Читать книгу The Valley of Youth - C. W. Holliday - Страница 5

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Then blow ye breezes blow, for California,

For there’s plenty of gold, so I’ve been told,

On the banks of the Sacramento.

So runs the chorus of an old sea chantey, and it was during the summer of 1887 that these same breezes were blowing the good ship Eleanor Margaret, with me on board, slowly to be sure, but surely, to the golden west coast of North America.

The Eleanor Margaret was a four-masted barque of twenty-three hundred tons, owned by an uncle of mine and named after my aunt Maggie. She had formerly been one of the fast P. & O. mail boats, the Mooltan; as the P. & O. built larger ships these smaller ones were sold, some of them being converted into sailing ships. The Mooltan, renamed Eleanor Margaret, was one of these, and a very fine ship she made; she had lines like a yacht, having been designed primarily for speed. Length three hundred and sixty feet, breadth thirty-five feet, she cut the water like a knife, and close hauled, I think, could sail closer to the wind than any other square-rigger afloat; certainly when sailing into the wind we overtook and passed to windward of any other ship on the same tack.

In those days every ship still had a figurehead; this custom, dating back to the time when ships first were, does give a more personal touch to your ship; something that appeals to the imagination, and it is a pity that it is falling into disuse. And among other changes in her appearance, the figurehead of the Mooltan, which had been the image of an Indian Rajah wearing a turban, was changed by a skilled carver into a woman more or less like Aunt Maggie, his whiskers having been shaved off and the turban converted into a coiffure. During the voyage, however, Aunt Maggie grew a mustache. When she finally berthed in San Francisco, one of the first things that greeted the astonished eyes of our Old Man as he glanced at the bow of his ship from the wharf, was Auntie adorned with a huge mustache which some young miscreant had perpetrated with a pot of black paint. His white whiskers bristling and his face purple with rage, the captain strode back on board and demanded that the abomination should be removed instantly. He made no fussy and useless effort to discover the guilty party; he was too dignified, maybe the old boy chortled somewhere deep down below the surface—but to have his ship exposed to public ridicule; that was too much! But I am getting to ’Frisco before I have properly started; I had better begin at the beginning and tell you how it came about that I was making this voyage.

I had been a delicate boy, and without inflicting on you details of childhood, will just start from the time when our old family doctor gave it as his opinion that if I did not spend a long time in the open air, preferably in summer clime, I should not live ’till I was thirty. Good old doctor! I wish that he could see me now at seventy-five, the result of his dictum, and that I could thank him for indirectly delivering me from the humdrum life of a business or professional man in London!

One day I was in my uncle’s office, where I occasionally poked about doing such odd jobs as addressing envelopes or running on errands, probably more to keep me out of mischief than anything else. I was looking over some lists of provisions and gear for the Eleanor Margaret who was due to sail from South Shields on the Tyne in about two weeks, when Uncle Willie came out of his private office. He seemed to study me thoughtfully for a minute or so, then with his kindly smile; “How would you like to go with her?” I had never even dreamed of such a possibility, and first thought he was joking. “Well, would you?” he repeated. “You don’t really mean it, Uncle, do you?” I got out at last, for the sudden unexpected proposal had been rather confusing and it seemed too good to be true.

But he did mean it, so for the next two weeks I was busy getting outfitted with sea-going toggery; saying good-by to my envious friends and nervously hoping that nothing would intervene to upset my plans. And then the last day at home arrived; my uncle and I were on the night train for South Shields and I felt a great sense of relief; I was safely off at last; from then on I was in a different world, a world of novelty and adventure.

South Shields itself was quite a new experience to me; I had never been in a ship-building town before; the ceaseless machine-gun-like rattle of riveting which went on day and night; the clatter of wooden clogs on the feet of thousands of workers as they made their way over the cobbled street to the shipyards; the keen air blowing upriver from the North Sea, gathering as it came all those innumerable pleasant odors of a busy seaport; the Tyne River itself, alive with ships of every description; ships just arrived from distant parts, lying at anchor in the stream waiting for a berth, or others waiting for last orders before sailing; the hulls of other ships in all stages of construction, with their great sterns towering above the river from their ways in the ship-building yards, waiting for the day when they too would go forth to distant seas. And still more ships in the charge of tugs on their way inward or outward bound. In and out through all this maze of shipping moved rowboats and fussy little tugs on their lawful occasions. And the accompanying music to all this drama of the river; the continuous loud staccato of hammers on steel plates, the plaintive cry or derisive laugh of seagulls, intermittent whistles from steam engines or the deep bellow of a steamer’s siren. And perchance through all this crescendo of sound you might catch the melody of men’s voices singing one of those haunting chanteys of the sea.

Of this busy gathering of ships the great majority were sailing vessels, for the sail still held pride of place on the oceans and in the seaports of the world, although steam was making a bold effort to displace them. The old-time sailormen had a deep-rooted dislike and contempt for this modern innovation. As we were looking one day from our deck at a steam tramp wallowing in a rough sea in the Bay of Biscay, our bosun, with a spit of disgust over the side said, “Well, I hope I never see the day when I have to serve on one of them bloody teakettles.” And the officers felt the same, possibly more so, for they had a great pride in their profession. You might hear one of them remark sadly and disapprovingly, “I hear young so-and-so is thinking of going into steam when he gets his second mate’s ticket.” And the others would reply, “That’s the end of him as far as we are concerned.”

Incidentally, at that time all officers had to serve four years’ apprenticeship in sail, even if they intended to go into steam. But I think the most profound contempt for the “floating teakettles” was felt by the able-bodied seamen, especially the older ones, the old “shellbacks.” (I wonder if the term “mossback” for an old farmer derives from this? The old sailor has been so long at sea that barnacles grow on his back; the old farmer so long on the land that moss grows on his back.)

Referring to the crew of a steamer “Sailormen, them!” they snort, “Why, them bastards is nothing but a bunch of lousy greasers and deck swabbers.” When you consider what the sailing ship was, this attitude is quite understandable. For it was about the end of that period when the sailing ship had reached the peak of perfection. A sailing ship is really one of the most beautiful and wonderful things ever made by man; I would not even concede prior place to the aeroplane, for that would be useless without its engines. The sailing ship, on the other hand, bends the free winds to its own use, it is not merely blown along by them but can progress against them. Is that not a marvellous thing, that a mass weighing thousands of tons can be propelled through the water, sometimes against the resistance of heavy seas, by simply making use of the currents of air? But the world had for centuries become so accustomed to this wonder that we just took it for granted.

Well, I seem to have wandered off my track again, so let me return to South Shields and the river Tyne. All these unaccustomed sights and sounds and smells spelled romance to me; this busy river seemed to hold the ends of threads that extended all over the world.

After my uncle and I had finished our breakfast in a South Shields hotel, he opened a brief case and looked over sundry papers; Captain Fishwick of the Eleanor Margaret was due shortly to pay his respects to her owner. Very soon he arrived, a very portly and dignified, rather elderly man with white whiskers. He was clad in a black frock coat and a top hat; this I was later to learn was the correct going-ashore costume of the old-time British and American skippers. I was introduced, and felt rather overawed, and very small and insignificant, for after remarking, “Oh, this will be the boy you wrote me about?” the old gentleman simply ignored me. He also produced a brief case, and for the next hour owner and captain were busy over affairs that meant nothing to me, and I was relieved when old man Fishwick said, “Well, Mr. Wallace, I think everything is in order; shall we go aboard for lunch?”

The Old Man and Uncle Willie, with me trailing along behind, feeling like a very little boy, proceeded past warehouses and along wharves to where the captain’s gig awaited him in the river at the foot of some steps. Lying at anchor out in the stream lay our ship, looking to me very large—indeed for those days she was, being the longest sailing ship afloat, although of less tonnage than many others; this being accounted for by her slender hull design.

In a few minutes we climbed up the accommodation ladder and for the first time in my life I stood on the deck of a ship. After lunch in the saloon, I was left to my own devices and I rambled about the main deck, feeling that I had no business there, for it was a very busy place, things were being lowered down the hatches; ropes being coiled; wherever I went I seemed to be in somebody’s way; and I felt that they were asking each other who the devil that little squirt was. So by and by, seeing the poop deck empty, I climbed up there and tramped up and down pretending to myself that I was the officer in charge. I did not know that the poop deck was sacred ground reserved for the use of the officers and that no one else was allowed there unless engaged in some duty.

There was a very rigid etiquette in the service; the poop was the quarter-deck—equivalent to the bridge on a modern steamship. The main deck from the mainmast aft to the break of the poop belonged to the ’prentices and the “afterguard”—the equivalent of warrant officers in the navy. No common sailor was allowed abaft the mainmast except on duty; even then he could not smoke while at work. I don’t think the sailors themselves would have welcomed any slacking in these rules, they would have considered it a sign of a rather sloppy sort of ship.

After a bit when I was beginning to wonder if they had forgotten all about me; and what I was supposed to do, if anything, I heard a cheery voice hailing me; “Hallo, young feller! Are you the new captain?”

The owner of the voice appeared coming up the poop ladder. He turned out to be Mr. Taylor, the fourth mate, a nice young chap whom I took to right away. “The Old Man sent me to look for you; your uncle suddenly missed you and thought maybe you had got homesick and swum ashore,” he said with a grin. “Were you playin’ at being an admiral on his quarter-deck? Well, come along and I’ll take you round and show you the ropes, I’m off duty now, and for the Lord’s sake, take off that gaudy coat, that’s only for shore use, and tomorrow we’ll find you something to do.”

I felt better after that, I was recognized as a human being anyway, and felt that Mr. Taylor had in a way received me into the ship’s company, so that when I met my uncle again at tea I could truthfully say when he asked me, that I thought I was going to like it.

This Mr. Taylor had been an apprentice with Captain Fishwick on a former voyage on another ship which was wrecked in a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. They were driven onto a rocky islet some two hundred miles from the Andamans, and just managed to get two boats out and provisioned before the ship sank. They hauled their boats up on the rocks, and when the storm was over started for the Andamans, the nearest inhabited land. I remember his account of this wreck because of the parody of an old music hall song that one of the boys composed on the long hard pull in open water under a tropical sun. The two boats got separated during the night and in Taylor’s boat they found to their dismay that they had very little water, and nothing else but canned soup and jam. I wish I could remember the whole of that song; the refrain was:

“Sailing, sailing over the Bay of Bengal,

With nothing but raspberry jam to eat

And nothing to drink at all.”

