CHAPTER I

“FRISCO”

“Serene, indifferent of Fate, Thou sittest at the Western Gate; Upon thy heights so lately won, Still slant the banners of the sun; Thou seest the white seas strike their tents, O Warder of two Continents! And scornful of the peace that flies, Thy angry winds and sullen skies, Thou drawest all things, small and great, To Thee, beside the Western Gate.”

On Wednesday, 12th July 1899, I signed on before the mast on the four-mast barque _Royalshire_ of Glasgow, which had just arrived in Frisco from Japan, and was busy unloading the first cargo of Japanese coal that had ever left the country.

I had just come out of the “Golden North,” having had several months up in the Klondyke, where I experienced both the “midnight sun” and the “midday night.” I had intended prospecting Vancouver Island for copper during the rest of the summer, but the party having been broken up for various reasons, I came down to San Francisco, meaning to ship on board a South Sea schooner and proceed by slow stages to Australia; but after a thorough search I failed to find a single South Sea trader in Frisco, except the barque _Maura Al_, which ran to Honolulu with passengers, so I decided to give up this plan.

I had long had a wish to sail before the mast, and witness real sea life in all its dangers and hardships. The chief officer of one of the Empress boats, those magnificent steamers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, on my speaking to him of this wish, had told me that if I shipped before the mast on a windjammer, I should find it a wonderful experience, which, if I was not afraid of real muscle-trying work, and was hardy enough to stand the bad food and other hardships, I should look back upon with much pleasure.

As I was as fit as it was possible for any one to be, and felt sure that nothing would come very hard after such an experience as I had gone through in the Klondyke, I determined to ship home round the Horn in one of the magnificent windjammers which lay in the port.

The next thing to do was to pick a good ship. There were several four-mast barques--beautiful iron ships from the Clyde--and not a few full-riggers and three-mast barques, all about to load grain for the British Isles or Continent.

Though a very keen lover of the sea, and with a certain amount of experience gained yachting and travelling, I really knew very little of what a foremast jack’s life was on board a big deep-waterman. I knew enough, however, not to ship before the mast on a ship with “down-east” or “blue-nose” mates, who, though they are the finest seamen probably in the world, are terrible “drivers,” and are a bit too free with belaying pins, knuckle-dusters, and six-shooters to please me,--the “gun-play” on board some “down-easters” being almost worthy of an Arizona mining camp.

I also knew enough to find out before I signed on, whether the ship was a hungry one or not, and whether her skipper drank.

I spent a whole morning prowling round the docks, and decided that the _Royalshire_, _Lancing_, and _Loudon Hill_, all four-mast barques, were the finest ships in port.

The _Royalshire_ I thought the finest looking alow and aloft, and from the spread of her yards she had evidently got a larger sail plan than either of the others. She only had one defect that I could take hold of, and that was a rather heavy stern, though this was made up for by one of the sweetest entrances I have ever seen; the curve of her cutwater and her bow lines were a delight to the eye, and I at once decided to make inquiries about her.

On the wharf, tallying the carts of coal as they were loaded from the shute, was a small red-headed Scotchman.

From him I found out that she was reckoned one of the crack ships of the “Shire Line” of Glasgow, that her captain and officers were all Scotch, and that, though not noted for her good feeding, she could hardly be called a “hungry ship.”

My red-headed friend answered every question very readily, and gave the ship and her captain a first-rate character. He evidently thought that I wanted a passage in her, and told me that I could see the captain on the following day about eleven o’clock, before he went ashore.

Thanking him for his information, I asked him what position he held on board.

He replied, “third mate,” and told me that she carried four mates, and also that the whole of her crew had run on arriving in Frisco.

“That does not look as if she was such a comfortable ship,” I said.

“Weel, I dinna think ye’ll find a vessel in port with her hands aboard--all foremast hands run in Frisco--I’ve half a notion to run mysel’, the wages is that gran’ sailing oot o’ Frisco; an A.B. gets four pund a month, it’s naw great wonder crews run,” he replied. And with this I left him and returned to my hotel, well pleased with my day’s work.

Lo and behold, the first thing I saw on returning at the appointed time, was the captain and my red-haired friend shaking their fists in each other’s faces on the poop, and “cussing around” to beat creation.

From what I could hear of it, the third mate was asking for his discharge in language both “painful and free,” but without success, for presently the captain went below, and he came ashore, evidently off up town.

As he stepped off the companion ladder, I buttonholed him, and asked him when I could see the captain.

“The old man will be oot preesently, if ye just wait a wee while,” he answered hurriedly, and away he went.

As I stood on the wharf watching the coal being unloaded, I noticed that a small man, with a thick red moustache and kind, light-blue eyes, seemed to be bossing things on board.

After a bit, seeing me loafing around, he called to me and asked me what I wanted. I told him I was waiting to see the captain.

