Part 11

Good-by, sweet north wind! Farewell, bright, blue skies and balmy weather! We turned out this morning to find the ship ploughing into a short, severe sea, heading south-southeast, with nothing set above the topsails and a strong wind whistling from southwest, or dead ahead. The change came last evening in the second dog-watch; it was hard upon eight o’clock, and the mate was telling me something about the fit of the upper mizzentop-sail, when, looking ahead, he suddenly cried, “By jimminy, look at that cloud; here comes the river Plate,” and ran forward, bawling, “Let go the sky-sail-halliards!” Looking quickly toward the southwest I beheld a very wonderful sight; for, extending from west to east, about twenty degrees above the horizon, was a strange, narrow band of black cloud which came rushing toward us at headlong speed, with a gray bank of mist beneath it extending to the horizon. This mass had apparently risen by the exercise of some magic, for fifteen minutes previously there was not the least indication of it in the sky. Even as we looked, another ribbon of sable cloud formed at an angle of forty-five degrees to the first, and cornucopia-shaped (though not vertical like a tornado), with the big end toward us, came charging down upon us with all our kites aloft.

The mate’s yell brought the skipper on deck, who sang out instantly, “Get the sky-sails and royals in as quick as you can, Mr. Goggins. Keep her off there; hard up.” This last to the helmsman; for in an instant our northerly breeze had been nipped off, and the wind was now from the west; therefore, as the yards were squared, there was a great thrashing about of new canvas. Nothing parted, though, and by 8.30 we were pretty well straightened out, but were surprised an hour later to see the wind let go a good deal, while the ship came up to her course again, southwest. But the captain, glancing at a gray mist to windward, muttered, “There’s dirt in that yet”; and sure enough, at five this morning we had our first taste of nasty weather, and breakfasted in a severe squall which played tenpins with the dishes. Once more it eased up before dinner and we set the fore- and mizzentop-gallant-sails; but while the skipper was enjoying his postprandial siesta, the second mate came below and, poking first his head and then his shoulders into the cabin in that peculiarly cautious manner of mates desiring to speak to the old man, aroused him with, “There’s too much wind coming for the t’-ga’nt-s’ls, sir”; to which the captain answered, “All right; tie ’em up,” jumping on deck, whither we followed him. It is remarkable how quickly sailors rouse themselves from insensibility to alert action; only a moment previously the captain was breathing heavily in a deep sleep, yet no sooner did Mr. Rarx touch him and make the above observation than the answer came instantly, as though the skipper were talking in his sleep.

The wind when we reached the deck was rapidly increasing and had knocked us off to south again, with a bad, greasy look to windward, and it was raining heavily. The men were hauling on the lee maintop-gallant-clew-line and buntlines, while Mr. Rarx was settling away the halliards and swearing that never, since Noah took charge of the ark, was there a slower gang on a ship’s deck, as he ordered four hands aloft to put the gaskets on the sail, the wind blowing their oil-skin jackets up over their heads as they trotted up the ratlines, exposing them to a hard drenching in the pelting rain.

During the forenoon watch we sighted a sail, which was doubtless the “Judas Dowes” again. It is astonishing how enormously a slight elevation will add to the visibility of objects at sea. From the deck, for instance, this vessel was sunk to her royals, and at the moment it was utterly impossible to tell whether she was a ship or a bark; but by mounting to the top of the wheel-house, only seven feet above the deck, all three of her upper topsails were in plain sight.

We saw Louis Jacquin fly into a regular Frenchman’s passion yesterday afternoon while shifting the sails. He was at the lee upper mizzen-topsail yard-arm, putting the finishing touches on some gear, when the second mate shouted up to him, “All ready to sheet home?” To which he answered, “All ready, sair”; evidently misunderstanding the question; for no sooner did those below man the sheet on which Louis was seated than crack! went that individual’s black head against the under side of the yard, and he was then thrown off to leeward, only preventing himself from going over for good by a piece of wonderful agility. Oh, what a rage he was in! He thought that Mr. Rarx did it intentionally, and the atmosphere smoked with foreign imprecations; and even at that distance we could see his angry blue eyes (he has china-blue eyes and raven hair) snapping and popping away as he roared down, “Eh! well, sair; what is zee mattair below? Do you want to heave me ovair side wiz your sheet?” and it was several hours until he recovered his composure.