This ill-balanced diet did sustain them until they reached land, but Taylor and the Old Man, who was in the same boat, still are not keen on jam.

Taylor took me to the berth that I was to occupy; a comfortable one opening off the main saloon, next to that of the first mate, Mr. Black; an extremely fine Scotsman, a well-educated man who became a very good friend to me.

Although I did not realize it at the time, I was living in luxury compared with the ’prentices who had their quarters in a deckhouse amidships, just aft of the cook’s galley—but there was one disadvantage; they had perfect freedom to do as they pleased in their own house, whereas I was right under the eye of the Old Man, whose cabin was just opposite mine; and a very stern Old Man he was, with a “spare the rod and spoil the child” complex. I always felt that he wished he had had me when I was a child.

Whatever dirty work I might have been doing on deck I always had to spruce up before sitting down at the officer’s table. The rest of the crew had no tables; such luxuries were unknown in those old windjammer days—they just sat on their sea chests with their tin plates on their knees and ate picnic style.

I suppose my position on board was a bit unusual; I was not a passenger, as I was going to have the same duties as an apprentice although I was not one and lived with the officers. The common practice was to enter any extra person on the ship’s papers as “ordinary seaman”; that is if the ship was not licensed to carry passengers. A captain was sometimes allowed to carry a guest in this way, and sometimes he would be accompanied by his wife, but just what that lady booked as, I do not know, perhaps as stewardess.

However, I had the beautiful brass-buttoned coat and uniform cap, as worn by apprentices, or midshipmen as they were called on some lines, who were referred to officially as “the young gentlemen,” but more generally called “brass bounders”—no connection with the modern meaning of bounder; whatever else they might have been they were certainly not that. Of course, we were very pleased with our appearance in this uniform, but I noticed that officers had a dislike for it and never wore it except when they had to, on the regular passenger ships.

The next morning directly after I had finished my breakfast, the Old Man said, “Holliday, you go and report to Mr. McTavish, the second mate—the bosun will tell you where he is.”

My uncle, who had remained on board, looked at me with an amused grin. I had no idea what reporting to anyone meant, or who or what a bosun was, but the Old Man’s face did not encourage me to ask for information, so I just said, “Yes, sir,” and went on deck. (I soon learned that “Aye, aye, sir,” was the correct response to an order, it was only the landlubbers who said “yes.”)

Well, the first thing to do was to locate this bosun. The cook was standing at the door of his galley; he looked friendly, so I politely asked if he could kindly tell me which was the bosun among the several men who were working on the deck. The cook, always called “doctor” for some unknown reason, pointed out a big burly, rough-looking man with a black beard, wearing a peaked cap and a blue jersey.

“That’s him—Mr. Broddie,” he said.

The boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker had the official title of “mister”; and are not addressed as “sir”; informally they were bosun, chips, and sails, and were so addressed by everyone except the Old Man, who never condescended to be familiar with anyone.

I approached, rather timidly, this ferocious-looking person. “Can you please tell me where Mr. McTavish is, sir?” I said—I added the “sir” to be on the safe side.

He looked at me as if he wondered what I was, then, “Hiss gan doon belar,” he said, at least it sounded something like that. What on earth did that mean? I was soon to learn that he was a “Geordie,” a native of Lancashire, and it took some time before one could understand their curious lingo. However, he leaned over a yawning hatchway, and called out something to Mr. McTavish, who evidently understood the language, for he appeared out of the shadows of the ’tween deck; a tall raw-boned rather elderly-looking Scotsman.

“Oh, aye,” said he, looking up at me, “come ye doon, laddie, we can dae wi anither mon doon here.”

So I went on “doon” by the vertical iron ladder and was soon hard at work helping two other men stow away coils of rope, barrels, boxes, and many other things. As it was the first real hard work I had ever done I was relieved when eight bells struck noon, and Mr. McTavish said, “Belay,” which in nautical language meant stop whatever you happened to be doing. I had acquired a glorious appetite for dinner, and as I walked aft with Mr. McTavish, he said, “I’m thinkin’ it’s leetle ye ken aboot work, laddie, but I see ye’re willin’. We’ll soon make a mon o’ ye.” I liked this second mate and felt quite bucked up; I felt I was going to be of some use anyway.

Mr. McTavish was quite a character, a hard-shelled, gnarled old sea dog who had worked his way up from before the mast during a long life spent entirely on the sea. He was full of reminiscences which he delighted in relating to us boys. He had, according to his yarns, spent so many years in this service and so many more in that; had been whaling and sealing; gun running and I know not what else. After a bit we began to note down how many years he had been at this and that and by the end of the trip we figured he must be at least one hundred and fifty years old. However, that did not make his yarns any less entertaining. Add to this that he spent his watches below, when not asleep, reading the Bible; that he had a most amazing flow of profanity, much of it original, and I think he may be described as unusual. After cussing freely and at length about something or other, he had a curious habit of finishing his outburst by saying, “God damn my soul tae hell that I should say the like”; maybe this was by way of apology, but he was a likable old chap.

When I met my uncle at lunch he told me to be ready to go ashore with him and the Old Man in the afternoon; they had to go to the shipping office to pick up the rest of the crew and also I had to sign on.

The shipping office turned out to be a large and rather grimy-looking room, with a counter across one end, on which were writing material, some large official-looking books, and a rather greasy-looking Bible. Behind this counter were several men who looked like clerks, and to one side a door marked “Private” through which the captain and my uncle went, after being announced by one of the clerks.

I was told to wait outside, to my relief, so I sat down on the end of a long bench that ran round three sides of the room, on which were also seated a motley crowd of men obviously of several nationalities. They were looking for jobs on outward-bound ships, and they all had a subdued, almost dejected look, as if they felt out of their element here, and were longing to get their feet on the deck of a ship out in the free air of the sea. Perhaps what added to their discomfort was that they could not smoke in here. There had been a group of the same sort of men outside who looked comparatively cheerful with pipes stuck in their mouths, but I suppose the nearer you were to that desk in the office the more likely you were to land a job. Possibly the ones outside still had a few shillings in their pockets and so were not so anxious.

I was to learn much about these men in the years that followed. With few exceptions they lived in a world of their own; curiously apart from anything on land. I had expected that British ships would be manned by British sailors, but these were of many nationalities, drawn together by a common bond; the brotherhood of the sea, which seemed to mean more to them even than loyalty to their own country, of which they knew little beyond its seaports. Of its politics and things of that sort they knew nothing and cared less. But although they would continually grouse about their ship and its owners in much the same way as we do about our government, you could bank on their loyalty to the ship they were serving on, as long as they were on her.

In a few minutes my uncle and the captain came out, accompanied by a large red-faced old gentleman in uniform. I was led up to the counter where I signed a book; the clerk handed me the Bible, mumbled something at me, I held up my hand, kissed the Book, and forthwith became a member of the British Merchant Service.

The captain then looked around the benches; he had to select fifteen more men, and the crowd began to sit up and take notice; each man doing his best to look smart and efficient. The Old Man looked them over carefully, picking them out one by one with a look and a sign of his hand until finally the fifteen were lined up by the counter and the disappointed ones again assumed their air of dejection. The fifteen then went through the same formality that I had and were ordered by the captain to report on board first thing in the morning of the following day. Our ship’s company was now complete.

The next morning after they had all arrived on board the watches were picked; all hands being mustered aft. The first officer always had charge of the port watch, and the second officer of the starboard watch, and Mr. Black and Mr. McTavish each in turn selected a man from the crowd; like picking sides for a game, I thought.

From a drawing by the author

Eleanor Margaret on the Tyne

Jimmy, one of the ’prentices, and I with Mr. Taylor, fell to Mr. Black; the ’prentice, Bob, and Mr. Carlson, the third mate, to Mr. McTavish. Mr. Carlson was a dependable, good-natured Norwegian, a fine sailor as all Norwegians are.

The bosun did not have watch duty, his job being equivalent to that of a foreman on land, he was responsible for the work done during the daytime. The “tradesmen,” cook, carpenter, sailmaker, and steward also did not keep watch. The steward was a queer-looking fish; a cadaverous creature who always looked as if he had something on his mind. One day far out at sea one of our cats went hurtling out into the sea from the pantry porthole.

“That man’s goin’ to have something bad happen to him afore he ever gets home, you mark my words,” said the doctor, who was not fond of him. To sailors, cats were as sacred as they were to the ancient Egyptians. Sure enough, steward took to having epileptic fits and had to be left in a hospital in ’Frisco.

In addition to these cats—some half dozen of them—there was Mickey, who lived strictly aft with the officers and was very seldom seen forward with the common sailors; I fear Mickey our fox terrier was a bit of a snob.

That afternoon a final inspection of the ship was made by various officials; the blue peter was hoisted; the next day we would be headed for the open sea, and to my youthful imagination into those realms of adventure of which I had read so much in the pages of Captain Marryat and W. H. G. Kingston.

The pilot who was to take us out to the English Channel was on board, the anchor was up, and we were moving slowly and majestically down the Tyne in the charge of a tug; ensign flying, and our yards square and trim and sails ready to unfurl as soon as the tug let us go. As we progressed each ship that we passed dipped her flag, and such few steamers as there were gave a blast on their sirens, wishing us bon voyage and good luck; we dipped our ensign in return, acknowledging the salute. It has never lost its appeal to me, this courtesy of the sea.

Soon the breeze freshened with an exhilarating salty tang; the shores receded; we were out in the keen cold air of the grey North Sea, and there was a sudden activity as the men ran aloft to shake out the sails. The tug cast off our towline and came up alongside to take off my uncle, who pressed my hand very hard as he said good-by. And as the tug bore him, my last link with my old life, away out of sight, I felt very lonesome; this ship, alone in this vast expanse of water, seemed such a small place to be living in.

