Part 18
When all but a few inches of water had run off, and it was deep only in the lee scuppers, we perceived a knot of men away aft wedged between the bitts and the rail not far from the cabin bulkhead, entangled in a fearful snarl of gear. So tightly were they packed away that at first it seemed as though there were only two men there; but one by one they crawled apart till three half-drowned sailors sat wabbling on the deck, and then we saw that another luckless creature was lying prone in the scuppers. Slowly and painfully he got his legs under him, and, waiting for a lurch, with an effort reached his feet. It was Mr. Rarx, one of the most powerful men on board, and he was gasping for breath. It seems that they had all been swept aft together, and all were badly used up, especially Mr. Rarx, who formed the base of the wedge. He says that he was completely under water for a good deal more than a minute.
We are beginning to regard deep-water sailors as little short of heroes. Indeed, they seem to me far more valiant than the battalions of soldiery that are hurled nowadays against little bands of savages. From 50° to 50° they and the dark cavern in which they live are soaking wet; they have no time to change their clothes, and no dry garments to put on if they had, for often, no sooner have the watch below kicked off their boots, actually filled to the brim with salt-water, than comes the cry, “All hands reef the maintop-sail,” and when that is done, “Haul up the main-sail” rings out, and there are two hours gone from their watch below. There is no such thing as throwing off their coats or even oil-skins when they turn in; nor would it be advisable in a leaky forecastle like this, with half an inch of water on the floor shooting up in their faces. Yet look at these men as they haul on the braces in a gale of wind, hardly able to keep their feet. Never a word of complaint at the weather have I heard yet. Calm and unmoved in the storms of spray and snow, they sing out as heartily as ever, grin good-naturedly up at the poop where we are standing dry and comfortable, and face the crest of a sea that rattles against them as if it were a summer shower. The more we see of forecastle life the more difficult is it to understand why men ever ship before the mast for a Cape Horn voyage.
It is pleasant to think that that wretched man Goggins was washing about in his room, too,--pleasant, because he continues to drive and haze the men down here when they are striving to do their utmost under such conditions. When he awoke last night in the middle watch he found several inches of water on the floor of his room, and he is wondering where it came from. Indeed, we had a shower-bath ourselves last night, for part of a sea fell on the poop, ran aft against the wheel-house when the bows rose and then recoiled into our after-window, which was open, drenching that portion of our room.
Steam is kept up continuously in the donkey-boiler now, as the men are getting pretty well used up from exposure and the immense amount of making and shortening of sail that goes on continuously. Captain Scruggs believes in taking every single point of advantage in the wind, and shakes out a reef at the least indication of a lull, each time, of course, necessitating the mastheading of the yard; though eventually even he realized that the men were wearing out, and now the donkey does all the heavy hoisting. Many people think that the engine does all the trimming of yards, etc., during a voyage, but with the exception of the passage of the Horn, it is seldom ever in use at sea, and never for sail-trimming. The chief use to which a donkey is put is in loading and discharging when in port and heaving in the anchor.
Well, the wind now, at 3 +P.M.+, is at west, force 8, and we have set a reefed maintop-sail and spencer. We have drifted about southeast by east true since yesterday, sometimes hove to, sometimes headreaching through a heavy sea. The elements are somewhat more placid, and I must not bring this day’s journal to a close without extolling my wife’s bravery during the foul weather, for her courage was remarkable. Only those who have been to sea in a sailing ship whose main-deck is but seven feet above the water can appreciate what a whole gale of wind means under such circumstances. Latitude, 57° south; longitude, 65° 45′ west.
+July 18+
Land was reported on the weather-beam this afternoon. We think that it is Barneveld Island, about thirty miles northeast of Cape Horn, and it bore, when first sighted, northwest. We didn’t do anything at all during the last twenty-four hours but seesaw up and down, north and southeast, with the wind at southwest, and we were surprised by a calm last night from six until twelve o’clock, with a comparatively high thermometer,--41° at the latter hour,--so that the skipper looked for a northerly wind during this morning. But no such luck for us; daylight saw us under a reefed maintop-sail (we had set the main-top-gallant at midnight) with a moderate gale from the westward, though the sea was quite smooth. We have entirely lost the long southwesterly roll, and it is astonishing how that swell does go down if you are only a little to the eastward of the Cape. For instance, suppose a vessel to be in 57° south and 68° west, she is almost certain to have this big heave; but if in 66° west and the same latitude she will be almost entirely free from it; at least, this has been our experience.
