CHAPTER IV

THE SOUTH SEAS

_Thursday, 14th September._--We crossed the line last night about four bells in the first watch. Needless to say, in these days of prose, Neptune did not show himself above the horizon.

It was a lovely moonlight night, with small fleecy clouds chasing each other across the star-studded blue-black vault of heaven.

The wind got rather puffy at times, and we had not been on deck long in the middle watch before a rather ugly-looking cloud began to approach and cover the sky to windward.

Like a great black pall, it gradually spread over the sky: one by one the bright stars were engulfed in the great bank of darkness which rose slowly from the horizon.

“We are going to have a nasty squall, I expect,” said Mac. “I advise you to get into oilskins, Bally.”

By the time that we had got our oilskins on, the bright sky, moon, and stars had been completely blotted out to windward by this huge, monstrous cloud. Higher and higher it rose, until it got right overhead.

Suddenly the second mate, who had got his eye gummed on it, roared out in a voice which must have woke the blind sea-snakes down in the deeps below,

“Stand by your royal halliards!”

There was a rush to the halliards, and I went to the main-royal and cast the coil off the pin, ready to let them go if the order came.

Down came the squall upon us, and over and over lay the _Royalshire_.

The rain came down like a cloud-burst, and in a moment the water was rising in the lee scuppers.

“Let go your royal halliards, clew them up, and make them fast!” yelled the second mate.

Down came the yards amidst a thrashing of canvas, and we rushed to clew them up.

We had got them half clewed up when the squall passed; the _Royalshire_ stood up again, and once more the stars began to peep out as the great black cloud retired to leeward.

“That’ll do there at the clew-lines!” said the second mate. “Masthead the yards again!”

“Ahay! Aheigh! Aho--oh! Up she goes!”

And soon we were once more in quietness, sailing along 7 knots in the smooth sea, with every sail set.

Half an hour later, and another black cloud arose out of the horizon to windward.

Again came the cry,

“Stand by your royal halliards!”

This time the _Royalshire_ lay over; the squall hissed, roared, and beat upon us; the rigging shrieked, and the ship groaned; but the second mate was not to be frightened, and hung on to his canvas.

In vain we waited for the cry,

“Let go your royal halliards!”

There was a lull, only to be followed by a severer gust; the ship lay over until the men to leeward by the main-royal gear were up to their knees in broken water, still the second mate stood immovable, with his eye to windward. He was rewarded for his daring, for the squall passed, and nothing carried away.

So the middle watch passed, and every half-hour nearly we had to stand by those royal halliards.

There was a fine breeze all day, and we logged 9 knots.

This is grand sailing, and one feels so fit and well. It is the good times in the trades that a sailor always remembers; he never remembers the terrible nights off the Horn, or in the Western Ocean in mid-winter. Well, it is all for the best, as few would ever go to sea if they kept the memory of the hard times before them instead of the easy times.

_Friday, 15th September._--We have got a new job now, making rovings in the first watch. This consists of platting three or five rope yarns together.

One gets wonderfully quick at it, and we generally race to see who does the most; though the second mate and Mac are easily the best, and I am the worst, as I have got a cut finger.

Course--S. 1/2 W.

We had a little bit of excitement to-day, which might easily have ended in a tragedy.

I was at work, sand and canvasing boat-gear by the after-hatch, with Loring and Mac.

The second mate, who was watching us, called to Johnsen, who was putting a splice in a wire, and began to row him about something or other.

Johnsen’s evil countenance went into a more villainous aspect than usual, and his scowl deepened to a really fiendish leer.

Then suddenly putting his hand into his shirt, he drew out his knife and stabbed the second mate full on the left breast.

Everyone of us saw the affair, and Loring cried out,

“My God, he’s stabbed him!”

It was done so quickly that one could hardly see the knife, as he held it up his wrist.

But where was the blood? Why didn’t the second mate fall, for he was stabbed right over the heart.

The knife must have missed somehow, because, for a man who had just been stabbed to the heart, the second mate showed amazing vigour.

Seizing Johnsen’s wrist in a grip of iron, he tore the knife from the wretched man’s grasp and hove it overboard, saying,

“I’ll teach you to try and stab me, you hound!”

Then he set to and gave Johnsen such a hiding as I have rarely seen given to a man.

Smack! bang! His ponderous fist took Johnsen on the jawbone, and he fell to the deck.

Slowly he got to his feet, still with that everlasting scowl, and his lips moving silently in murderous abuse.

Crack! and again he smote the boards.