“Come aboard; he’s having his breakfast now but he’ll be going ashore directly, and then you can see him.”

I came aboard, and spent a couple of hours waiting for the old man to come on deck. For some reason or other he was later than usual going ashore, and it was nearly one o’clock before he appeared.

Meanwhile I loafed about the deck, keenly interested in everything. I gave the red-moustached man a cigar, and found out that he was the mate, which bit of news caused me to look him over very carefully, and I decided that I liked the cut of his jib.

He had got a nice face, with a steady, kindly eye, and from what I could see, he had a temper to match. In the short talk I had with him he was all civility, and I congratulated myself on hitting upon a ship with such a mate. Of course I knew enough not to be too sanguine; many a sailor, who ashore or in port is as mild and quiet as a lamb, directly he gets to sea, for no apparent reason, turns into a fiend incarnate. I felt sure, however, that this man was not one of that sort.

At noon “eight bells” were struck, and the men came up from the after ’tween-decks, where they had been cleaning the coal out of the stringers.

They consisted of the fourth mate, carpenter, sailmaker, an apprentice out of his time, and the nipper, as an apprentice on his first voyage is called.

The nipper, a boy of sixteen, was a picturesque figure, with a face as black as a nigger minstrel’s, from the coal, surmounted by a red tam o’shanter; he was full of fun, and I found out afterwards that his father was a clergyman in Kent.

I’ll bet he would have stared if he could have seen his son then in grimy dungarees and jumper, as I’ve no doubt the last time he saw him was in a brass-bound serge suit and a deep-sea cap, one mass of gold braid, with the badge of the “Shire Line” glittering resplendent upon it.

The stevedores at work on the coal in the mainhold also knocked off, and went ashore for their dinner.

I was beginning to think the captain was going to stay below all day, when he appeared.

He was a keen-faced, middle-aged Scotchman, of medium height, with a glitter of steel in his eye, and I put him down in my mind as a “hard nut” after one look at him.

As he came off the poop I tackled him, telling him that I wanted to sign on before the mast.

After scanning me curiously for a moment or two, he asked, “Can ye climb up there?” pointing to the mizen-royal yard.

I had never been aloft in my life, but I knew that I had got a good head from my prospecting experiences in the mountains, where, looking for quartz reefs, one constantly takes terrific risks, especially rock-climbing; a very different job to climbing the Alps with a guide who knows every bit of the ground.

So I answered in the affirmative with great confidence. This was good enough for him, and he gave me the address of his shipping agent, who would sign me on, as he explained that if he signed me on himself without the shipping agent and it was found out, the shipping agents would turn against him, and the next time he came to Frisco he would probably not be able to get a crew.

Away I went, and in an hour’s time had turned into an “ordinary seaman,” signed on for two pounds a month for a passage round the Horn, calling at Queenstown for orders, either for the British Isles or Continent.

The shipping agent had got another victim with him, an Englishman, by name Don Henderson, a man who had turned his hand to pretty nearly everything--singing in the opera in New York, teaching swimming at the Frisco baths (the finest in the world), mixing wine in Southern California, gold prospecting in Arizona and Montana, lumbering in Louisiana, farming and cow-punching from Texas to the Line--were but a few of the things he had done.

He had had rather a bad time of it lately, having had to give up the wine-mixing, where he was doing very well, as he got knocked over with a very bad bout of fever; only half recovered from the fever, he hung on at Frisco, living by means of his wits and free lunch counters, until it struck him that he would try and get home, and see if he could get hold of some money which was due to him.

He decided to go before the mast--a way not exactly new to him, as he had come home from New York in the _Umbria_ before the mast; and without much trouble he got an introduction to the shipping agent from a pal, and the thing was done.

As Englishmen in the Colonies will, Don and I immediately palled up together, and were very pleased to find we were both going on the same ship, as we had a good deal in common, both being English Public School men, and both knowing how dull it is living or camping for any length of time with men with whom you have got nothing in common.

I once shared a canvas bunk for a fortnight with a man who had a reputation of having killed twelve men. One would have thought that a man like this would have been an interesting companion to yarn with, but not a bit of it; he only had two ideas in his head, one was whisky, and the other whittling wood.

He was a silent man, very slow of speech, but quick enough with a six-shooter; as harmless and quiet as a prairie dog except when he had a skinful of “nosepaint,” on which occasions he was like a busted volcano or a wounded grizzly, a-raging and tearing around something sinful to see, and a scandal to a quiet neighbourhood.

Don and I were both in pretty good spirits, and exchanged chaff with the clerks of the Consulate.

The ceremony of signing on was soon got through, somebody gabbled off the “ship’s Articles” to us. I caused some amusement by giving the “Bachelors’ Club, Piccadilly,” as my address, and Don raised a laugh by making his mark, a huge, straggly cross, as he pretended he could not write.

