 31 Bad Prospects They begin now to be a decided change in the appearance of things. The days became shorter and shorter, the sun running lower in its course each day and giving less and less heat, and the nights so cold as to prevent our sleeping on deck. The Magellan clouds inside of a clear, moonless night, the skies looking cold and angry, and at times a long, heavy, ugly sea, setting in from the south, told us what we were coming to. Still, however, we had a fine strong breeze, and kept on our way under as much sail as our ship would bear. Toward the middle of the week, the wind hauled to the southward, which brought us upon a taut bowling, made the ship meet, nearly head-on, the heavy swell which rolled from that quarter, and there was something not at all encouraging in the manner in which she met it. Being still so deep and heavy, she wanted the buoyancy which should have carried her over the seas, and she dropped heavily into them, the water washing over the decks. And every now and then, when an unusually large sea met her fairly upon the boughs, she struck it with a sound as dead and heavy as that with which a sledgehammer falls upon the pile, and took the whole of it upon the focsel, and, rising, carried it aft in the scuppers, washing the rigging off the pins, and carrying along with it everything which was loose on deck. She had been acting this way all of our foreign in watch below, as we could tell by the washing of the water over our heads, and the heavy break into the seas against her boughs, only the thickness of a plank from our heads, as we lay in our berths, which were directly against the boughs. And eight bells the watch was called, and we came on deck, one hand going aft to take the wheel, and another going to the galley to get the grub for dinner. I stood on the focsel, looking at the seas, which were rolling high as far as the eye could reach, their tops white with foam, and the body of them a deep indigo blue, reflecting the bright rays of the sun. Our ship rose slowly over a few of the largest of them, until one immense fellow came rolling on, threatening to cover her, and which I was sailor enough to know by the feeling of her under my feet she would not rise over. I sprang upon the night heads, and seizing hold of the forestay drew myself up upon it. My feet were just off the stanchion when the bow struck fairly into the middle of the sea, and it washed the ship for an aft, burying her in the water. As soon as she rose out of it I looked aft in everything ford of the main mist, except the longboat, which was griped in double lash down to the ring bolts, was swept off clear. The galley, the pigsty, the hencoupe, and a large sheep pen which had been built upon the forehatch were all gone in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the deck as clean as a chin new-reaped. And not a stick left to show where anything had stood. In the scuppers lay the galley, bottom up, and a few boards floating about, the wreck of the sheep pen, and half a dozen miserable sheep floating among them, wet through, and not a little frightened at the sudden change that had come upon them. As soon as the seed washed by, all hands sprang up out of the folk-soul to see what had become of the ship, and in a few moments the cook and old Bill crawled out from under the galley, where they had been lying in the water, nearly smothered with a galley over them. Fortunately, it rested against the bulwarks, or it would have broken some of their bones. When the water ran off we picked the sheep up and put them in the longboat, got the galley back in its place, and set things a little to rights. But had not our ship had uncommonly high bulwarks and rail, everything must have been washed overboard, not accepting old Bill and the cook. Bill had been standing at the galley door, with the kid of beef in his hand for the folk-soul mess, when away he went, kid, beef, and all. He held on to the kid to the last like a good fellow, but the beef was gone, and when the water had run off we saw it lying high and dry, like a rock at low tide. Nothing could hurt that. We took the loss of our beef very easily, consoling ourselves with the recollection that the cabin had more to lose than we, and chuckled not a little at seeing the remains of the chicken pie and pancakes floating in the scuppers. "'This will never do,' was what some said, and everyone felt. Here we were, not within a thousand miles of the latitude of Cape Horn in our decks swept by a sea, not one half so high as we must expect to find there. Some blamed the captain for loading his ship so deep when he knew what he must expect, while others said that the wind was always south-west off the Cape in the winter, and that, running before it, we should not line the seas so much. When we got down to the folk-soul old Bill, who was somewhat of a croaker, having met with a great many accidents at sea, said that, if that was the way she was going to act, we might as well make our wills and balance the books at once and put on a clean shirt. "'Vast there, you bloody old owl! You're always hanging out blue lights. You're frightened by the ducking you got in the scuppers and can't take a joke. What's the use of being always on the lookout for Davy Jones?' "'Stand by,' says another. "'And we'll get an afternoon watch below by this scrape.' But in this they were disappointed, for at two bells all hands were called and set to work, getting lashings upon everything on deck, and the captain talked of sending down the top-gallant mass. But as the sea went down toward night and the wind hauled a beam, we left them standing and set the setting-souls. The next day all hands were turned to upon unbending the old cells and getting up the new ones, where a ship, unlike people on shore, puts on her best suit in bad weather. The old cells were sent down, and three new top-souls, and new four and main courses jib and four top mustace-soul, which were made on the coast and had never been used, were bent, with a complete set of new earrings, robants and reef-points, and reef-tackles were roved to the courses, and spilling lines to the top-souls. These with new braces and clue-lines four and aft gave us a good suit of running-rigging. The wind continued westerly, and the weather and sea less rough since the day on which we'd shipped the heavy sea, and we were making great progress under setting-souls, with our light cells all set, keeping a little to the eastward of south. For the captain, depending upon westerly winds on the cape, had kept so far to the westward that, though we were within about five hundred miles of the latitude of Cape Horn, we were nearly seventeen hundred miles to the westward of it. Through the rest of the week we continued on with a fair wind, gradually, as we got more to the southward, keeping a more easterly course, and bringing the wind on our larbored quarter until, Sunday, June 26, when, having a flying clear day, the captain got a lunar observation as well as his meridian altitude, which made us in latitude forty-seven degrees fifty minutes south, longitude a hundred and thirteen degrees, forty-nine minutes west. Cape Horn bearing, according to my calculations, east-south-east, one-half-east, and distant eighteen hundred miles, Monday, June twenty-seventh. During the first part of this day the wind continued fair, and as we were going before it, it did not feel very cold, so that we kept at work on deck in our common clothes and round jackets. Our watch had an afternoon watch below for the first time since leaving San Diego, and having inquired of the third mate, with the latitude was at noon, and made our usual guesses as to the time she would need to be up with the horn, we turned in for a nap. We were sleeping away, at the rate of knots, when three knocks on the scuttle and, all hands ahoi, started us from our births. What could be the matter? It did not appear to be blowing hard, and looking up through the scuttle we could see that it was clear day overhead, yet the watch were taking in sail. We thought there must be a sail in sight, and that we were about to heave to and speak to her, and were just congratulating ourselves upon it, for we had seen neither sail nor land since we left port, when we heard the mate's voice on deck. He turned in all standing, and was always on deck the moment he was called, singing out to the men who were taking in the setting souls, and asking where his watch were. We did not wait for a second call, but tumbled up the ladder, and there, on the starboard bow, was a bank of mist, covering sea and sky, and driving directly for us. I had seen the same before, and my passage drowned in the pilgrim, and knew what it meant, and there was no time to be lost. We had nothing on but thin clothes, yet there was not a moment to spare, and at it we went. The boys of the other watch were in the tops, taking in the top gallant studying souls, and the lower and top must studying souls were coming down by the run. It was nothing but haul down and clue up, until we got all the studying souls in, and the royals flying jib and missing top gallant cells furled, and the ship kept off a little to take the squall. The four and main top gallant cells were still on her, for the old man did not mean to be frightened in broad daylight, and was determined to carry sail till the last minute. We all stood waiting for its coming, when the first blast showed us that it was not to be trifled with. Rain, sleet, snow, and wind enough to take our breath from us and make the toughest turn us back to wintered. The ship lay nearly over upon her beam ends. The spars and rigging snapped and cracked, and her top gallant mass bent like whipsticks. Clue up the four and main top gallant cells, shouted the captain, and all hands sprang into the clue lines. The decks were standing nearly at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the ship going like a mad steed through the water, the whole forward part of her in the smother of foam. The halyards were let go and the yard clued down, and the sheet started, and in a few minutes the cells smothered and kept in by clue lines and butt lines. Furlums, sir, asked the mate. Let go of the topsoil halyards, four and aft! shouted the captain in answer, and the top of his voice. Down came the topsoil yards, the reef tackles were manned and hauled out, and we climbed up to wintered, and sprang into the rigging. The violence of the wind and the hail and sleet, driving nearly horizontally across the ocean, seemed actually to pin us down to the rigging. It was hard work making head against them. One after another we got out upon the yards, and here we had work to do, for our new sails had hardly been bent long enough to get the stiffness out of them, and the new irons and reef points stiffened with the sleet, knotted like pieces of iron wire. Having only our round jackets and straw hats on, we were soon wet through, and it was every moment growing colder. Our hands were soon numbed, which added to the stiffness of everything else, kept us a good while on the yard. After we had got the sail hauled upon the yard, we had to wait a long time for the weather earring to be passed, but there was no fault to be found, for French John was at the earring, and a better sailor never laid out a yard, so we leaned over the yard and beat our hands upon the sail to keep them from freezing. At length the word came, and we seized the reef points and hauled the band taut for the lee earring. Taut band, not away! And we got the first reef fast, and we're just going to lay down when Two reefs, two reefs! shouted the mate, and we had a second reef to take, in the same way. When this was fast we went down on deck, manned the halyards to Lourdes, nearly up to our knees in water, set the topsoil, and then laid aloft on the main topsoil yard, and reefed that cell in the same manner, for as I have before stated, we were a good deal reduced in numbers, and to make it worse, the carpenter, only two days before, had cut his leg with an axe, so that he could not go aloft. This weakened us so that we could not well manage more than one topsoil at a time, in said weather as this, and of course each man's labor was doubled. When the main topsoil yard went upon the main yard and took a reef in the main cell, no sooner had we got on deck then. Lay aloft there in close reef, mizzen topsoil! This called me, and being nearest to the rigging, I got first aloft and out to the weather earring. English Bend was up just after me, and took the