Читать книгу Seven Legs Across the Seas: A Printer's Impressions of Many Lands - Samuel Murray - Страница 10

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The evening sun was sinking fast as we were being towed from the inner harbor of the Argentine metropolis to the broad expanse of gray-colored water of the River Plate.

Berths were short on the Bertha Clay, as the skipper had informed me before I had boarded his ship I would have to sleep in the chart room. Charts and other navigating paraphernalia were kept in this room, and the wheel house was on top of the chart room roof. "Sleep on the couch to-night," instructed the captain, "and to-morrow I'll try to have a berth put up for you, which will be more restful."

Next morning found the tramp ship at sea, and behind, in the distance, the panorama of Montevideo, built on a hillside, was kept in view till lost to sight. "If you prefer land to sea view," the captain remarked later, "take a good look yonder, for, with the exception of a small, uninhabited island 1,200 miles to the east, it is the last land we shall see until we reach the South African coast. That is Lobos Island, off the Uruguayan coast, at which we are looking, on which large numbers of seal assemble."

For six days out from the Plate the weather was summer-like, and these were pleasantly spent sailing over a smooth sea. Talent is generally found among sailors, and during the evening some of the crew would sing, others dance, or boxing bouts would take place; wrestling matches also were listed among the means of entertainment. Then the weather changed for the worse, and evening sports were discontinued.

The captain had brought with him eight sheep and a couple of dozen live chickens, as this ship carried no ice. A sheep was killed each week, and we had chicken twice weekly, so, between the sheep and the chickens, we had fresh meat three times a week.

"Keep a look out for Gough Island," suggested the captain to his first officer, "for it should be in sight by four o'clock." At 4:15 the mate, opening the door, reported, "Land port abeam, sir!" The island proved to be a small, rocky and uninhabited sea "oasis." "No more land until we reach Africa," said the skipper.

The weather had grown stormy, the sea rough, and the Bertha Clay was rolling badly. She pitched, tossed and rolled so much, in fact, that the "A. B." had "callouses" on his hips through being slammed back and forth against the sides of his bunk in the chart room.

Masters of ships usually have an easy time at sea. After they have left a port, the next few days are occupied in straightening their accounts. From then on, if the weather be at all favorable, little work is done save at noontime, when the sun is sighted, by which means alone the course is maintained. Each officer has a sextant, and from two to four of these are pointed sunward from ten to fifteen minutes before the orb has reached the zenith.

A captain of a tramp ship is generally sent from port to port by cable from the owners to their agent. After the cargo has been unloaded, he may remain in a port for days, or even weeks, waiting for orders to sail; but sometimes he has little idea to what part of the world he may be directed to go. The cable directions may read "Capetown." He heads his ship for that port, but does not know whence he will be sent until given instructions by the company's agent on arrival.

The salary paid some sea captains is small, compared to the responsibility assumed. English and other European shippers pay masters of tramp ships from $100 to $130 a month, while captains of American ships receive double that sum. Perquisites, however, may come to a skipper in connection with his calling. Coal firms generally give the master of a ship a commission on fuel supplied, and chandlers maintain the same custom when furnishing stores.

Sea charts with which captains are furnished are marvels of exactness to a landsman, shoals, rocks, lights, jutting points of land, sea currents and courses being as clearly marked as are rivers, turnpikes and railways on land maps. With a good navigator there is little danger of getting off the course if the sky be clear at noontime. It is in cloudy periods, when officers cannot get their bearings from the sun, that danger may occur.

Rainy weather and clear days are the same to a sailor aboard merchantmen. Though sailors on a tramp ship rest on Sunday, firemen and officers have no day off. Chinese, Arabs and Indians, the latter called "lascars," form the crew of a large number of British ships. From $12 to $16 a month were the wages then paid. On American ships white sailors receive $40 a month.

Two hundred miles a day was all the Bertha Clay was traveling. Her smoke funnel was white with salt from the waves of the sea dashing against it. Some of the officers gathered in the little saloon every evening, when the hours were whiled away until bedtime by indoor amusements.