Pocketing our month’s advance, we gave the shipping agent a drink, he in return giving us the address of a seaman’s tailor, and telling us also to be sure and get aboard the following noon. This we promised to do, and then we went off together to do our shopping.

Few landsmen know that a common sailor before the mast has to provide all his own clothes, his soap, matches, eating utensils, blankets, and bedding.

Don and I were soon hard at work bargaining with as precious a robber of the innocents as I have ever met.

Luckily for us we were not poor, ignorant, foremast jacks, whom these landsharks simply prey upon, but both fellows who had knocked about a good deal.

We soon had his prices down, and our purchases were rubber sea-boots, blue jerseys, overalls, heavy clothing for the Horn, soap, towels, matches, and plug tobacco.

Then we went off to buy something to eat and drink out of. From Klondyke experience, I bought the largest graniteware plate with the highest rim I could get, and also a huge pannikin.

By the time we had got everything we wanted, the sun was beginning to go under.

We determined to do this our last evening as gentlemen, in some style, so we dined at the Palace, and went to the opera afterwards, finishing up with an excellent supper.

_Thursday, 13th July._--We turned out fairly early, meaning to go on board about eleven.

Taking a last stroll before going on board, we began trying the “nickel machines” at the cigar stores; our luck was terrific wherever we went, every time we got two or more cigars; the way we turned up three of a kind, straights, flushes, and full houses, made us wish that we were sitting down to a game of poker, and by the time we were ready to go on board, we had each got thirty cigars in our pockets.

We hired an express cart, and, piling it with our luggage, drove down to the ship in style.

The crew and stevedores on the _Royalshire_ stared in amazement as our craft, with its huge pile of kit and dunnage bags, hove in sight.

But the mate was ready for us, and told us to get into working togs and turn to at one o’clock.

We packed our truck (British Columbian for “carried our baggage”) into the port forecastle.

One o’clock found me on the wharf in an old flannel shirt, cowboy hat, and well-worn pair of overalls--the same had seen a lot of service in the Klondyke and on the prairie, where I had bought them, and had lasted twice as long as English dungarees.

Alongside of me was a big stack of lumber in long inch and half-inch planks, for lining the hold with. This must be done before a ship is allowed to load grain.

These planks I had to pass aboard through a port, which, as the tide flowed, got higher and higher above me.

At six o’clock our day’s work was over, and I for one was quite ready to knock off, for the lumber was not light, and so rough that it tore my hands to bits and filled them with splinters.

On going to the galley for our grub, we were presented with a kid of meat and potatoes, and had our pannikins filled with a queer-tasting liquid which the cook, a slab-footed and extraordinary German, tried to make us understand in broken English was tea.

“What is this stuff?” said Don, pointing to the contents of his pannikin.

“Dot ist ze tea.”

“The what?”

“Ze tea, I dell you, for zu drinken!”

“It’s not medicine, is it?”

“Nein; ze tea, I dell you; ze tea, ze tea!”

“What is tea?” asked Don, solemnly.

“Vot is tea! you not know! vy tea is tea; ze tea for zu drinken.”

Don ended by nearly worrying that wretched Dutchman off his head.

“Tea, is it?”

“Tea, zat is vat it is; ze tea for zu drinken.”

“Do you mean to say you call that tea?”

“For shor’ zat is tea, very fine tea.”

“Then why on earth didn’t you say so before?” With this we retired to the forecastle, which den we had all to ourselves, the crew having run.

The meat we found was fresh, as, being in port, we got shore rations; but sailors as a rule prefer the ship’s salt meat to the fresh meat which they get in port, as this fresh meat is the cheapest that can be bought, in fact nothing but the refuse bits from the butchers.

But Don and I were hungry after our four hours’ work, and finished it all up.

After our meal we started in and got things shipshape, choosing our bunks, into which we hove our “donkey’s breakfasts,” as sailors call their straw mattresses, and stowing away our things.

_Friday, 14th July._--We were turned out by the night-watchman at 6.30, and told that we had got to turn to at seven o’clock.

We had not much time to lose, as we had to wash, dress, and get our breakfast in less than half an hour. This at first sight would appear to be a bit of a rush, but it was not, for washing consisted of a rough sluice down with salt water, gained by lowering a bucket overboard, and dressing was but slipping on a pair of overalls, a flannel shirt, and foot gear.

For breakfast, we got half a pannikin of hot liquid each, some “wet hash,” and some “hard-tack.”

“Wet hash” is broken-up beef and potatoes in hot water, with, perhaps, an onion thrown in: occasionally, however, we got “dry hash,” which I much preferred.

Dry hash is simply minced meat and mashed potatoes, and I believe goes by the name of “shepherd’s pie” ashore.

