Part 25
Still no change in anything but the thermometer, the instrument at mid-day showing 70° for the first time in many weeks. How superb, how glorious this weather surely is! There is not too much sun to render sitting anywhere on deck at all unpleasant, yet we have enough to give us all the necessary observations; the soft, rich southeast Trades come flowing smoothly over the quarter, while the ocean, the limitless South Pacific, lies motionless to the horizon, save for the brittle, little cat’s-paws that spangle the royal blue of this great but placid ocean. Oh, the enjoyment of these balmy days! Oh, the unutterable charm of the sea when for days together the ship moves serenely over its quiet surface with nothing to interrupt the profound peace to be obtained only in the solitude of the oceans!
“Oh! the sea, the sea, the open sea, The pure, the fresh, the ever free. Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth’s wide regions round.”
Although everything in nature is so somnolent, not so the sailors; all day long both watches have wrought like bees unbending the heavy, new sails and sending aloft the old fine-weather ones. The mending was finished yesterday, and the old, brownish-gray canvas looks very dull after the glare of the new duck and changes the whole appearance of the ship. This is another point of usefulness in the donkey-engine, for steam was got up this morning, and the different sails were sent whizzing aloft like sacks of corn into a mill in a tenth of the time that would have been necessary in manual labor. Nor be it supposed that the sails of a two-thousand-ton ship are feather weights, for our main-sail alone would tip the balance at eight hundred pounds.
Last evening was the first occasion for at least two months on which we have been able to eat our 5.15 o’clock supper without lamplight; and it was a very grateful change to see the mellow rays of the setting sun streaming in at the open door, instead of the weak flicker of a very bad lantern. The cheerful air of the saloon was the cause of further very great volubility on the part of the mate, and he told the only humorous joke (is this tautology?) that he has uttered on the passage. He said that his wife once asked him why it was that a captain couldn’t keep tally of the size of his anchor so that he wouldn’t have to weigh it every time he left a harbor. This, for Goggins, wasn’t bad.
Some days ago we finished “Farthest North,” and so lucid and straightforward are his writings that we seem to know Fridjof Nansen personally. Three great characteristics stand forth pre-eminently in this book,--manliness, lack of affectation, and the total absence of the “I am.” Latitude, 20° 23′ south; longitude, 91° 20′ west.
+August 12+
Somewhat more cloudy to-day, and, since the morning watch, the Trades have been a good deal stronger, though last night the wind dropped to force 3, the average for the week having been force 4. A noticeable fact is that even though the weather is so cool for this latitude, 70° at noon, the Cape pigeons are still with us; I thought that they would have left us long since, for on the other voyage we saw our last pigeon in 30° south. One of the birds has been following us for weeks; we can always pick him out by the fact that two of his right-wing quills are broken, which renders him conspicuous at quite a distance.
The ship was pumped out with the donkey last night, after the sails were all bent, and having had no exercise for some days, the men having pumped only at four in the morning on account of sail-making, etc., I was constrained to take hold of the handle-bar and follow the wheel around, which afforded even more exercise than the ordinary way. If the men maintain constantly thirty strokes to the minute it is good work; whereas, with the donkey whirling the pumps around at more than sixty, the very exertion necessary to keep up with this speed is more than considerable. It is attended, too, with some danger of bodily harm; for if your foot should slip on the wet deck and you did not instantly let go the handle-bar, you would either be jerked over the wheel and slammed down on the other side, or at the next revolution the bar would catch you under the chin and knock your lower jaw into bone-dust. The captain conjectured later on that he, too, needed some exercise, for he went down and worked away with ferocious abandon for perhaps five minutes, standing forth in the bright moonlight a most ridiculous object. For his short, plump, little body was taxed to the very utmost to keep up with the machine, and when his coat-tails whisked wildly about and he staggered now and then to keep his balance, and his arms were jerked back and forth like shuttles, his coat up between his ears, he looked like John Gilpin in a cyclone. But funniest of all was his face. Whenever he exerts himself he always glares over at us to ascertain whether we are laughing at him or not; and last night, as he gazed up at us over the whizzing bar, with bursting cheeks and popping eyes, we thought we had never seen so ludicrous a sight; even more droll than the other day while he was “chinning” himself on the weather mizzen-sheerpole, when he peered over his shoulder at us with so distorted and writhing a countenance that we thought he was strangling. The skipper has a clipping-machine, with which he has almost denuded his head and face of their shaggy masses, and he insists that my own thick growth of hair and beard will be uncomfortable in hot weather, which is no doubt true; but when he offered to “run the machine over your whiskers,” as he expressed it, I thought it best to risk them as they are. Fancy reaping one’s beard with clippers!