Sea birds of the Southland are different from those that accompany ships above the equator. No traveler who has the noble albatross as a companion can refrain from devoting hours and hours of time during a voyage to watching and admiring the smooth, graceful movements of this large bird. Sometimes as many as a hundred of these handsome soarers may be seen encircling the ship for as long as an hour at a time, seldom flapping their wings. In far southern waters the albatross generally joins an outgoing vessel from 200 to 400 miles from shore, and is not seen when a ship is the same distance from land at the other side of the ocean, although companions for weeks before. Its color is generally gray and white, but some are snow white, and occasionally brown-colored ones are seen with the others. These birds are as large as a swan, some measuring twelve feet from wingtip to wingtip. But many a sailor has lost his life when falling from a vessel in parts of the sea inhabited by the albatross. The great bird will pounce on anything it sees in the water, and, being so strong, the beak will penetrate the skull of a person at the first attack. Navigators say that it will not live during transit across the equator. The mollemoke is another companion sailors have with them when traveling south of the equator. This bird, while not so large, resembles the larger specie both in poise and color, and also mingles with the albatross during a voyage. Feeding on garbage thrown from the ship seemed to be the chief attraction to the fowl. A very pretty sea bird seen in far southern waters is the Cape pigeon. The pigeon is as large as a sea-gull, but in color is like the guinea fowl—spotted white and black—but of much brighter color. The snowbird is another companion that follows a ship in the southern seas, but only in sections where the weather has become chilly. The petrel is also found in these parts, and still another, a small, dark colored bird, no larger than a swallow, appears in large numbers at intervals. Sailors call these Mother Carey's chickens. All these fowl are one's unfettered companions while traveling through watery Southland, save an occasional whale. Sea-gulls do not appear.

It was eighteen days since we sailed from Buenos Aires, and twelve of these had been stormy. The "A. B." was near the captain while he studied the chart, at 9 o'clock one evening, when the mate came into the chart room. "Mr. Jones," said the captain to the first officer, "keep a sharp lookout, as we should see the Cape of Good Hope light by 10 o'clock, or thereabouts." "Aye, aye, sir," he replied, as he passed out, and then scaled the ladder to the bridge. The sea had calmed as we neared the African coast. Less than an hour later the skipper and the "A. B." were chatting, when the door opened. The mate, putting his head between the door and jamb, in sea manner, announced: "Flash light port abeam, sir!" It was the Cape of Good Hope light. We had reached another continent—the African.

For five more days we sailed in sight of the green, treeless hills of South Africa, using glasses frequently, as may be imagined, eager to see houses, cattle and grain fields. Finally we came in sight of the Bluff, the beacon of Port Natal. Soon we were opposite the entrance channel to the harbor, when anchor was cast. Shortly after a harbor boat was seen coming through the channel. Later a rowboat, manned by Zulus, headed toward the Bertha Clay, in which was a white man dressed in a white suit. The captain shouted to the man in white, asking if we could get into the harbor before night. It was then nearly sunset. The answer from the rowboat was, "I'm coming." This was the skipper's first trip to a country where white clothes were worn, and he mistook the man in the rowboat to be the port doctor. One unfamiliar with customs in that part of South Africa—or, in fact, anywhere—would never dream of seeing a grizzled sea pilot dressed in an immaculate white suit of clothes. It proved to be the man who was to steer our ship safely to harbor. "All well?" he inquired—the usual salute—when his rowboat had reached speaking distance of the tramp ship. "All well," replied the master of the Bertha Clay. When the pilot had drawn alongside our vessel, he began to wriggle up the rope ladder at the side of the ship, the usual means of boarding and disembarking under such circumstances.

We anchored in the harbor as twilight was hastily changing to darkness. "Supper is ready," announced the steward when the anchor chain was silenced. As ship food had no charm for the "A. B." when land food was available, he hurriedly made steps for the ladder at the side. This settled matters concerning eating supper aboard ship that evening, as the captain shouted, "Wait." Soon the skipper also started down the ladder, and the master of the Bertha Clay and his passenger had dinner ashore.

We had stepped foot on Leg Two.

The captain wished the "A. B." to return to the ship and sleep in his recently vacated bunk in the chart room that night—"the last night," as he put it—but my feeling of relief at the thought of not having longer to occupy that "cabin," in which the bedclothing had often been made damp through waves dashing against and over the ship, together with several inches of water at times covering the floor, might be compared to those that one would experience on leaving a "house of trouble."

"You'll have to come to the port office in the morning and get paid off and discharged," remarked the captain, after we had finished eating the best meal we had had for nearly a month. Meeting at the time designated, the formality of paying off was gone through with, in accordance with maritime law. The "A. B." was handed $2.40 for his "work" during the voyage, but the money did not reach his pockets, as it was handed back to the genial skipper. The provisions of the "Act" had been complied with—in name.

The Bertha Clay, with her bunkers full of coal, left the following day for Cochin-China—6,000 miles further east—thirty days' more sailing.

"Sixty cents a day" (the minimum legal charge for a person's food on English ships) "is all it will cost you if you will come with us," inducingly spoke the captain to his discharged "able seaman," while shaking hands warmly, a short time before the Bertha Clay sailed out of the harbor. The skipper's generous offer was declined.

The passenger left behind sought the highest point of the seashore to watch the tramp ship sail on her initial stretch to Asia. She dipped her nose in the sea and wobbled and pitched as she had done for twenty-three days during her former voyage. It was not long before only an outline of the hulk was in view. Then that disappeared altogether, when all that remained in sight was the smoke funnel. Soon that also had faded to but a speck, and a short time later the Bertha Clay became hidden in a hazy horizon.