“Up you get, you cur; can’t you stand up to me like a man?”

Before the second mate let him crawl haltingly forward, he was in a pretty battered condition, with a reddened nose, blackened eye, and twisted wrist.

“Back to your work again, you knifing coward, and no skulking, or you’ll feel my fist again.”

And so the incident closed.

But what had saved Mr Knowles?

It was a very simple matter. In drawing the knife out of his shirt--where, by the way, no sailor ever keeps his knife--Johnsen had failed to draw it quite clear of the sheath, and the sheath had remained on the end of it, thus saving the second mate’s life.

This incident, which might have been such a tragedy, was discussed for a little while, and then entirely dropped, and no one thought further about the matter.

Such is life! Johnsen meant to kill the second mate, but Providence intervened: the mate lived, and Johnsen escaped the gallows.

_Saturday, 16th September._--The S.E. trades are humming to beat the band, and the _Royalshire_ is snoring through it with her lee scuppers in the water.

Occasional rain-squalls necessitate taking in the jigger-topgallant staysail, gaff-topsail, and flying-jib, which are the light weather sails, and always the first to come in.

We started “tarring down” to-day; but I was painting the break of the poop with the second and fourth mates, and so escaped it.

Of all the jobs on a deep-sea ship, tarring down is, I think, the dirtiest.

You are sent aloft with a pot of tar slung round your neck, and a bit of rag in your hand. As you climb about, you find your hands, arms, and face gradually getting covered with tar, and a bungler will come down from aloft pretty nearly all tar from head to foot.

Poor old Higgins had a very bad time of it, as he is a very poor climber. First of all he upset half his pot over the mainsail--a crime which brought down the curses of the second mate upon him, and which, if it had happened on an American ship, he would have probably been triced up in the rigging for; then he got to work upon himself, and upon the rigging of the ship, but from the first it was easy to be seen that he was more intent upon tarring himself down than doing anything else.

It must have taken him nearly the whole of the first dog watch to get himself clean. Even Loring took an hour of his watch below to get himself clean.

We are steering now, true course, S. by E.

_Sunday, 17th September._--A lovely day again. Don and I started teaching the second, third, and fourth mates to waltz in the dog watch.

It was a most amusing sight to watch us gravely waltzing round and round, occasionally carrying away as the ship rolled.

The mate and the old man came and looked on from the break of the poop, and fairly roared with laughter.

The bosun sat himself down on the after-hatch and tuned up his guitar, and someone else started work on a mouth organ, making quite a creditable band.

The nipper and Loring took a hand, and we soon had three couples pirouetting about.

Don made a first-rate dancing master, and took great pains, whilst the three mates were as solemn as owls over the affair.

The second mate (dancing lady) was like a huge bear sprawling about, and Mac danced like a wild man from Borneo; but Scar went in for grace and stateliness, and pointed his toes and clicked his heels in a most fascinating manner.

Lat. 6°.25 S., long. 127°.08 W. Run 184 miles.

_Monday, 18th September._--The glorious weather still goes on. We are hard at work with paint pot and brush, and put a coat of paint on the topgallant bulwarks and the break of the poop.

The break of the poop is being most carefully done, and is having coat after coat put on it after which it is to be stencilled and grained.

Every morning, if it is my watch on deck in the morning watch, I have to swab it most carefully with “fresh water” if you please.

Our skipper is a particular man, and being an expert at painting, graining, etc., is down on one at once for a bit of bad painting, or if an out-of-the-way corner has not been properly swabbed.

It is wonderful what a knowledge of, and memory for ships they have seen, sailors have got.

I was helping Sails to-day, who is at work on a new royal, and while we worked we yarned.

He told me that the _Henry B. Hyde_ was the finest wooden American ship afloat.

She was built over twelve years ago, by John M’Donald, at Bath, Maine, and her registered tonnage is 2500 tons. There is only one three-master that is larger than her sailing the seas, and that is the British ship _Ditton_, of 2800 tons.

A marvellous fast Yankee is the barque _St James_, of 1500 tons.

The _Somali_, a four-mast steel barque, is the largest British sailing-ship, and is 3537 tons gross, and 330 feet long.

To show that sailing-ships are not being driven off the seas, as some people think, in the year 1897, 34 steel sailing-ships were launched in the United Kingdom, with a gross tonnage of 28,481, besides 2 iron ships, and 183 wood or composite ones.