Mention has not been made of a certain dish that was placed upon the supper-table a few nights after the last pig had been killed. In one of the compartments of the rack was a plate of cold salt beef; while in the other was something that we thought was mighty good, judging from the fragrance that rose from beneath the cover. When the latter was removed, though, there lay revealed some queer-looking, black fragments that might have been anything rather than meat. It turned out to be pig’s flesh right enough, but no one could guess what portions of his anatomy they were. Some of the objects were cylindrical; these were sections of the creature’s tongue. Others were very irregular and unusual-looking; these were the ears; while a villanous mass that stood aloof from the rest was recommended by the skipper as the heart. “I think you’ll like that,” he observed, “though some do say there’s too much muscle in it.”
The only really unsuccessful article manufactured by the merry little Cantonite is the pie-crust. It is very attractive and tempting to contemplate, which makes the reality harder to bear, for it is the only wholly indigestible article of food I ever came across; you can even feel your teeth gliding smoothly over flakes of sticky lard scattered freely through it. Nothing but hydrochloric acid could have the least solvent effect upon it. Oh, yes, there is something else,--the captain’s digestive organs. It will be recalled that when we first came on board he mentioned that he was a dyspeptic; but goodness, gracious me! it is a revelation to watch him denude meat or fruit pies of the armor-plate which invests them. He has another favorite dish, too, that he usually eats for breakfast; it looked familiar at first, and we tried some, but instantly desisted. It was like large grains of sand; the captain called it boiled hominy. Latitude, 18° 25′ south; longitude, 93° 55′ west.
+August 13+
Fresh Trades, moderate sea, and dazzling skies were ours during this day, and we made more than two degrees of latitude and only five miles less than three of longitude. It is glorious, and everything has assumed a tropical aspect: the sea, which undulates in swinging, dark-blue heaves, topped with sparkling froth; and the air, which sleepily fans one with its soft, drowsy breath. Even the men have begun to show the influence of warmer climes, and duck and dungaree garments, long buried in the noisome and impenetrable mysteries of a sailor’s chest, have suddenly bloomed forth like lilies in the spring. We have kept away a little to the westward of northwest so as to cross the line in about 116°.
The pumping took place last night at 7.30 as usual, and I took a hand in it, alongside of that villain, Tim Powers (he of the wounded arm), while opposite to us rose and fell the cadaverous countenance of Paddy. Neither of the mates was within hearing distance, but no one spoke till Jimmie Rumps, the little bosun, called out “Let her rest a minute,” and then Tim grew loquacious.
“I’m afeard this is too long a v’yage for the lady, sor; it’s a sight o’ sea.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but it’s not that that bothers us. We went out to Calcutta a couple of years ago and were at sea a hundred and twenty-seven days, so we knew it might be a hundred and fifty when we started.”
“Is thot so, sor,” said Tim, with immense energy and interest,--“to Calcutta? A grand place. If yez don’t mind, what was the name o’ the ship?”
“The ‘Mandalore.’”
“Oh,” with great satisfaction and relief, “an English ship. I’ll bet yez had a different----”
“Shake her up again, boys,” came from the main-hatch in Jimmie’s thin little voice, and we turned to in silence till the mate’s growl, “That’ll do the pumps,” put an end to the job. Then I asked Paddy how he was enjoying himself.
“To speak the truth,” he answered, wearily, “I’d rather be in me grave than where I am, and this is the first time I ever said such a thing aboard ship.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” I asked him. “You’re always skylarking with the cook and steward.”
“Well, what’s the good in tryin’ to make a row?” he philosophically demanded.
“Don’t you get enough to eat?”
“Ye-e-e-s, but it’s not what I’ve heard the mate tell you it’s like. It’s the drivin’ we mind. But even that’s not the worst of it; you can’t do a thing to please the mate or the old man. I dunno about Mr. Rarx; you know I ain’t in his watch, but I guess he’s no better than most second mates, and I guess you know what _that_ means. Work, work, work till you split yer finger-ends and then kicked around and thumped for a farmer. But I’m not makin’ a row,” he added, “only you asked me.”
Paddy, it must be said, is one of a rare species, a fair-minded sailor, which I discovered some time ago by his taking the mate’s part when telling me of some trifling incident that happened on board.
A couple of hours later, it being the second mate’s watch, I asked him to tell me honestly why he liked American ships better than others, knowing that he has sailed in English vessels.