lee earring, and the rest of our gang were soon on the yard, and began to fist the cell, when the mate considerably sent up the cook and steward to help us. I could now account for the long time it took to pass the other earings. Four, to do my best with a strong hand to help me at the dog's ear, I could not get it passed until I heard them beginning to complain in the bunt. One reef after another we took in, until the sail was close reefed. When we went down and hoisted away at the halyards. In the meantime the jib had been furled on the stacyle set, and the ship under her still hanging in the buntlands, and sliding and jerking as though they would like to take the mass out of her. We gave a look aloft, and knew that our work was not done yet, and, sure enough, no sooner did the mate see that we were on deck then. Lay aloft there, four of you, and furl the topgallon sails! This called me again, and two of us went aloft up the fore rigging, and two more up the main, upon the topgallon yards. This shrouds were now iced over, the sleet having formed a crust around all the standing rigging, and on the weather side of the mass and yards. When we got upon the yard, my hands were so numb that I could not have cast off the knots at the gasket if it were to save my life. We both lay over the yard for a few seconds, beating our hands upon the sail, until we started the blood into our fingers' ends, and at the next moment our hands were in a burning heat. My companion on the yard was a lad, the boy George Summerby, who came out in the ship a weak, puny boy from one of the Boston schools, no larger than a spritzle sheet knot, nor heavier than a paper of lamp black, and not strong enough to haul a shad off a gird iron, but who is now, as long as a spare topmist, strong enough to knock down an ox and hard enough to eat him. We fisted the cell together, and after six or eight minutes of hard hauling and pulling and beating down the sail, which was about as stiff as a sheet iron, we managed to get it furrowed, and snugly furrowed it must be, for we knew the mate well enough to be certain that if it got adrift again, we should be called up from our watch below at any hour of the night to furrow it. I had been on lookout for a chance to jump below and clap on a thick jacket and sell wester, but when we got on deck we found that eight bells had been struck, and the other watch gone below, so that there were two hours of dog watch for us, and a plenty of work to do. It had now set in for a steady gale from the south west, but we were not yet far enough to the southward to make a fair wind of it, for we must give Terra del Fuego a wide berth. The decks were covered with snow, and there was a constant driving of sleet. In fact, Cape Horn had set in with good earnest. In the midst of all this, and before it became dark, we had all the studying souls to make up and stow away, and then to lay aloft and rig in all the booms, fore and aft, and coil away the tacks, sheets, and halyards. This was pretty tough work for four or five hands in the face of a gale which almost took us off the yards, and with ropes so stiff with ice that it was almost impossible to bend them. I was nearly half an hour out on the end of the four yard, trying to coil away and stock down the top must studying soul tack and lower halyards. It was after dark when we got through, and we were not a little pleased to hear four bells struck, which sent us below for two hours and gave us each a pot of hot tea with our cold beef and bread, and what was better yet, a suit of thick, dry clothing fitted for the weather, in place of our thin clothes which were wet through and now frozen stiff. This sudden turn for which we were so little prepared was as unacceptable to me as to any of the rest, for I had been troubling for several days with a slight toothache, and this cold weather and wetting and freezing were not the best things in the world for it. I soon found that it was getting strong hold and running over all parts of my face, and before the watch was out I went aft to the mate, who had charged with the medicine chest to get something for it. But the chest showed like the end of a long voyage, for there was nothing that would answer but a few drops of laudanum, which must be saved for an emergency, so I had only to bear the pain as well as I could. When we went on deck at eight bells it had stopped snowing, and there were a few stars out, but the clouds were still black and it was blowing a steady gale. Just before midnight I went aloft and sent down the Misen Royal Yard. It had the good luck to do it to the satisfaction of the mate, who said it was done, out of hand in ship shape. The next four hours below were but little relief to me, for I lay awake in my birth the whole time from the pain in my face and heard every bell strike, and at four o'clock turned out with a watch filling little spirit for the hard duties of the day. Bad weather and hard work at sea can be born up against very well if one only has spirit and health, but there is nothing brings a man down at such a time like bodily pain and want of sleep. There was, however, too much to do to allow time to think. For the gale of yesterday and the heavy seas we met with a few days before, while we had yet ten degrees more salving to make, had convinced the captain that we had something before us which was not to be trifled with. In orders were given to send down the long top-gallant mass. The top-gallant and royal yards were accordingly struck, the flying jib-boom rigged in, and the top-gallant mass sent down on deck, and all lashed together by the side of the longboat. The rigging was then sent down and coiled away below, and everything made snug aloft. There was not a sailor in the ship who was not rejoiced to see these sticks come down. For, so long as the yards were aloft, on a leased sign of a lull, the top gallant sails were loosed, and then we had to frill them again in a snow-squall, and shin up and down single ropes caked with ice, and send royal yards down in the teeth of a gale coming right from the south pole. It was an interesting sight, too, to see our noble ship dismantled of all her top-hammer of long tapering masts and yards, and boom pointed with spearhead, which ornamented her in port, and all that canvas, which a few days before had covered her like a cloud from the truck to the water's edge, spreading far out beyond her hull on either side, now gone, and she stripped like a wrestler for the fight. It corresponded, too, with a desolate character of her situation, alone as she was, battling with storms, wind, and ice, at this extremity of the globe, in an almost constant night. Friday, June 1st, we were now nearly up to the latitude of Cape Horn, and having over forty degrees of easting to make, we squared away the yards before a strong westerly gale, shook a reef out of our four-topsel, and soared on our way, east by south, and with the prospect of being up with the Cape in a week or ten days. As for myself, I had no sleep for forty-eight hours, and the want of rest, together with constant wet and cold, had increased the swelling, so that my face was nearly as large as two, and I found it impossible to get my mouth open wide enough to eat. In this state, the steward applied to the captain for some rice to boil for me, but he only got a, oh, damn you, tell him to eat salt, junk, and hard bread like the rest of them. This was in truth when I had expected. However, I did not starve, for Mr. Brown, who was a man as well as a sailor, and had always been a good friend to me, smuggled a pan of rice into the galley, and told the cook to boil it for me, and not let the old man see it. Had it been fine weather, or in port, I should have gone below, and lain by until my face got well, but in such weather as this, and shorthanded as we were, it was not for me to desert my post, so I kept on deck, and stood my watch, and did my duty as well as I could. Saturday, July 2nd. This day the sun rose fair, but it ran too low in the heavens to give any heat, or thaw out ourselves and rigging. Yet this sight of it was pleasant, and we had no top breeze from the western. The atmosphere, which had previously been clear and cold for the last few hours, grew damp, and had a disagreeable wet chilliness in it. And the man who came from the wheel said he heard the captain tell, the passenger, that the thermometer had fallen several degrees since morning, which he could not account for in any other way than by supposing that there must be ice near us. Though such things were fairly heard of in this latitude at this season of the year. At twelve o'clock we were sent below, and had just got through dinner, when the cook put his head down the scuttle, and told us to come on deck and see the finest sight that we had ever seen. Where away, doctor? Note, the cook's title in all vessels. And note, as the first man who was up on the lob at bow, and there lay floating in the ocean several miles off, an immense irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its center of a deep indigo color. This was an iceberg and of the largest size as one of our men said who had been in the northern ocean. As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color. The waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light. And in the midst lay this immense mountain island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands were soon on deck, looking at it, and admiring in various ways its beauty and grandeur. But no description can give any idea of the strangeness, splendor, and really, the sublimity of the sight. Its great size, for it must have been from two to three miles in circumference, and several hundred feet in height. Its slow motion, as its base rose and sank in the water, and its high points knotted against the clouds, the dashing of the waves upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crest, and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces, together with its nearness and approach, which added a slight element of fear, all combined to give it the character of true sublimity. The main body of the mass was, as I have said, of an indigo color, its base encrusted with frozen foam, and as it grew thin and transparent toward the edges and top, its color shaded off from a deep blue to the whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting slowly toward the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. It was in sight all afternoon, and when we got to Lourde of it, the wind died away, so that we lay too, quite near it for a greater part of the night. Unfortunately there was no moon, but it was a clear night, and we could plainly mark the long, regular heaving of the stupendous mass, as its edges moved slowly against the stars, now revealing them and now shedding them in. Several times in our watch long cracks were heard, which sounded as though they must have run through the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a thundering crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Toward morning a strong breeze sprang up, and we filled the way and left the discern, and at daylight it was out of sight. The next day, which was Sunday, July 3, the breeze continued strong, the air exceedingly chilly, and a thermometer low. In the course of the day we saw several icebergs of different sizes, but none so near as the one which we saw the day before. Some of them as well as we could judge, at the distance at which we were, must have been as large as that, if not larger. At noon we were in latitude 55 degrees, 12 minutes south, and supposed longitude 89 degrees, 5 minutes west. Toward night the wind hauled to the south, and headed off our course a little, and blew a tremendous gale. But this we did not mind, as there was no rain nor snow, and we were already under closed sail. End of Chapter 31, Part 1. Chapter 31, Part 2 of Two Years Before the Mast. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. Chapter 31, Part 2. Bad Prospects. Monday, July 4. This was Independence Day in Boston. What a firing of guns and ringing of bells, and rejoicings of all sorts in every part of our country. The ladies, who have not gone down to Nahant, for a breath of cool air in sight of the ocean, walking the streets with parasols and the dandies in their white pantalons and silk stockings. What quantities of ice cream have been eaten, and how many loads of ice brought into the city from a distance, and sold out by the lump on by the pound. The smallest of the islands which we saw today would have made the fortune of poor Jack, if he had had it in Boston. And I dare say he would have had no objection to being there with it. This, to be sure, was no place to keep the Fourth of July. To keep ourselves warm and the ship out of the ice was as much as we could do. Yet no one forgot the day, and many were the wishes and conjectures and comparisons, both serious and ludicrous, which were made among all hands. The sun shone bright as long as it was up, only that a scud of black clouds was ever in a non driving across it. At noon we were in latitude 54 degrees 27 minutes south and longitude 85 degrees 5 minutes west, having made a good deal of easting, but having lost in our latitude by the heading off the wind. Between daylight and dark that is, between 9 o'clock and 3, we saw 34 ice islands of various sizes, some no bigger than the hull of our vessel, and others apparently nearly as large as the one we first saw, though as we went on the islands became smaller and more numerous. And at sundown of this day a man of the mast head saw large tracks of floating ice called field ice at the southeast. This kind of ice is much more dangerous than large islands for those can be seen at a distance away from, but the field ice floating in great quantities and covering the ocean for miles and miles in pieces of every size, large, flat and broken kicks with here and there an island rising 20 and 30 feet as large as the ship's hull. This it is very difficult to steer clear of. A constant lookout was necessary for many of these pieces coming with the heave of the sea were large enough to have knocked a hole in the ship and that would have been the end of us for no boat even if we could have gone out could have lived in such a sea and no man could have lived in a boat in such weather to make our condition still worse the wind came out due east just after sundown and it blew a gale dead ahead with hail and sleet and a thick fog so that we could not see half the length of the ship our chief reliance the prevailing westerly gales was thus cut off and here we were nearly 700 miles to the westward of the cape with a gale dead from the eastward and the weather so thick that we could not see the ice with which we were surrounded until it was directly under our bows at four p.m. it was then quite dark all hands were called and sent aloft in a violent squall of hail and rain to take and sail we had now got all our cape horn rig, thick boots south westers coming down over our necks and ears thick trousers and jackets and some with oil cloth suits overall mittens too we were on deck but it would not do for us to go aloft with them as being wet and stiff they might let a man slip overboard for all the hold he could get upon a rope so we were obliged to work with bare hands which as well as our faces were often cut with the hailstones which fell thick and large our ship was now all cased with ice hull, spars, and standing rigging and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly bend it so as to belay it or still less take a knot with it and then we had the sails frozen one at a time for it was a long piece of work and required many hands we furled the courses Misen Topsel and Four Totmel Stacel and close reefed the four and main Topsels and hove the ship to under the four while the main hauled up by the clue lines in Butlins and ready to be sheeded home if we found it necessary wondered of an ice island. A regular lookout was then set and kept by each watch in turn, until the morning. It was a tedious and anxious night. It blew hard the whole time, and there was an almost constant driving of either rain, hail, or snow. In addition to this, it was as thick as muck, and the ice was all about us. The captain was on deck nearly the whole night, and kept the cook in the galley with a roaring fire to make coffee for him, which he took every few hours, and once or twice gave a little to his officers, but not a drop of anything was there for the crew. The captain, who sleeps all the daytime and comes and goes at night as he chooses, can have his brandy and water in the cabin, and his hot coffee at the galley, while Jack, who has to stand through everything, and work in wet and cold, can have nothing to wet his lips or warm his stomach. This was a temperance ship by her articles, and, like too many such ships, the temperance was all in the folk soul. The sailor, who only takes his one glass as it is dealt out to him, is in danger of being drunk, while the captain, upon whose self-possession and cool judgment the lies of all depend, may be trusted with any amount to drink it his will. Sailors will never be convinced that rum is a dangerous thing by taking it away from them and giving it to the officers, nor can they see a friend in that temperance which takes from them that which they have always had, and gives them nothing in the place of it. By seeing it allowed to their officers, they will not be convinced it is taken from them for their good, and by receiving nothing in its place, they will not believe that it is done in kindness. On the contrary, many of them look upon the change as a new instrument of tyranny, not that they prefer rum. I never knew a sailor who had been a month away from the grog shops who would not prefer a pot of hot coffee or chocolate in a cold night to all the rum afloat. They all say that rum only warms them for a time, yet if they can get nothing better, they will miss what they have lost. The momentary warmth and glow from drinking it, the break and change which it makes in a long dreary watch by the mere calling all hands aft and serving of it out, and simply having some event to look forward to and to talk about, all give it an importance and a use which no one can appreciate who has not stood his watch before the mast. On my passage out the pilgrim was not under temperance articles, and grog was served out every middle and morning watch, and after every reefing of topsoles. And though I had never drunk rum before nor desire to again, I took my allowance then at the capstan as the rest did merely for the momentary warmth it gave to the system and the change in our feelings and aspect of our duties on the watch. At the same time as I have said, there was not a man on board who would not have pitched the rum to the dogs, I have heard them say so a dozen times, for a pot of coffee or chocolate, or for even our common beverage, water bewitched and tea begrudged, as it was. Note, the proportion of the ingredients of the tea that was made for us, and ours as I have before stated, was a favourable specimen of American merchant men, were a pint of tea and a pint and a half of molasses to about three gallons of water. These are all boiled down together in the coppers, and before serving it out, the mess is stirred up with a stick, so as to give each man his fair share of sweetening and tea leaves. The tea for the cabin is, of course, made in the usual way, in a teapot and drunk with sugar. And note, the temperance reform is the best thing that ever was undertaken for the sailor, but when the grog is taken from him, he ought to have something in his place. As it is now in most vessels it is a mere saving to the owners, and this accounts for the sudden increase of temperance ships, which surprised even the best friends of the cause. If every merchant, when he struck grog from the list of expenses of his ship, had been obliged to substitute as much coffee or chocolate, as would give each man a potful when he came off the topsoil yard on a starving night, I fear Jack might have gone to ruin on the old road. Note, I do not wish these remarks so far as they relate to the saving of expense in the outfit to be applied to the owners of our ship, for she was supplied with an abundance of stores of the best kind that are given to seamen, though the dispensing of them is necessarily left to the captain. And I learned on our return that the captain withheld many of the stores from us, from mere ugliness. He brought several barrels of flour home, but would not give us the usual twice-a-week duff, and so as to other stores. Indeed, so high was the reputation of the employ among men and officers for the character and outfit of their vessels, and for their liberality in conducting their voyages, that when it was known that they had the alert fitting out for a long voyage, and the hands were to be shipped at a certain time. A half hour before the time, as one of the crew told me, sailors were steering down the wharf, hopping over the barrels like a drove of sheep. But this is not doubling Cape Horn. Eight hours of a night watch was on deck, and during the whole of that time we kept a bright look out, one man on each bow, another in the bunt of the four-yard, the third mate on the scuttle, one man on each quarter, and another always standing by the wheel. The chief mate was everywhere, and commanded the ship when the captain was below. When a large piece of ice was seen in our way, or drifting near us, the word was passed along, and the ship's head turned one way or another, and sometimes the yards squared or braced up. There was little else to do than to look out, and we had the sharpest ice in the ship on the folk-sole. The only variety was the monotonous voice of the lookout, Ford. Another island, ice ahead, ice on the lead-bow, hard up the helm, keep her off a little. Steady! In the meantime the wet and cold had brought my face into such a state that I could neither eat nor sleep, and though I stood it out all night yet when it became light, I was in such a state that all hands told me I must go below and lie by for a day or two, or I should be laid up for a long time. When the watch was changed I went into the steerage and took off my hat and comforter and showed my face to the mate, who told me to go below at once and stay in my berth until the swelling went down, and gave the cook orders to make a poultice for me, and said he would speak to the captain. I went below and turned in, covering myself over with blankets and jackets, and lay in my berth nearly twenty-four hours, half asleep and half awake, stupid from the dull pain. I heard the watch called and the men going up and down, and sometimes a noise on deck and a cry of ice, but I gave little attention to anything. At the end of twenty-four hours the pain went down, and I had a long sleep which brought me back into my proper state, yet my face was so small and tender that I was obliged to keep my berth for two or three days longer. During the two days I had been below, the weather was much the same that it had been. Headwinds and snow and rain, or if the wind came fair, too foggy and the ice too thick to run. At the end of the third day the ice was very thick. A complete fog bank covered the ship. It blew a tremendous gale from eastward with slate and snow, and there was every promise of a dangerous and fatiguing night. At dark the captain called all hands aft and told them that not a man was to leave the deck that night that the ship was in the greatest danger. Any cake of ice might knock a hole in her, or she might run on an island and go to pieces. No one could tell whether she would be a ship the next morning. The lookouts were then set and every man was put in his station. When I heard what was the state of things, I began to put on my clothes to stand out with the rest of them, when the mate came below and, looking at my face, ordered me back to my berth, saying that if we went down we should all go down together, but if I went on deck I might lay myself up for life. This was the first word I had heard from aft, for the captain had done nothing, nor inquired how I was since I went below. In obedience to the mate's orders I went back to my berth, but a more miserable night I never wished to spend. I never felt the curse of sickness so keenly in my life. If I could only have been on deck with the rest where something was to be done and seen and heard, where there were fellow beings for companions in duty and danger, but to be cooped up alone in a black hole in equal danger, but without power to do, was the hardest trial. Several times in the course of the night I got up determined to go on deck, but the silence was showed there was nothing doing, and the knowledge that I might make myself seriously ill, for no purpose kept me back. It was not easy to sleep lying as I did with my head directly against the boughs, which might be dashed in by an island of ice, brought down by the very next sea that struck