In the past year, according to the statistics, there were 863 wooden sailing-ships in the United Kingdom, with net tonnage of 161,528 tons; 1093 wooden sailing-ships in the Colonies, with a net tonnage of 403,269 tons; and 2237 wooden sailing-ships in America, with a net tonnage of 1,123,307 tons. Of composite sailing-ships, the United Kingdom had only 17, with a net tonnage of 8884 tons; and the Colonies had only 17, with a net tonnage of 9292 tons; whilst America had none. Of iron sailing-ships, the United Kingdom has got 878, with a net tonnage of 1,040,695 tons; the Colonies 58, with net tonnage of 32,353 tons; and America 24, with net tonnage of 27,815 tons. Of steel sailing-ships, the United Kingdom had got 503, with a net tonnage of 829,442 tons; the Colonies 12, with net tonnage of 11,660 tons; and America 59, with net tonnage of 121,793. So you see there are plenty of sailing-ships still sailing the seas, and some of them earn very good dividends too.

The Americans, always enterprising, are going in now a great deal for four-, five-, and even six-masted fore-and-aft schooners, and very fine vessels these are, easy to handle, with great carrying capacity.

I passed one of these five-masted schooners once in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida Keys. It was a bright moonlight night, and I was sleeping in a hammock slung on the boat-deck of a big four-mast tramp steamer. We passed within a biscuit-throw of this schooner, which, with a nice beam breeze, was going almost as fast as we were.

She was such a lovely sight that the officer of the watch actually ran down off the bridge and woke me up so that I could see her. She was painted white, and in the moonlight her hull and sails gleamed a pearly yellow, and gave her a fairy-like and enchanting appearance.

_Tuesday, 19th September._--Lat. 11°.48 S., long. 127°.08 W.

We are busy working aloft to-day, sending down all old gear and sending up new rope; several of the braces have been renewed, besides leech and bunt lines.

I nearly had a fall from aloft. We had sent up a new port crossjack leech-line, and the second mate asked me whether I could clinch it by going down the leech of the sail. This is not easy to do, as you have only the sail to hang on to, but it is not anything out of the way: some men brag that they have come down from the royal-yard by the leeches of the sails.

I went on my old motto, “What one man has done I can do,” so I said I would try.

I slipped off the yardarm, and, gripping with hands, knees, and feet, proceeded to slide slowly down the sail, tearing my nails, and skinning my legs.

[Illustration: _Clinching the Crossjack Leechline._]

The sail did its best to shake me off; there was not much wind, and it kept flapping, each flap swinging me violently from one side to the other.

I found it was all I could do to hold on, and on trying to leave go with one hand to clinch the leech-line, I all but fell, just saving myself by gripping the bolt-rope with all my strength. Again and again I tried; my muscles groaned and crackled under the tremendous strain, the whole weight of my body falling on the ends of my fingers, which were but slightly assisted by my knees and feet, owing to the flapping of the sail. I ground my teeth, as I hated to be beaten; how I did strain, until the muscles felt as if they would break, my veins stood out like cords on my forehead, from which great drops of sweat were falling. I crooked my fingers, and tore my nails as I dug them into the sail; but it was impossible, I could not hold on to the flapping sail by means of the tips of five fingers, whilst I clinched the leech-line by means of my teeth and my other hand. At last I had to give it up and slide down. I was quite blown when I got to the deck, and had ripped the skin clean off one shin, which, by the way, took over two months to heal, so bad does one’s skin get at sea.

No one else would tackle the job, so finally I was lowered from the yardarm in a bowline, and so clinched the leech-line. Clinching the leech-line simply means making it fast to the leech of the sail about half-way down.

I note in my log to-day the following entry: “Mac turned out first in the afternoon watch to-day, a marvellous feat.”

The much-admired and much-written-about constellation of the Southern Cross is in sight now, low down on the horizon.

_Wednesday, 20th September._--Lat. 13°.55 S., long. 120°.02 W. Course--S. 3 W. Run 127 miles.

We had a bad rain-storm in the middle watch last night.

Again busy sending up new gear all day. We sighted a four-mast barque on our weather bow this morning.

The old man thinks she is the _Centesima_, which was in Frisco with us.

Much to our delight, we put her on the lee bow in the middle watch.

_Thursday, 21st September._--On coming on deck this morning at eight o’clock, we found the other ship on our lee quarter.

They had just been signalling when our watch came on deck, and she turned out to be the _Loudoun Hill_, which left Frisco twelve days before us, and is considered a smart ship.

All day we gradually dropped her, and the old man is very pleased at passing her. The wind fell light, and broke off in the first dog watch, and we saw a black squall catch the _Loudoun Hill_ all aback.

