Читать книгу Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities - George Payson - Страница 10

Table of Contents

My quiet room-mate went with us no farther. He was disheartened by the length of the voyage, and perhaps thought Brazil presented quite as many advantages as California. His place was filled by a young, red-haired Scotchman, who had formerly lived in Edinburgh, and sat on the knee of Sir Walter. He had been on one or two whaling voyages, and had evidently seen the world. He played on the guitar—sang a variety of songs, some of which were of a very doubtful character—was an expert boxer—had something of a turn for poetry and light literature—and, in spite of his unsettled, wandering life, still possessed, to an unusual degree, that sort of native refinement that makes one tender of the feelings and weaknesses of others. He seemed, however, to value these various accomplishments only as passports to the favour of the other sex. His successes in that line had been very numerous, according to his own showing, and had confirmed him in the belief that there was no such thing as virtue in the world.

On leaving port, we plunged at once into the region of storms. The tropic of Capricorn seemed an actual wall of separation, dividing two distinct climates as smoothly and evenly as it does the zones upon the map. On one side, all was bright and serene; on the other, cloudy and tempestuous. Off the mouth of the La Platte, the mariner is sure to encounter heavy seas, as if there floated down that magnificent river, from its mountain birthplace, nothing but miniature Andes to encumber the smooth surface of the deep. Day after day we climbed up and down these hills, as slowly and painfully as a man walking over a ploughed field. We gained, seemingly, not a foot; and I sometimes thought we were to remain there forever seesawing the same dull wave. Every morning we found ourselves apparently just where we were the night before; the same ill-looking wave on our quarter, the same dirty cloud over head. Drive as hard as we could, there was no getting away from them; they still, like the headless horseman, preserved the same relative position.

But the ocean was no longer a solitude; the space around the ship resembled rather an immense barnyard thronged with a greater variety of poultry than is often seen, even in the enclosures of the most successful fancier. There were little bevies of Mother Cary's Chickens—flocks of Cape pigeons, gonies, hagletts, and mollymocks; and, largest and noblest of all, the solitary albatross. They followed us for miles, floating on the water till almost out of sight, then regaining their position by a hasty flight. We fished for them with great success, using for bait a bit of pork attached to a stout hook, which, being suffered to float on a piece of board, far behind the ship, was eagerly swallowed by these greedy scavengers.

The largest albatross measured nearly twelve feet across his wings, though his body was no larger than a goose. Their powers of flight are unrivalled. I used to watch them for hours together, circling with prying eyes round the ship, now rising, now falling, now coming up heavily against the wind, then suddenly shooting away before it, like a kite that has broken its string; and all, apparently, without any more exertion than is visible in the flight of a thistle down, their "sail broad vans" remaining constantly motionless, with the exception, now and then, of a single, almost imperceptible flap, as they varied their course to one side or the other.

When drawn on board, and placed upon the deck, the albatross lost at once all this poetry of motion, and became an awkward, ungainly bird, unable to rise into the air, and in constant danger of tumbling forward on to its ugly nose. I was rather disappointed by the indifference of our sailors on this interesting subject. They viewed the death of their patron bird with as little concern as if it had been a turkey; they had no superstitious fears about ill-luck thence arising; and, indeed, I am sorry to say, were as little given to superstition of any kind as the stoutest enlightener of the masses could desire.

Some of the smaller birds were also killed for food; but their feathers were so disproportioned to the flesh, that they were not worth the trouble of picking. A far more abundant and grateful repast was furnished by a porpoise, that was harpooned as he frolicked past the bows. No sooner was the approach of these playful creatures discovered, than the inspiriting cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," was echoed through the ship, and all hands were instantly on the alert. They generally made their first appearance on our quarter; and speedily overtaking us, rolled, in broken files, and with many an awkward bound and splash, directly under the bowsprit. A harpoon was always kept in readiness for such an emergency, and the second mate, who was an old hand at the business, taking his station on the martingal, waited a favourable opportunity to hurl his weapon into the back of one of the plunging monsters. This was the first time he had succeeded, and now twenty or thirty of the passengers, bowsing away on the rope to the tune of Uncle Ned, soon landed our game on deck. He weighed several hundred pounds, and the flesh, which was remarkably sweet, closely resembling beef, furnished an excellent dinner for all on board.