her. This was the only time I had been ill since I left Boston, and it was the worst time could have happened. I felt almost willing to bear the plagues of Egypt for the rest of the voyage, if I could be well and strong for that one night. Yet it was a dreadful night for those on deck. A watch of 18 hours with wet and cold and constant anxiety nearly wore them out, and when they came below at nine o'clock for breakfast, they almost dropped asleep on their chests, and some of them were so stiff that they could with difficulty sit down. Not a drop of anything had been given to them during the whole time, though the captain, as on the night that I was on deck, had his coffee every four hours, except that the maids stole a pot full of coffee for two men to drink behind the galley while he kept a lookout for the captain. Every man had his station and was not allowed to leave it, and nothing happened to break the monotony of the night, except once setting the main topsoil to run clear of a large island to Lleward, which they were drifting fast upon. Some of the boys got so sleepy and stupefied that they actually fell asleep at their posts, and the young third mate, Mr. Hatch, whose post was the exposed one of standing the four-scuttle, was so stiff, when he was relieved, that he could not bend his knees to get down. By a constant lookout, and a quick shifting of the helm, as the islands and pieces came in sight, the ship went clear of everything but a few small pieces, though daylight showed the ocean covered for miles. At daybreak it fell a dead calm, and with the sun, the fog cleared a little, and a breeze sprung up from the westward, which soon grew into a gale. We had now a fair wind, daylight, and comparatively clear weather. Yet to the surprise of everyone, the ship continued hove too. Why does not he run? What is the captain about? was asked by everyone, and from questions that soon grew into complaints and murmurings. When the daylight was so short, it was too bad to lose it, and a fair wind, too, which everyone had been praying for. As hour followed hour, and the captain showed no sign of making sail, the crew became impatient, and there was a good deal of talking and consultation together on the folk soul. They had been beaten out with the exposure and hardship, and impatient to get out of it. And this unaccountable delay was more than they could bear in quietness, in their excited and restless state. Some said the captain was frightened, completely cowed by the dangers and difficulties that surrounded us, and was afraid to make sail. While others said that in his anxiety and suspense, he had made a free use of brandy and opium, and it was unfit for his duty. The carpenter, who was an intelligent man, and a thorough seaman, and had great influence with the crew, came down into the folk soul and tried to induce them to go after and ask the captain while he did not run, or request him in the name of all hands to make sail. This appeared to be a very reasonable request, and the crew agreed that if he did not make sail before noon they would go aft. Noon came, and no sail was made. A consultation was held again, and it was proposed to take the ship from the captain and give command of her to the mate, who had been heard to say that if he could have his way the ship would have been half of the distance to the Cape before night, ice or no ice. And so irritated and impatient had the crew become that even this proposition, which was open mutiny, was entertained, and the carpenter went to his berth, leaving it tacitly understood that something serious would be done if things remained as they were many hours longer. When the carpenter left, we talked it all over, and I gave my advice strongly against it. Another of the men, too, who had known something of the kind of attempt in another ship by a crew who were dissatisfied with their captain, and which was followed with serious consequences, was opposed to it. Stimson, who soon came down, joined us, and we determined to have nothing to do with it. By these means the crew were soon induced to give it up for the present, though they said they would not lie where they were much longer without knowing the reason. The affair remained in this state until four o'clock when an order came forward for all hands to come aft upon the quarterdeck. In about 10 minutes they came forward again, and the whole affair had been blown. The carpenter prematurely and without any authority from the crew had sounded from the mate as to whether he would take command of the ship, and intimated an intention to displace the captain. And the mate, as in duty bound, had told the whole to the captain, who immediately sent for all hands aft. Instead of violent measures, or at least an outbreak of quarterdeck bravado, threats and abuse, which they had every reason to expect, a sense of common danger and common suffering seemed to have tamed his spirit, and we got an in him something like a humane fellow-filling, for he received a crew and a man are quiet, and even almost kind. He told them what he had heard, and said that he did not believe that they would try to do any such thing as was intimated, that they had always been good men, obedient, and knew their duty, and he had no fault to find with them, and asked them what they had to complain of. He said that no one could say that he was slow to carry sail, which was true enough, and that as soon as he thought it was safe and proper he should make sail. He added a few words about their duty in their prison situation and sent them forward, saying that he should take no further notice of the matter, but at the same time told the carpenter to recollect whose power he was in, and that if he heard another word from him he would have caused to remember him to the day of his death. This language of the captain had a very good effect upon the crew, and they returned quietly to their duty. For two days more the wind blew from the southern and eastward, and in the short intervals when it was fair, the ice was too thick to run, yet the weather was not so dreadfully bad, and the crew had watch and watch. I still remained in my berth, fast recovering, yet not well enough to go safely on deck, and I should have been perfectly useless. For, from having eaten nothing for nearly a week except a little rice, which I forced into my mouth last day or two, I was as weak as an infant. To be sick in a folksoul is miserable indeed. It is the worst part of a dog's life, especially in bad weather. The folksoul shut up tight to keep out the weather and cold air, the watch either on deck or asleep in their berths, no one to speak to, the pale light of the single lamp, swinging to and fro from the beam, so dim that one can scarcely see, much less read by it. The water dropping from the beams and carlings and running down into the sides, and the folksouls so wet and dark and cheerless, and so lumbered up with chests and wet clothes, that sitting up is worse than lying in the berth. These are some of the evils. Fortunately, I needed no help from anyone and no medicine. And if I had needed help, I don't know where I should have found it. Sailors are willing enough, but it is true, as is often said. No one ships for a nurse on board a vessel. Our merchant ships are always under manned, and if one man is lost by sickness, they cannot spare another to take care of him. The sailor is always presumed to be well, and if he's sick, he's a poor dog. One has to stand his wheel, and another his lookout, and the sooner he gets on deck again the better. Accordingly, as soon as I could possibly go back to my duty, I put on my thick clothes and boots and saw Wester, and made my appearance on deck. I had been but a few days below, yet everything looked strangely enough. The ship was cased in ice, decks, sides, masts, yards, and rigging. Two close reefed topsoils were all the sail she had on, and every sail and rope was frozen so stiff in its place that it seemed as though it would be impossible to start anything. Reduced, too, to her topmost, she had altogether most forlorn and crippled appearance. The sun had come up brightly. The snow was swept off the decks and ashes thrown upon them so that we could walk, for they had been as slippery as glass. It was, of course, too cold to carry on any ship's work, and we had only to walk the deck and keep ourselves warm. The wind was still ahead, and the whole ocean to the eastward covered with islands and field ice. At four bells the order was given to square away the yards, and the man who came from the helm said that the captain had kept her off to north-northeast. What could this mean? The wildest rumors got adrift. Some said that he was going to put into Valparaiso in winter, and others that he was going to run out of the ice and cross the Pacific and go home round the Cape of Good Hope. Soon, however, it leaked out, and we found that we were running for the Straits of Magellan. The news soon spread through the ship, and all tongues were at work talking about it. No one on board had been through the Straits, but I had in my chest an account of the passage of the ship A. J. Donaldson of New York, through those Straits a few years before. The account was given by the captain, and the representation was as favorable as possible. It was soon read by everyone on board, and various opinions pronounced. The determination of our captain had at least this good effect. He gave us something to think and talk about, made a break in our life, and diverted our minds from the monotonous dreariness of the prospect before us. Having made a fair wind of it, we were going off at a good rate, and leaving the thickest of the ice behind us. This, at least, was something. Having been long enough below to get my hands well warmed and softened, the first handling of the ropes was rather tough, but a few days hardened them. And as soon as I got my mouth open wide enough to take in a piece of salt-beef and hard bread, I was all right again. Sunday, July 10, latitude 54 degrees 10 minutes, longitude 79 degrees 70 minutes. This was our position at noon. The sun was out bright, the ice was all left behind, and things had quite a cheering appearance. We brought our wet P-jackets and trousers on deck and hung them up in the rigging, that the breeze and the few hours of sun might dry them a little. And by leave of the cook, the galley was nearly filled with stockings and mittens hung round to be dried. Boots, too, were brought up, and having got a little tar and slush from below, we gave them thick coats. After dinner, all hands returned, too, to get the anchors over the bowels, bend on the chains, etc. The fish tackle was got up. Fish davit rigged out, and after two or three hours of hard and cold work, both anchors were ready for instant use. A couple of cages got up, a hawzer coiled away upon the forehatch, and the deep sea lead line overhauled and made ready. Our spirits returned with having something to do, and when the tackle was manned to bow the anchor home, notwithstanding the desolation of the scene, we struck up cheerly men in full chorus. This pleased the mate who rubbed his hands and cried out, That's right, my boys, never say die. That sounds like the old crew. And the captain came up on hearing the song and said to the passenger, within hearing of the man of the wheel. That sounds like a lively crew. They'll have their song so long as there's enough left for a chorus. This preparation of the cable and anchors was for the passage of the straits. For, as they were not very crooked, and with a variety of currents, it is necessary to come frequently to anchor. This was not by any means a pleasant prospect. Of all the work that a sailor has called upon to do in cold weather, there is none so bad as working the ground tackle. The heavy chain cables to be hauled and pulled about the decks with bare hands, wet hazers, slip ropes, and bully ropes to be hauled aboard, dripping in water, which is running up your sleeves and freezing, clearing haws under the boughs, getting underway and coming to it all hours of the night and day, and a constant lookout for rocks and sands and turns of tides. These are some of the disagreeables of such a navigation to a common sailor. Fair or foul, he wants to have nothing to do with the ground tackle between port and port. One of our hands, too, had unluckily fallen upon half of an old newspaper which contained an account of the passage through the straits of a Boston brig, called, I think, the Peruvian, in which she lost every cable and anchor she had, got a ground twice and arrived at Valparaiso in distress. This was set off against the account of the A.J. Donaldson, and led us to look forward with less confidence to the passage, especially as no one on board had ever been through, and we heard the captain had no very satisfactory charts. However, we were spared any further experience on the point. For the next day, when we must have been near the Cape of Pillars, which is the southwest point of the mouth of the straits, a gale set in from the eastward with a heavy fog so that we could not see half the ship's length ahead. This, of course, put an end to the project for the present. For a thick fog and a gale blowing dead ahead are not the most favorable circumstances for the passage of difficult and dangerous straits. This weather, too, seemed likely to last for some time, and we could not think of beating about the mouth of the straits for a week or two, waiting for a favorable opportunity. So we braced up on the larbred tack, put the ship's head due south, and stuck her off for Cape Horn again. End of Chapter 31 Part 2 Chapter 32 of Two Years Before the Mast. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Chapter 32 Debling Cape Horn In our first attempt to double the Cape, when we came up to the latitude of it, we were nearly 1,700 miles to the westward, but in running for the Straits of Magellan, we stood so far to the eastward that we made our second attempt at a distance of not more than four or five hundred miles, and we had great hopes, by this means, to run clear of the ice, thinking that the easterly gales, which had prevailed for a long time, would have driven it to the westward. With the wind about two points free, the yards braced in a little, and two close reef topsoils, and a reefed foresail on the ship, we made great way towards the southward. And almost every watch, when we came on deck, the air seemed to grow colder, and the sea to run higher. Still, we saw no ice, and had great hopes of going clear of it altogether, when one afternoon about three o'clock, while we were taking a siesta during our watch below, all hands was called in a loud and fearful voice. We sprang out of our berths, and hurried upon deck. The loud, sharp voice of the captain was heard giving orders, as though for life or death, and we ran after the braces. Not waiting to look ahead, for not a moment was to be lost. The helm was hard up, the after-yards shaking, and the ship in the act of wearing. Slowly, with the stiff ropes and iced rigging, we swung the yards round, everything coming hard, and with a creaking and rending sound, like pulling up a plank which has been frozen into the ice. The ship wore round fairly. The yards were steadied, and we stood off on the other tack, leaving behind us, directly under our larbored quarter, a large ice island, peering out of the mist, and reaching high above our tops. While a stern on either side of the island, large tracks of field ice were dimly seen, heaving and rolling in the sea. We were now safe, and standing to the northward, but in a few minutes more had it not been for the sharp look-out of the watch, we should have been fairly upon the ice, and left our ship's old bones adrift in the southern ocean. After standing to the northward a few hours we wore a ship, and the wind having hauled, we stood to the southern and eastward. All night long a bright look-out was capped from every part of the deck, and whenever ice was seen on the one bow or the other, the helm was shifted and the yards braced, and by quick working of the ship she was clapped clear. The accustomed cry of, Ice ahead! Ice on the lee-bow! Another island! In the same tones, and with the same orders following them, seemed to bring us directly back to our old position at the week before. During our watch on deck, which was from twelve to four, the wind came out ahead, with a pelting storm of hail and sleet, and we lay hove, too, under a close reefed foretopsil, the whole watch. During the next watch it fell calm, with a drenching rain until daybreak, when the wind came out to the westward, and the weather cleared up and showed us the whole ocean in the course which we should have steered, had it not been for the headwind and calm, completely blocked up with ice. Here then our progress was stopped, and we wore ship, and once more stood, to the northward and eastward, not for the straits of Magellan, but to make another attempt to double the cape, still farther to the eastward, for the captain was determined to get round if perseverance could do it, and the third time, he said, never failed. With a fair wind we soon ran clear of the field ice, and by noon had only the strait islands floating far and near upon the ocean. The sun was out bright, the sea of a deep blue, fringed with a white foam of the waves, which ran high before a strong southwestern. Our solitary ship tore on through the open water as though glad to be out of her confinement, and the ice islands lay scattered here and there, of various sizes and shapes, reflecting the bright rays of the sun, drifting slowly northward before the gale. It was a contrast too much that we had lately seen, and a spectacle not only of beauty, but of life, for it required but little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which had broken loose from the thrilling regions of thick ribbed ice, and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone and some in fleets, to milder climbs. No pencil has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg. In a picture there are huge uncouth masses stuck in the sea, while their chief beauty and grandeur, their slow stately motion, the whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and cracking of their parts, the picture cannot give. This is a large iceberg, while the small and distant islands floating on the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little floating fairy aisles of sapphire. From a northeast coast we gradually hauled to the eastward, and after sailing about two hundred miles, which brought us as near to the western coast of Terra del Fuego as was safe. In having lost sight of the ice altogether, for the third time, we put the ship's head to the southern, to try the passage of the cape. The weather continued clear and cold, with a strong gale from the westward, and we were fast getting up with the latitude of the cape, with the prospect of soon being round. One fine afternoon, a man, who had gone unto the foretop to sift the rolling tackles, sung out at the top of his voice, and with evident glee, neither land nor sail had we seen since leaving San Diego, and only those who have traversed the length of the whole ocean alone can imagine what an excitement such an announcement produced on board. SELHO! shouted the cook, jumping out of his galley. SELHO! shouted a man, throwing back the sleight of the scuttle to the watch below, who were soon out of their berths and on deck, and SELHO! shouted the captain down the companion way to the passenger in the cabin. Besides the pleasure of seeing a ship and human beings in so desolate a place, it was important for us to speak to a vessel, to learn whether there was ice to the eastward, and to ascertain the longitude, for we had no chronometer, and had been drifting about so long that we had nearly lost our reckoning, and opportunities for lunar observations are not frequent or sure in such a place as Cape Horn. For these various reasons the excitement in our little community was running high, and conjectures were made, and everything thought of for which the captain would hail. When the man aloft sung out, Another sail large in the weather-bow! This was a little odd, but so much the better, and did not shake our faith in there being sails. At length the man in the top hailed, and said he believed it was land after all. Land in your eye! said the mate, who was looking through the telescope. They are ice islands if I can see a hole through a ladder. In a few moments showed the mate to be right, and all our expectations flood, and instead of what we most wished to see we had what we most dreaded, and what we hoped we had seen the last of. We soon, however, left these astern, having passed within about two miles of them, and at sundown the horizon was clear in all directions. Having a fine wind we were soon up with and passed the latitude of the Cape, and having stood far enough to the southern to give it a wide berth we began to stand to the eastward, with a good prospect of being round and steering to the northward on the other side in a very few days, but ill luck seemed to have lighted upon us. Not four hours had we been standing on in this course before it fell, dead, calm, and in half an hour it clouded up, and a few straggling blasts, with spits of snow and sleet, came from the eastward, and in an hour more we lay afove, too, under a close reefed main topsoil, drifting bodily off to a lured before the fiercest storm that we had yet felt, blowing dead ahead from the eastward. It seemed as though the genius of the place had been roused at finding that we had nearly slipped through his fingers, and had come down upon us with tenfold fury. The sailors said that every blast as it shook the shrouds, and whistled through the rigging, said to the old ship, No you don't, no you don't! For eight days we lay drifting about in this manner, sometimes, generally towards noon it fell calm. Once or twice a round copper ball showed itself for a few moments in the place where the sun ought to have been, and a puff or two came from the westward, giving some hope that a fair wind had come at last. During the first two days we made sail for these puffs, shaking the reefs out of the topsills and boarding the tacks of the courses, but finding that they only made work for us when the gale sat in again it was soon given up, and we lay too under our close reefs. We had less snow and hail than when we were further to the westward, but we had an abundance of what is worse to a sailor in cold weather, drenching rain. Snow is blinding, and very bad when coming upon a coast, but for genuine discomfort give me rain with freezing weather. A snow storm is exciting, and it does not wet through the clothes. A fact important to a sailor, but a constant rain there is no escaping from. It wets to the skin, and makes all protection vain. We had long ago run through all our dry clothes, and the sailors have no other way of drying them then by the sun. We had nothing to do but put on those which were the least wet. At the end of each watch, when we came below, we took off our clothes and rung them out, two taking hold of a pair of trousers, one at each end, and jackets in the same way. Stockings, mittens, and all were rung out also, and then hung up to drain and chafe dry against the bulkheads. Then feeling all our clothes, we picked out those which were the least wet and put them on. So as to be ready for a call, and turned in, covered ourselves up with blankets, and slept until three knocks on the scuttle in the dismal sound of all starboard lines ahoy. Eight bells there below. Do you hear the news? Drawled out from on deck, and the sulky answer of ay, ay, from below sent us up again. On deck all was dark, and either a dead calm with the rain pouring subtly down, or more generally, a violent gale did ahead, with rain pelting horizontally, an occasional variance of hail and sleet. Decks afloat with water swashing from side to side, and constantly wet feet, for boots could not be rung out like drawers, and no composition could stand the constant soaking. In fact, wet and cold feet are inevitable in such weather, and are not the least of those items which go to make up the grand total of the discomforts of a winter passage round Cape Horn. Few words were spoken between the watches as they shifted. The wheel was relieved, the mate took his place on the quarter deck, and the lookouts in the boughs, and each man had his narrow space to walk for an afton, or rather to swing himself forward and back in, from one belying pin to another, for the decks were too slippery with ice and water to allow of much walking. To make a walk which is absolutely necessary to pass away the time, one of us hit upon the expedient of sanding the decks, and afterwards, whenever the rain was not so violent as to wash it off, the weather side of the quarter deck and a part of the waste and folksal were sprinkled with the sand which we had on board for holy stoning, and thus we made a