However, that feeling was soon quite obliterated by a much more pressing one; as the sails took wind and the ship gathered way she also acquired a most unpleasant motion. I was being introduced to seasickness. Those who are afflicted with this horrible malady and can, as some funny person put it, sick up everything but their immortal souls, are lucky; but the others, who like me, cannot attain this desired result, are out of luck. I was given much advice, such as drinking sea water; which only made me feel worse. One old sailorman advised a remedy which no doubt would have been effective, but I could not quite screw up courage to do it. “You go and ask the doctor to give you a lump of rancid pork fat, young feller,” said he. “Then you tie a bit of rope yarn to it, you swallers the pork and pulls it up again, and all the rest will follow.” I can quite believe it would!

I had retired to my bunk, too miserable to do anything or care what happened to me; I was apparently forgotten and I think it was about the end of the second day that Taylor dragged me out. “Look here, kid,” he said, “you come out on deck, you’ll never get right lying around in your bunk like a landlubber.” He forced me, very reluctantly, to tramp up and down the deck with him, and it was he who presented me with that efficient cigar. “Best thing out for mal-de-mer,” he said. It was. Next day having somewhat recovered, I was put on light duty and went down in the ’tween deck to help the sailmaker.

“Sails” was a thickset, powerful ex-navy man; he seemed to exude cheery good nature and I immediately felt quite at home with him. He was sitting crosslegged on a pile of sails, busily stitching the boltrope onto a new one. I squatted beside him in that delightfully comfortable place, and Sails was soon yarning away and instructing me in the art of sailmaking. Sails took a great interest in the ’prentices; we had boxing gloves and some singlesticks and he would instruct us in boxing and cutlass drill.

One day we had on the gloves, and he had been letting me try to hit him, without any success at all; I just found it impossible to get through his guard. Suddenly his left shot out and caught me, lifted me clean off my feet and landed me with a crash against a bulkhead about six feet behind me.

“Sorry, boy,” he said, as he picked me up. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard; I always try to pull my punches.”

“Say, Sails,” I said when I had recovered my breath, “what would happen if you didn’t pull your punches?”

“Well,” said Sails, reminiscently, “I remember only once hitting a man as hard as I could, and what happened to him I don’t know; I didn’t wait to see. It was in Valparaiso; me and a chum had been ashore and was makin’ our way in the dark back to the dock, when suddenly my chum yelled, ‘Look out!’ I jumped, and turned just in time to see a bunch of them lousy dagoes, and one of them just goin’ to hit me with a club. So I hit him first, square in the face, and you betcher life I didn’t pull that punch. I think I must have broke his neck. The other bastards beat it, and so did we. We kept our mouths shut until we was well out to sea; we wasn’t takin’ any chances on languishing in one of them South American jails.”

In relating my memories of this voyage, I am beginning to realize that I must confine myself to the things that stand out most vividly; to describe it in detail would fill a whole book. But I think it is a tale worth telling; before many years have passed the hardy seaman who manned these ships will be an extinct race and I would like to do my little bit in recording their lives and the ways of the service that they worked for, and which treated them so scurvily. So many of the poor beggars seemed to me like human derelicts, blown hither and thither about the world; their only home the ship on which they served for the time being. And what a home, although that was where they were apparently quite happy. Their quarters in the forecastles of these ships were, according to modern standards, indescribably comfortless. They slept in hard wooden bunks on a tick filled with straw, known as a “donkey’s breakfast”; this, and their blankets they had to supply themselves. And in this dim cavern of the fo’c’sle the only artificial light was supplied by a slush lamp, a tin contraption something like a squatty teapot, filled with fish oil with a wick protruding from the spout, and didn’t it stink!

Each man in turn carried the food from the galley in a tin tub from which the rest dipped their share. The food was good if rough; it was rationed according to board of trade regulations. Salt beef and salt pork—salt horse and sow belly in sea lingo—pea soup nearly every day—I have never liked pea soup since. I think what killed any liking I may have had for it was the unpleasant experience I had on my second voyage. The cook, like all his kind chewed tobacco. He used to expectorate expertly into an opening at the base of his range, but must have made a bad shot for I found a large well-chewed quid in my soup.

But I do not like to dwell on this, it gives me qualms even now—but back to the menu. There was an unlimited supply of hard tack, soft tack (fresh bread) twice a week, and a liberal allowance of sugar, butter, and marmalade, also raisins and evaporated vegetables, the raisins being incorporated in the sundry duff. And every morning there was “burgoo”—porridge, for breakfast. And of course, tea and coffee, although it would be hard to recognize the coffee as such. And once a week “lobscouse,” canned meat and vegetables made into a stew; sometimes this had a crust and was then known as “sea pie,” and jolly good it was. And there was “dry hash,” chopped up salt pork mashed up with biscuit and baked in the oven, another favorite dish.

So you see, the grub was good enough, it was the barbarous way in which it was served; but to men who were accustomed to nothing else, this was a mere trifle; I really believe most of them would have considered it sissified to eat in any other way.

On every ship there was a chantey singer who by common consent would be the soloist, the rest of the watch singing the chorus at the end of each verse. This soloist would often improvise verses about various members of the crew and especially the officers, which were usually far from complimentary and sometimes very funny. Nor would any officer from the captain down dare to object for it was one of the old traditions of the sea that the chanteyman could sing what he liked within reason, and the chantey was occasionally used to convey a gentle hint about a grievance to the authorities rather than to approach the Old Man sitting in state in his cabin, with a deputation, a proceeding which was the official one but heartily disliked by everyone. I suppose those old chanteys are a thing of the past now, but it is good to know that they have been collected, and the music and the more presentable words preserved; some of the verses would certainly need revising before any publisher would dare print them, even today, and that is saying something. Some of them must date back many centuries; they are part of the folklore of the sea. But they were heard at their best in their natural environment; the smell of the sea; the creak of the ropes in the tackles; the swell of the chorus synchronizing with each hefty pull on the halliards as a yard is hoisted or the quicker tempo of the tramp of feet along the deck as the yards are swung.

The ’prentices, the young gentlemen whose parents had paid anything from fifty to a hundred guineas for the privilege of serving four years without pay learning to be officers—they fared exactly the same.

On the deck was a pen containing two pigs, and a coop of chickens. These chickens occasionally laid fresh eggs which the Old Man always appropriated.

Ships varied; ours was generously supplied and it sounds all right, but there was no cold storage then; towards the end of a long voyage everything began to taste musty; you longed for fresh fruit and vegetables, and one’s thoughts ran to the lovely blowouts you would have when you got into port. We had a lot of potatoes in the hold, and I remember when we were about three months out, picking the sprouts off these; such was our craving for anything fresh that we ate these sprouts raw and to me they tasted delicious.

Once a week on British ships lime juice was served out as an antidote against scurvy, so these ships became known as “lime-juicers” a name that was sometimes also applied to the men who served on them, usually abbreviated to “limey.”

Once a week each man got a tot of rum, and in bad weather when it had been a case of all hands on deck in an emergency, the watch going below when the job was finished, might also get an extra tot; but never the men who had to stay on duty; they had good strong coffee and waited for their rum until they went below. A very wise arrangement; when exhausted, rum induces sleep; while coffee has the opposite effect.

What was the pay of these sailormen? At that time it was £2.10 a month—about $16.00. But their pay would have made little difference anyway; when paid off they just hung around the saloons and dens of the water front until it was gone, and were glad to get on a ship again.

Maybe one in a hundred had a wife, somewhere; earning a living taking in washings or in less respectable ways; perhaps one in a thousand had a real little home where he went between voyages. Here he would stay for a time, gradually growing restless as the lure of the sea beckoned him. These were the ones who became bosuns, or carpenters, sailmakers, or even officers. “Sails” was one of these, and liked to talk about his wife in a little village on the Cornwall coast, where he looked forward to keeping a little shop or pub some day. But mostly they knew no women but the harpies of the water front.

Mr. Black for some reason or other had christened me “Easy,” after “Midshipman Easy,” a character in one of Marryat’s books. And, “Easy,” said he one day, when my seasickness had subsided, “run aloft and give a hand to that man up in the main crosstrees.” I had not yet been aloft and I looked up at those crosstrees, which seemed a terrible height above the deck; but, “Aye, aye, sir,” I said—and hoped I would do it in a seaman-like manner, as Mr. Black was watching me, and how I did want to have his good opinion!

This first going aloft is sometimes an ordeal for greenhorns; however, I found it not difficult, except getting over the futtock shrouds at the top of the lower mast; where you have to lean out backwards; a very uncomfortable sensation ’till you get used to it. However, barring this little bit, the rest of the way was easy, just climbing a rope ladder. Above the crosstrees it was quite a different matter; there were no ratlines, and you had to shin up the mast and backstays. But after a few trials that also lost any terrors, and we boys soon became as agile in the rigging as monkeys. Well, perhaps not quite, we lacked that prehensile tail. But I often think now of myself hanging on, feeling quite at home, somewhere aloft a hundred and fifty feet above the deck on a swaying mast and wonder how I did it. Even in a storm with the masts and yards swaying violently, I preferred to be aloft; on deck you were everlastingly soused with green seas and spray, and up there you were comparatively dry. In fine weather I would sometimes in my watch below climb up to the crosstrees, and there perfectly secure between mast and the backstay, lulled by the gentle rhythm of the swaying mast, and the warm, soothing caress of the breeze, sit and dream. Far below, the deck of the ship was the only link with the world of men, and all around, the sea; the eternal sea, the one thing on earth that has remained unchanged since creation; beyond that the great circle of the horizon, the rim of the world. I would have a curious feeling that I was alone with nature or God or something; it seemed so pure and clean compared with the sordidness of the city, but perhaps rather lonesome. I think it was then that I got that sensation that somewhere beyond that far horizon lay a land that was free from the silly little conventions of civilization—the land of my dreams, that some day I should see.

“Crosstrees, ahoy! Hi Easy, don’t go to sleep up there!” a hail from the deck and I would return to earth again.

The little platform of the foretop was also a favorite spot with us boys; we could sit up there and yarn or read in perfect security, well out of the way of any officer who might find you a job if he saw you loafing about the deck. I have gone to sleep up there on a drowsy day in the tropics.

I did feel once horribly scared while aloft, for I had already absorbed some of the superstition of the sea.

“Easy,” said an old sailor one day, “I ’ad a ’orrible dream about you last night. I thought I seen you fall off the fore royal yard and ’it the deck. And boy,” he said, regarding me mournfully, “I don’t like it; them sort of dreams is a warning; likely somethin’ bad is goin’ to ’appen to you.”

Well, a few days after that, I was up on the fore royal yard, tightening a gasket. My hands were numb with cold; I didn’t feel any too secure, and it was with a sense of relief that I finished the job and prepared to come down. As I looked down, there looking up at me from the deck was that old prophet of evil of the dream. For a few moments I was scared, almost too scared to move; it required quite an effort of will to make my way down to the deck.

“Oh Boy!” said the old blighter, tears in his eyes, “I’m terrible glad to see you off that yard, for I sure thought your time ’ad come. But the spell is broke now!”—for which I felt devoutly thankful!

On another occasion, when we were reefing a topsail, my blood suddenly froze as my feet slipped off the footrope and I would have dropped into the seas fifty feet below, if the next man had not grabbed my arm. “Yumpin Yesus, poy, ole man Neptune tam near get you dat time,” said “Yon,” my rescuer. He was a big Norwegian, Jon Svensen, and like all Norwegians, a most likable man.

In fact, I soon got to like all these simple, honest sailormen with the one exception of the Old Man. He was a painfully pious and pompous old gent, with never a smile on his face, and no sense of humor. His dealings with other men were probably quite just, but from a sense of self-righteous duty and not from any human sympathy. He simply ignored me, the boys, and the men, and he never unbent to chat or joke with the officers like an ordinary human being, I just didn’t like him.

One of the first jobs I had to learn was steering, for all members of the crew except the “tradesmen” had to take their trick at the wheel. This was a job I usually liked. At times it was a bit monotonous, but at its best one of the most thrilling things one can experience. In a fresh wind, with all sails set, the ship heeling over until the lee rail almost dips and the white, hissing smother of foam tears along the side as the good ship, like a thing alive, exultant, rushes along irresistibly through the night; it is then that, standing at the wheel, controlling with your hands the great onrushing ship with its towering spread of canvas, you feel an almost godlike sense of power.

It was on such a night that Mr. Black paused on his tramp up and down the weather side of the poop to glance at the compass.

“Who’d be ashore on a night like this?” he said, sniffing in the breeze with a sort of ardent satisfaction as if he revelled in it.

“Blowing up, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes, it’s freshening, boy; I think we’re in for a blow.” Then more to himself than to me, “But, man, it’s great!”

Then he quoted some lines of an old poem about a sailorman talking to his chum in a storm:

“While you and I, Bill, out at sea

Safe in our bunks are lying,

Just think what tiles and chimney pots

Round their poor heads are flying!”

“You know, Easy, that’s supposed to be poking fun at the old sailorman, but believe me, there’s a lot of truth in it. And although seafaring is classed as one of the most dangerous callings, that grand old hymn, ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea,’ would have no point at all for them.”

Mr. Black was a born sailor; he loved his ship and took a keen delight in getting the best out of her. “By gum, the old girl is kicking up her heels, isn’t she?” And he glanced critically up at the royals. “May have to shorten before long.” Now, he was one of those true sportsmen of the sea who loved to “crack on,” to let her carry all the canvas she would stand, and not to reduce sail until the last possible moment; relying confidently in his skill and judgment. And it does entail judgment; for if the limit of safety is passed, a sail may be blown clean out of the boltropes, or worse still, a yard or mast carried away; and then there is hell to pay.

By and by, as the ship heeled over more, walking briskly to the forward poop rail he roared out the order, “Stand by the royal halliards!” and the watch came running to their stations; one man at each of the falls, ready to let go and lower the yard, the others on the alert to jump aloft and furl the sail when the order was given to lower away. The Old Man, on the other hand, erred on the side of extreme caution; he had no sporting instincts and believed in playing safe; he preferred sleeping comfortably to making time.

One night when Mr. Black was cracking on a bit, the Old Man came up on deck, a very unusual thing with him. He wandered up and down a few minutes, evidently wanting to get something off his chest. At last, he said, “Don’t you think, Mr. Black, we had better take in the royals?”

Now interfering with the officer in charge of the deck was one of the things that “wasn’t done”; but as I have implied already the Old Man was no gentleman. Mr. Black did not argue the point; whatever his thoughts may have been, he just said, “Yes, sir, I was just thinking that myself.”

A few nights later, another glorious night when we were tearing along with all sail set; “Just slip down to the saloon, Easy, and let me know if you hear the Old Man stirring.” If he was still snoring it was O.K. and we could still crack on. At other times it was far from pleasant; there was no wheelhouse, so that in bad weather the steersman was exposed to all the rain, wind, sleet, green seas or anything else that Father Neptune felt like chucking at him. But the extreme cold was the worst, when the spray froze on your oilskins making you feel as if you were encased in tin, and your hands almost frozen to the wheel. For while the rest of the watch could get some shelter, or keep their blood in circulation by moving about; the man at the wheel had to stay put. The trick at the wheel was for two hours, but in extremely bad weather the time might be cut to one; more as a measure of safety than for the comfort of the man; if the poor beggar should collapse, sudden disaster might follow. It sometimes became necessary to have two men at the wheel because it would be impossible for one man to hold her.

One of my most pleasant recollections is of certain early morning watches in the tropics from four to eight. Even though, later in the day the heat may be almost overpowering, at four o’clock there will be a little cool breeze, the prelude to the rising sun—and the wonder, the stupendous glory of those tropical sunrises! A first faint tinge of saffron pink in the sky; little facets of pink begin to sparkle on the greenish grey of the sea; then sudden, spectacular streamers of crimson and gold leap from the horizon, spreading up and up, until the whole sky from sea to zenith is ablaze with color—all the hues of the spectrum. I used to feel that some of these colors could not be of this earth. The sea, in broken reflections repeat this marvel. Then a very crescendo of magnificence, as the sun slowly, majestically, rises from the ocean, and the sea becomes a pathway of molten gold. On deck there is a hushed stillness; every man, however rough his nature, is, for a time, lifted out of himself; exalted, he unconsciously feels it would be desecration to speak.

Perhaps I should have explained before that the time while at sea was divided into watches of four hours each with two short watches of two hours each, from four to six and from six to eight in the afternoon—the dogwatches—so that each watch would on alternate nights have different times. For instance, the port watch on one night would have the “graveyard watch,” from midnight to 4:00 A.M.; this was the most unpopular one; the next night the starboard watch would have it. I hope I have made this plain, but as the word “watch” is used for both the period of time and for the man who takes this period, it may be a bit confusing.

At first I found it very hard to get used to his arrangement; it did not seem reasonable to have to turn out of your comfortable bunk at midnight or four in the morning. But it soon becomes so much a matter of habit that when I got ashore again I would wake up every four hours, and find it hard to go to sleep again.

When in port there was just the “anchor watch,” one man on deck at night from six to twelve, another from twelve to six.

After being out in the fresh morning air since four o’clock and satisfying your soul with the drama of the sunrise, one had a real zest for the mug of steaming coffee that we got at the galley door at six. Then a few whiffs of baccy, and it was time for washing down the decks, which was done every morning unless the elements had already done it during the night. Under the break of the fo’c’sle-head there was a two-man pump. The water was carried from this pump and dashed into every hole and corner of the decks; while some of us scrubbed vigorously with brooms. This job finished, those who felt like it stripped off and had their morning bath. Great stuff! having buckets of tingling sea water dashed over you in the morning sun, then running around the deck to dry off! It would be then nearly eight bells, and by that time you would have a glorious appetite for breakfast.

Every Saturday the forecastle was also scrubbed out in the same way; the men piling their belongings in their bunks, for although the fo’c’sle was a gloomy-looking place, it was kept spotlessly clean, for sailors were almost fastidious in this regard; they considered houses on shore as rather dirty places; if a deck or floor was not clean enough to eat your dinner from—well, it just wasn’t clean!

At times a touch of sport was added to deck washing when our two pigs were turned loose, and after having a few buckets of water heaved over them, were also scrubbed down. They seemed to enjoy this; the sport came when all hands chased them round the deck, trying to get them in their pen again. Alas, poor piggies, their fate was that of all pigs, and the day came, long looked forward to on our part, when they were to be converted into fresh pork. But when that fatal day arrived, a difficulty arose, it appeared that no one on board knew anything about killing pigs! Finally the captain took charge; Chips was ordered to get a seven-pound sledge, with which he was to fell the pig; the cook was then to step in and finish the job with his longest butcher knife.

So pig number one was let out and finally rounded up against the main hatch. Chips, looking rather nervous, cautiously approached, swung his sledge and with a mighty swipe brought it down—on the deck! The pig had dodged from under. That awful dent in his beautiful deck upset the Old Man’s dignity; “Hit the pig, you fool!” he roared at the unhappy Chips; and Chips, feeling considerably annoyed himself, got after his quarry with blood in his eye, the doctor following close after. The pig, evidently suspicious of our intentions by this time, put on quite a fine exhibition of sprinting and dodging while the Old Man shouted directions from the hatch; but alas for poor piggy he was out of training, and paused to get his breath; the carpenter once more swung that deadly sledge; this time he had his eye in and hit the mark; and the cook walked in and did his dirty work before the unfortunate pig came to. Not a tidy pig killing at all. We took the precaution to tie the legs of the next pig before we murdered him.

Well, after all this yarning, let us get back to the English Channel, where I think we were when I started it.

After dropping the pilot off at Dover we tacked down channel against a head wind, and so out past Land’s End and across the Bay of Biscay, which lived up to its bad reputation, being most unpleasantly rough; we passed one squarerigger who to my unaccustomed eyes was rolling in a most alarming way—“yardarms under” as the mate put it. However, this was a good introduction for me; by the time we were out in the open Atlantic I had got my sea legs, and had begun to enjoy life. It was “in the Bay of Biscay O” that the steward one day was carrying aft from the galley a large tureen containing the officer’s soup, when in an unexpected lurch of the ship his feet shot out from under him on the wet slippery deck, while the tureen turned a somersault in the air and emptied its contents in his face. We lost our soup; but I at least thought that the sight of that spluttering steward, trying to claw the soup out of his hair, was more than compensation.