Great agitation pervaded the ship aft to-day when the discovery was made that the pumps had not been working properly for twenty-four hours. In heavy weather the “Higgins” has to be pumped out every two hours on account of a leak near the rudder-head, although the majority of wooden sailing vessels have to man the pumps every watch in a seaway, for they all leak in bad weather. Something was wrong with the plunger, I believe, and the pumps have been useless for a whole day, unknown to any one, which in itself seems remarkable, though I must say that the decks have been so full of water that it has been very hard to tell whether a stream was coming up from below or not. Therefore both men and donkey have been alternately pumping without result, and when the carpenter sounded the well this noon, lo! there were two and a half feet of water in the vessel, which means nearly twenty thousand gallons, or about six hundred barrels. By using both sides of the pumps, however, the engine had them sucking in an hour, doing sixty revolutions to the minute. There was a violent scene, though, when the old man learned of the affair, and a still more turbulent half-hour followed while the plunger was being repaired.
Here, in the bad, wet weather, for it has been raining for forty-eight hours, this ship is extremely uncomfortable and disagreeable below, and the most slovenly one that I have ever seen. To begin with, it is very dark, for the skylights are absurdly small, and boards have to be secured on their weather-sides to prevent a repetition of the river Plate incident, so that the gloom of the interior is that of a hole in the ground. However, this doesn’t count, for we expected it. The after-cabin is a rather unpleasant spot, by reason of a so’wester or two, a dripping black oil-skin, several pair of wet woollen wrist-protectors, a few greasy magazines, a chart or two, and a couple of camp-chairs all continually sliding about the floor, making locomotion an extremely hazardous undertaking. But, upon approaching the forward or dining cabin, a spectacle meets the eye which would shake the heart of the stoutest landsman. In the forward end, in a recess, stands the stove, stayed with iron rods; while surrounding it on three sides is a permanent aggregation of various objectionable articles, perfectly appalling. The heater is completely smothered at all times in ancient, wet garments of the skipper’s, almost in a state of fermentation, suspended on wires, so that the stove can hardly be seen. At dinner to-day the following disreputable articles of clothing hung before the fire, dank and mildewed: two pairs of aged trousers, two waist-coats, three coats, one overcoat, two mufflers, one pair of knitted gloves, one handkerchief, and two pairs of socks. From these garments there issued a peculiarly obnoxious, thin steam, through which a yellow lamp glowed unhealthily.
Below, at the base of the stove, and surrounding it as with a chevaux-de-frise, were two pairs of rubber boots, ditto leather shoes, ditto felt slippers for boots, two dishes filled with the cat’s half-devoured food, no one knows how old, a wash-tub half filled with soaking sheets, a bucket, and a wooden box nearly full of ashes, upon which reposed a coffee-pot. And when to all this is added the humidity of this region, which is so dense that moisture condenses on the walls, and the fact that the mizzen-mast-coat leaks, covering several square feet of the floor with water, it will be conceded that the interior of this vessel is distinctly disreputable. Indeed, we never attempt to sit and read anywhere else than in our own room. Nor are the dishes what they should be, and I often find a clot of coagulated soup in the ladle from yesterday’s repast; this latter is, of course, the fault of the steward, though the best of servants will grow careless if they are not watched.
Then the mate is extremely unclean, so much so that even Mr. Rarx said a day or two ago that he was the dirtiest man whom he had even seen in a ship’s cabin. He never washes his face and hands to come to the table, both of which are streaked with soot, lard oil, and goodness knows what else. The captain is considerably better in this respect, but his temper seems to be more uncontrollable than ever, and he shouts at the steward and Sammie as though they were on the foretop-sail-yard in a gale of wind. He seems to consider it a personal affront every time that the men come aft on Saturday nights to buy things from the slop-chest, which he throws at them with scant ceremony. Last night “Long John” Pettersen asked him for a pair of No. 10 rubber boots in his cowed, frightened way. “I ain’t got no tens,” cried the skipper; “here’s nines; take ’em and get out”; and he cast the boots at John, who promptly dodged, and they struck the stove with a great, clattering din.