As to what the hot liquor was at first, we were not quite sure.

“I suppose it’s another brew of what the cook calls ‘ze tea,’ only a bit lighter in colour,” said Don, sipping it. “I don’t detect much difference in the taste; I’ve got a pretty keen palate, and but for a slight flavouring of garlic, I’m willing to bet it’s ‘ze tea.’”

“I’m inclined to think it’s coffee myself: it’s got a sediment of flour which seems to remind me of the slumgullion I’ve drunk at different times in mining camps,” I answered.

“I think you are wrong. You don’t get me to believe that a hard nut of a section boss like our old man is going to pay us two pounds a month, and throw in two kinds of liquor as well, don’t you believe it; he’s got his eye square on the almighty dollar, and he ain’t going to chuck his dust around in no such lordly style as that.”

“And I say it’s a full house against a pair of jacks that it’s coffee, because why--”

“Turn to!” said the mate, poking his nose in at the door, and out we had to trundle.

We were soon hard at work cleaning the Japanese coal out of the stringers in the after-hold, down in the gloomy depths of the ship. Each man was given a broom-end and a bit of rag or canvas, and woe betide the unlucky one who overlooked a small piece of coal stuck in the stringers, or who did not wipe off every speck of coal-dust, for the lynx-eyed mate was sure to spot it.

Here we worked all day in the semi-darkness of the hold, which was only half lighted by the open after-hatch.

Occasionally one of us had to shovel coal for a while, which soon finds out the weak muscles of the back.

We worked hard, with never a spell, for the mate was a great lover of work, always taking a hand himself and doing more than any of us. I found my hands very sore and blistered from handling the rough lumber yesterday, but comforted myself with the fact that they would very soon get hard and would be fit for anything before we sailed.

At twelve o’clock we were knocked off work for the “dinner hour,” and how pleased I was to come up into the sunshine again!

I enjoyed that dinner (the midday meal is always called dinner on board ship), and especially the smoke after it, as I have seldom enjoyed a meal, refuse meat and irrigated potatoes though it was. Then at it we went again until 5.30, when we were sent on deck to clear up.

The decks were swept, and any loose gear put away in the bosun’s locker, and as the factory whistles screeched out six o’clock, the mate said quietly, “That’ll do.” We were free, and our day’s work was finished.

The first thing to do was to wash, for we were all as black as chimney sweeps, and our eyes and ears were full of coal-dust.

We got a couple of buckets of fresh water from the pump, which was just aft of the mizen-mast, and soon turned ourselves from black into white men again.

On going to get the grub from the galley, I found that I was right about the queer liquid we had drunk in the morning; it was coffee all right, according to the cook.

As soon as we had demolished our supper, Don and I dashed ashore, and anybody who saw us seated in a couple of stalls at the opera listening to “Carmen” would have been very much surprised if they had seen us, black and grimy coalheavers as we were, an hour or so back.

On our way back to the ship I bought some Alaska bread and tinned plums, to augment our scanty fare.

Both these I can thoroughly recommend. Alaska bread is made of ginger, and is like sponge cake; it lasts for ever, never gets stale, and is exceedingly cheap. Tinned plum puddings, I admit, were luxuries; they were delicious eaten cold, and I thought they were as good as any plum pudding I had ever eaten.

“I calculate,” said Don to me as we turned in, “that you save quite a lot of breath calling me Don instead of Henderson, whilst I’m all behind the game calling you Lubbock. What was the name your godfathers and godmothers gave you? I’m rising thirty-nine, and can’t afford to waste my breath any longer on a jaw-breaking name like Lubbock.”

“Jehoshaphat Nebuchadnezzar are my Christian names; if you think you can save breath on either of them you are welcome to try,” I replied laughing.

“No, bar rot, you old deadbeat; if you don’t tell me, I shall call you ‘Jos,’ short for Jehoshaphat.”

“Well, what do you think of ‘Basil’ for a fine, high-sounding, bang-up, number one, top-side, high-born Christian name?”

“Too good for a bally old ruffian like you. Dashed if I don’t call you Bally, it’s short for Basil, just as Johnny is short for John.”

And Bally I remained the whole time I was on the _Royalshire_, though some of the crew called me “Klondyke.”

_Saturday, 15th July._--The mate told us, while we were at work this morning, that the captain had given leave for Rowland, the apprentice out of his time, the nipper, and myself to play cricket in the afternoon for the “British Sailing Ships” against the “Californian Cricket Club,” over at Oakland.

This was a great bit of luck. Our old man and the mate were both very interested in cricket, which accounted for our being allowed to go.

How they found out that I played cricket I don’t know, as Don, who was also a cricketer, was never asked to take part in any game, though he would have been a valuable addition to the “British Sailing Ships’” eleven.