Our new maintop-gallant-yard is all but finished and has been secured under the starboard rail till needed. A little remains still to be done to it, and these finishing touches the goblin carpenter insists on bestowing upon it in spite of the showers of spray; and it is an amusing sight to watch him pop out of his shop, snip off a few shavings, working like a demon for thirty or forty seconds, and then pop into his den again to avoid a sea. By reason of all this spray flying and damp weather, I have donned my Cape Horn red-leather slippers purchased from the slop-chest and said to be impervious to water. But they defy comfort equally well, being as inflexible as Cape Horn itself, and are spangled inside with perfect little galaxies of wooden pegs, so that I fain would have boiled them as the pilgrim did his pease. If man were provided with hoofs instead of feet, it is conceivable that he might contrive to become accustomed to these slippers; as it is, I cannot understand it.

Having crossed the thirtieth parallel, we are now “off” the river Plate in the sailor’s sense, who always speaks of being off the Plate when between 30° and 40° south. At least one gale is usually experienced before these ten degrees of latitude have been crossed, though ships generally reach the thirty-fifth degree before anything happens. Latitude, 30° 25′ south; longitude, 45° 33′ west.

+June 23+

A pampero! By heaven’s thunder, we are battling in the vortex of one of these river Plate howlers, with a high, confused sea, and the ship plunging heavily into it, almost denuded of canvas! Yesterday at 4.30 a reef was tied in the foretop-sail, as the wind showed signs of rapidly freshening; but there was a lull from five until midnight, when it began to breeze up again, and when we went on deck at 7.30 this morning, behold! a strong gale coming out of the west-southwest and the ship, under a reefed maintop-sail and foresail, was pounding considerably in a very ugly sea, but not taking much green water aboard. By the way, when a ship is under an upper maintop-sail, it is, of course, to be understood that all three lower topsails are set as well; and a “reefed fore- and maintop-sails” means only the uppers, as the lowers are too narrow for reef-points.

Wonderful to relate, there astern of us at daybreak was the redoubtable “Judas Dowes,” with the same canvas set as ourselves. We knew her by her stunsail-boom, and she was apparently gaining on us and was making better weather of it than we were. I never heard the wind so shriek and roar in a ship’s rigging as it did this morning, and it whipped the tops off the seas and sent them flying aboard in storms of whistling spray, which seemed to cut the face like powdered glass. It kept on breezing, too, and at 9.30 the old man ordered another reef tied in the maintop-sail. Thus far the damage from wind or sea was limited to the injury of one man, Louis Jacquin, who was thrown across the forecastle-head against an anchor-fluke with great force, badly lacerating his left leg, and incapacitating him from other work than steering. And still the wind increased, and at half-past eleven the skipper estimated its velocity at fifty-five nautical miles an hour. At noon I started to go on deck to bring down a book which I had left in the wheel-house; and, without stopping to put on oil-skins, I got into a leather jacket and went up out of the companion door. The captain was leaning against the lee side of the wheel-house, and I was about to join him, when he called out, “Hey, don’t you see that sea,--jump!” I looked over my shoulder and beheld a huge hill of water rising higher and higher alongside, in that peculiar, lazy manner of very large waves. Still, trusting to my own judgment, I did not think that it would break aboard, when there was a crash like a broadside of artillery, relieving me of any further suspense, and I was swept completely off my feet (and this on the poop), only saving myself from bringing to against the rail by a lucky clutch of the lazarette hatch-house. Then swash came the water back again, and I was once more half buried in the cold brine; but, watching a chance, the skipper and I shot across to the companion door, opened it, and were assailed with the cry, “The cabin’s flooded,” which rang out above the gale. It was even so. The great sea had stove the forward skylight on the cabin-house, and had deluged the dining-room with hundreds of gallons of salt-water. It is impossible to conceive of such a wreck as we encountered below. The poor little gentle Malay was leaning against the table almost in tears, trying to keep his feet under him, while Sammie was doing noble work with a bucket, baling out the water which was swirling about with the rolling, to a clinking chorus of plates, cruets, thick glass tumblers (as indestructible as granite), knives, forks, and spoons, which had been swept off the table when the water broke full upon it. Ten minutes later our dinner would have been reposing on it; and fancy the calamity in that event! But it is too dreary to contemplate. Indeed, the dinner was delayed nearly an hour, and we had neither soup nor dessert,--the first occasion on which we ever knew these courses to be omitted at sea; the weather must truly be violent when it so happens. But we had plenty of good scorching hot coffee; and, it might be asked, why is it that during the heaviest weather at sea the coffee is always boiling, while in one’s private house it is only after a protracted warfare with the cook that the coffee comes in at a higher temperature than lukewarm?