The North Atlantic was never alluded to by that name by seamen; it was the “Western Ocean”; and it was there that I experienced the sort of rolling and plunging that I had never imagined possible; it means acute discomfort to everyone on board added to extreme danger; most men prefer danger to discomfort, when you have both, you feel the gods are not giving you a square deal. “Rolling her guts out,” “rolling the sticks out of her”—those were the comparatives and superlatives of “yardarms under.” Doubtless many of you have experienced rolling in a steamship or a small sailing yacht; in a great sailing ship it is a much more serious matter; the tall masts with their enormous weight of yards, violently and incessantly hurtling back and forth in a great arc, entail an enormous strain on the hull of the ship, as well as on the standing rigging that holds them in place; should this part with the strain, the whole mast must go. There is a tense, apprehensive strain on the minds of those in charge of the ship, but they can do nothing about it; they are in the hands of fate; just carry on and let fate do its worst.

I suppose it is this sort of thing that makes sailors fatalists. One day at dinner Mr. Black and the captain and Mr. McTavish were arguing about fate—although the Old Man was hardly arguing, he just snorted, “You are in the hands of God!”; and that was that. Of course, I did not have the cheek to express my opinion, but I failed to see any difference, nor have I been able to since.

Sometimes in this dreadful rolling, when she had keeled over to what seemed the limit, there would be a horrible pause; a momentary feeling of terror. Would she recover? That was the question in the minds of every man on board. And one has a curious feeling of pity for the ship; poor old girl, you think; is this going to be your end? And a little sense of remorse; you have been cursing her, as if she were to blame for all this discomfort—you would like her to know you didn’t really mean it, before you die together. A ship sometimes does roll completely over; and that is the end. She will be posted as “missing,” and thereafter will be heard of no more; she and her men will have joined that great throng of ships and corpses that litter the bed of the ocean; unsung heroes of the merchant service.

However, our ship did recover after each of these fearsome rolls, and on the reeling deck we continued to wallow in the green seas that rushed back and forth in torrents with each roll of the ship; now and then an extra big one leaping in the air and crashing down with a force that would knock down any man caught under it.

One day half a dozen men were hauling on one of the braces when a huge sea thundered down on them, two of them hung on to the rope; the others were torn loose and thrown violently along the deck; one of them struck a hatch and dislocated his shoulder; another smashed his head against the capstan, and as the water for a moment left him uncovered I saw him rolling about the deck, a ghastly sight, his head looking like a chunk of raw, bloody meat.

It was in Mr. Black’s watch and I was with him on the poop; Taylor had been attending to tightening the braces on the main deck and was doing his best to straighten out this muddle.

“Get along forward and turn out all hands,” roared the mate, as he saw the two casualties. I shot off the poop and in a few seconds, half wallowing and half diving through the rushing water, I yelled, “All hands on deck!” at the fo’c’sle door; the men came tumbling out, and the two injured ones were hauled into the fo’c’sle. And you must picture all this happening while the deck pitched from side to side at angles so steep that it was impossible to keep on your feet unless you hung on to something, when you saw one of these big green seas coming over, you hung on like grim death while it passed over and left you half-drowned and gasping.

Mr. Black had in the meantime sent another ’prentice to report to the captain, who like all master mariners had a rough and ready knowledge of doctoring; the Old Man reluctantly got into his oilskins and made his way to the forecastle. We had already washed the bloody head of the one man, and I was awfully relieved to find that it was just a bad scalp wound. One thing I have noticed about cuts and wounds of any sort at sea; there never was any infection; probably the sea water is antiseptic, and in any case the pure air would be discouraging to microbes.

And the man with the dislocated shoulder? Under the direction of the captain, two men held him in a tight grip, while two others pulled on his arm; it jerked back in the socket again with a click and judging from the way he hollered, I should say it must have hurt.

These were two of those minor accidents that may happen any day in rough weather. I am glad I never saw a man washed overboard, although I once had a narrow squeak myself, when a large sea caught me from behind as I was standing on the hatch; there was nothing within reach to grab and I was lifted off my feet and landed fair on my stomach across the lee rail; another few inches and I should have been a goner, instead of bouncing back on deck as I did, half-drowned and with all the wind knocked out of me.

After a few experiences like this, one gets a great respect for the power of water. Our lifeboats were kept on skids about seven feet above the deck; one day a big green sea struck the side of the ship, vaulted high in the air and fell with a thunderous crash on one of these boats, smashing it to kindling; so you can imagine that if a sea like that gets you, you are out of luck. As a precaution we had “life lines” rigged along the deck; ropes extending from one end of the ship to the other, for at times it would have been not only dangerous, but impossible to get along without this assistance. Going aloft to shorten sail in this sort of weather was almost preferable to being half-drowned on deck; up on a yard, with a dozen men struggling to get a billowing sail under control, there was something even exhilarating about it; the excitement of action, that makes one forget the danger and discomfort. Down below there is discomfort almost as bad. (Perhaps I should explain that “below” means anywhere beneath the deck—such as the saloons, cabins or forecastle; on deck means just that and aloft anywhere up in the rigging.) When you do go below, the only decently possible place is in your bunk. You will probably be wet when you turn in, for after a few such days of such weather as I have described, every rag of clothing you have will be at least damp, in spite of oilskins, and your skin so saturated with moisture that a towel has little effect. But you can acquire a special technique, so that when once in your bunk, you stay put. You jam your hindquarters against one side, and your knees against the other, and thank God that your bunk is narrow. As soon as your head hits the pillow you are sound asleep, possibly to be jolted up again by that unpleasant, disturbing shout of “All hands on deck!”

If you have a reasonable expectation of staying in your bunk to the end of your watch below, you may peel off all your clothes before you turn in. Getting out of a warm bunk into wet clothes is, literally, not so hot; but in a few minutes that first chilly shock has passed. I think the extreme saltiness of deep sea water must have a heat-inducing quality. The air down below naturally gets pretty foul; for everything has to be closed up tight, and the smell of stale food and wet clothes does not improve it, nor the stink of the swinging kerosene lamps. The meals are apt to be pretty sketchy; for the poor old cook is carrying on under almost impossible conditions. But we all had a sense of humor and took most of these things as a joke, or did our best to, except the Old Man, who just glared at us with disapproval, as if he thought we were mocking God by displaying such levity, when within the next hour we might be called to our judgment.

Of course the fiddles were on the messtable; a sort of fence; about two and a half inches high divided into compartments, which fits on top of the table to prevent the dishes sliding off, at that, sometimes things break loose. You acquire a habit of keeping your hands on the table all the time, ready to grab your plate or cup or whatever starts sliding; if you see anyone doing this, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s an old sailor.

I remember one awful lurch when we were in the middle of dinner; we were nearly heaved out of our seats, and in spite of the fiddle the whole contents of the table shot off in a sort of avalanche; crockery, grub, and everything; and another crash as things tore loose in the pantry, accompanied by the curses of the steward as he lost his feet and hurtled through the door into the general melee of the saloon. And what a mess as we staggered to our feet! Mr. McTavish cursed fluently, in Gaelic I think, as he tried to shake the stew out of his waistcoat; my share had been a pot of tea and all the boiled potatoes; we were sitting on the lower side and so received the whole force of the volley. I think this sort of thing was harder on Mickey than anyone else on board, he used to look at us with miserable, scared eyes, imploring us to do something to make it stop. The cats just disappeared; probably as is the philosophic nature of cats, they have hidey-holes where they just curled up and went to sleep until it was over. But I take off my hat to the cook; he was a real hero; and I am not joking, either. Just picture him, in his deckhouse galley, with his range tilting this way and that at impossible angles; every pot and pan trying to break loose; and still managing to cook for thirty-odd men. How he did it I can’t imagine, but he did manage to dish up three meals a day that were at least eatable. I don’t think he could have ever slept, for he kept his galley fire going all night so that he could hand out hot coffee; his only thought seemed to be for the rest of us. And remember that all the time his galley was being battered by the seas; at any moment an extra big one might smash it in, or even carry it clean away, him with it. Such things have happened; as I said before, he was a hero.

After being bedeviled by this sort of weather ever since we left the English Channel, it was like heaven to at last get down to warmer latitudes in the vicinity of Azores; “The Western Islands” to sailormen.

“The Western Ocean” and “The Western Islands”—I think these names must date back to the days when those early navigators first sailed westward into the unknown; I wonder if these names are still in use.

From a drawing by the author

Tristan da Cunha. Lonely island in the South Atlantic

This was the latitude where we should have picked up the northeast trade winds; but we seemed to be dogged by delays; what we did get of the trade winds were light and uncertain. But with warm days, dry decks, ports and doors open and no need for oilskins, we began to enjoy life; up to now we had had all the exercise we needed, and more, but now in the dogwatches, we would have boxing and wrestling bouts, even leapfrog and such childish games—some of the sailors even danced!

While in South Shields I had bought a briar; right under the nose of Uncle Willie too—he had just smiled comprehendingly, doubtless thinking of his first pipe. Up till now the very thought of smoking in that upsetting, everlasting motion of the ship had been rather repellent; but now Jimmy, Bob, and I produced our nice new pipes; and I have smoked ever since. Anyone connected with the sea would have regarded cigarettes with the utmost contempt; the pipe, beloved of the sailormen was a short black clay, which, tucked in his pants pocket, was always ready for “three draws and a spit.”

After a pleasant interlude of fine weather we ran into the “doldrums,” an area of calm over the equator; where it is always hot and muggy, a steamy heat that makes you listless and depressed. And there we stuck for about two weeks.

In a sailing ship you felt so helpless, as indeed you were; after a week of sweltering inaction you get the feeling of hopelessness. “Are we doomed to be stuck in this damned place forever?” you think. At night the heavy atmosphere makes you overpoweringly drowsy; we placed two men on the look out instead of one. On the poop the only way I could stay awake was to keep tramping up and down; even then I would fall asleep while I was still walking. I was relieved to see Mr. Black was affected the same way. “For God’s sake, Easy, keep your eye on me,” he said, “it’s your job to keep me awake.” I think having that responsibility was the only thing that kept me going.