I will, no doubt, be accused of inhumanity in taking my wife to sea in such a vessel as this, but we had not the least notion that she would prove so different from what we supposed her to be, and few persons would suspect that such things would occur aboard of a ship which looked so neat and trim in the New York docks. Our previous experience at sea, we have since discovered, was not of any use to us as a guide as to what we might expect here. Indeed, in the worst weather off the Cape of Good Hope the “Mandalore’s” cabin, with its brightly polished open-grate and shining bird’s-eye maple panelling, would not have been discreditable to a well-found yacht. Latitude, 56° 14′ south; longitude, 66° west.
+July 19+
Hail, mighty sun! Welcome, radiant, glorious monarch! We saw the luminous orb for ten minutes at mid-day, marking an epoch, for events off Cape Horn date from the last time that the sun was seen. When day broke this morning, behold! the sky was clear and everything presaged at least two hours of bright sunshine. No sooner, however, did the orb show signs of appearing above the horizon than a cloud-bank arose in the west which proved to be the mother of a procession of squalls which covered the sky for the rest of the day, bar a few minutes at noon. But how we did rejoice for even a glimpse of the heavenly body! For days we had dwelt in darkness and twilight, and when we caught sight of the golden disk again it was like the face of an old friend. No one who has not experienced it can imagine what the gloom of Cape Horn is like even at mid-day. It has doubtless somewhat the effect of the darkness of the Polar seas, which, it is said, kills more men than frost and starvation. Practically, throughout the year the heavens in this region are wrapped up in a pall of cloud so dense and low as to feel like an increased atmospheric pressure; and unless one’s spirits are as elastic as rubber the mind must succumb to the dreary influence of this endless waste of gray ocean. It is oppressive beyond the power of words; and so great is the solitude that it is difficult to believe that we are still on the earth and not floating upon the ocean of another planet.
“So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.”
The sun’s altitude at noon was only 8° 42′, so that he was only about sixteen diameters above the horizon; but notwithstanding, all hands hailed him with glad pæans, and deep and mournful was the wailing when he withdrew. At eleven o’clock, while we were reading below, the skipper called down to know if we didn’t want to see a regular old-fashioned squall. So up we went, and upon issuing from the companion-way were almost literally blown over by a heavy gust. The ship was hove down till the sea flowed over the lee rail thick and smooth and dark, like the water on the verge of a cataract; the wind howled and screeched overhead; spray fell in blinding sheets; while the snow was positively overpowering and almost smothered us when we looked to windward. The ship for some time had dragged a double-reefed maintop-sail, and it was every stitch that she could stand. All through the day we were bombarded by these squalls, and by three in the afternoon the wind had once more increased to a fresh gale, with a wicked, breaking sea which frequently broke on the poop itself.
How little, how pitifully little departure we made in the last week! On Tuesday, six days ago, we rounded Cape St. John, and now we are only a degree farther west! I should think it _was_ hard to make westing off the Horn. Call it forty miles in a week, for the degrees of longitude are scarcely thirty-five miles long in this latitude. Six miles of westing a day! Speaking of the length of degrees, though, it is remarkable how much farther south of the line the Horn seems (56° south) than 56° north seems north of it. For instance, the fifty-sixth northerly parallel passes between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is not very far north of Hamburg; yet but few persons would suppose that, roughly speaking, these cities were in the same relative latitude as the southern extremity of South America.
Last evening, just before dark, a sail was sighted about ten miles to leeward, and was there still this morning. It was a ship, and we conjectured that she was the “Dowes” until the glasses showed that she had a standing spanker-gaff, which made her a foreigner. Perhaps she is the demon Frenchman; may she approach no nearer.