There are about a dozen dolphins off the quarter to-day, swimming alongside the ship. They are what seamen call “mosky,” that is, having yellow tails. It is an old sailor’s hoax that a dolphin gets his yellow tail from eating the weed off the ship’s bottom, which is supposed to poison him.

In the afternoon, our watch below, the second mate, Mac, and I got the grains out and tried to grain them; but though we hit once or twice, we were not successful, for it is no easy matter this harpooning of dolphins.

Lat. 15°.45 S., long. 129 W. Course--S. 28 W. Run 124 miles.

_Friday, 22nd September._--A calm day. We squared the yards, and started shifting sail again; very hot work, as we are working like demons to beat the port watch.

We can still see the _Loudoun Hill_ down to her topsails on the lee beam.

_Saturday, 23rd September._--We have lost the trades, and are in the doldrums, busy bracing the yards up to any puff that comes along.

The _Loudoun Hill_ is out of sight to leeward.

The dolphins are still showing off their beauty alongside, but they will not take a bait, and nobody is skilful enough to grain them, as at the very sight of the grain poised above the rail, they dive deeper into the water or swim just out of range.

I had a long yarn with the bosun to-day. He is a fairly well-to-do man for the bosun of a sailing-ship, as, until this voyage, he had left the sea for ten years, having married a woman with money, and having taken to farming in California, where he seems to be doing very well, and talks like an expert on the subject.

He is making this voyage as a means of getting home to see his old people, who are Germans, and he is taking them a large cask of home-made Californian wine, and two huge oil-paintings of himself and his wife.

He told me that he was chief officer on one of the Mexican Gulf steamers before he finally left the sea.

For a chief officer he certainly is a very poor sailorman, and I expect makes a far better farmer, as he has not got the nerve or grit that is necessary to make a good sailor.

_Sunday, 24th September._--Fine breeze all night. In the first watch, when keeping time, I went forward at six bells to see that the side lights burnt brightly, and happening to look overboard from the forecastle head, saw what I took to be a large fish keeping steadily along with its back out of water, just astern of our bow-wave.

I called Higgins, who was on the lookout; he said it was a porpoise, but I thought it was much too big for a porpoise.

Going aft, I woke up Loring, who was coiled up asleep under the break of the poop, and sent him forward to have a look at the queer fish. He came back cursing. The queer fish was old Higgin’s clothes, which he had got towing overboard, and which the old man had forgotten.

It was a lovely day, and the ship lay her course on a bowline.

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free.”

_Monday, 25th September._--Lat. 21°.04 S., long. 127° W. Course--E.S.E.

We had a busy time last night, squall after squall coming up in the first watch.

We stood by the royal halliards eight times.

The gaff-topsail, jigger-topmast staysail, and flying-jib were taken in in the middle watch.

The breeze is fresh to-day, with a cloudy sky, and the weather is getting colder.

We are taking sprays aboard, and will soon be in the ruck of it if this goes on.

_Tuesday, 26th September._--The wind went ahead in the middle watch last night, and we could not head up better than E. by N., so all hands were called, and we went about. I think this is the first time we have gone about at night.

We finished bending sail to-day, and have bent a brand new foresail for the Horn.

My leg is festering all down the shin, the result of coming down the weather leech of the crossjack the other day, and I have had to put a bandage on it.

On coming on deck in the first dog watch, we found another sail in sight on our weather bow, also a four-mast barque.

She proves to be the _Centesima_, and we are coming up on her.

We had a long argument to-day about that vexed subject, British sailors on British ships. A great deal is written nowadays about the scandal of British ships sailing the seas manned by crews of Dutchmen and dagos, and most people think the reason is, that Britishers prefer sailing in foreign ships because they are so much better fed.

But the real reason why British ships are not manned by British seamen entirely is a very simple one to my mind,--there are not sufficient British seamen to man the British ships.

Take the better class, fairly steady, foremast Britisher; he is taken up to the last man by the mail-steamers and yachts (the amount of prime sailors employed on yachts nowadays makes no small item in the grand total of British seamen); added to this, look at the number of men the Navy requires annually from the country.

Thus it is that only British sailing-ships and steam tramps whose good qualities are well known, and whose officers are well known, can get crews of Britishers.

There are more British sailing-ships, however, at sea which never ship a foreigner amongst the crew than most people imagine. Of course, British sailormen are often to be found in foreign ships for more than one reason; perhaps the chief is, that very often the man is on his beam ends and has to take the first ship he can get, which as likely as not happens to be a foreigner.

Many Britishers sail on American ships to qualify for the “Snug Harbour,” and there are also a vast quantity of British seamen in the American Navy.

Therefore I contend that the chief, I do not say the only, reason why you find so many foreigners in British ships is, because there are not enough British seamen to supply the demand.

_Wednesday, 27th September._--Course--S.S.W.; wind faint and unreliable, though we are overhauling the _Centesima_.

To-day we came to an end of the Kobe biscuits, which are nearly all rice, and at last have got the splendid American hard-tack served out to us: I don’t think I have ever eaten better biscuit than this Frisco bread.

Hard at work again to-day scrubbing and painting.

I had a yarn with Webber in the dog watch. He is the hardest worker in the port watch, though he is a poor sailor. He has sailed a good deal in Yankee hell boats, and has tasted more belaying-pin soup than is good for him, the consequence being that though he is a great big man, 6 feet 2 inches high, he is as meek and mild as a newborn lamb.

He told me that he had sailed with “Black Taylor” the voyage before this demon in a human skin was killed. This man came to a fitting end. He was mate of the _S. G. Alley_, one of the toughest of tough hell ships, outward bound, and just off the Hook.

He found fault with a man for allowing the rope to surge at the capstan. As the rope was wet, it naturally paid out in short jerks, which, of course, could not be helped.

But this was too much for “Black Taylor,”--he went for the man, kicked him into the waterways, and was preparing to stamp his ribs in, when he leaped to his feet and ripped Taylor’s stomach up, with the trick-twist of the New Orleans nigger.

“Black Taylor’s” inside fell out, and his career ended then and there.

The ship put back into New York to get another mate, and the sailor at his trial pleaded self-defence, and only got six months, as Taylor’s record was too well known.

Another notorious Yankee is Captain Summers, of the _H. D. Macgregor_. He is supposed to have broken every bone in his body at one time or another jumping after the men. He is a little man, very broad and strong, with a fearful temper.

He jumped clean off the poop one day, meaning to land on one of his crew, but the vessel rolling, he missed, and brought up against a water-barrel instead, and broke his thighbone.

Captain Slocum, of the _D. G. Tillie_, is another devil of a “down-easter,” with a terrible character for brutality.

_Thursday, 28th September._--We came on deck in the morning watch and found heavy rain falling, and the ship hardly going 3 knots.

My feet are so swollen from wearing no shoes that I cannot get my rubbers on.

Pitcairn Island is in sight from aloft, and soon will be from the deck.

We were hoping the captain would call there and take in some fresh vegetables.

What an interesting story is that of the Mutiny of the Bounty and settling of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island!

The island rises like a rock out of the sea, a mere speck in the great Pacific Ocean.

We had two squalls in the afternoon, and a fine breeze sprang up, but we are still close hauled, and going to the westward.

_Friday, 29th September._--Fine night, and an 8-knot breeze, our light weather sails coming in in the first watch.

To-day is another day of painting.

Lat. 24°.55 S., long. 120°.30 W. Course--S. 22 W. Run 96 miles.

In the afternoon one of the port watch caught a 28-lb. albacore, a rattling fine fish.

Whilst putting a sail away this afternoon through the skylight on the poop into the sail-locker, Higgins in sea-boots trod on my bare foot. I stepped back hastily, and tripping up, fell through the skylight, smashing it to atoms.

In a Yankee ship I should have been in for belaying-pin soup to a certainty, but here, the matter being an accident, only raised a laugh, even from the old man.

_Saturday, 30th September._--Hurrah! Fine breeze and lovely day, going 7-1/2 knots with the yards on the backstays all the morning.

It was a case of our great chorus--

“What ho, Piper! watch her how she goes! Give her the sheet and let her rip-- We’re the boys to pull her through. You ought to see her rolling home, For she’s the gal to go-- In the passage home in ninety days, From Cal--i--for--ni--o!”

In the afternoon the breeze freshened and freed us a bit, and we logged 8 knots, and all night we were going like a steam-boat under all sail, the wind freeing all the time. At midnight the jigger-topgallant staysail had to come in, and the log showed 10 knots.

Soon after four bells in the middle watch I awoke, as I lay under the break of the poop, curled up on the deck, with the water in the lee scuppers lapping up to my feet, to hear the stentorian voice of the second mate above me--

“Square the crossjack yard!”

We had very hard work squaring her in, and had to take the handy billy to help us with the lower and topsail yards.