Well, the wind kept on blowing still harder, and at two in the afternoon had attained the fury of a full-grown pampero. And the sea! Oh, how it boiled and seethed like frothy cream! And how the wind screamed aloft in the squalls! Fortunately, they came at comparatively long intervals, with sunshine between; but while one lasted it was nearly impossible to catch sight of a square yard of dark water, for the surface was as white as milk; and the crests of the tall seas were fairly wrenched off and shot through the air with terrific force, the atmosphere being full of flying spoondrift which the toughest skin couldn’t face, while the horizon was everywhere filled with ponderous, breaking seas. Our motion all day was very severe: first a heavy roll which dipped the lee rail under, while the water boiled up to the lee fore-dead-eyes; then the awkward weather roll down the windward side of the sea; and finally a deep, headlong dive into the valley, with a wall of water on either hand. The skipper thought that the average height of the larger seas was about forty feet from crest to trough,--not so large as the Cape Horn rollers; but it must be borne in mind that this was a very quick, vicious sea, with not more than three hundred feet between the crests, so that solid water was bound to come aboard even on the poop.

Well, well, it was a magnificent sight; and as we are now accompanied by a cheerful flock of Cape pigeons, everything has a true Southern Ocean look. My wife was not in the least frightened during the day; but she had such a good grounding on our first voyage that it is not astonishing. We made no departure in the twenty-four hours but two degrees of latitude, which was extremely good work, considering that we were by the wind in a pampero. Latitude, 32° 25′ south; longitude, 45° 33′ west.

+June 24+

In the morning watch to-day the gale broke after blowing for twenty-four hours, the main-sail being set at four o’clock, during which process both mates were knocked down flat on the deck by an unexpected sea while they were standing by the main-hatch. At eight this morning the wind had moderated to a light, fitful breeze, and we wallowed all the forenoon in a high, broken sea; indeed, throughout the night we could get but little sleep owing to the severe rolling. Glancing to leeward as soon as we appeared on deck, there was our old friend the “Dowes” on our beam, distant a little more than a mile, bobbing about under her top-gallant-sails as we were, though she carried her cross-jack and we the spanker. She made, indeed, a fine picture as she forged sullenly ahead, showing a glistening sheath of copper as she divided the slopes of the larger seas, with a glint of brass from the poop when the sun peered out from between light showers. At nine o’clock we perceived several agitated figures close to her wheel, and presently a string of flags blew out and were run up to her gaff-end, and quite a little conversation ensued. The first signal which Platt made was DWV, signifying “How are you?” This we answered with BRC, which is to say, “All well.” Then followed in rapid succession, “When did you sail?” “When did you pass the equator?” “A pleasant voyage,” to all of which we replied with the various flag combinations which spelled the words; each then dipped the ensign three times, and the interview was brought to a close. It was very interesting thus conversing with the sly wretch, and it is singular how much interest foremast hands always take in such proceedings, carefully following every shift of flag, some of the older sailors always professing to be able to read the signals, often telling their messmates the most absurd things, which they implicitly believe.

I never saw so great a change in any one as came over Captain Scruggs yesterday during the gale. He was as quiet and retiring as the most bashful of individuals, and in fact exhibited an amount of anxiety surprising in so aggresive and domineering a person. Nearly all masters of sailing ships, as noted before, are nervous in bad weather; and in truth, a gale of wind at sea is something to make one quiet and mindful of man’s trivial strength when measured against the mighty powers of nature. But the captain was unnaturally reserved and almost crushed, and asked me half a dozen times what I thought of it; while at 2.30 in the afternoon, standing on the weather side of the wheel-house, he put his face close to my ear and shouted, “It’s blowing harder than ever,” with a rising inflection, as though awaiting my inexperienced opinion. This morning, however, he was his same old self again, drenching Sammie with heavy showers of profanity on the least provocation. In spite of his depression yesterday, the skipper gave vent to one of his quaint sayings. At the time he had on a cap, which, though not tied under his chin, resisted the utmost violence of the squalls; on commenting upon this to him, he cried, “They’re great things; you ought to have one; ’twould stop on as long as your pants.”