For the first few days the sea was a flat, burnished plate that reflected and intensified the glaring heat of the sun; floating on its surface, ragged masses of seaweed and bits of wreckage, maybe drifted from that place of evil repute, the Saragossa Sea. On some of this wreckage sat dismal birds; they too seemed to be affected by the general atmosphere of depression; they looked too listless to fly. Then, as if things were not unpleasant enough already, came a long oily swell; in this dead air the ship had no steerage way and rolled helplessly; it was almost more exasperating than what I had experienced in stormy weather, for then there was something to struggle with; the ship was alive; now she was dead as a floating log. The sails hung limp from the yards, and at each roll slapped against the masts with a resounding clash; the rigging strained and creaked and groaned, a sort of complaining chorus. Steering or rather holding the wheel, for a ship will not steer under these conditions, is no job for a weakling; each swell exerts a tremendous pressure against the rudder first on one side and then on the other, causing the wheel to kick with such a violence that one day the steersman was thrown clean over it. From then on as long as that swell lasted, we put two men on.

We only had about two days of this and quite enough too; then came light winds that carried us to the equator; after living in a sort of vacuum we felt that we could breathe again. Then came the ceremony of crossing the line, a pleasant break in the deadly monotony of the doldrums—at least for the old hands—Jimmy and Bob and I had looked forward to it with somewhat mixed feelings. It turned out to be much the same sort of thing as a college initiation, only rather more so. On a cleared space on the forward deck, an improvised canvas tank had been erected and filled with sea water. This came to the edge of the fore hatch on which, about eight feet back, were two upturned barrels—the thrones of Neptune and his wife. The whole ship’s company with the exception of those on necessary duty, mustered around to see the fun, and soon the royal procession emerged from the fo’c’sle, their rising from the sea being left to our imagination. First came Father Neptune with a large rope yarn beard and a crown, bearing a trident, and draped in a cloak that was supposed to represent seaweed. By his side walked Mrs. Neptune, a truly alarming female with long draggly tresses made of oakum, a very red nose, and wearing a dress made of some odd bits of canvas, on which the ship’s artist had painted sundry bows and ribbons. In her hand she carried an enormous rolling pin by way of sceptre. They were followed by their entourage; the barber with a bucket of nasty-looking slush in which stood a whitewash brush, and a large weapon supposed to be the razor; and two special police.

Neptune and his lady took their seats with dignity; the barber and policemen ranged on either side, and the proceedings were about to begin—but Mrs. Neptune was not quite settled down yet—she rose, and pulling up her skirts to scratch her leg, displayed a much befrilled pair of female drawers, to the uproarious delight of the audience.

“Order in court, you lousy swabs,” yelled a policeman; and order being restored, Father Neptune began to say his piece.

“I ’as been informed,” said he, “as ’ow three lousy landlubbers ’as ’ad the bloody gall to henter my domain without ’avin’ my permission. Lead them forrard to ’ave due sentence pernounced on their miserable ’eds.”

One of the policemen gave Neptune a prod in the side: “Wait a bit, Bill,” he said, “you ’ave to try ’em first.”

“Oh, yes,” assented Neptune, “I forgot. Stand forth, you,” he roared, reaching out and giving me a jab with his trident. “Wot’s ’is other crimes, besides trespassin’ on my royal domain?”

“Well, your majesty,” spoke up one of the policemen, “look at ’is dirty face; ’e ’asn’t shaved for a week, and likewise and moreover, your honor, the prisoner ’as a bad record; ’e’s the howner’s nevvy.”

“What!” shouted Mrs. Neptune, rising and shaking her rolling pin in my face; “an owner’s nevvy? Pick up the nasty little beast and heave him over to the sharks!”

“Shut yer trap and sit down, Jane,” said Neptune, giving her a clump on the head. “’E can’t ’elp bein’ the howner’s nevvy can ’e?”

I was quite undisturbed by all this, but I didn’t like the looks of that barber; when he had his orders to shave me I knew what to expect. I shut my eyes and mouth tight and kept them shut as the evil-smelling lather was slapped plentifully over my face and scraped off again with that ferocious-looking razor; I was glad when I was pitched over backwards into the tank, where, after being shoved around for a bit with brooms held by anyone who felt like having a poke at me, I was allowed to climb out and watch the other initiations. I was now a fully-accredited subject of King Neptune.

For a few more days we drifted about the equator; at one time even drifting back again; so I might say that I have crossed it three times.

The officers would stroll aimlessly about the poop, vainly whistling for the wind that seemed so coy—for sailors really did this, though I doubt if they had any faith in its efficacy.

Then one day I sensed something different in the air, a feeling of freshness almost imperceptible, but still definitely there. It was my watch on deck, and I had gone up on the poop to strike four bells—two o’clock in the afternoon. Mr. Black and the captain were standing at the rail looking at the horizon, above which appeared a few little white clouds. The mate wet his forefinger in his mouth, held it up and turned to the Old Man.

“It’s coming, sir!” he said, suddenly alert, and even the Old Man looked cheerful. Rapidly, more little clouds came up; there was a ripple on the water, a freshening breeze. We had caught the southeast trade wind. The mate walked to the front of the poop, shouted the order, “Man the braces!” and the men ran to their stations. The yards were braced to the angle that would take the fullest advantage of the wind; the sails filled out and with a heartening ripple along the side we began to move. The captain was in the chartroom verifying our position on the chart, and as he came out, “What course, sir?” asked the mate.

“Make it south by west.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” and Mr. Black walked to the man at the wheel. “Keep her at south by west, Frenchy.”

“South by west it is, sir,” repeated Frenchy, turning the wheel until her nose pointed in that direction; and we were off, the ship seeming to exult in the motion; like us, she was at last liberated from the doldrums. We were headed straight for Tristan da Cunha, that lonely island in the South Atlantic which on sighting, ships can check their position and discover whether their calculations have been correct. Then followed a period of pure delight, one of those pleasant interludes in life that are never forgotten. Each morning the sun rose from beyond the rim of the world as clear as a bell; all day and every day those little clouds sailed across the bright blue sky, and in perfect harmony the sea was a glorious turquoise blue, the pure white touches of foam on each following wave repeating the motif of the little white clouds in the sky.

At night these little clouds went to bed; at least they left the sky, for it was clear, spangled with stars that were brighter and nearer than those seen in northern latitudes; as least it seemed to me; on moonlight nights it was light enough on deck to read or play cards.

We were now “down under”; each night the Southern Cross rose higher in the sky as we moved steadily southwards. Head winds and dead calms were forgotten, and an atmosphere of cheerfulness pervaded the whole ship. Day and night there was an even temperature of about seventy degrees; we all slept on deck and the watch on duty were also allowed to, excepting of course the man at the wheel and the lookout; some compensation for the many nights in bad weather when it had been “All hands on deck!” and we had suffered from loss of sleep. Each day there was the regular routine of washing down the decks, tightening up the braces, and so on; the rest of the time was spent on pleasant jobs—overhauling gear, doing bits of repair work aloft or on deck.

I would be told to give some man a hand at one of these jobs, and while learning the mysteries of the long splice, the short splice, and other things that have been so useful to me since, the old sailor would spin yarns about his amazing adventures, imaginary or true—and I thought of the old song; “I told her many a story true, mark well what I do say; And didn’t I tell her whoppers too, of the gold dust found in Timbuctu,” and so on.

The decks could be kept scrupulously clean; every rope coiled up neatly, brasswork polished, everything shipshape, the way a well-kept ship should be, fit for the inspection of an admiral. In the daytime men not on duty would occupy themselves repairing clothes, even making them; painting wonderful pictures of ships on the lids of their sea chests, or making model ships. Alas! these models too often found their way to some water front pub where one often saw them; presumably traded for booze.

In the evening the men would gather on one of the hatches, and quite often a concert would materialize. We had a little Austrian who was a real musician; he had a sort of accordian from which he drew music that made you think of a church organ. Jimmy had a banjo, and some of the men had really fine voices. The officers would gather on the poop and listen, no doubt wishing they could join in, but convention forbade that.

Sailor’s tastes ran to lovesick ditties; little golden-haired girls about to die; “The ship that never came home”; anything sad, in fact. Comic songs and hymns seemed to be barred, and as for those rollicking sea songs written by landlubbers, they had nothing but contempt for them; for although their own chanteys are redolent of the sea, they all have haunting, almost mournful music.

The words of the landlubber’s songs, even if they could have swallowed the music, were too much for them. “Then here’s to the sailor, here’s to the life so free!” and “A pleasant gale is on the lee!”—all these fool sea songs. “The sailor’s wife the sailor’s joy shall be” and so on; those are the only lines I remember; but Jimmy sang it once on being asked if he could sing as well as play.

“Bah!” exploded old Hank, who had been glaring at Jimmy with gathering disapproval: “the —— of a —— who wrote that orter ’ave a year on a windjammer; that ud larn ’im something! ‘A pleasant gale is on our lee,’ hell!” he snorted, “But if he had said, ‘The sailor’s wife the sailor’s ’ore shall be,’ then ’e would a bin saying something.” I am afraid old Hank was a cynic.

Every few days we would sight some ship outward or homeward bound, for we were now on the regular route of sailing vessels bound to or from the Horn; but never the sight of a steamer’s smoke; we were far from their restricted haunts.

When two ships sighted each other they would approach within signalling distance; the flag locker in the chartroom was opened; the Marryat Code-book got out and we would speak with each other; I always enjoyed assisting at this. First each ship ran up her ensign showing her nationality; then signalled what latitude and longitude she made it, so that each captain could check his position; where she was from and whither bound and of course her name, and any bits of information that might be useful or interesting.

One question that was always asked on that voyage was, “Anything about war with Russia?” For when we left England the Russian bear was suspected of trying to butt into northern India and the two governments were having words about it.