Our eleven assembled about 1.30, at the Institute, and were taken over by the ferry to Oakland by Mr Karney, one of the two clergymen of the Institute.

We had a most exciting match, just beating our opponents by two runs. Both teams were very, very scratch; the Californian Club were the best side, and as half their men were base-ballers, their fielding was superb.

The wicket was on cocoanut matting and concrete, and the ball came along plain and easy, but the out-fielding was very difficult, being very sandy and almost rocky ground in places.

The scoring was not very high, I managed to notch 11 and 24 in my two innings, getting caught beautifully each time by a base-baller in the deep field.

After a most enjoyable game, in which we _Royalshires_ well accounted for our fair share of runs and wickets, we crossed to Frisco again, and sat down to a huge tea at the Institute.

Few people know what splendid work the Institute to British Seamen is performing all over the world, and in no place more than in Frisco, where it has perhaps more to contend against than anywhere else.

It is chiefly apprentices whom it benefits; and but for it, I am sure, many and many an apprentice, but an ignorant boy fresh from his English home, would have gone utterly to the bad in the great seaport towns of the world.

If an apprentice runs away from his ship, the clergymen of the Institute search until they find him, and over and over again persuade him to return. Even if they cannot persuade him to go to sea again, they go to endless trouble to get him a job on shore, or arrange to send him home.

These institutes are like clubs, where apprentices can spend their evenings reading, playing billiards, or with music, or even gymnastics or boxing; and but for them the apprentices would loaf about the town, spending their money in all kinds of sailor’s hells and dance halls, where they would run great dangers, not only of being stripped of every cent they possess, but even their clothes, and could count themselves lucky if they got safe back to their ship with a whole skin; this, without speaking of the unmentionable experiences of drink and women, they would have in such haunts of vice.

There is no more dangerous waterfront in the world than that of Frisco; many a mate or apprentice has disappeared never to be seen alive again, and often his body would be found, stripped and mutilated, floating in the Sacramento.

Not only is the Institute a refuge for mates and apprentices, but sailormen of every nationality are welcome there.

Most nights they provide you with a splendid tea for the huge sum of five cents, and certain nights a week the tea is extra fine, and is free. Once a week a very good concert takes place, in which both outsiders and talented ones amongst the ships perform.

As for the clergymen at Frisco who carry on this noble work, mere words cannot express the admiration I feel for them.

Their daily duties require an infinity of tact, dogged perseverance, and courage, not to despair at some of the setbacks they get. They have to be hardened to every kind of insult; such an incident as being kicked off a Yankee floating hell, or having to use their fists in a real stand-up fight, being by no means unusual in their daily work.

They have to contend against the crimps and boarding-house masters, the saloon and dancehall keepers, all of whom stick at nothing from bribing and perjury to cutting throats.

Frisco is one mass of gambling hells, dancehalls, low drinking-saloons, and such like places, which only keep going by bribing the highest in authority to the lowest.

The policemen pay 500 dollars for their posts, so lucrative are they in bribes and blood-money.

So much for the Institute to British Seamen, and the extraordinary good work it is doing; of course it scatters tracts a bit, but the tract-mongers at home send them out for distribution, and there would be a terrible row if they found out that they were not distributed.

[Illustration: FRISCO]

No one hates a tract maniac more than myself, with their absurdly and often blasphemously worded literature; of course they are pretty harmless, except that they bother and worry poor strangers with their everlasting cant.

I was once in a railway carriage with a tract maniac and another man. The maniac started straight away assuring the other man that he was bound to go straight to hell if he did not mend his ways, at the same time pressing various coloured tracts into the man’s unwilling hands.

At last the worm turned.

“I guess, stranger,” he said, “these here be my passports to that there hell that you say I am going to sure.”

(But I am clean off the line altogether, and must make a cast back and see if I can pick up the scent again.)

Well, I was talking about the Institute. There is no doubt that this tract-scattering has done the institutes a great deal of harm and gained them a bit of a bad name in places; but this is the fault of the spindle-legged, black-gloved tract fraternity at home, not the fault of the hard-working, fearless, and undaunted clergymen stationed at the different institutes.

The Institute at Frisco, for instance, in no way thrusts religion upon you. It did not matter whether you were a Hindoo Lascar, a Mahommedan Arab, or a Heathen Chinee, you get the same welcome.

On Sundays there was a Church of England service in the Institute, which you attended or you didn’t just as you chose.

To Messrs Karney and O’Rorke, the gallant workers in Frisco, go my heartfelt thanks for their many and great kindnesses to me, and my very best wishes that their great work may prosper--that work of helping and looking after the great company of our British mercantile marine.