Some of the sailors are beginning to grumble even so soon as this. I had a talk with old Kelly this afternoon at the pumps and in a low voice he let fall his opinions on various subjects. Now, this man has been well educated and talks evenly, without effort, and the inflections and tone of his voice indicate that by birth his natural sphere in life is a good deal higher than that of a common sailor. “Well,” he remarked. “I’ve been in square-riggers for thirty-three years now, but I never did see one like this for yelling and cursing; why, they knock all the sense out of a man’s head the way they shout. And work, you talk about galleys, but there never was a gang of slaves driven as we are.” This must be taken with the usual amount of salt, which should always be liberally sprinkled over the conversation of the average sailor; still, when a second mate acknowledges that the men are hard pushed, there is not much doubt about its being true. Kelly is right, though, about the shouting of Captain Scruggs; if there wasn’t so much sea-room I believe that we would all be deafened by this time; and the worst part of it is that this sort of thing is absolutely useless. I have frequently known the skipper to work the men into such a state that they were paralyzed and unable to execute the simplest order.

At the present moment, sitting in the cabin, we can hear the wind beginning to sing again in the rigging, and a second gale would not surprise us in the least, for there is, in addition, a heavy swell rolling up from the southwest, all of which cannot be the result of our late gale.

This roaring of the wind aloft when it is blowing very hard is resolvable into several different tones: the heavy shrouds taking the base, the somewhat lighter backstays resembling the barytone, the halliards and braces standing for the tenor, while the buntlines and clew-lines take the part of a piercing falsetto, as shrill as a thousand piccolos; the whole blending into a resonant chorus of orchestral power, with grand, majestic crescendi like the double open diapason of a cathedral organ. Latitude 32° 35′ south; longitude, 44° 50′ west.

+June 25+

The question which agitates us at this moment is, are we going to have another pampero? for it is breezing up fast from west-southwest, the same old quarter. We didn’t have much wind this forenoon, but by dinner-time it freshened so that at one o’clock the skipper said to the mate in tones of despair, “Get that upper mizzentop-sail in, Mr. Goggins”; and no sooner were the men down on deck again than came the order, “Reef the foretop-sail.” All hands were on deck, and the foreshrouds were instantly filled with the yellow figures scurrying aloft, and in half an hour the ship was once more under snug canvas.

At four yesterday afternoon, chancing to look under the foot of the main-sail, my wife and I saw a large four-masted bark under top-gallant-sails bound north and steering in such a way as to pass within easy signalling distance; and the skipper lost no time in appearing on deck in answer to a summons, at once ordering the ship’s number to be made. On came the stranger, and in a few minutes we could see that she had lost her mizzen-royal, yard, mast, and everything. She was a very ugly vessel, narrow and dingy, built of wood, with a curious stern like nothing we had ever seen before, and no more apparent sheer than a billiard-table. Very soon she was abreast of us, but no answering flags fluttered from her gaff, and we wondered what manner of ship this was thus to ignore signals. We thought that she was going to pass us by completely unnoticed, when there crawled feebly to her spanker-gaff the green, white, and red banner of Italy. The meaning of this manœuvre was that this ill-starred old ship, which was evidently an ancient steamer, was totally destitute of flags bar her national ensign; and, having no signals, she would, of course, possess no code-book, and therefore our number, standing out stiffly a hundred feet from the deck, would be quite unintelligible to her.

No sooner was this ship hull down astern than another one arose ahead. We were below at the time, and when we reached the deck we were almost abreast of each other. Our name was still flying from the signal-halliards, while the other had hoisted FGH, meaning “What is your longitude?” We gratified her wish and she doubtless got our name all right, but refused to tell us hers; but, dipping her ensign, went surging heavily along on her homeward-bound course. A long time passed before we could make out what her ensign was, for it was a flag seldom seen on the ocean highways, and the mate had the honor of being the first to distinguish it. It was the flag of Chile: a broad horizontal band of red below, the upper half being divided into two squares, white and blue, with a large white star in the upper left-hand corner. She, too, was a wooden ship, but not so villanous-looking as the Italian, and carried double top-gallant-sails on the fore and main. We all hope that she’ll report us, for we have sailed through thirty-six degrees of latitude without having sighted any vessel which would be likely to report us on arrival. How happy our relatives and friends will be when they see our report in the ship-news columns by that steamer just north of the line, “Spoken, ship ‘Hosea Higgins.’ Scruggs, New York for San Francisco, June 6. Latitude, 2° north; longitude, 28° west!”

To-day at noon we were almost exactly in the latitude of Cape Agulhas, so that the Horn is thirteen hundred miles south of the southernmost extremity of the Eastern Hemisphere, a difference of latitude greater than that which separates Halifax and Key West, or New York and Havana. Latitude, 34° 46′ south; longitude, 45° 20′ west.

+June 26+