good promenade, where we walked for an aft two and two hour after hour in our long, dull, and comfortless watches. The bells seemed to be an hour or two apart instead of half an hour, and an age to lapse before the welcome sound of eight bells. The sole object was to make the time pass on, any change was sought for it which would break the monotony of the time, and even the two hours' trick at the will which came round to us in turn, once an every other watch, was looked upon as a relief. The never-failing resource of long yarns, which eke out many a watch, seemed to have failed us now, for we had been so long together that we had heard each other's stories told over and over again till we had them by heart. Each one knew the whole history of each of the others, and we were fairly and literally talked out. Singing and joking we were in no humor for, and in fact any sound of mirth or laughter would have struck strangely upon our ears, and would not have been tolerated any more than whistling or a wind instrument. The last resort that was speculating upon the future seemed now to fail us, for our discouraging situation and the danger we were really in, as we expected every day to find our self-drifted back among the ice, clapped a stopper upon all that. From saying when we get home, we begin insensibly to alter it to if we get home, and at last the subject was dropped by a tacit consent. In this state of things a new light was struck out, and a new field opened by a change in the watch. One of our watch was laid up for two or three days by a bad hand. Foreign cold weather, the leased cut or bruise ripens into a sore, and his place was supplied by the carpenter. This was a windfall, and there was a contest who should have the carpenter to walk with him. As Chips was a man of some little education, and he and I had had a good deal of intercourse with each other, he fell in with me in my walk. He was a Finn, but spoke English well, and gave me long accounts of his country, the customs, the trade, the towns, what little he knew of the government. I found he was no friend of Russia. His voyage is his first arrival in America, his marriage in courtship. He had married a countrywoman of his, a dressmaker whom he met with in Boston. I had very little to tell him of my quiet sedentary life at home, and in spite of our best efforts, which had protracted these yarns through five or six watches, we fairly talked each other out, and I turned him over to another man in the watch, and put myself upon my own resources. I commenced a deliberate system of time-killing, which united some profit with a cheering up of the heavy hours. As soon as I came on deck, and took my place in regular walk, I began with repeating over to myself in regular order a string of matters which I had in my memory. The multiplication table, and the tables of weights and measures, the Canaka numerals, and then the states of the Union with their capitals, the counties of England with their shire towns, and the kings of England in their order, and other things. This carried me through my facts, and being repeated deliberately with long intervals often eaked out the first two bells. Then came the Ten Commandments, the 39th Chapter of Job, and a few other passages from the scripture. The next in order which I seldom varied from came Cooper's Castaway, which was a great favourite with me. Its solemn measure and gloomy character, as well as the incident it was founded upon, making it well-suited to a lonely watch at sea. Then his lines to Mary, his address to the Jack-Daw, and a short extract from Table Talk. I abounded in Cooper, for I happened to have a volume of his poems in my chest. Iliad's New Fasto from Horace, and Goethe's Earl Koenig. After I had got through these, I allowed myself a more general range among everything that I could remember, both in prose and verse. In this way, with an occasional break by relieving the wheel, heaving the log, and going to the scuttle-butt for a drink of water, the longest watch was passed away, and I was so irregular in my silent recitations that, if there was no interruptions by my ship's duty, I could tell very nearly the number of bells by my progress. Our watches below were no more varied than the watch on deck. All washing, sewing, and reading were given up, and we did nothing but eat, sleep, and stand our watch, leading what might be called a Cape Horn life. The folk-soul was too uncomfortable to sit up in, and whenever we were below we were in our berths. To prevent the rain and the seawater, which broke over the bowels from washing down, we were obliged to keep the scuttle closed, so that the folk-soul was nearly airtight. In this little wet, leaky hole we were all quartered, in an atmosphere so bad that our lamp, which swung in the middle from the beams, sometimes actually burned blue, with a large circle of foul air about it. Still I was never in better health than after three weeks of this life. I gained a great deal of flesh, and we all ate like horses. At every watch when we came below, before turning in, the bread barge and beef kid were overhauled. Each man drank his quart of hot tea night and morning, and glad enough we were to get it, for no nectar and ambrosia were sweeter to the lazy immortals than was a pot of hot tea, a hard biscuit, and a slice of cold salt-beef to us, after a watch on deck. To be sure we were mere animals, and had this life lasted a year instead of a month. We should have been little better than the ropes on the ship. Not a razor nor a brush nor a drop of water, except the rain and the spray, had come near us all the time. For we were on an allowance of fresh water, and who would strip and wash himself in salt water on deck, in the snow and ice, with a thermometer at zero. After about eight days of constant easterly gales, the wind hauled occasionally a little to the southern, and blue hard, which, as we were well to the southern, allowed us to brace in a little, and stand on under all the sail we could carry. These turns lasted but a short while, and sooner or later it set in again from the old quarter. Yet at each time we made something, and were gradually edging along to the eastward. One night, after one of these shifts of the wind, and when all hands had been up a great part of the time our watch was left on deck, with the mainsail hanging in the buttlands, ready to be set if necessary. It came on to blow worse and worse, with hail and snow beating like so many furies upon the ship, it being as dark and thick as night could make it. The mainsail was blowing and sliding with a noise like thunder, when the captain came on deck and ordered it to be furled. The mate was about to call all hands when the captain stopped him, and said that the men would be beaten out if they were called up so often. That, as our watch must stay on deck, it might as well be doing that as anything else. Accordingly we went upon the yard, and never shall I forget that piece of work. Our watch had been so reduced by sickness, and by some having been left in California, that with one man at the wheel we had only the third mate, and three beside myself to go aloft. So that at most we could only attempt to furl one yard arm at a time. We maintained the weather yard arm and set to work to make a furl of it, our lower mast being short, and our yards very square. The sail had a head of nearly fifty feet, and a short leech, made still shorter by the deep reef which was in it, which brought the clue away out on the quarters of the yard, and made a bunt nearly as square as the mizzen royal yard. Besides this difficulty the yard for which we lay was cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot, and leech of the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of leather hose, and the sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for if he slipped he was a gone man. All the boats were hoisted in on deck, and there was nothing to be lowered for him. We had need of every finger God had given us. Several times we got the sail upon the yard, but it blew away again before we could secure it. It required men to lie over the yard to pass each turn of the gaskets, and when they were passed it was almost impossible to knot them so that they would hold. Frequently we were obliged to leave off all together, and take to beating our hands upon the sail to keep them from freezing. After some time, which seemed forever, we got the weather side stowed after a fashion, and went over to Leward for another trial. This was still worse, for the body of the sail had been blown over to Leward, and as the yard was a cockabill by the line over of the vessel, we had to light it all up to Wendard. When the yard arms were furled, the bunt was all adrift again, which made more work for us. We got all secure at last, but we had been nearly an hour and a half upon the yard, and it seemed an age. It had just struck five bells when it went up, and eight were struck soon after we came down. This may seem slow work, but considering the state of everything and that we had only five men to sell, with just half as many square yards of canvas in it, as the main sold independent sixty-gun ship, which muster seven hundred men at her quarters, it is not wonderful that we were no quicker about it. We were glad enough to get on deck and still more to go below. The oldest sailor in the watch said as he went down, I shall never forget that main yard. It beats all my going efficient. Fun is fun, but furling one yard arm of a course at a time off Cape Horn is no better than man-killing. During the greater part of the next two days the wind was pretty steady from the southward. We had evidently made great progress and had good hope of being soon up with the Cape, if we were not there already. We could put but little confidence in our reckoning as there had been no opportunities for an observation, and we had drifted too much to allow of our dead reckoning being anywhere near the mark. If it would clear off enough to give a chance for an observation, or if we could make land, we should know where we were, and upon these and the chances of falling in with a sail from the eastward, we depended almost entirely. Friday, July twenty-second. This day we had a steady gale from the southward and stood on under closed sail, with the yards eased a little by the weather braces. The clouds lifted a little and showing signs of breaking away. In the afternoon I was below with Mr. Hatch, the third mate, and two others, filling the bread locker and the steerage from the casks, when a bright gleam of sunshine broke out and shone down the companion way, and threw the skylight, lighting up everything below, and sending a warm glow through the hearts of all. It was a sight we had not seen for weeks, an omen, a godsend. Even the roughest and hardest face acknowledged its influence. Just at that moment we heard a loud shout from all parts of the deck, and the mate called out down the companion way to the captain who was sitting in the cabin, what he said we could not distinguish, but the captain kicked over his chair and was on deck at one jump. We could not tell what it was, and anxious as we were to know, the discipline of the ship would not allow of our leaving our places. Yet, as we were not called, we knew there was no danger. We hurried to get through with our job, when, seeing the steward's black face peering out of the pantry, Mr. Hatch held him to know what was the matter. Lano, to be sure, sir. Know you hear him singing out, Lano? Dear captain, say him, keep on! This gave us a new start, and we were soon through our work and on deck, and there lay the land, fair upon the larbored beam and slowly edging away upon the quarter. All hands were busy looking at it, the captain and mates from the quarter deck, the cook from his galley, and the sailors from the folk soul, and even Mr. Nuttle, the passenger, who had kept in his shell for nearly a month and hardly been seen by anybody, and who we had almost forgotten was on board, came out like a butterfly, and was hopping round as bright as a bird. The land was the island of Statenland, just to the eastward of Cape Horn, and a more desolate looking spot I never wished to sit eyes upon, bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, and here and there between the rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted vegetation of shrubs. It was a place well suited to stand at the junction of the two oceans, beyond the reach of human cultivation, and encounter the blast