_Sunday, 16th July._--How I did enjoy our long lie in bed, my bed being especially more comfortable than anybody else’s, for I slept in my carriboo-skin sleeping-bag. This bag I got at a bargain. I gave a pair of 12-lb. blankets for it to a man who was camped alongside me at Lake Bennett, on the way into the Klondyke. The very next day I was offered sixty dollars for it, but it was worth a great deal more than that, and but for it I should have been in a bad way many a time.

I have slept on ice in it, and have crawled into it on the muddy floor of a log hut, through the leaky roof of which the rain poured down; in the morning I found the bag in a pool of water, but inside I was quite dry. Where would blankets, even with waterproof sheets, have been in a case like that?

This bag was made in Newfoundland by the Indians from the skins of a couple of carriboo deer, sewn together with the sinews of the animal, and Indian cured.[1]

[1] I have since found this bag invaluable whilst at the front in South Africa.

In the very cold weather in the Klondyke, I used to fill it as tight as it would pack with blankets, and, with my head covered up, slept out in the open with the thermometer well on the wrong side of zero.

The nipper came and turned Don and myself out at 8 A.M. to hoist the ensign and house flag, as it was Sunday.

Don and I spent the morning washing clothes, a regular Sunday occupation on board ship as it is in camp.

In the afternoon we went ashore, and taking a car went into the park and listened to the band, which was an excellent one; and in the evening we looked into the Olympia, a free music hall where, provided you spent five cents on a glass of beer, you could sit comfortably and smoke whilst a first-class variety show was performed before you.

_Monday, 17th July._--Cleaning the stringers all day, and getting into fine condition. Karney came on board to-day to ask me to dine with him, and was rather amused when he was shown a blackface, grimy ruffian, in very dirty dungarees and a slouch hat.

I shall never forget that dinner though: he took me to the top of the “Call” building, where there is a very good restaurant.

Here, added to an excellent dinner, you get a superb view over Frisco in every direction; but I had come to eat, and eat I did, everything in the _table-d’hôte_, and countless plates of nice white bread and butter, neither of which I had even seen on board the _Royalshire_.

My favourite dish on the West Coast of America is “hot cakes and maple syrup,” not “flapjacks” made out of flour, baking powder, and water, on which one lives in the Klondyke, but batter cakes, smoking hot, and smothered in butter and maple syrup.

You can get as much as you can eat of these, with a good cup of coffee to wash them down, for ten cents at any restaurant in Frisco, and they are very satisfying to a hungry man, filling up the corners so well!

Every night when Don and I wander ashore after the day’s work is over, we have a go of hot cakes, and sometimes more.

[Illustration: MARKET STREET AND CALL BUILDING]

Unfortunately, we are running rather short of ready cash, and so are economising rigidly; Don’s boots have fallen off his feet in pieces, so we had to provide him with new ones, and now all our spare cash is to go for jam and plum puddings!

_Tuesday, 18th July._--Cleaning coal out of the stringers all day. The darky steward has cleared out, and a German has appeared, who, according to himself is a man of vast attraction and many parts, and his wonderful stock of lies would make even Kruger or Li Hung Chang green with envy.

_Wednesday, 19th July._--The after and main holds are now quite clean after a hard day’s work.

There is a concert every Wednesday at the Institute, and performers from the ships are eagerly sought after.

Don and I went to-day for the first time, and Don proved a great catch, as he has a vast _répertoire_ of songs, comic and otherwise, and accompanies himself.

We found that the two favourites with sailors are “Tommy Atkins” and “Eliza ’Awkins.”

It was a very amusing concert, and ended with a hauling chanty, that good old stager “Blow, Boys, Blow,” all hands tailing on to the end of the rope, and running three fat apprentices up by means of a hook in the ceiling and a block and tackle.

_Thursday, 20th July._--My only entry in my log to-day was a most important one, namely, “We laid in a stock of jam.” This jam Don and I meant to keep until we got to sea; but, alas, when we finally did sail, there were only four small pots left.

_Friday, 21st July._--At work to-day cleaning out the bilges in the after and main holds. This is a most filthy job; the bilges are filled with a thick, greeny-yellow fluid, the refuse of the different cargoes, case oil, rotten wheat, etc. We have to shovel it out with anything we can get hold of, empty sardine tins being at a premium, and where it is thicker and more foul than usual you have to use your hands in scooping it out.

Someone stands at the opening of the hatch and hauls the buckets up as fast as they are filled, dumping the foul muck overboard into the bay, which, if you please, supplies the city with water.

By the time that we had been six hours at this, the water all round the ship was covered by a mass of slimy, yellow and green decayed matter, which smelt worse than anything I have ever smelt yet.

The four-mast barque _Earl of Dunmore_ came into the wharf next to us this morning, fifty-two days from Newcastle, Australia. She is nothing like such a fine ship as the _Royalshire_; though her tonnage is greater, her masts and spars are half the size of ours. She is a Glasgow-built ship, like the _Royalshire_, and is overrun by a wild crowd of Scotch apprentices.