Remember, if you can possibly realize it, that these passing ships were the only contact we had with anything outside; with the shore we had none at all. A homeward-bound ship would, on reaching port, maybe in a few weeks time, report you, and you would be posted at Lloyds, “Four-masted barque Eleanor Margaret, last sighted on such and such a date in latitude and longitude so and so”; and that might be the last heard of a ship for months, which actually happened in our case, for we were later posted as “overdue.” After a certain lapse of time a ship was posted as “missing,” and usually thereafter was heard of no more. Every day such events as a passing ship, what she reports, and anything of interest on our own ship was entered in the log, with the day’s position at noon.

There is a yarn which is a hoary chestnut at sea, but which you may not have heard. The mate of a certain ship had his own store of rum, and occasionally took one too much; the captain at last got peeved about this and entered in the logbook “Mr. so and so, the first officer, was drunk today.” Next day it was the mate’s turn to write up the log. (The captain and the chief officer do it alternately) and naturally he didn’t like it; there was nothing he could do about it for the logbook is a legal document; nothing may be altered or deleted. But a happy thought struck him—he would at least get even with the Old Man. He wrote, “Captain so and so was sober today!”

We only had one case of drunkenness on board, at least while out at sea. One day when I was on the poop a man came up to relieve at the wheel, but he was not the right man.

From a drawing by the author

Cape Horn

“What’s the matter with Dutchy?” asked Mr. Black.

“Oh, he ain’t feelin’ well, sir,” said the relief, “so I’m taking his spell.”

“You’d better run forrard and see what’s the matter with him, Easy,” said the mate. And there in his bunk I found Dutchy, happily and entirely soused. I would have protected old Dutchy if it had been possible, but it couldn’t be done. I had to report his condition to Mr. Black; Dutchy had to appear before the captain when he sobered up; a sort of naval court proceeding which rarely happens, but makes everyone on board feel uncomfortable when it does.

It was rather a mystery how he had got that way, for a thorough search had failed to disclose any secret cache of liquor; but eventually Dutchy confessed. He had simply carried his weekly whack of rum back to his bunk, where he had an empty bottle and a tin funnel hidden under the pillow; his ration was poured into the bottle until it contained enough for him to “feel the good of it,” as he explained. “One leetle tot, dat don’t do me no goot.” But this last time he had, to his undoing, waited until the bottle held too much for his capacity—just an error of judgment. To everybody’s relief the Old Man was lenient; the sentence was that when the rum rations were passed out old Dutchy had to drink his in the presence of the presiding officer.

Sometimes we would “go fishin’” for bonita; a large school of these deep-sea fish escorted us, swimming around the bow. Sitting on the bowsprit and trailing a spinning bait just under the water one soon had a bite. The bonita is a fish about three feet long, rather like a mackerel, and when you land one on the deck and catch him by the tail you discover that his muscular power is almost incredible, the violent volcanic convulsions almost wrench your arm out, and you quickly drop him until you can lay him out with a marlinspike. We thought a mess of fresh fish might be pleasant change in our menu one day so we induced the doctor to dish up some bonita steaks. He did his best, but baked bonita did not come up to our expectations; once was quite enough, but they certainly gave us good sport.

We were more successful with flying fish, in fact, fried flying fish is quite good, but they were hard to come by. Large flights of them would shoot from the crest of a wave, plane for a distance of maybe sixty or seventy feet and drop into the water again. They do not really fly, just use their long side fins like wings of a glider; they look very beautiful in flight, like a shower of silver arrows. Occasionally a few would land on the deck and so in the frying pan.

Also there were sharks—there must have been quite a number of them around the ship; looking over the side you could see their great bodies lurking deep down in the water, like dim blue ghosts. We caught several of them; they are good sport all right! A large shark hook baited with pork, attached to a length of chain, and a coil of three-quarter inch rope; that was your tackle; and the fishing was done from the stern. When you had one on the hook, the line would be led around to the rail of the main deck—you couldn’t have a struggling shark messing up the poop—several men would haul him hand over hand on board, where he would be disposed of with an axe. Most of them were small, running from five to seven feet, but we hooked one ten-foot monster. To get him on board we had to swing out one of the davits and hoist him with the tackle. When he did drop on the deck he just took charge and cleared everyone else out, nobody was anxious to be anywhere within reach of that lashing, leaping devil of the sea, with his wicked-looking jaws and his tail swinging like a sledge hammer. “Get a noose around his tail,” shouted the Old Man, as if we were a lot of boobs and he was annoyed at our stupidity—I couldn’t see him trying it. At last the brave Sails jumped in at the risk of having his legs bitten or knocked from under him, and did get a noose around that wildly slashing tail; we hauled this rope and his head rope tight and Chips slew him with an axe. The bloodthirsty Mickey who had been yapping around in a fury of excitement—we had been expecting every minute he would get too close to those horrible jaws—rushed in and reveled in gore until we hauled him off; I guess Mickey thought he had killed that shark.

Sometimes we caught a few of the numerous birds that followed the ship. You tied a piece of meat to the end of a long string; the bird would spot it bobbing about in the water, dive down and gobble it. You waited until he had swallowed it down, and if you were smart you could land him on deck before he disgorged it. Some of these birds were quite large—somewhat like a goose. It was a great sport for Mickey; he and the bird would get extremely angry with each other, but never came to close quarters; one snap with that wicked curved beak and it would have been too bad for Mickey, so he took it out in ferocious barking. A peculiarity of this particular bird was that immediately it stood up on the deck it brought its dinner up; a fish dinner. Its attempts at walking were quite ludicrous and it seemed unable to rise and fly, when he and Mickey had had enough we had to shoo him over the side with brooms.

One day a booby lit on the main royal yardarm. “D’ ye see yon birdie, laddie?” said Mr. McTavish, who was standing at my side, “Rin up aloft an’ see if ye can push him off!” So I “rinned” up aloft, but Mr. Booby, a big untidy bird, very stupid-looking, was not being pushed off; he just squawked at me. If he was not scared of me, I was of him; he might have had a peck at my face, so I just left him to it.

In these pleasant ways, ever moving southward, the time passed on, but these halcyon days could not last forever and one day it clouded up; there was a spatter of rain. It was also an eventful day. The Old Man and the mate were on the poop sweeping a certain section of the horizon with their binoculars, as if searching for something. Of course, I looked in the same direction, but could see nothing but grey drifting cloud. And suddenly, high up in the mist appeared a mountain peak; a most unexpected sight for me; it was Tristan da Cunha, but no one had told me we were so close to it. The Old Man put down his glasses with a sigh of satisfaction; we had made a perfect landfall. For a few minutes the mist and clouds passed on, revealing black cliffs rising a sheer two thousand feet from the sea; then it disappeared; it was as if we had never seen it at all.

The most lonely and isolated inhabited place on earth! Of course, you have read about it; but you must see it as I did, to realize what it must mean to live in such a place. It gave me a feeling of loneliness myself to think of that gloomy, mist-veiled, almost inaccessible little island cut off from the rest of the world by thousands of miles of ocean; it seemed a place devoid of hope. As we left that depressing place behind, it was like waking from a dream, an unpleasant dream.

As we changed our course this time for the coast of South America the sky ahead cleared; it seemed as if the very clouds conspired to shroud that solitary place from the rest of mankind. In this region about thirty-seven degrees south, the trade wind begins to peter out, but it still held and before long we were off the coast of Uruguay. We were out of sight of land, which was obscured by a light haze; but from the indications in the water knew we could not be far off, for it was populous with sea snakes and numerous turtles paddling lazily on the surface. With visions of turtle soup we made many attempts to get one, either with the grains (a sort of fish spear), or with a noose, but they were too nippy. Our efforts at getting fresh meat were a failure anyway; a few days before we had killed one of those goose-like birds; with much difficulty plucked him; once more our good-natured cook had tried his skill. But that roast bird was worse than the bonita; much worse.

One day we saw a curiously rigged boat crowded with little copper-colored men; they came up close and chattered to us in some unknown language. I suppose they were fishermen. We asked them in English, French, German, and Dutch how far we were off land, but they no savvy—or we didn’t—they just jabbered and grinned.

A few days after this we were just off the mouth of the river Plate, the wind dropped; as evening came on the sun set in a bank of ominous-looking black clouds; there was a feeling of apprehension, of tension, as if waiting for something unpleasant to happen. The ship lay motionless, not a breath of air stirred, we were enveloped in impenetrable black darkness. Suddenly, in this dead stillness the order was roared “All hands shorten sails!” and we raced aloft.

As a man passed me, he said, “We’re goin’ to get one of them bloody pamperos!” He was right; we had just got her shortened down to lower topsails when the squall struck with terrific violence, as sudden as the blast of a great gun. The only visible warning had been, a few seconds before, a line of ghostly white foam showing dimly through the blackness. Then followed a flash of lightning and simultaneously a crash of thunder that sounded like complete annihilation and deluge of rain in solid sheets; more electric explosions—mere words fail to describe the racket. If you have a record of “Ride of the Valkyries,” put it on your gramaphone and turn it on full blast and you will get some idea of what it sounded like.

An hour afterwards the sky was clear, the stars were shining, there was a light breeze and we were making sail again. Well! so that was the famous “pampero” that I had heard old sailormen speak of with awe; that curious wind that rushes out of the river Plate. And I wondered what would happen if it had caught us with all sail set.

During the following week we sighted a little cutter rigged yacht, bound the same way as we were. She ran up the red ensign, reversed, the signal of distress, so we hove to so that she could come alongside. She was a beautiful little craft; there were four men on board, and they had brought her all the way from England for delivery to the governor of the Falkland Islands. I hoped they were being well paid, for it seemed to me a pretty risky job. They had had a pretty rough time and were almost out of provisions, so we let them have enough to see them the rest of the way. It seemed curious talking to these men, after seeing no one but our own people on board for such a long time; they seemed like being from another world. And actually they were the only ones until we struck the coast of California.

Then one day we at last sighted land. And what a land! It was the coast of Tierra del Fuego. You know the phrase, “An inhospitable shore”; well this was it! We coasted along a few miles offshore for a few days, and a more bleak and barren, desolate place I cannot imagine; mile after mile, mile after mile of precipitous rocky foreshore, backed by an unending range of high, jagged mountains. I’d hate to be wrecked on that shore!