The sight of a strange sail in these lonely seas aroused our most eager speculation. She was bound in the same direction as ourselves, and we had no difficulty in conjecturing that she was seeking the same golden gate. She proved to be the ship Sweden; had left port three weeks after us, and partly by not stopping at any port, and partly by her superior sailing, had gained so decided an advantage. We raced with her two days in succession, but, as the wind freshened, she slowly crept ahead, and our captain gave orders to put on more sail. The Sweden followed our example, and both vessels, crowded with all the canvass they could bear, staggered, like a drunken man with a barrel of whisky on his shoulders, heavily, along their uneven path, showing many feet of their bright and dripping copper at every spring. Suddenly the Sweden carried away her foresail, and we began to recover the ground we had lost. But it was set again with provoking rapidity, and, ere long, we were compelled to abandon the contest. Before parting company, however, we endeavoured to find out if her commander intended to go through the Straits of Magellan, as there was a great diversity of opinion on board our ship as to the expediency of attempting the passage. A board was put up in the rigging with the question printed on it in large letters; but though, as we afterwards learned, they saw the board, they could not make out the inscription, and our captain, in his perplexity, finally referred the matter to the passengers. The majority, knowing nothing of the difficulties of the undertaking, and naturally desirous to shorten the voyage as much as possible, were in favour of going through the Straits; but we were fortunately prevented from making the trial by adverse winds that drove us wide of the mark, and compelled us to take the longer, but far safer passage round the Horn.

About the middle of May we arrived off the coast of Patagonia, and soon after made Staten Island. In these inhospitable latitudes, we found the serenest weather since leaving Rio; the sea, though heaving in lazy swells, was almost as smooth as a looking-glass. It was evident that our coming was unexpected, and that the fierce brood of storms that infest that region had left home on some distant marauding expedition. We were so near the coast that we could easily distinguish the helmets of glittering snow worn by the hills drawn up in solid phalanx near the shore; but we were unable to catch a glimpse of that race of giants that had so imposed upon our childish fancy.

Passing Terra del Fuego, and the little island of Cape Horn, at too great a distance to obtain a view of those famous headlands, we held steadily on our course into still higher latitudes; till, having gained a sufficient elevation to avoid all danger of being blown back into the Atlantic, the ship's head was, at last, turned towards the west; and on the morning of the twenty-second of May we waked up in the Pacific, with something of the feeling of those early navigators when they first burst through into this unknown sea.

The sun off Cape Horn is a very sleepy fellow, with none of that inconvenient propensity to early rising that elsewhere interferes so much with our arrangements; he rose about eight, attained a meridian altitude of some twelve degrees, and retired at four. The weather was now cold and squally. Spirts of rain or sleet, or what was still worse, the tops of the waves driven in upon us by the winds, made it almost as hard to remain upon deck as if it had been swept by the fire of a battery. The ship seemed almost entirely deserted; a few of the more resolute sort, their heads drawn into their shoulders, purple with cold, and half blinded by the spray, still clung to the rigging, and stared stupidly, with puckered mouth and eyebrows, out into the immeasurable gloom. The rest had retired, like bats and owls, or a somnolescent bear, into the most out-of-the-way places they could find; and it was about as safe and agreeable an operation to disturb one of them as to stir up the abstracted, meditative gentleman last mentioned from his hollow tree.

Slinking away to my berth, I wrapped myself in great-coats and blankets, and strove, by the aid of a feeble lantern and an entertaining book, to conjure up more pleasing associations; but the result was a wretched failure. My narrow stateroom, six feet by four, contained, within its dark green walls, as much that was gloomy and repulsive as the wet, slippery deck, and melancholy ocean—everything had the feeling of a "cold, damp, uncomfortable body."

Cooking, in such weather, was well nigh impossible, but fortunately we had no appetite. We were put on an allowance of water, three quarts a day; but then we could not have drunk half of it if we had tried. Everybody, however, was out of sorts; and the dismal weather, the wretched fare, and the unjustifiable length of the voyage, afforded sufficient matter, if not cause, for grumbling. In such a state of mind it is anything but agreeable to be left behind by more successful rivals. A handsome, gaily-painted ship came up with us one of these days, and the usual question was propounded, how long she had been out. "Sixty-one days," was the ready and self-satisfied answer; "how long have you?" "One hundred and four," very slowly and reluctantly. We heard the passengers on the Loo Choo repeat the number with jeering triumph, as she forged ahead, flinging up her heels, and showing her bright yellow bottom in a very insulting manner. I hurled after them a wish not of the most amiable character, and looked to see them go down together; but they held on their course, rejoicing in the successful flam they had put upon us. The first question we asked, on arriving at San Francisco, was about the ships we had spoken on the way; and it gave us no little gratification to learn that the Loo Choo had not yet come into port. At the time of our meeting, she had really been out eighty-one days, and her whole passage was even longer than our own.