_Saturday, 22nd July._--The _Marlboro’ Hill_, which has been lying in the stream for several days trying to get a crew, has at last got one.

This fine four-mast barque had a very bad name, and her crew ran directly she arrived in Frisco; and the mate, having had a row with the captain, left her also.

Her old man has the reputation of being a very hard nut, and some people thought he would be months without getting a crew, as men are very scarce just now.

Every Saturday afternoon we wash down decks fore and aft, and put everything into spick and span order for Sunday.

We are waiting now for our “stiffening,” as we dare not take our last 400 tons of coals out until we get a like weight of grain, as there is no ballast to speak of, and the ship might turn turtle on the way up to Port Costa if there happened to be a fair breeze blowing.

All ships loading grain from Frisco have to go up the Sacramento and load at Port Costa and Crockett, where the railway deposits the grain.

Our cargo, it is rumoured, is to be barley, so we shall be a light ship, and probably cranky.

We had a merry evening at the Institute, singing and feeding, Don being to the fore with a new lot of songs.

_Sunday, 23rd July._--Delicious weather, sunshine and blue sky, without being too hot. As usual, I spent the morning washing clothes.

I dined with O’Rorke, the boss sky-pilot at the Institute; he is an old Etonian, and I am not certain if he was not at Eton with me.

The first time he saw me, I was as black as a sweep, shovelling coal; but he spotted a faded Eton Rambler ribbon on my dirty old slouch hat, and inquiring from the captain, found out who I was. Once before, up in the Klondyke, my faded Rambler ribbon caused me to make the acquaintance of a fellow old Etonian.

The new mate of the _Marlboro’ Hill_, which sails to-morrow, was also dining with O’Rorke. He seems to have had a hard time with his new men. He found the ship swarming with wild apprentices, who had been having a fine time, with no one to keep them in order; and of his new crew, hardly a man has been to sea before; most of them are farm hands, and six of them had to be put in irons at once, including two ex-clergymen and two ex-bartenders.

He said they had great trouble bending sail, and took the whole of Saturday afternoon bending the mainsail.

With such a crew as that, a captain and his mates must use strong measures if they hope ever to get their ship safe home; but the fault is generally the captain’s if he cannot get sailors to ship, and has to pay blood-money to the boarding-house keepers to “shanghai” farm hands and dead-beats aboard.

But this is a big subject, and few people know that this sort of thing still goes on in big ports like Frisco, New York, and Philadelphia.

Very different to that of the _Marlboro’ Hill_ was the case of the _Benares_, another Scotch four-mast barque, a magnificent ship with several record passages to her credit.

She left about a week ago with every man on board a Britisher, and the same crew that she had left England with.

This, of course, was a great feather in her captain’s hat, for most crews run at Frisco, as A.B. wages are four pounds a month out of Frisco, as compared with two pounds ten out of British ports.

It is nothing unusual, either, for a ship to sail with several of her crew in irons. The _Royalshire_ sailed from Philadelphia this very voyage with half her men in irons.

The second mate told me of a ship sailing out of Philadelphia, whose crew were shipped on board drunk, and were chucked into the sail-locker and shut in there by her two mates, who were both very strong men. After keeping them there for twenty-four hours, the two mates went in amongst them with belaying pins and laid about the poor devils with such effect, that the sails they were lying upon were soon covered with blood, and two of the victims succumbed to their injuries.

There are quantities of stories of this kind, but nearly always on Yankee ships; for on board a British ship a sailor can get justice in port, and a captain or mate knows he will get heavy punishment for brutality.

A British ship came in here yesterday from Cape Town, where her mate had been hanged for killing a man during the passage there.

One of the biggest bits of brutality I have heard of, was the case of an apprentice on a ship outward bound round the Horn.

This poor little chap was shut in the hencoop with the hens for the whole passage of one hundred and fifty days, and was never allowed to come out, even to wash himself. When the ship arrived in Frisco, the boy was in a truly pitiable condition; but I am glad to say that the captain and mates got it very hot, as the case was taken into court.

There is even a still more terrible case of a boy who was lashed to the mizen fife-rail all through the bitter passage round the Horn. It was a wonder that he did not die of exposure; for to be wet and half-drowned in that awful weather, day after day, night after night, unable to lie down to rest, unable to sit or even stand on account of the seas continually washing his feet from under him, this terrible experience many a strong man would not have survived.

It was a wonder that the boy kept his senses, but he lived through it all, only to die before getting into port, from neglected cold and pneumonia contracted whilst lashed up thus off the Horn.

If ever a boy was murdered it was that boy. On some of the Yankee hell ships the things that go on are almost incredible, and the captains have to be skilled surgeons to cope with the work of destruction wrought by their mates.

Legs and arms broken were considered nothing, ribs stamped in by heavy sea-boots had to mend as best they could, faces smashed like rotten apples by iron belaying pins had to get well or fear worse treatment, eyes closed up by a brawny mate’s fist had to see. There have been many instances of men triced up in the rigging, stripped, and then literally skinned alive with deck-scrapers.

Thus the reputation of American ships has got so bad that none but a real tough citizen, or a stolid, long-suffering Dutchman (as sailors call all Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, or Russian Finns), will ship in them.

On board these “down-easters” and “blue-nose” craft, where discipline is enforced by a plentiful use of belaying-pin, knuckle-duster, and boot, the work done is stupendous, and the ship is certainly kept in a wonderfully trim state.

Of course there is also a certain amount to be said on the side of the captains and mates, as nowadays some crews are composed of such villainous scoundrels, that unless you take a high hand with them, and show you are not to be trifled with, they would soon take advantage of what they would call a “softy,” and a reign of terror would begin, any sort of discipline would be impossible, the men would do just as much work as they felt inclined for, and they would openly sneer and scoff at you if ordered to do anything they did not wish.

_Monday, 24th July._--Thank goodness, we have finished with the hold for the present, and to-day we are all over the side on stages, chipping the rust off the plates preparatory to giving the ship a coat of paint.

This is a very pleasant change, and it is quite delicious working in the open air and sunshine after the gloom of the stuffy hold. But now, instead of getting our eyes filled with coal-dust, they get bombarded by bits of rusty iron.

Chips wears goggles for protection; and I tried to find my snow goggles, but not being able to, had to do without.

Chipping is not nearly so simple as it looks. To begin with, the hammers are by no means light, and I found that at the end of my first day’s chipping, my wrist was very stiff.

If you hit too hard, you make dents in the iron; if you hit too soft, you get nothing done.

Don and I, though we worked like furies, found that we could not keep up with the others, who did not seem to be working hard at all.

We started chipping from the port bow, and as soon as a plate was chipped and rubbed smooth, it was immediately painted.

We were a very cheerful party. Don and I started singing choruses at the top of our pipes in time to the chipping. The mate, who was prowling about the deck, came to the side and watched us in amazement, but said nothing.

The second mate, who is a real white man, does not mind, though his language is often forcible. Rowland, who had been degraded from his post of night watchman because he was ashore till two o’clock one night, joined in with a will, and Mac, the fourth mate, was also induced to tune up when he saw that nothing happened.

Chip! chip! chip! And it’s Blow, my bully boys, blow! As we were not under the eyes of the mate the whole time, we slipped in an occasional smoke, and, in fact, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This evening Don and I went to see _Heartsease_ played at the Columbia Theatre. The piece was well put on, and well acted. To my great surprise, the pathetic bits moved Don to tears, and he insists that he must go again; it is wonderful what delight a piece gives some people if it is tragic enough to make them cry.

_Tuesday, 25th July._--Still chipping and painting all day. My hands, which were very sore, are now quite healed and hardened up, and I am as fit as a fiddle, and ready for anything.

Don went off this evening, with Rowland in tow, to see _Heartsease_ again.

_Wednesday, 26th July._--Again chipping and painting.

We are waiting anxiously for our stiffening, which may turn up at any minute, as we have to go over to Oakland Creek to discharge the rest of our coal.

Don and I, on coming on board this evening from the shore, found Johnsen, the sailmaker, camped down in our forecastle, and trying to get to sleep in the bunk next to Don’s.

This man is a very queer character: he is very silent, and rarely says a word, though he speaks English very well: he is a Swede, and an excellent sailor, but a more unpopular scoundrel never sailed the seas. He has got a villainous face, with queerish eyes; and, owing probably to two severe falls from aloft, he is not all there. He is exceedingly suspicious, and thinks everybody is trying to do him a bad turn.

As he is such a good sailor, the old man, on losing his sailmaker, offered him the job, which he accepted, and moved into the midship-house, where Chips (who is a Russian Finn) and our German cook live.

But now, for some reason or other, he has refused to go home as sailmaker, and has come back into the forecastle, meaning to come home as an A.B.

Such is our queer, new mate in the forecastle. I must say he does not interfere with Don and myself in any way, even getting his own grub from the galley, which an A.B. expects an O.S. to do for him.

_Thursday, 27th July._--Oh, joyful sight! On turning out this morning, we found four lighters alongside with our 400 tons of stiffening on board.

Before knocking off this evening, we cockbilled the lower yards, as we are going to be towed over to Oakland Creek to-morrow morning to discharge the rest of our coal, and the yards have to be cockbilled, apparently to clear the top of the coal sheds.

As this is our last day in Frisco for some time, I took the second mate, Don, and Rowland, to dinner at the top of the “Call,” and afterwards to see _Heartsease_ again.