The weather was now growing decidedly colder; it was May, and the winter was coming. But the air was exhilarating, it had an invigorating freshness, and although cloudy, most of the time the decks were dry and there was no need of oilskins; at night you just needed your double-breasted pea jacket, or “monkey jacket.” There was a fair wind; before long if our luck held out, we would sight the Horn. But “Man proposes, God disposes”; it was to be many days before we did see that famous cape; and we were probably lucky to see it at all, for once more we ran into dirty weather—high seas and head winds. Day after day we were driven far to the south and east. We were many miles south of the Horn, with incessant snow and hail; the ship sheeted in ice, for the seas and spray froze directly as they struck the deck and lower rigging. We spent the whole of one desperate night trying to get running the blocks of such tackle as we could get down on the deck; the rope was frozen solid to the sheaves. It began to look as if we were to share the fate of that “Flying Dutchman,” who was condemned to spend eternity trying to beat his way around the Horn—I believe it was for using more blasphemy than even old man Neptune would stand for. If it was worse than what I had been hearing, it must have been some swearing! One old sailor swore he had seen this mythical ship; but I think he was lying; for according to the legend, if he had, he would be sharing the same fate with the Dutchman.

However, all bad things come to an end; we eventually escaped from this hellish region, and after all this misery of being frozen and battered about, found ourselves back about where we had been a month ago, and in clear fine weather signalled the lighthouse on Cape Horn—surely the most lonely lighthouse in the world with the Diego Ramirez Islands dimly visible on our port side. I remember the date because it was the Fourth of July; midwinter down there.

I will relate a little yarn about the Glorious Fourth that I heard recently. It was told to me by a good American, too.

There was an old British sea captain who had many friends in San Francisco, which was his frequent port of call. He was a jovial old boy, but he had an intensely “Britannia rules the waves—and most of the earth” complex, and his American friends loved to pull his leg about it. Well, one Fourth of July his ship happened to be in ’Frisco; of course, all the ships had their flags flying but his outdid them all with a wonderful display of bunting. When he went ashore the rest of the boys got after him; “How come, old cock; what are you celebrating about, you bumptious old Britisher?” and so on.

“Of course, I’m celebrating,” grinned the old captain: “I’m celebrating the day we got rid of your confounded country!” and the drinks were on them.

But if I stop to yarn any more we shall never get to San Francisco.

We were at last around the Horn, running north with yards squared and the wind dead aft, making good time. This wind gradually increased to hurricane speed; we were in the “roaring forties,” the region of the greatest seas in the world; they are rightly described as mountainous. There is much difference of opinion about the height of these enormous waves; I have seen it stated that they do not exceed sixty feet. But, our ship was three hundred and sixty feet long; the distance between the crests of two waves has been estimated to be ten times the height of the wave. And at the peak of the hurricane the distance between the crests was about three times the length of our ship; so figure it out yourself. I believe there is no way of making really correct measurements. To me they looked like hundred-foot cliffs of solid green water. Possibly, before they reached that heighth they would topple over in one of those great cataracts of foam. In a scientific article I read recently, the writer stated that a sixty-five mile wind produced waves thirty feet high. I expect his conclusions were based on a laboratory experiment, and that he had no conception of what the “roaring forties” were like. For the wind in those regions must at times reach a speed of near ninety miles. However, I do not wish to be taken for a liar; I am just relating what I remember, and will let it go at that. There was a terrible fascination in watching these stupendous seas, towering up to a dizzy height; the crest overbalancing, roaring down under your stern in a regular Niagara of brilliant white foam, smashing against the counter with a force like the kick of some mythological monster that made the ship tremble all over. And most of the time the sun was shining brilliantly; it was a scene of such incredible magnificence that you were spellbound by the sheer glory of it; you had no thought of fear. I recalled those words, “They that go down to the sea in ships, they see His wonders in the vasty deep”—they seemed to have a new meaning. But I admit that down below in the cabin I didn’t feel so good, for I knew if one of those monstrous seas did crash on the deck, even if it did not smash it in, the overpowering weight of water would force us under; we should almost inevitably sink.

But we were lucky; with the exception of getting the tail end of one which poured over the poop, and for a time, flooded the main deck, we escaped. Of course, the two men at the wheel would have been in extreme danger all the time if they had not been lashed with a rope around the waist and fastened to a ringbolt in the deck. One steersman, obviously an optimist, said, “Well, there’s one advantage to this; you kin spit on the deck when the mate ain’t looking, and nobody won’t see it.” For the man at the wheel, though not allowed to smoke, may chew all he wants to, provided he doesn’t spit on the sacred poop.

One thing to be thankful for was that this hurricane was driving us in the right direction. We were making up for that lost time; the wind gradually lost its force and the sea subsided to something more normal; a few days of this, and we were once more in those delightful trade winds, and resuming our acquaintance with sharks, and bonitas, funny birds, and flying fish.

One night, hundreds of miles from land or any chartered rocks, the man on the lookout excitedly and astonishingly shouted, “Breakers on the starboard bow!” and there, sure enough, was a line of white which did look like waves breaking on a reef. But the mate knew there could not possibly be rocks in these parts. He altered our course a point to run close and investigate. It was a curious sight; a huge mass of phosphorescence that spread in a great patch on the surface of the sea. And then the most appalling stink smote us. It was a dead whale and he certainly had been dead a very long time. We quickly got out of there, to windward of him. And then we were in the doldrums again; a different brand of doldrums this time, for it was the rainy season in the tropics. For a whole week in dead calm it rained; such rain as those who have not seen it cannot imagine. It was warm, much too warm for oilskins, we went about almost naked; after the second day everything was saturated with moisture. Rain, rain, rain; a solid downpour all day, all night, day after day without cessation, like being in a perpetual tepid shower bath. After about the fourth day you fell into a state of semi-torpid apathy; it would go on raining forever and forever; rain was the normal state of things; you accepted it with resignation.

But in one way we benefitted by it; we replenished our water supply, although just one day of that downpour would have been enough. For some weeks now we had been using condensed sea water, beastly flat stuff that was made more nauseating by a strong flavor of tallow; the tanks had been rubbed with this to prevent rust.

That rain water was deliciously sweet, for hundreds of miles out at sea the air is uncontaminated by any impurities, and it is probably the purest water in nature. After seven days of this—it had felt like at least a month—it did stop. The sun came out; and didn’t it feel good! We once more felt like human beings instead of fish.

We were now more than four months out, and all hands were beginning to suffer from lack of fresh food; the hard-tack and the flour, in fact, everything tasted musty; and an atmosphere of discontent and crankiness became prevalent. And our teeth began to get loose, one of the first indications of scurvy. We were all getting fed up.

One day old Hank demanded to see the captain; he had some grievance real or fancied. He was a “sea lawyer and knew his rights,” which were to lay his complaint before the British consul when we reached port. Doubtless the Old Man was not perturbed; he had been through this before, and knew that when we got to ’Frisco, in the delights of fresh grub and the beguilments of the water front all this discontent would be forgotten. However, old Hank having had his complaint entered in the log had to see it through. So the day after we arrived in ’Frisco, a trio consisting of the Old Man in his shore-going regalia, top hat, frock coat and all; me in my brass-buttoned uniform, carrying his brief case, and old Hank tagging along behind, looking as if he wished he were to hell out of it, proceeded to the consul’s office. Poor old Hank looked terribly sheepish and uncomfortable as he stood before the consul; I daresay he even wished he were out at sea again.

“Henry Wilson,” said the consul, glancing at the paper; “what is your complaint?”

Hank looked at the consul, a pleasant-looking man; he also was accustomed to the vagaries of old sailormen. “Well, sir”; and Hank stated his complaint in rather an apologetic voice—it sounded rather silly now.

“Well, Henry Wilson,” said the consul with a smile, “do you wish to do anything further about it?”

“No, sir,” said Hank, very emphatically; all he wanted was to get out of that!

“Case withdrawn,” said the consul to his stenographer. So that was that.

“You may go,” said the Old Man, in a sort of “let us bury the hatchet” tone of voice—he seemed quite human this morning. “And you may have shore leave till tomorrow. But don’t get drunk.” And Hank escaped with relief into the open air.

But I am once more getting ahead of my story.

Soon after that inundation of rain we picked up the trades again; then, one misty night I was aware of a different smell in the air; something it seemed I had not smelled for ages; it was the scent of pine trees; we were approaching land. Presently, as the mist momentarily cleared, we saw lights; the lights of some little town. The order was given to shorten the sail and to heave the lead; we were close in shore—might even be in shallow water. We knew we had not made a good landfall because of the smell of those pine trees; we must be well to the north of ’Frisco. So we crept along cautiously until daybreak, which revealed a shore line of densely timbered hills.

By and by we sighted an old tugboat, which ran in and hailed us.

“Just exactly where are we?” shouted the Old Man.

“You’re just north of Point Reyes,” answered the nasal voice on the tug. “We have a pilot on board, and would you like a tow in?”

After a few inquiries about the charges the Old Man said we would. And then he hollered the old familiar question, “Is there war with Russia?”

“What?” answered the voice, and after a pause, “Oh hell—no, everybody’s forgotten about that long ago.”

The tug ran alongside, and the pilot climbed aboard; a dapper, well-groomed young man who, to my eyes, accustomed to the rough blue uniform of our burly British pilots, did not seem dressed for the part, for he was clad in a brown-checkered suit, a brown derby hat, and very neat, polished shoes; he looked more like a race track habitué than a pilot but he evidently knew his job, for rounding the Point Bonito in the dusk, the towline parted and a strong cross current drove us right in shore. Of course, as now all our sails were furled we might easily have bumped some rock had not that pilot known his position to the inch; the anchor was ready to let go but we got another line for the tug before this became necessary. Soon we were through the Golden Gate and the lights of San Francisco, spreading over its many hills welcomed us; at last we had reached the “haven where we would be.” And the sound of the city; the voices of men, the rattle of streetcars, clip, clop of horse’s feet, all those multifarious noises that, heard across the water, blend into one steady musical hum; the sound that I had almost forgotten.

One had a sensation of unreality; it seemed so improbable that we were here at last. Then a splash as the anchor dropped; the rattling roar of the chain as it ran through the hawse hole; and stillness; a deck that did not move, and a sense of peace, as if the ship at last was at rest.