears on the opposite page.

[Illustration: PLAN OF CABIN

1, captain’s room (ours); 2, spare room; 3, office; 4, steward; 5, pantry; 6, second mate; 7, bath-room; 8, spare room (captain’s); 9, chart-room; 10, store-room; 11, carpenter; 12, mate. A, harmonium; B, table; C, chairs; D, sofa; E, exits; F, companion-way to poop; G, mizzen-mast; H, dining-table; I, stove; J, vestibules; K, exits on main-deck.

]

So much for the ship; now for the monarch who commands her. Abner Scruggs is one of a very large family of sea-faring men, and hails from Rockland, Maine; in stature he is not exalted, but is very massive, and before he grew stout was no doubt a powerful man, his age being about fifty years. He is fierce of aspect, with bristling whiskers and dark eyes that snap like electric sparks when angry; and I have never known a man who could utter his commands in so determined, severe, and brittle a voice.

The mate’s name is Leander Goggins. By the way, on a sailing ship the man who holds that position is never called the chief mate, first officer, or anything except simply “the mate,” even if there are four of them. Mr. Goggins was born in Chichester, England, about fifty years ago, but left that country when a lad and became a citizen of the United States, an unusual performance for an Englishman, who seldom renounces his native land. He is short and small generally, talks with a terrific cockney accent, in spite of his thirty-five years in and about America, and possesses one of those countenances which you can’t tell anything about; but his looks are not in his favor. One of his most objectionable points is his fawning servility, which is never prominent in a man who amounts to much, however humble his station.