and snows of a perpetual winter. Yet dismal as it was it was a pleasant sight to us, not only as being the first land we had seen, but because it told us that we had passed the Cape, were in the Atlantic, and that, with twenty-four hours of this breeze, we should bid defiance to the southern ocean. It told us, too, our latitude and longitude better than any observation, and the captain now knew where we were, as well as if we were off the end of Long Wharf. In the general joy, Mr. Nettle said that he should like to go ashore upon the island and examine a spot which probably no human being had ever set foot upon. But the captain intimated that he would see the island, specimens and all, in another place, before he would get out of boat or delay the ship one moment for him. We left the land gradually astern, and at sundown had the Atlantic Ocean clear before us. End of Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Of two years before the mast This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Two years before the mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Northward Ho It is usual, and voyages round the Cape from the Pacific, to keep to the eastward of the Falkland Islands. But as there had now set in a strong, steady, and clear southwestern, with every prospect of its lasting, and we had had enough of high latitudes, the captain determined to stand immediately to the northward, running inside the Falkland Islands. Accordingly, when the wheel was relieved at eight o'clock, the order was given to keep her due north, and all hands were turned up to square away the yards and make sail. In a moment the news ran through the ship that the captain was keeping her off, with her nose straight for Boston and Cape Horn over her taffrel. It was a moment of enthusiasm. Everyone was on the alert, and even the two sick men turned out to lend a hand at the Hellyards. The wind was now due southwest, and blowing a gale to which a vessel close hauled could have shown no more than a single close reefed sail. But as we were going before it, we could carry on. Accordingly, hands were sent aloft, and a reef shaken out of the topsoils, and the reefed foresail set. When we came to mast head the topsoil yards, with all hands at the Hellyards, we struck up cheerily men, with a chorus that might have been heard halfway to Staten Island. Under her increased sail the ship drove through the water. Yet she could bear it well, and the captain sang out from the quarter deck. Another reef out of the fore topsoil, and give it to her. Two hands sprang aloft, and the frozen reef points and earrings were cast adrift. The Hellyards manned, and the sail gave out her increased canvas to the gale. All hands were kept on deck to watch the effect of the change. It was as much as she could well carry, and with a heavy sea astern it took two men at the wheel to steer her. She flung the foam from her boughs, the spray breaking aft as far as the gangway. She was going at a prodigious rate. Still everything held. Preventor braces were reaved and hulled taut, tackles got upon the backstains, and everything done to keep all snug and strong. The captain walked the deck at a rapid stride, looking aloft at the sails, and then to windard. The mate stood in the gangway rubbing his hands, and talking aloud to the ship. Aroh, bucket! The Boston girls have got hold of the tow rope! And the like. And we were in the folk sole, looking to see how the spars stood it, and guessing the rate at which she was going when the captain called out. Mr. Brown, get up the taut mess sitting still, wish she can't carry she may drag. The mate looked a moment, but he would let no one be before him in daring. He sprang forward. Hurrah, men! Rig out the taut mess sitting still, boom! Lay aloft, and I'll send the rigging up to you. We sprang aloft into the taut, lowered a gantlin down, by which we hauled up the rigging, rode the tacks and halyards, ran out the boom, and lashed it fast, and sent down the lower halyards as a preventor. It was a clear starlet night, cold and blowing, but everybody worked with a will. Some, indeed, looked as though they thought the old man was mad, but no one said a word. We had had a new taut mess studying soul made with a reef in it, a thing hardly ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal, saying that when it was time to reef a studying soul it was time to take it in. But we've found a use for it now. For there being a reef in the taut soul, the studying soul could not be set without one in it also. To be sure, a studying cell with reefed taut cells was rather a novelty, yet there was some reason in it, for if we carried that away we should lose only a sail and a boom, but a whole taut soul might have carried away the mast and all. While we were aloft the sail had been got out, bent to the yard, reefed, and ready for wasting. Waiting for a good opportunity, the halyards were manned and the yard wasted fairly up to the block. But when the mate came to shake the cat-spaw out of the down-hole, and we began to boom in the sail, it shook the ship to her center. The boom buckled up and bent like a whip-stick, and we looked every moment to see something go. But being of the short, tough, upland spruce, it bent like whalebone and nothing could break it. The carpenter said it was the best stick he had ever seen. The strength of all hands soon brought the tack to the boom-end, and the sheet was trimmed down, and the preventer and the weather-brace hauled taut to take off the strain. Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the utmost, and every thread a canvas. And with the sail added to her, the ship sprang through the water like a thing possessed. The sail being nearly all-forward, it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed actually to jump from sea to sea. From the time her keel was laid, she had never been so driven, and had it been life or death with every one of us, she could not have borne another stitch of canvas. Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands were sent below, and our watch remained on deck. Two men at the wheel had as much as they could do to keep her within three points of her course, for she steered as wild as a young colt. The mate walked the deck, looking at the cells, and then over the side to see the foam fly by her, slapping his hands upon his thighs and talking to the ship. Hurrah, you jade, you've got the scent. You know where you're going. And when she leaped over the seas, and almost out of the water, and trembled to her very keel, the spars and masts snapping and creaking, there she goes, there she goes huntsomely, as long as she cracks she holds. While we stood with the rigging laid down fair for letting go, and ready to take and sail and clear away if anything went. At four bells we hoved the log, and she was going eleven knots fairly, and had it not been for the sea from aft, which sent the ship home and through continually off her course, the log would have shown her to have been going somewhat faster. I went to the wheel with a young fellow from Kennebuk, Jack Stewart, who was a good helmsman, and for two hours we had our hands full. A few minutes showed us that our monkey jackets must come off, and, cold as it was, we stood in our shirtslays in a perspiration, and were glad enough to have it eight bells, and the wheel relieved. We turned in and slept as well as we could, though the sea made a constant roar under her bows, and washed over the folk-sole like a small cataract. At four o'clock we were called again. The same sail was still in the vessel, and the gale, if there was any change, had increased a little. No attempt was made to take the stunning sill in, and, indeed, it was too late now. If we had started anything towards taking it in, either tack or halyards, it would have blown to pieces and carried something away with it. The only way now was to let everything stand, and if the gale went down well and good, if not, something must go, and the weakest stick or rope first, and then we could get it in. For more than an hour she was driven on at such a rate that she seemed to crowd the sea into a heap before her, and the water poured over the spritzel-yard as it would over a dam. Towards daybreak the gale abated a little, and she was just beginning to go more easily along, relieved of the pressure, when Mr. Brown determined to give her no respite, and, depending upon the wind subsiding as the sun rose, told us to get along the lower setting sill. This was an immense sail, and held wind enough to last a Dutchman a week-hove too. It was soon ready, the boom topped up, prevented Guy's Rove, and the idlers called up to man the halyards, yet such was still the force of the gale that we were nearly an hour sitting the sail, carried away the outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off the swinging boom. No sooner was it set up than the ship tore on again like one mad and began to steer wilder than ever. The men at the will were puffing and blowing at their work, and the helm was going hard up and hard down, constantly. Added to this the gale did not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds. A sudden lurch threw the man from the weather-wheel across the deck and against the side. The mate sprang to the will, and the man, regaining his feet, seized the spokes, and they hoved the wheel up just in time to save the ship from broaching to. Though as she came up the stunning sill-boom stood at an angle of forty-five degrees. She had evidently more on her than she could bear, yet it was in vain to try to take it in. The clue-line was not strong enough, and they were thinking of cutting away, when another wide yaw and a come-to snapped the guys, and the swinging boom came in with a crash against the lower rigging. The outhaul block gave way, and the topmost stunning sill-boom bent in a manner which I never before supposed a stick could bend. I had my eye on it when the guys parted, and it made one spring and buckled up so as to form nearly a half-circle and sprang out again to its shape. The clue-line gave way at the first pull, the cleat to which the halyards were belayed was wrenched off, and the sail blew round the spritzel-yard and head-guys, which gave us a bad job to get it in. A half-hour served to clear all away, and she was suffered to drive on with her topmost stunning sill set, it being as much as she could stagger under. During all this day and the next night we went on under the same sail, the gale blowing with undiminished violence, two men at the wheel all the time, watch and watch, and nothing to do but to steer and look out for the ship, and be blown along until the noon of the next day, Sunday, July 24th. When we were in latitude 50 degrees, 27 minutes south, longitude 62 degrees, 13 minutes west, having made 4 degrees of latitude in the last 24 hours. Being now to the northward of the Falkland Islands, the ship was kept off northeast for the Equator, and with her head for the Equator, and Cape Horn over her taffrel, she went gloriously on, every heave of the sea leaving the Cape Asturn, and every hour bringing us nearer to home and to warm weather. Many a time and blocked up in the ice, with everything dismal and discouraging about us, had we said, if we were only fairly round and standing north on the other side, we should ask for no more. And now we had it all, with a clear sea and as much wind as a sailor could pray for. If the best part of a voyage is the last part, surely we had all now that we could wish. Everyone was in the highest spirits, and the ship seemed as glad as any of us at getting out of her confinement. At each change of the watch those coming on deck asked those going below. How did she go along, and got for answer the rate in customary addition? Aye, and the Boston girls have had hold of the toe-rope all the watch. Every day the sun rose higher in the horizon, and the nights grew shorter, and at coming on deck each morning there was a sensual change in the temperature. The ice-tube began to melt from off the rigging and spars, and except a little which remained in the tops, and round the hounds of the lower masts was soon gone. As we left the gale behind us, the reefs were shaken out of the topsoles, and sail made as fast as she could bear it, and every time all hands were sent to the halyards a song was called for, and we wasted away with a will. Sail after sail was added as we drew into fine weather, and in one week after leaving Cape Horn the long top-gallant masts