One of the men at the wheel, Jack Michaels, whispered to me this morning, “Say, was that land the Diego Ramirez we saw yesterday?” And when told that we were still east of Cape Horn, the poor fellow ejaculated, “Oh, my God!” so earnestly and sorrowfully that it spoke whole volumes for what the men are suffering in the leaky forecastle. Two men are constantly at the wheel now, and even when the tiller is lashed and we are hove to, the law compels one man to stand with his hands on the spokes as though still steering, so as to be ready in case of accident. Well, it looks as though we were going to have a worse night than ever for sleeping; last night we got only three hours of rest. Latitude, 56° 54′ south; longitude, 65° west.
+July 20+
“The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled.”
It came on to blow very hard indeed yesterday afternoon at three o’clock, just as we had finished writing, and at four it became necessary to haul up the main-sail and foresail, though both were reefed. When the skipper sung out, “Clew up the main-sail,” I think that it was blowing harder than we ever saw it at sea. The captain said that there was more wind the other day in sight of Cape Horn; but I think that this was only to contradict. Whether or no, it blew a fearful gale, though the full strength didn’t last more than three hours, with, for a while, the worst snow and hail that we have had yet. The ocean seethed; big seas swept the decks fore and aft like cataracts every five minutes, and the ship, with nothing showing but the lower topsails, was bowed down before the blasts like a palm-tree in a hurricane. We thought that we were surely going to lose the main-sail through the fault of the wretched mate, who is of no use whatever in bad weather. It is necessary to observe extreme caution in hauling up any of the courses in a gale of wind, for the tack and sheet must be eased off just so, in order that both they and the clew-garnets shall be perfectly taut until the clews are right up to the yard. If not, the chance of losing the sails is exceedingly good. Well, the miserable man, in the midst of a tearing puff, let the main-tack get away from him. Instantly there arose a frightful slatting, and we expected to see the strong, new canvas whipped into ribbons, while the great, ninety-foot mainyard buckled and bent almost like a coach-whip. I hope never to witness such a sight again. The old man’s state while this was going on must be left to the imagination; and when a sea swept over the side, carrying almost every man on the clew-garnets and buntlines into the scuppers, we feared that his reason was going. After a hard struggle, though, the gaskets were put on the main-sail, and then the foresail had to come in. Here the mate, very properly, found something else to do, and Mr. Rarx, calm and perfect master of himself, slacked away the tack first; and when the weather-side had been hauled up, he did the same with the sheet, without the least show of exertion; he is a splendid seaman.
At this moment I stepped into the wheel-house to look at the aneroid, and found the needle actually jumping back and forth from 29.10 to 29.20, with a quick jerk like the second-hand of a clock. This is known as “pumping” when observed in a mercurial barometer, and occurs most frequently during cyclones, the cause being sudden changes in the velocity, and, consequently, force, of the wind. It is interesting to note that if a barometer is hung against a wall where the wind will blow steadily upon it at a rate of about thirty feet per second the height of the barometer is perceptibly increased. Once before we observed this pumping of the barometer, which happened on the P. and O. steamer “Khedive,” in the Bay of Biscay, when the glass stood at 28.64. This is, of course, a very low reading, but it is often eclipsed during tropical cyclones; indeed, not long ago the British steamer “Foreland,” at New York, from Hull, reported the barometer at 28.10 to the eastward of the Banks during a January passage.
At five yesterday afternoon the force of the wind was greatest, and the surface of the ocean smoked, and we couldn’t see the jib-boom for the spume, which flew through the air like steam; yet in the very eye of the storm the gay little Cape pigeons darted about like sparrows in a summer shower. They seemed to find a deal to eat on the surface, and their method of feeding was this: At the instant that an unusually heavy sea passed they would swoop down into the hollow where it was almost calm, snatch a few mouthfuls of whatever they found, and as the next huge sea rushed at them, at the very second before they were buried in the hissing crest, they extended their wings to the utmost, the wind struck beneath them, and without any perceptible effort they rose against the gale, only to drop again in a few moments, and repeat the operation. It was really very pretty manœuvering, and compelled admiration at the ease and certainty with which the little creatures handled themselves even in the heaviest gusts.