We then knew nothing of all this, however, and it would be hard to find a more discontented, distracted set of beings than was on board the Leucothea after the Loo Choo was fairly out of sight. A merry party got together round the windlass for the express purpose of cursing the ship and all concerned in her, the day in which they ever heard there was such a place as N——, and themselves, most of all, for having taken passage in what their prompter called such a lubberly, blubber-hunting craft. They were unfortunately interrupted, however, in their well meant design, by the cheerful cry of "porpoise," "porpoise," and hurrying to the bows, we soon had one of these delicate monsters floundering on deck, which, like a lump of sugar to a peevish child, put us all, for a time, in good humor.

Early the next morning, before it was light enough to see the ship's length, a fierce and sudden cry of "put the helm hard down, lower the boat," pierced every part of the ship, falling on the ears of the sleeping passengers like their funeral knell. "What's the matter? is the ship sinking?" cried at once a hundred voices, and a hundred hearts stood still for the answer. The next moment, "a man overboard" explained the alarm, and converted the lively apprehensions for our own safety into a comparatively inert sympathy for another. The waves were running mountains high, and the boats were all firmly lashed in their places, so that lowering one was both difficult and dangerous, yet ten minutes found the man safe in the ship, though so thoroughly exhausted by the intense cold as to be unable to stand alone. His escape was almost miraculous; he was stationed just beneath the bowsprit, trying to harpoon a porpoise, when the ship plunging heavily, he was swept off by the waves. As he passed along the side, he uttered the cry that had produced such an excitement, and was thus the first to announce his own danger. He afterwards contrived to kick off his boots, and being an excellent swimmer, kept his head above water till the boat, pulling directly in the wake of the ship, came to his relief.

The night came on unusually cold and blustering. I was sitting with Tertium and Captain Bill, in their stateroom, when a faint smell of fire attracted our attention. As it grew stronger, we became greatly alarmed, as indeed we well might, for nothing can appear more hideous to the imagination, than a ship loaded with passengers, on fire of a dark, stormy, wintry night off Cape Horn. Captain Bill now hastily descended into the cabin and roused the captain, who was already asleep, and became almost palsied with fright on hearing the dreadful tidings.

"Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,

Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burn'd."

Before, however, he reached the deck, we had opened the door of the adjoining stateroom, and discovered the seat of danger. The wife of one of the seamen, who occupied the room, had incautiously placed a hot brick between the sheets, to answer the purpose of a warming pan, and the whole bedding was soon in a light blaze. It was extinguished without difficulty, and, as I had displayed, through the whole of this trying occasion, that presence of mind of which I am so justly proud, I was able to laugh without mercy at my companions for their needless alarm.

This was the last of Cape Horn. Near the end of May we fell in with a favourable breeze that bore us, in ten days, farther than we had sailed in any preceding month, and promised a speedy arrival at Talcahuano—but, a few hundred miles south of that port, we encountered a violent head wind, against which we slowly toiled for nearly a week, and it was not till the 12th of June that we came in sight of the coast of Chili.

We came to anchor, the same evening, in the little bay, abreast of the town and a quarter of a mile from the shore. The next morning we were surrounded by native boats, bringing narrow-necked earthen vessels full of milk, fine white rolls, and baskets of eggs and apples; for all which we paid about the same prices as are usual in our own cities. Going on shore we found ourselves in the dirtiest little village in the world, except one that I afterwards visited in Central America, consisting of a few streets of low houses built of large coarse brick, or rude basket work daubed with clay. Talcahuano, or Turkeywarner, as it is oddly enough called by sailors, though hardly known to the civilised world, has long been the favorite resort of ships engaged in the whale fishery. They generally remain a week or more in port to recruit and lay in a stock of fresh provisions, and the town has hence become the very hot bed of vice. As we walked through the filthy narrow streets, the open doors on each side were full of women, who kept up an incessant cry of "come in, Californe;" "Californe, come in;" adding often other allurements of a yet more unmistakable character.

In the afternoon a large party sat down to dinner in a shambling, tumbledown edifice called a hotel, and kept by an American. Ascending a flight of narrow, rickety stairs, we passed through a range of rooms and galleries presenting the very picture of desolation, till we came to one a little superior to the rest, and just wide enough for the long narrow table that by its royal plenty gave the lie to all about it.