were got up, top-gallant and royal yards crossed, and the ship restored to her fair proportions. The southern cross and the Magellan clouds settled lower and lower in the horizon, and so great was our change of latitude that each succeeding night we sank some constellation in the south, and raised another in the northern horizon. Sunday, July 31st. At noon we were in latitude 36 degrees, 41 minutes south, longitude 38 degrees, 8 minutes west, having traversed the distance of 2,000 miles, allowing for changes of course, in nine days. A thousand miles in four days and a half, this is equal to steam. Soon after eight o'clock the appearance of the ship gave evidence that this was the first Sunday we had yet had in fine weather, as the sun came up clear, with the promise of a fair warm day, and as usual on Sunday there is no work going on, all hands turned to upon clearing out the folksal. The wet and soiled clothes which had accumulated there during the past month were brought on deck, the chests smoothed, brooms, buckets of water, swabs, scrubbing brushes, and scrapers carried down and applied, until the folksal floor was as white as chalk, and everything neat and in order. The bedding from the berths was then spread on deck, and dried and aired, the deck-tub filled with water, and a grand washing began of all the clothes which were brought up, shirts, frocks, drawers, trousers, jackets, stockings, of every shape and color, wet and dirty, many of them moldy from having been lying a long time wet in a foul corner. These were all washed and scrubbed out, and finally toed overboard for half an hour, and then made fast in the rigging to dry. Wet boots and shoes were spread out to dry and sunny places on deck, and the whole ship looked like a backyard on a washing day. After we had done with our clothes, we began upon our persons. A little fresh water, which we had saved from our allowance, was put in buckets, and with soap and towels we had what sailors call a fresh water wash. The same bucket, to be sure, had to go through several hands, and was spoken for by one after another. But as we rinsed off in salt water pure from the ocean, and the fresh was used only to start the accumulated grime and blackness of five weeks, it was held of little consequence. We soaked down and scrubbed one another with towels and pieces of canvas, stripping to it, and then getting into the head through buckets of water upon each other. After this came shaving and combing and brushing, and when, having spent the first part of the day in this way, we sat down on the folk sole in the afternoon, with clean duck trousers and shirts on, washed, shaved, and combed, and looking a dozen shades lighter for it, reading, sewing, and talking at our ease, with a clear sky and warm sun over our heads, a steady breeze over the larbored quarter, studying soles out aloe and aloft, and all the flying kites abroad, we felt that we had got back into the pleasantest part of a sailor's life. At sunset the clothes were all taken down from the rigging, clean and dry, and stowed neatly away in our chests, and our shallow esters, thick boots, jersey frocks, and other accompaniments of bad weather put out of the way we hoped for the rest of the voyage as we expected to come upon the coast early in the autumn. Notwithstanding all that has been said about the beauty of the ship under full sail, there are very few who have ever seen a ship literally under all her sail. A ship coming in or going out of ports, with her ordinary sails and perhaps two or three sitting soles, is commonly said to be under full sail, but a ship never has all sail upon her, except when she has a light, steady breeze, very nearly, but not quite, dead aft, and so regular that it can be trusted, and is likely to last for some time. Then, with all her sails light and heavy, and sitting soles on each side aloe and aloft, aloe and aloft, she is the most glorious moving object in the world. Such is sight very few, even some who have been to see a good deal, have ever beheld, for from the deck of your own vessel you cannot see her, as you would a separate object. One night, while we were in these tropics, I went out to the end of the flying jib-boom upon some duty, and having finished it, turned round and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the deck, I could look at the ship as a separate vessel, and there rose up from the water supported only by the small black hall, a pyramid of canvas, spreading out far beyond the hall, and towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to the clouds. The sea was as still as an inland lake, the light trade wind was gently and steadily breathing from a stern. The dark blue sky was studded with tropical stars, there was no sound but the rippling of the water under the stem, and the sails were spread wide and high, the two lower studying soles stretching on each side far beyond the deck, the topmost studying soles like wings to the top soles, the top gallant studying soles spreading fearlessly out above them, still higher, the two royal studying soles looking like two kites flying from the same string, and highest of all, the little sky-soul, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch the stars, and to be out of reach of human hand. So quiet too was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble, they could not have been more emotionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas, not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said, for he too, ruffled Manobor's man as he was, had been gazing at the show, half to himself, still looking at the marble sails, how quietly they do their work. The fine weather brought work with it, as the ship was to be put in order for coming into port. To give a landsman some notion of what is done on board ship, it may be truly said that all the first part of a passage is spent in getting a ship ready for sea, and the last part in getting her ready for port. She is, as sailors say, like a lady's watch, always out of repair. The new strong sails, which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in their place. All the rigging to be set up, fore and aft, the mast stayed, the standing rigging to be tarred down, lower and top mast rigging to be rattled down, fore and aft, and the ship scraped inside and out, painted, decks varnished, new and neat knots, ceasings and coverings, to be fitted, and every part put in order to look well to the owner's eye and to all critics on coming into Boston. This, of course, was a long matter, and all hands were kept on deck at work for the whole of each day, during the rest of the voyage. Sailors call this hard usage, but the ship must be in crack order. And where homeward bound was the answer to everything. We went on for several days, employed in this way, nothing remarkable occurring, and at the latter part of the week fell in with southeast trades, blowing about east-southeast, which brought them nearly two points abaft our beam. They blew strong and steady, so that we hardly started a rope until we were beyond their latitude. The first day of all hands one of those little incidents occurred, which are nothing in themselves, but are great matters in the eyes of a ship's company, as they serve to break the monotony of a voyage and afford conversation to the crew for days afterwards. These things, too, are often interesting as they show the customs and states of feeling on shipboard. In merchant vessels the captain gives his orders as to the ship's work to the mate, in a general way, and leaves the execution of them with the particular ordering to him. This has become so fixed to custom that it is like a law and is never infringed upon by a wise master unless his mate is no seaman, in which case the captain must often oversee things for himself. This, however, could not be said of our chief mate, and he was very jealous of any encroachment upon the borders of his authority. On Monday morning the captain told him to stay the fortop must plumb. He, according they came forward, turned all hands, too, with tackles on the stays and backstays, coming up with the ceasings, hauling here, belaying there, and full of business, standing between the night heads to side the mast, when the captain came forward, and also began to give orders. This made confusion, and the mate left his place and went af, saying to the captain, If you come forward, sir, I'll go af'd. One is enough on the folksle. This produced a reply and another fierce answer, and the words flew, fists were doubled up, and things looked very threateningly. I'm master of this ship. Yes, sir, and I'm mate of her, and I know my place. My place is forward, and yours is af'd. My place is where I choose. I command the whole ship, and you are mate only as long as I choose. Say the word, Captain Thompson, and I'm done. I can do a man's work aboard. I didn't come through the cabin windows. If I'm not mate, I can be man. Et cetera, et cetera. This was all fun for us, who stood by winking at each other and enjoying the contest between the higher powers. The captain took the mate af'd, and they had a long talk, which ended in the mate's returning to his duty. The captain had broken through a custom, which is a part of the common law of a ship, and without reason, for he knew that his mate was a sailor, and needed no help from him, and the mate was excusable for being angry. Yet in strict law he was wrong in the captain right. Whatever the captain does is right, ipso facto, and any opposition to it is wrong on board ship. And every officer and man knows this when he signs the ship's articles. It is a part of the contract. Yet there has grown up in merchant vessels a series of customs which have become a well-understood system, and have somewhat the force of prescriptive law. To be sure, all power is in the captain, and the officers hold their authority only during his will, and the men are liable to be called upon for any service. Yet, by breaking in upon these usages, many difficulties have occurred on board ship, and even come into courts of justice, which are perfectly unintelligible to anyone not acquainted with the universal nature and force of these customs. Many a provocation has been offered, and a system of petty oppression pursued towards men, the force and meaning of which would appear as nothing to strangers, and doubtless do appear so to many longshore juries and judges. The next little diversion was a battle in the folksal, one afternoon between the mate and the steward. They had been on bad terms the whole voyage, and had threatened to rupture several times. Once on the coast the mate had seized the steward, when the steward suddenly lowered his head and pitched it straight into Mr. Brown's stomach, budding him against the galley, grunting at every shove and calling out, You Brown! Mr. Brown looked white in the face, and the heaviest blows he could give seemed to have no effect on the negro's head. He was pulled off by the second mate, and Mr. Brown was going at him again, when the captain separated them, and Mr. Brown told his tell to the captain, adding, And moreover he called me Brown! From this time, moreover he called me Brown, became a byword on board. Mr. Brown went aft, saying, I've promised it to you, and now you've got it. But he did not seem to be sure which had got it, nor did we. We knew that Mr. Brown would not leave a thing in that equivocal position all the voyage if he could help it. This afternoon the mate asked the steward for a tumbler of water, and he refused to get it for him, saying that he waited upon nobody but the captain, and here he had the custom on his side. But, in answering, he committed the unpardonable offence of leaving off the handle to the mate's name. This enraged the mate, who called him a black soldier, and at it they went, clenching, striking, and rolling over and over, while we stood by, looking on, and enjoying the fun. The dark he tried to butt him, as before, but the mate got him down and held him, the steward singing out, Let me go, Mr. Brown, or there'll be blood spilt! In the midst of this the captain came on deck, separated them, took the steward aft, and gave him half a dozen with a rope's end. The steward tried to justify himself, but he had been heard to talk of spilling blood, and that was enough to earn him his longing, and the captain did not choose to inquire any further. Mr. Brown was satisfied to let him alone after that, as he had on the whole vindicated his superiority in the eyes of the crew.