“Well, the principal thing is the pay,” he replied. “It’s a good deal better in our ships than in foreigners; and the cabin table’s generally better, too. Now, there’s the British ship ‘Fulwood’ (a fine steel ship she is), I know they don’t have soft bread on the table but once a week.” It seemed to me that this would be quite a recommendation for the “Fulwood,” for we have yet to see soft bread aboard ship much better than a worn-out sponge. But as for the wages, he is certainly right. Take the wages out of Hamburg as an example. The chief officers of the largest and fastest express steamers receive an amount equivalent to only sixty dollars of our money! What sort of remuneration is that for a man of ability, in many cases a university graduate, a man second in authority aboard a ten-thousand-ton mail steamer rippling through the most crowded ocean in the world at twenty-one knots, with fifteen hundred souls below-decks? And it makes one positively angry to think of a human being like Goggins, a densely ignorant and practically worthless creature, a person who can’t work a traverse and get the same answer twice, receiving the same amount as mate of a wind-jammer! Why, our steward, a Malay and a man of low intellect, has a good deal more than half as much wages as the first officer of the “Normannia” or “Augusta Victoria”! It is positively incredible. Latitude, 16° 14′ south; longitude, 96° 30′ west.
+August 14+
Another day, beautiful beyond expression. We never remember one in all our sea experience that was as fine. The sun poured down from a sky without a shred of cloud, and the Trades, still as fresh as ever, came singing so sweetly and cheerfully over the starboard quarter, that you were moved to lean back in your chair and think, “Who is so happy as I?”
Even if the weather were not so delightful, our fine progress would cover a multitude of grievances, for we have done five hundred and eighty-six miles in three days, a continuous average of eight knots. If credible, the nights are even finer than the days, and we sat late on deck last evening plunking away on the banjo, with everything steeped in the white light of the moon just past the full. So wonderfully brilliant were her beams that the shadows of the weather mizzen-rigging cast upon the immense concave expanse of the main-sail stood forth as from an arc-light. The serenity of such a night is almost unearthly.
The first step in the rehabilitation of the ship for port has been progressing for two days,--the tarring down of the standing rigging. It is always the dirtiest job aboard ship, and the men are plastered from crown to toe with the sticky fluid. Next after this comes the painting, then the holy-stoning, and lastly the varnishing of what little bright work there is on the poop.
[Illustration: Tarring down]
When at the pumps last evening I learned that the men had been deeply impressed with my having assisted the donkey the other night. Murphy especially seemed to extract much amusement from the fact, and when I told him that some exercise was necessary to health, he said that he never allowed that subject to bother him, adding, “There’s one thing I’m just grand at,--lyin’ in me bunk.” His appearance substantiates this statement, for he is as round and rugged as he was three months ago; I truly believe that he is the only man forward who doesn’t bear the marks of either Cape Horn or a belaying-pin. On the other hand, Louis the Gaul is the saddest and most dejected-looking man I ever saw. He has at all times that melancholy, dispirited look that one sees in the eyes of a captive ourang-outang. We talked together last night, and he informed me that this was his first American ship, and, please God, it would be his last. In very broken English, and in the deferential tones of a foreigner, he asked, “Sair, do your laws allow men to be treated as ze men are treated aboard zees sheep?”
“No,” I answered; “but so far there does not seem to have been any attempt made by the United States authorities to enforce the laws they have made.” Jacquin didn’t know enough English to go more deeply into the subject, and the talk drifted to the French navy, in which he has served sixteen years altogether; and when I told him that I knew the “Jean Bart” very well, his delight was child-like. Then he imparted a bit of rather astonishing news by saying that a man who has served for twenty years in the French navy (and it need not be all in one stretch) is pensioned by the government at three francs and a half per day. Besides possessing the second most powerful navy, France has some rattling fine square-riggers, such as the “La France,” the largest sailing vessel in the world bar the “Potosi,” the “Dunquerque,” and the “Quevilly,” the greatest tank sailing ship afloat, carrying one million gallons of oil in bulk between Philadelphia and Rouen.
Our pigeons have left us, and well they might, considering the latitude. What a distance they followed us! From 30° south in one ocean to 16° south in the other, and from the forty-fifth to the one hundredth meridian. Quite a stretch of salt-water that. Mother Carey’s chickens have come as a sort of compensation, hovering over our wake and darting down between the waves like swallows whizzing through the air after insects. Latitude, 14° 5′ south; longitude, 99° west.
+August 15+
Shall it be written that this day is the finest of all? It is even so, and I pray the reader to bear with me, and to remember that if he were in my place he would no doubt give expression to the same thought. If the entire voyage, except that part lying in the Pacific between the southern tropic and the equator, were composed of gales and snow-storms, it seems as though these winds would atone for any amount of previous distress and inconvenience. It seems wonderful that the atmosphere can possess simultaneously such exhilaration and such a smooth, luscious balminess. Oh, superb, glorious southeast Trades, thy equal is not in the world!
THE TRADE-WIND’S SONG.
Oh, I am the wind that the seamen love, I am steady and strong and true; They follow my track by the clouds above O’er the fathomless, tropic blue.
For close by the shores of the sunny Azores Their ships I await to convoy; When into their sails my constant breath pours, They hail me with turbulent joy.
I bring them a rest from tiresome toil, Of trimming the sail to the blast; For I love to keep gear all snug in the coil, And the sheets and the braces all fast.
From the deck to the truck I pour all my force, In spanker and jib I am strong; For I make every course to pull like a horse. And worry the great ship along.
As I fly o’er the blue I sing to the crew Who answer me back with a hail; I whistle a note as I slip by the throat Of the buoyant and bellying sail.
I laugh when the wave leaps over the head, And the jibs through the spray-bow shine; For an acre of foam is broken and spread When she shoulders and tosses the brine.
Through daylight and dark I follow the bark, I keep like a hound on her trail; I’m strongest at noon, yet under the moon I stiffen the bunt of her sail.
The wide ocean through for days I pursue, Till slowly my forces all wane; Then in whispers of calm I bid them adieu, And vanish in thunder and rain.
Oh, I am the wind that the seamen love, I am steady and strong and true; They follow my track by the clouds above O’er the fathomless, tropic blue.
Thus has Thomas Fleming Day delightfully written of the flowing Trades.
The men are busily engaged shearing away the great mops of hair that protected their heads in cold weather. Coleman (a man with a baneful eye and one who ought to be watched) seems to be the most accomplished tonsorial artist in the ship; he has already operated on half a dozen men, and all hands but one have assumed that appearance of cleanliness usual among sailors in the tropics. The exception is Tim, who, bar Mr. Goggins, is the dirtiest man on board. And now for a secret, profound and extraordinary! Let the peruser of these pages prepare himself for the concussion; let him brace himself for the impending blow! Mr. Goggins was seen to go forward to the galley an hour ago and return with a basin of water! Can it be possible that he is about to submit his face and hands to the purification of a quart, a whole quart of fresh water? But no; this could not be. Let us banish the thought. He would perish of shock. Yet it must be for this that he fetched the water, for it is the only conceivable use to which he could put it, so we live in hopes of a change at supper. We have never anywhere come in contact with a person so irreclaimably obnoxious, and we can only wonder why the captain allows him to come to the table in such a condition. If a man wants to be dirty, it’s his own personal affair; but when he becomes objectionable to others, steps ought to be taken to remedy the evil.
By far the most agreeable persons on board are the steward and cook, not to mention David MacFoy, who is so much more pleasant and entertaining than the rest that he forms a class all by himself. The cook, though, is a jolly little man, and welcomed us with much homely attention when we invaded his precinct the other day to learn how to make curry properly. To start with, it is hard to get good curry-powder even in India, and that which we brought back with us from Calcutta in glass jars is not as good as that which can be bought in San Francisco in square tins, that city being the only place in the United States where this particular sort can be obtained. But besides the necessity for good powder, there are certain proportions of chopped onion, flour, butter, etc., to be added in its preparation, so that in order to learn how to make curry properly it is necessary to witness the process as performed by an Indian or a Chinaman.
A rather interesting little fact to us to-day is that this is the first occasion on which three figures have ever been necessary to express our longitude. Latitude, 12° 5’ south; longitude, 101° 40′ west.
+August 16+
Fear not. I do not intend to say how much more beautiful to-day is than yesterday, though I should like to, and it is hard to refrain from doing so in such weather; but more than enough has been said on this subject. As a matter of fact, it is not quite so fine to-day, for the wind is dead aft, so that the after-sails are the only ones that do much good, and our run has not been quite up to the usual standard.
This has been a grand cleaning day forward. Every movable object was taken out of the forward house and spread on the forecastle-head in the baking sun, and a curious sight did the men’s old clothes and bedding present after lying mildewed and sodden for so many weeks. They lay in a wretched heap, the outside of which was composed of ancient, grimy bedticks, frowsy, ill-looking quilts, and disreputable, mouldy mufflers. The forecastle itself was then swept cleanly out and thoroughly washed with soap and water.