A pig, crispily roasted by some firm yet gentle hand, graced the upper end, supported, at convenient intervals, by beef, turkeys, chickens, and pigeon pie; flanked, in their turn, by a small but delicious species of oysters, potatoes, and string beans, bread and butter,—the last imported from the States—with a noble array of pitchers and bottles containing a liberal supply of the cheap wine of the country—all furnished for the moderate sum of half a dollar. The reader can but faintly imagine the wholesouled delight with which our senses, after so long mortification and self-denial, expatiated over this dainty repast. Yet call it not animal, sensual, that agreeable titillation, having its principal seat indeed in the palate and stomach, but thence diffused over the brain and heart, making the one apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes,—disposing the other to gentle and kind offices, and producing, in fine, the most perfect harmony of the whole man.

But a more potent influence was at work to inflame our imaginations. While we were at sea, that faculty was comparatively quiescent; our droning, isolated life was by no means favourable to excitement, which can hardly exist without novelty and frequent contact with others. We now found both of these in abundance, and the marvellous reports we heard on every side seemed to acquire a greater degree of credibility from our near approach to the fountain head. In the inflated language of our narrators, that portion of Chili was almost exhausted of its male population. All along the coast they were hastening to the El Dorado; some in foreign shipping, and others, who could not obtain a passage, crept along the shore in boats, or set out on a still more perilous journey by land. Parties had already returned with sums varying from twenty to two hundred thousand dollars; one woman in particular was instanced who had dug fifty thousand with her own hands, and my informant had seen the kegs and boxes that held the gold. To all these stories we listened with the gravest deliberation, and having, with a degree of sagacity that did us infinite credit, rejected one-half as falsehood, we swallowed the remainder without any further difficulty.

Our little party of three was here converted into a quadrate by the addition of a fourth member, who had been thus far hesitating between the mines and San Francisco, but was now determined to try the former. In honour of this new member we considered it necessary to add somewhat to our bill of fare for the diggings, and I accordingly went with him to examine into the merits of some jerked beef, an article we had heard highly recommended for that purpose. It was in bundles as big as a flour barrel, and was nearly as tough and unpalatable as the strips of hide that bound it together; but it contained a deal of nourishment, there was no doubt about that; and as for troubling our heads about the quality of our food, while making a hundred dollars apiece a day, such an extravagance never entered our calculations.

We had brought with us from home an abundant supply of beans, rice, biscuit, pork, and sugar—cold water we expected to find in the mines; and on this lenten fare we had no doubt we should be perfectly content. But this hung beef was peculiarly detestable, and therefore highly appropriate as an addition to our list of comestibles; the only thing, in fact, wanting to add the finishing touch to its unique ugliness. Accordingly we bought the beef, congratulating each other on our good fortune, carried it with us into the mines, and there incontinently hung it up on a tree as the only way of getting rid of so formidable an incumbrance.

Thursday it rained heavily, and the swell that came in from the sea rendered all communication with the shore extremely difficult. Busby and Captain Bill attempting, with several others, to come on board, were caught by a roller that stove their boat against the beach and drenched them all in salt water, to the serious detriment of their Old-World hats and chest-wrinkled broadcloth. This being the season of the winter solstice, we were agreeably disappointed at finding the sun shining brightly the following morning, which encouraged us to pass the day on shore. A party even had the hardihood to hire horses and ride to the city of Concepcion, a distance of ten miles; but they found the road in a wretched condition, and were horribly scared by robbers, from whom they escaped only by unparalleled valour, perhaps a little tempered with discretion.

We met with various delays in obtaining a supply of water, and as it was not all on board by Saturday night, the crew were set to work the next morning. They were already dressed to go ashore; and Sunday being considered a holiday, though anything but a holy day, they at first declared they would not hoist a cask, but finally pulled off their coats, and went to work, to the tune of "Bright Canaan, that happy land!" and the chorus being enthusiastically helped along by some fifty voices, the casks came in merrily, and the task was finished in a few hours. In the afternoon I took a long walk into the country with Busby and Number Four. The flocks of sheep feeding on the hills and the soft green turf, the absence of which I had noticed at Rio, reminded us pleasantly of New-England; but the enormous cacti, a foot in diameter, and the odd little wattled cottages, built in unexpected situations on the hill sides, at once dispelled the illusion. We put to sea Monday evening, and will now take leave of Chili in the words of our gifted poetess: