 I am unwilling to present this narrative to the public without a few words and explanation of my reasons for publishing it. Since Mr. Cooper's pilot and Red Rover, there have been so many stories of sea life written that I should really think it unjustifiable in me to add one to the number without being able to give reasons in some measure warranting me in so doing. With the single exception, as I am quite confident, of Mr. Ames entertaining but hasty and desultory work called Mariner's Sketches, all the books professing to give life at sea have been written by persons who have gained their experience as naval officers or passengers. And of these, there are very few which are intended to be taken as narratives of facts. Now in the first place, the whole course of life and daily duties, the discipline, habits and customs of a man of war, are very different from those of the merchant service. And in the next place, however entertaining and well written these books may be, and however accurately they may give sea life as it appears to their authors, it must still be plain to everyone that a naval officer, who goes to sea as a gentleman, with his gloves on as the phrase is, and who associated only with his fellow officers and hardly speaks to a sailor except through a bosson's maid, must take a very different view of the whole matter from that which would be taken by a common sailor. Besides the interests which everyone must feel in exhibitions of life and those forms in which he himself has never experienced it, there has been of late years a great deal of attention directed towards common semen and a strong sympathy awakened in their behalf. Yet I believe that, with the single exception which I have mentioned, there has not been a book written professing to give their life and experiences by one who has been of them and can know what their life really is. A voice from the foxhole has hardly yet been heard. In the following pages I designed to give an accurate and authentic narrative of a little more than two years spent as a common sailor before the mast in the American Merchant Service. It is written out from a journal which I kept at the time and from notes which I made of most of the events as they happened, and in it I have adhered closely to fact in every particular and endeavored to give each thing its true character. In so doing I have been obliged occasionally to use strong and coarse expressions and in some instances to give scenes which may be painful to nice feelings, but I have very carefully avoided doing so whenever I have not felt them essential to giving the true character of a scene. My design is, and it is this which has induced me to publish the book, to present the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is, the light and the dark together. There may be in some parts a good deal that is unintelligible to the general reader, but I have found from my own experience and from what I have heard from others that plain matters of fact in relation to customs and habits of life new to us, and descriptions of life under new aspects act upon the inexperienced through the imagination, so that we are hardly aware of our want of technical knowledge. Thousands read the escape of the American frigate through the British Channel, in the chase and wreck of the Bristol Trader in the Red Rover, and follow the minute nautical maneuvers with breathless interest, who do not know the name of a rope in the ship, and perhaps with nonetheless admiration and enthusiasm for their want of acquaintance with the professional detail. In preparing this narrative I have carefully avoided incorporating into it any impressions but those made upon me by the events as they occurred, leaving to my concluding chapter to which I shall respectfully call a reader's attention, those views which have been suggested to me by subsequent reflection. These reasons and the advice of a few friends have led me to give this narrative to the press. Official interest the general reader and call more attention to the welfare of seamen, or give any information as to their real condition, which may serve to raise them in the rank of beings, and to promote in any measure their religious and moral improvement, and diminish the hardships of their daily life, the end of its publication will be answered. R. H. D. Jr. Boston, July 1840 End of Preface CHAPTER 1. CHAPTER 1. DEPARTURE The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the frig pilgrim on her voyage from Boston, round Cape Horn, to the western coast of North America. As she was to get underway early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock, in full sea rig with my chest containing an outfit for a two or three years voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books, with plenty of hard work, plain food, and open air, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my studies, and which no medical aid seemed likely to remedy. The change from the tight frock coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Harvard to the loose duck trousers, checked shirt, and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I suppose that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters, and while I thought myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a landsman, by everyone on board as soon as I hovered in sight. A sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes and a way of wearing them, which a green hand can never get. The trousers tight round the hips and thence hanging long and loose round the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low crowned, well-varnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with a half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left eye and a slip tie to the black silk neckerchief, with sundry other minutiae, our signs, the want of which betrays the beginner at once. Besides the points in my dress which were out of the way, doubtless my complexion in hands were quite enough to distinguish me from the regular salt, who, with a sunburnt cheek, wide step and rolling gait, swings his bronched and toughened hands athwart ships, half opened as though just ready to grasp a rope. With all my imperfections on my head, I joined the crew, and we hauled out into the stream and came to anchor for the night. The next day we were employed in preparation for sea, weaving, studying sail gear, crossing royal yards, putting on chafing gear, and taking on board our powder. On the following night I stood my first watch. I remained awake nearly all the first part of the night from fear that I might not hear when I was called, and when I went on deck, so great were my ideas the importance of my trust, that I walked regularly for and aft the whole length of the vessel, looking out over the boughs and tafferelle at each turn, and was not a little surprised at the coolness of the old seamen whom I called to take my place in stowing himself snugly away under the longboat for a nap. That was a sufficient lookout, he thought, for a fine night at anchor in a safe harbor. The next morning was Saturday, and a breeze having sprung up from the southward, we took a pilot on board, hove up our anchor, and begin beating down the bay. I took leave of those of my friends who came to see me off, and had barely opportunity for a last look at the city and well known objects, as no time is allowed on board a ship for sentiment. As we drew down into the lower harbor, we found the wind ahead in the bay, and were obliged to come to anchor in the roads. We remained there through the day and part of the night. My watch began at eleven o'clock at night, and I received orders to call the captain if the wind came out from the westward. About midnight the wind became fair, and having summoned the captain, I was ordered to call all hands. How I accomplish this, I do not know, but I am quite sure that I did not give the true horse, Boston's cry, of, oh! In a short time everyone was in motion. The cells loosed, the yards braced, and we begin to heave up the anchor, which was our last hold upon Yankee land. I could take but small part in these preparations. My little knowledge of the vessel was all at fault. Unintelligible orders were so rapidly given, and so immediately executed, there was such a hurrying about, and such an intermingling of strange cries and stranger actions, that I was completely bewildered. There is not so hopeless and pitiful an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor's life. At length those peculiar long-drawn sounds which denote that the crew are heaving out the windlass begin, and in a few minutes we were under way. The noise of the water thrown from the boughs was heard, and the vessel leaned over from the damp night breeze and rolled with the heavy ground's will, and we had actually begun our long, long journey. This was literally bidding good night to my native land. End of chapter one. Chapter two 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 two. First impressions. The first day we passed at sea was Sunday. As we were just from port and there was a great deal to be done on board, we were kept at work all day, and at night the watches were set, and everything was put into sea order. When we were called after to be divided into watches, I had a good specimen of the manner of a sea captain. After the division had been made, he gave a short characteristic speech, walking the quarter deck with a cigar in his mouth, and dropping the words out between the puffs. Now my men, we have begun a long voyage. If we get a long well together, we shall have a comfortable time. If we don't, we shall have hell afloat. All you've got to do is to obey your orders, and do your duty like men, then you will fare well enough. If you don't, you will fare hard enough, I can tell you. If we pull together, you will find me a clever fellow. If we don't, you will find me a bloody rascal. That's all I've got to say. Go below the Lobbard watch. I, being in the Starbird or Second Mate's watch, had the opportunity of keeping the first watch at sea. Stimson, a young man making like myself his first voyage, was in the same watch, and as he was the son of a professional man, and had been in a merchant's counting room in Boston, we found that we had some acquaintances and topics in common. We talked these matters over, Boston, what our friends are probably doing, our voyage, etc., until he went to take his turn at the lookout, and left me to myself. I had now a good opportunity for reflection. I felt for the first time the perfect silence of the sea. The officer was walking the quarter-deck, where I had no right to go. One or two men were talking LaFoxel, whom I had little inclination to join, so that I was left open to the full impression of everything about me. However much I was affected by the beauty of the sea, the bright stars, and the clouds swiftly driven over them, I could not but remember that I was separating myself from all the social and intellectual enjoyments of life. Yet, strange as it may seem, I did then and afterwards take pleasure in these reflections, hoping by them to prevent my becoming insensible to the value of what I was losing. But all my dreams were soon put to flight by an order from the officer to trim the yards, as the wind was getting ahead, and I could plainly see by the looks the sailors occasionally cast to Winderd, and by the dark clouds that were fast coming up, that we had bad weather to prepare for, and I had heard the captain say that he expected to be in the Gulf Stream by twelve o'clock. In a few minutes eight bells were struck, the watch called, and we went below. I now began to fill the first discomforts of a sailor's life. The steerage in which I lived was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, old junk, and ship stores, which had not been stowed away. Moreover, there had been no berth put up for us to sleep in, and we were not allowed to drive nails to hang our clothes upon. The sea, too, had risen. The vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete hurrah's nest, as the sailors say. Everything on top and nothing at hand. A large hauser had been coiled away on my chest. My hats, boots, mattresss, and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to Leward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to fund anything with, and I was just beginning to fill strong symptoms of seasickness, and that listnessness and inactivity would accompany it. Giving up all attempts to collect my things together, I lay down on the sails, expecting every moment to hear the cry, all hands ahoy, which the approaching storm would make necessary. I shortly heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast, and the watch evidently had their hands full of work, for I could hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, trampling of feet, creaking of the blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which let down the noise and tumble to the deck still louder. The cry of, all hands ahoy, tumble up here and take in sail, solutioned our ears. The hatch was quickly shut again. When I got upon deck, a new scene and a new experience was before me. The little break was close hauled upon the wind and lying over, as it then seemed to me nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head sea was beating against her bowels with a noise and force almost of a sledgehammer, and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through. The topsoil haulyards had been let go, and the great sails were filling out and backing against the mass with a noise like thunder. The wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes flying about, loud and to me unintelligible orders constantly given, and rapidly executed, and the sailors singing out at the ropes in their horse and peculiar strains. In addition to this, I had not got my sea legs on, was dreadfully seasick, with hardly strength enough to hold on to anything, and it was pitch dark. This was my condition when I was ordered aloft for the first time to reef topsoils. How I got along I cannot now remember. I laid out on the yards and held on with all my strength. I could not have been of much service, for I remember having been sick several times before I left the topsoil yard, making wild vomits into the black night till a word. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favor for the confusion of everything below, and an inexpressibly sickening smell caused by the shaking up of bilge water in the hold made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experience of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine. For in addition to every other evil I could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years voyage. Before we were continually ordered about by the officer who said that it was good for us to be in motion, yet anything was better than the horrible state of things below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head down when I was oppressed by nausea and always being relieved immediately. It was an effectual emetic. This state of things continued for two days. Wednesday, August 20th. We had the watch on deck from four to eight this morning. When we came on deck at four o'clock we found things much changed for the better. The sea and wind had gone down and the stars were out bright. I experienced a corresponding change in my feelings, yet continued extremely weak from my sickness. I stood in the waste on the weather side watching the gradual breaking of the day and the first streaks of the early light. Much has been said of the sunrise at sea, but it will not compare with the sunrise on shore. It wants the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of humanity, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires, and hillstops to give it life and spirit. There is no scenery, but although the actual rise of the sun at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare for melancholy and dreariness with the early breaking of day upon old oceans gray and melancholy waste. There is something in the first gray streaks stretching along the eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of the deep which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depths of the sea around and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of tread, of melancholy foreboding which nothing else in nature can. This gradually passes away as the light grows brighter and when the sun comes up the ordinary monotonous sea day begins. From such reflections as these I was aroused by the order from the officer. For there, rig the head-pump! I found that no time was allowed for day germing, but that we must turn to at the first light. Having called up the idlers, namely Carpenter Cook and Stewart, and rig the pump, we began washing down the decks. This operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly two hours, and I had hardly strength enough to get through it. After we had finished swabbed down decks and coiled up the rigging, I sat on the spars, waiting for seven bells, which was the signal for breakfast. The officer, seeing my lazy posture, ordered me to slush the main mast from the royal mast head down. The vessel was then rolling a little, and I had taken no food for three days, so that I felt tempted to tell him that I had rather wait till after breakfast. But I knew that I must take the bull by the horns, and that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or backwardness I should be ruined at once. So I took my bucket of grease and climbed up to the royal mast head. Here the rocking of the vessel, which increases the higher you go from the foot of the mast, which is the fulcrum of the lever, and the smell of the grease, which offended my fastidious senses, upset my stomach again. And I was not a little rejoiced when I had finished my job and got upon the comparative terra firma of the deck. In a few minutes seven bells were struck, the log hove, the watch called, and we went to breakfast. Here I cannot but remember the advice of the cook, a simple-hearted African. Now, says he, my lad, you are well cleaned out. You haven't got a drop of your long-shore swash aboard of you. You must begin on a new tack, pitch all your sweet meads overboard, and turn two upon good hearty salt-beef and shipbread, and I'll promise you you'll have your ribs well sheathed and be as hot as any of them before you are up to the horn. This would be good advice to give to passengers when they set their hearts on the little niceties which they have laid in in case of seasickness. I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt-beef and a biscuit or two produced in me. I was a new being. Having a watch below until noon so that I had some time to myself, I got a huge piece of strong cold salt-beef from the cook and kept gnawing upon it until twelve o'clock. When we went on deck I felt somewhat like a man and could begin to learn my sea duty with considerable spirit. At about two o'clock we heard the loud cry of SAIL HALL! From aloft and soon saw two sails to windered going directly a-thwart our haws. This was the first time that I had seen a sail at sea. I thought then and have always sensed that no sight exceeds it in interest and few in beauty. They passed a lured of us and out of hailing distance, but the captain could read the names on their sterns with the glass. They were the ship Helen Marr of New York and the brig Mermaid of Boston. They were both steering westward and were bound in for our dear native land. Thursday, August 21st. This day the sun rose clear. We had a fine wind and everything was bright and cheerful. I had now got my sea legs on and was beginning to enter upon the regular duties of a sea life. About six bells, that is three o'clock p.m., we saw a sail on our larbored bow. I was very desirous like every new sailor to speak to her. She came down to us, backed her main topsoil, and the two vessels stood head-on, bowing and corvette-ing at each other like a couple of whore-horses reigned in by their riders. It was the first vessel that I had seen near, and I was surprised to find how much she rolled and pitched in so quiet a sea. She plunged her head into the sea, and then, her stern settling gradually down, her huge boughs rose up, showing the bright copper, and her stem and breast took stripping, like old Neptune's locks with a brine. Her decks were filled with passengers who had come up at the cry of sail-ho, and who, by their dress and features, appeared to be Swiss and French immigrants. She held us at first in French, but receiving no answer she tried us in English. She was a ship, La Carolina, from Haver, for New York. We desired her to report the brig pilgrim from Boston for the northwest coast of America five days out. She then filled away and left us to plow on through our waste of waters. There is a settled routine for hailing ships at sea. SHIP BEHOY! Answer? HELLO! What ship is that, Prey? The ship Carolina, from Haver. Bound to New York, where are you from? The brig pilgrim, from Boston, bound to the coast of California five days out. Unless there is leisure or something special to say, this form is not much buried from. This day ended pleasantly. We had got into regular and comfortable weather, and into that routine of sea life which is only broken by a storm, a sail, for the sight of land. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 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 3 Ship's Duties As we have now had a long spell of fine weather without any incident to break the monotony of our lives, I may have no better place for description of the duties, regulations, and customs of an American merchant men of which ours was a fair specimen. The captain in the first place is Lord Paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question even from his chief officer. He has the power to turn his officers off duty, and even to break them and make them do duty as sailors in the Vauxhall. Note, there is a doubt of his power to do the latter. End Note Where there are no passengers and no supercargo as in our vessel, he has no companion but his own dignity, and few pleasures, unless he differs from most of his kind, be on the consciousness of possessing supreme power, and occasionally the exercise of it. The prime minister, the official organ, and the active and superintending officer is the chief mate. He is first lieutenant, bosson, selling master, and quarter master. The captain tells him what he wishes to have done, and leads to him the care and overseeing of allotting the work, and also the responsibility of its being well done. The mate, as he is always called, ponder excellence, also keeps a logbook, for which he is responsible to the owners and insurers, and has the charge of the stowage, safekeeping, and delivery of the cargo. He is also ex officio, the wit of the crew. For the captain does not condescend to joke with the men, and the second mate no one cares for, so that when the mate thinks fit to entertain the people, with a coarse joke, or a little practical wit, everyone feels bound to laugh. The second mate is proverbially a dog's birth. He is neither officer nor man. He is obliged to go aloft, to reef and furl the totsels, and to put his hands into the tar and slush with the rest. And the men do not much respect him as an officer. The crew call him the sailor's waiter, as he has to furnish them with spun yarn, marlin, and all other stuff that they need in their work. And has charge of the bosson's locker, which includes serving boards, marlin spikes, etc., etc. He is expected by the captain to maintain his dignity and to enforce obedience, and still is kept at a great distance from the mate, and obliged to work with the crew. He is one to whom little is given, and of whom much is required. His wages are usually double those of a common sailor, and he eats and sleeps in the cabin, but he is obliged to be on deck nearly all his time and eats at the second table. That is, makes a meal out of what the captain and chief mate leave. The steward is the captain's servant, and has charge of the pantry, from which everyone, even the mate himself, is excluded. These distinctions usually find him an enemy in the mate, who does not like to have anyone on board who is not entirely under his control. The crew do not consider him as one of their number, so he is left to the mercy of the captain. The cook, whose title is Doctor, is the patron of the crew, and those who are in his favor can get their wet mittens and stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the night watch. These two were these, together with a carpenter and sailmaker if there be one, stand no watch, but, being employed all day, are allowed to sleep in at night, unless all hands are called. The crew are divided into two divisions as equally as may be, called the watches. Of these, the chief mate commands the larbord, and the second mate the starbord. They divide the time between them, being on and off duty, or, as it is called, on deck and below, every other four hours. The three night watches are called the first, the middle, and the morning watch. If, for instance, the chief mate with the larbord watch have the first night watch from eight to twelve, at that hour, the starbord watch and the second mate take the deck, while the larbord watch and the first mate go below until four in the morning, when they come on deck again and remain until eight. As the larbord watch will have been on deck eight hours out of the twelve, while the starbord watch will have been up only four hours, the former half what is called a four-noon watch below, that is, from eight a.m. till twelve a.m. In a man of war and in some merchantmen, this alternation of watches is kept up throughout the twenty-four hours, which is called having watch and watch. But our ship, like most merchantmen, had all hands from twelve o'clock till dark, except in very bad weather, when we were allowed watch and watch. An explanation of dog watches may perhaps be necessary to one who has never been to sea. Their purpose is to shift the watches each night, so that the same watch need not be on deck at the same hours throughout a voyage. In order to affect this, the watch from four to eight p.m. is divided into two half-watches, one from four to six and the other from six to eight. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the dog watches come during twilight, after the day's work is done, and before the night watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody is on deck. The captain is up, walking on the weather side of the quarter deck, the chief mate on the lee side, and the second mate about the weather gangway. The steward has finished his work in the cabin and has come up to smoke his pipe with a cook in the galley. The crew are sitting on the windlass or lying on the foxtail, smoking, singing, or telling long yarns. At eight o'clock, eight bells are struck, the log is hoved, the watch set, the wheel relieved, the galley shut up, and the watch off duty goes below. The morning begins with the watch on decks turning two at daybreak and washing down, scrubbing and swabbing the decks. This, together with filling the scuttled butt with fresh water and coiling up the rigging, usually occupies the time until seven bells, half after seven, when all hands get to breakfast. At eight the day's work begins and lasts until sundown, with the exception of an hour for dinner. Before I end my explanations it may be well to define a day's work and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen about a sailor's life. Nothing is more common than to hear people say, are not sailors very idle at sea, what can they find to do? This is a natural mistake and being frequently made is one which every sailor feels interested in having corrected. In the first place then, the discipline of the ship requires every man to be at work upon something when he has on deck, except at night and on Sundays. At all other times you will never see a man on board a well-ordered vessel standing idle on deck, sitting down or leaning over the side. It is the officer's duty to keep everyone at work, even if there is nothing to be done but to scrape the rust from the train cables. In no state prison other convicts more regularly be set to work and more closely watched. No conversation is allowed among the crew at their duty and though they frequently do talk when aloft or when near one another, yet they stop when an officer is nigh. With regard to the work upon which men are put, it is a matter which probably would not be understood by one who has not been at sea. When I first left port and found that we were kept regularly employed for a week or two, I suppose that we were getting the vessel into sea trim and that it would soon be over and we should have nothing to do but to sail the ship. But I found that it continued so for two years and at the end of the two years there was as much to be done as ever. This has often been said a ship is like a lady's watch always out of repair. When first leaving port studying sailgears to be rove, all the running rigging to be examined, that which is unfit for use to be got down and new rigging rove in its place, then the standing rigging is to be overhauled, replaced and repaired in a thousand different ways and wherever any of the numberless ropes of the yards are chafing or wearing upon it, their chafing gear as it is called must be put on. This chafing gear consists of warming, parceling, rounding, battens, and service of all kinds, rope yarns, spun yarn, marlin, and seizing stuffs. Taking off, putting on, and mending the chafing gear alone upon a vessel would find constant employment for a man or two men during working hours for a whole voyage. The next point to be considered is that all the small stuffs which are used on board a ship, such as spun yarn, marlin, seizing stuff, etc., etc., are made on board. The owners of a vessel buy up incredible quantities of old junk which the sailors unlay, and after drawing out the yarns, knot them together and roll them up in balls. These rope yarns are constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is manufactured into spun yarn. For this purpose every vessel is furnished with a spun yarn winch which is very simple consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard constantly going on deck in pleasant weather, and we had employment during a great part of the time for three hands in drawing and knotting yarns and in making spun yarn. Another method of employing the crew is setting up rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack, which is continually happening, the seizing and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowed well taught, the seizing and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring a change in another. You cannot stay amassed aft by the back stays without slackening up the head stays, etc., etc. If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing, which is required in the course of a long voyage, and also remember, this is all to be done in addition to watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making, and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one would hardly ask, what can a sailor find to do at sea? If after all this labor after exposing their lives in looms and storms, wet and cold, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, the lion, and the belly-pinched wolf keep their furries dry, the merchants and captains think that the sailors have not earned their twelve dollars a month, out of which they clothe themselves, and their salt-beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum, add infanitum. This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging, and when it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in sheltered places and talk and keep themselves comfortable, they are separated to different parts of the ship and kept at work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about in different parts of the ship so that the sailors might not be idle in the snatches between the frequent squalls upon crossing the equator. Some officers have been so driven to find work for the crew in a ship ready for sea that they have set them to pounding the anchors, often done, and scraping the chain cables. The Philadelphia catechism is, Six days shall thou labor, and do all thou art able, and on the seventh only stone the decks and scrape the cable. This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes. But I have seen the decks washed down and scrubbed when the water would have frozen if it had been fresh, and all hounds kept at work upon the rigging when we had on our pea jackets and our hands so numb that we could hardly hold our marlin spikes. I have here gone out of my narrative course in order that any who read this may at the start form as correct an idea of a sailor's life and duty as possible. I have done it in this place because, for some time, our life was nothing but the unvarying repetition of these duties, which can be better described together. Before leaving this description, however, I would state in order to show landsmen how little they know of the nature of a ship, that a ship carpenter is kept constantly employed during good weather on board vessels which are in what is called perfect sea order. Chapter 4 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 4, Ten Days at Sea. After speaking with the Carolina on the 21st of August, nothing occurred to break the monotony of our life until Friday, September 5th, when we saw a sail on our weather starboard beam. She proved to be a brig under English colors, and passing under our stern reported herself as 49 days from Buenos Aires, bound to Liverpool. Before she had passed us, sail hoe was cried again, and we made another sail, broad on our weather bow, and steering a thwart our haws. She passed out of hail, but we made her out to be a hermaphrodite brig, with Brazilian colors in her main rigging. By her course, she must have been bound from Brazil to the south of Europe, probably Portugal. Sunday, September 7th, fell in with the northeast trade winds. This morning we caught our first dolphin, which I was very eager to see. I was disappointed in the colors of this fish when dying. They were certainly very beautiful, but not equal to what has been said of them. They are too indistinct. To do the fish justice, there is nothing more beautiful than the dolphin when swimming a few feet below the surface on a bright day. It is the most elegantly formed, and also the quickest fish in salt water. And the rays of the sun striking upon it in its rapid and changing motions reflected from the water made it look like a stray beam from a rainbow. This day was spent like all pleasant Sundays at sea. The decks are washed down, the rigging coiled up, and everything put in order. And throughout the day, only one watch is kept on deck at a time. The men are all dressed in their best white duck trousers and red or checked shirts, and have nothing to do but to make the necessary changes in the sails. They employ themselves in reading, talking, smoking, and mending their clothes. If the weather is pleasant, they bring their work and their books upon deck and sit down upon the foxhole and the windlass. This is the only day on which these privileges are allowed them. When Monday comes, they put on their tarry trousers again and prepare for six days of labor. To enhance the value of Sunday to the crew, they are allowed on that day of pudding, or, as it is called, a duff. This is nothing more than flour boiled with water and eaten with molasses. It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork. Many a rascally captain has made up with his crew for hard usage by allowing them duff twice a week on the passage home. On board some vessels Sundays made a day of instruction and of religious exercise, but we had a crew of swarers from the captain to the smallest boy, and a day of rest and of something like quiet social enjoyment was all that we could expect. We continued running large before the northeast trade winds for several days until Monday, September 22nd. When, upon coming on deck at seven bells in the morning, we found the other watch aloft, throwing water upon the sails, and, looking astern, we saw a small clipper-built brig with a black hull heading directly after us. We went to work immediately and put all the canvas upon the brig which we could get upon her, rigging out oars for extra-studying sailyards, and continued wetting down the sails by buckets of water whipped up to the mast-head until about nine o'clock when there came on a drizzling rain. The vessel continued in pursuit, changing her course as we changed ours to keep before the wind. The captain, who watched her with his glass, said that she was armed and full of men, and showed no colors. We continued running dead before the wind, knowing that we sailed better so, and that clippers are fastest on the wind. We had also another advantage. The wind was light, and we spread more canvas than she did, having royals and size sails for an aft, and ten studying sails, while she, being a hermaphrodite brig, had only a gaff top-cell aft. Early in the morning she was overhauling us a little, but after the rain came on and the wind grew lighter, we began to leave for a stern. All hands remained on deck throughout the day, and we got our firearms in order. But we were too few to have done anything with her if she proved to be what we feared. Fortunately, there was no moon, and the night which followed was exceedingly dark, so that, by putting out all the lights on board and altering our course four points, we hoped to get out of her reach. We removed the light in the binocle and steered by the stars, and kept perfect silence through the night. At daybreak there was no sign of anything in the horizon, and we kept the vessel off to her course. Wednesday, October 1st, crossed the equator in Longitude 24 degrees, 24 minutes west. I now, for the first time, thought at liberty according to the old usage, took all myself a son of Neptune, and was very glad to be able to claim the title without the disagreeable initiation which so many have to go through. After once crossing the line, you can never be subjected to the process, but are considered as a son of Neptune, with full power to play tricks upon others. This ancient custom is now seldom allowed, unless there are passengers on board, in which case there is always a good deal of sport. It had been obvious to all hands for some time that the second mate, whose name was Foster, was an idle, careless fellow, and not much of a sailor, and that the captain was exceedingly dissatisfied with him. The power of the captain in these cases was well known, and we all anticipated a difficulty. Foster, called Mr. by virtue of his office, was but half a sailor, having always been on short voyages, and remained at home a long time between them. His father was a man of some property and intended to have given his son a liberal education, but he, being idle and worthless, was sent off to sea, and succeeded no better there. For, unlike many scamps, he had none of the qualities of a sailor. He was not the stuff they make sailors of. He used to hold long yarns with the crew and talk against the captain, and play with the boys and relax discipline in every way. This kind of conduct always makes the captain suspicious, and is never pleasant in the end to the men, they preferring to have an officer active, diligent, and as distant as may be with kindness. Among other bad practices, he frequently slept on his watch, and having been discovered to sleep by the captain, he was told that he would be turned off duty if he did it again. To prevent his sleeping on deck, the hencoops were ordered to be knocked up, for the captain never sat down on deck himself, and never permitted an officer to do so. The second night after crossing the equator, we had the watch from 8 to 12, and it was my helm for the last two hours. There had been light squalls through the night, and the captain told Mr. Foster, who commended our watch, to keep a bright look out. Soon after I came to the helm, I found that he was quite drowsy, and at last he stretched himself on the companion and went fast asleep. Soon afterwards the captain came softly on deck and stood by me for some time looking at the compass. The officer at length became aware of the captain's presence, but pretending not to know it, began humming and whistling to himself to show that he was not asleep, and went forward without looking behind him, and ordered the main royal to be loosed. On turning round to come aft, he pretended surprised at seeing the master on deck. This would not do. The captain was too wide awake for him, and, beginning upon him at once, gave him a grand blow-up in true nautical style. You're a lazy good-for-nothing rascal. You're neither man, boy, soldier, nor sailor. You're no more than a thing aboard a vessel. You don't own your assault. You're worse than a Mahon soldier. And others still more choice extracts from the sailor's vocabulary. After the poor fellow had taken this harangue, he was sent into his state room, and the captain stood the rest of the watch himself. At seven bells in the morning all hands were called apt and told that Foster was no longer an officer on board, and that we might choose one of our own number for Second Mate. It is not uncommon for the captain to make this offer, and it is good policy, for the crew think themselves the choosers, and are flattered by it, but have to obey nevertheless. Our crew, as is usual, refused to take the responsibility of choosing a man of whom we would never be able to complain, and left it to the captain. He picked out an active and intelligent young sailor, born in the banks of the Kennebec, who had been on several Canton voyages, and proclaimed him in the following manner. I choose Jim Hall. He's your Second Mate. All you've got to do is to obey him, as you would me, and remember that he is Mr. Hall. Foster went forward into the Folk Soul as a common sailor, and lost the handle to his name. While young four mass Jim became Mr. Hall, and took up his quarters in the land of knives and forks and teacups. Sunday, October 5th, it was our morning watch, when soon after the day began to break, a man on the Folk Soul called out, LAND HALL! I had never heard the cry before, and did not know what it meant, and few would suspect what the words were when hearing the strange sound for the first time, but I soon found, by the direction of all eyes, that there was land stretching along on our weather beam. We immediately took in, studying sails, and hauled our wind, running in for the land. This was done to determine our longitude, for by the captain's chronometer we were in 25 degrees west, but by his observations we were much farther, and he had been for some time in doubt whether it was his chronometer or his sextant which was out of order. This landfall settled the matter, and the former instrument was condemned, and becoming still worse was never afterwards used. As we ran in towards the coast we found that we were directly off the port of Pernambuco, and could see with the telescope the roofs of the houses, and one large church, and the town of Olinda. We ran along by the mouth of the harbor, and saw a full rigged brig going in. At two p.m. we again stood out to sea, leaving the land on our quarter, and at sundown it was out of sight. It was here that I first saw one of those singular things called catamarans. They are composed of logs lashed together upon the water, the men sitting with their feet in the water. Having one large sail are quite fast, and, strange as it may seem, are trusted as good sea boats. We saw several, with from one to three men in each, boldly putting out to sea, after it had become almost dark. The Indians go out in them after fish, and as the weather is regular in certain seasons they have no fear. After taking a new departure from Olinda we kept off on our way to Cape Horn. We met with nothing remarkable until we were in the latitude of the river La Plata. Here there are violent gales in the southwest called Pamperos, which are very destructive to the shipping in the river, and are felt for many leagues at sea. They are usually preceded by lightning. The captain told the mates to keep a bright look out, and if they saw a lightning at the southwest, to take sail at once. We got the first touch of one during my watch on deck. I was walking in the lee gangway, and thought that I saw lightning on the lee bow. I told the second mate, who came over and looked out for some time. It was very black in the southwest, and in about 10 minutes we saw a distinct flash. The wind, which had been southeast, had now left us, and it was dead calm. We sprang the loft immediately and furled the royals and top gallant sails, and took in the flying jib, hurled up the mainsail and tricill, squared the after yards, and waited the attack. A huge mist capped with black clouds came driving towards us, extending over that portion of the horizon, and covering the stars, which shone brightly in the other part of the heavens. It came upon us at once with a blast, and a shower of hail and rain, which almost took our breath from us. The hardiest was obliged to turn his back. We let the haliyahs run, and fortunately were not taken aback. The little vessel paid off from the wind, and ran on for some time directly before it, tearing through the water with everything flying. Having called all hands, we close reefed the topsails and tricill, furled the courses and jib, set the foretop mastasal, and brought her up nearly to her course, with the weather braces hauled in a little to ease her. This was the first blow I had met with, which could really be called a gale. We had reefed our topsails in the gall stream, and I thought it was something serious, but an older sailor would have thought nothing of it. As I had now become used to the vessel and to my duty, I was of some service on a yard, and could not my reef point as well as anybody. I obeyed the order to lay aloft with the rest. I obeyed the order to lay aloft with the rest. This word lay, which is in such general use on board ship, being used and giving orders instead of go, as lay forward, lay aft, lay aloft, etc. I do not understand to be the neuter verb lie, mispronounced, but to be the active verb lay, with the objective case understood, as lay yourselves forward, lay yourselves aft, etc. At all events, lay is an active verb at sea, and means go. And found the reefing a very exciting scene, for one watch reefed the foretop sail, and the other the main, and everyone did his utmost to get his topsail hoisted first. We had a great advantage over the larbored watch, because the chief mate never goes aloft, while our new second mate used to jump into the rigging as soon as we begin to haul out the reef tackle, and have the weather-earing passed before there was a man upon the yard. In this way we were almost always able to rise the cry of, haul out to lured, before them, and having knotted our points would slide down the shrouds and backstays, and sing out at the topsail halyards to let it be known that we were ahead of them. Reefing is the most exciting part of a sailor's duty. All hands are engaged upon it, and after the halyards are let go, there is no time to be lost. No sojouring or hanging back, then. If one is not quick enough, another runs over him. The first on the yard goes to the weather-earing, the second to the lee, and the next two to the dog's ears, while the others lay along into the bunt, just giving each other elbow room. In reefing, the yard arms, the extremes of the yards, are the posts of honor, but in furrowing, the strongest and most experienced stand in the slings, or middle of the yard, to make up the bunt. If the second mate is a smart fellow, he will never let anyone take either of these posts from him, but if he is wanting either in seamanship, strength, or activity, some better man will get the bunt and earrings from him, which immediately brings him into disrepute. We remain for the rest of the night and throughout the next day under the same closed sail, for it continued to blow very fresh, and though we had no more hail, yet there was a soaking rain, and it was quite cold and uncomfortable, the more so because we were not prepared for cold weather, but had on our thin clothes. We were glad to get a watch below and put on our thick clothing boots in southwesters. Towards sundown, the gale moderated a little, and it began to clear off in the southwest. We shook our reefs out, and before midnight had top gallant cells upon her. We had now made up our minds for Cape Horn and cold weather, and entered upon the necessary preparations. Tuesday, November 4th. At daybreak, saw a land upon our larbored quarter. There were two islands of different sizes, but of the same shape, running high, beginning low at the water's edge, and running with a curved ascent to the middle. They were so far off us to be of a deep blue color, and in a few hours we sank them in the northeast. These were the Falkland Islands. We had run between them and the mainland of Patagonia. At sunset, the second mate, who was at the masthead, said that he saw land on the starboard bow. This must have been the island of Statenland, and we were now in the region of Cape Horn, with the fine breeze from the northward, top mast and top gallant setting cells set, and every prospect of the speedy and pleasant passage round. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Two Years Before the Mast. This liberalx recording is in the public domain. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Downey Jr. Chapter 5. Cape Horn. Wednesday, November 5th. The weather was fine during the previous night, and we hit a clear view of the Magellan clouds and of the Southern Cross. The Magellan clouds consist of three small nebulae in the southern part of the heavens, two bright like the Milky Way and one dark. They are first seen just above the horizon, soon after crossing the Southern Tropic. The Southern Cross begins to be seen at 18 degrees north, and when off Cape Horn is nearly overhead. It is composed of four stars in that form, and is one of the brightest constellations in the heavens. During the first part of this day, Wednesday, the wind was light, but afternoon it came on fresh, and we furled the royals. We still kept the setting cells out, and the captain said he should go round with them if he could. Just before eight o'clock, then about sundown in that latitude, the cry of, All hands ahoy! was sounded down the forescuttle and the afterhatch way, and hurrying upon deck, we found a large black cloud rolling on towards us from the southwest and darkening the whole heavens. Here comes Cape Horn! said the chief mate, and we had hardly time to haul down and clue up before it was upon us. In a few minutes a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen, and as it was directly ahead, the little brig, which was no better than a bathing machine, plunged into it, and all the forward part of her was under water, the sea pouring in through the bow ports and the haws holes, and over the night heads, threatening to wash everything overboard. In the lee scuppers it was up to a man's waste. We sprang aloft and double-reefed the topsoils, and furled the other cells, and made all snug. But this would not do, the brig was laboring and straining against the head sea, and the gale was growing worse and worse, at the same time sleet and hail were driving with all fury against us. We clued down and hauled out the reef tackle again, and close-reefed the four topsoil, and furled the main, and hovered to on the starboard tack. Here was an end to our fine prospects. We made up our minds to headwinds and cold weather, sent down the royal yards, and unrove the gear, but all the rest of the tophamper remained aloft, even to the sky-sail mast and steady sail booms. Throughout the night it stormed violently, rain, hail, snow, and sleet beating upon the vessel. The wind continued ahead, and the sea running high. At daybreak, about three a.m., the deck was covered with snow. The captain sent up the steward with a glass of grog to each of the watch, and all the time that we were off the cape, grog was given to the morning watch, and to all hands whenever we reefed topsoils. The clouds cleared away at sunrise, and the wind becoming more fair. We again made sail, and stood nearly up to our course. Thursday, November 6. It continued more pleasant through the first part of the day, but at night we had the same scene over again. This time we did not have two, as on the night before, but endeavored to beat to windward under close-reef topsoils, balanced reef trisil, and four top mast stasil. This night it was my turn to steer, or as the sailors say, my trick at the helm, for two hours. Inexperienced as I once, I made out to steer to the satisfaction of the officer, and neither Stimson nor I gave up our tricks all the time we were off the cape. This was something to boast of, for it requires a good deal of skill and watchfulness to steer a vessel close-hauled in a gale of wind against a heavy head-sea. Ease her when she pitches is the word, and a little carelessness in letting her ship a heavy sea might sweep the decks, or take a mast out of her. Friday, November 7. Towards morning the wind went down, and during the whole forenoon we laid tossing about in a dead calm, and in the midst of a thick fog. The calms here are unlike those in most parts of the world, for there is generally so high a sea running with periods of calm so short that it has no time to go down, and vessels being under new command of sail or rudder lie like logs upon the water. We were obliged to steady the booms and yards by guise and braces, and to lash everything well below. We now found our top hamper to be of some use, for though it is liable to be carried away or sprung by the sudden bringing up of a vessel when pitching in a chopping sea, yet it is a great help in steadying a vessel when rolling in a long swell, giving more slowness, ease, and regularity to the motion. The calm of the morning reminds me of a scene which I forgot to describe at the time of its occurrence, but which I remember from its being the first time that I had heard the near-breathing of whales. It was on the night that we passed between the Falkland Islands and Statenland. We had the watch from twelve to four, and coming upon deck found the little brake lying perfectly still, enclosed in a thick fog, and the sea as smooth as the oil had been poured upon it. Yet now and then a long, low swell rolling under its surface, slightly lifting the vessel, but without breaking the glassy smoothness of the water. We were surrounded far and near by shoals of sluggish whales and grompuses, which the fog prevented our scene, rising slowly to the surface, or perhaps lying out at length, heaving out those lazy, deep, and long-drawn breathings, which give such an impression of supineness and strength. Some of the watch were asleep and others were quiet, so that there was nothing to break the illusion, and I stood, leaning over the bulwarks, listening to the slow breathings of the mighty creatures. Now one breaking the water just alongside, whose black body I almost fancied that I could see through the fog, and again another, which I could just hear in the distance. Until the low and regular swell seemed like the heaving of the ocean's mighty bosom to the sound of its own heavy and long-drawn respirations. Towards the evening of this day, Friday 7th, the fog cleared off, and we had every appearance of a cold blow, and soon after sundown it came. Again it was clew up and hauled down, reef and furl, until we had got her down to close reef topsills. Double reef tricell, and reefed forcepenser. Snow, hail, and sleet were driving upon us most of the night and the sea was breaking over the boughs and covering the forward part of the little vessel. But as she would lay her course, the captain refused to heave her too. Saturday, November 8th. This day began with calm and thick fog, and ended with hail, snow, and a violent wind, and close reefed topsills. Sunday, November 9th. Today the sun rose clear, and continued so until 12 o'clock, when the captain got an observation. And we thought it a little remarkable that, as we had not had one unpleasant sunday during the whole voyage, the only tolerable day here should be a sunday. We got time to clear up the steerage and the foxel, and set things to rights, and to overhaul our wet clothes a little. But this did not last very long. Between five and six, the sun was then nearly three hours high, the cry of, All Starbow Lines Ahoy! Summoned our watch on deck, and immediately all hands were called. Note. It is the fashion to call the respective watches Starbow Lines and Larbow Lines. End Note. A true specimen of Cape Horn was coming upon us. A great cloud of a dark, slate color was driving on us from the southwest, and we did our best to take in sail, for the light sails had been set during the first part of the day, before we were in the midst of it. We had got the light sails furrowed, the courses hauled up, and the topsill reef tackles hauled out, and were just mounting the fore rigging when the storm struck us. In an instant the sea, which had been comparatively quiet, was running higher and higher, and it became almost as dark as night. The hail and sleet were harder than I had yet felt them, seeming almost to pin us down to the rigging. We were longer taking in sail than ever before. The sails were stiff and wet, the ropes and rigging covered with snow and sleet, and we ourselves cold and nearly blinded with the violence of the storm. By the time we had got down upon the deck again, the little brig was plunging madly into a tremendous head sea, which at every drive rushed in through the bow ports and over the bowels, and buried all the forward part of the vessel. At this instant the chief mate, who was standing on the top of the windlass at the foot of the Spencer mass, called out, lay out there and furl the jib. This was no agreeable or safe duty, yet it must be done. John, a swede, the best sailor on board, who belonged on the folksal, sprang out upon the bow sprit. Another one must go. It was a clear case of holding back. I was near the mate, but sprang past Serval, threw the down-haul over the windlass, and jumped between the night heads out upon the bow sprit. The crew stood above the windlass and hauled the jib down, while John and I got out upon the weather side of the jib boom. Our feet on the foot ropes, holding on by the spar, the great jib flying off to lured and sliding, so as almost to throw us off the boom. For some time we could do nothing but hold on, and the vessel, diving into two huge seas, one after the other, plunged us twice into the water up to our chins. We hardly knew whether we were on or off, when, the boom lifting us up, tripping from the water, we were raised high into the air and then plunged below again. John thought the boom would go every moment and called out to the mate to keep the vessel off, and haul down the stay-sail, but the fury of the wind and the breaking of the seas against the bows defied every attempt to make ourselves heard, and we were obliged to do the best we could in our situation. Fortunately no other seas so heavy struck her, and we succeeded in furling the jib after our fashion, and coming in over the stay-sail nettings were not a little pleased to find that all was snug and the watch gone below, for we were soaked through, and it was very cold. John admitted that it had been a post of danger, which good sailors seldom do when the thing is over. The weather continued nearly the same through the night. Monday, November 10th, nearing a part of this day we were hoeved to, but the rest of the time were driving on under close-rave sails with the heavy sea, a strong gale, and frequent squalls of hail and snow. Tuesday, November 11th, the same. Wednesday, the same. Thursday, the same. We had now got hardened to cape weather, the vessel was under reduced sail and everything secured on deck and below, so that we had little to do but to steer and stand our watch. Our clothes were all wet through, and the only change was from wet to more wet. There is no fire in the folxel, and we cannot dry clothes in the galley. It was in vain to think of reading or working below, for we were too tired. The hatchways were closed down, and everything was wet and uncomfortable, black and dirty, heaving and pitching. We had only to come below when the watch was out, wring our wet clothes, hang them up to chafe against the bulkheads, and turn in and sleep as soundly as we could, until our watch was called again. A sailor can sleep anywhere. No sound of wind, water, canvas, rope, wood, or iron can keep him awake. And we were always fast asleep when the three blows on the hatchway and the unwelcome cry of ALL SOBERLOIN AS A HOI, EIGHT BELLS THERE BELOW. DO YOU HEAR THE NEWS? The usual formula for calling the watch roused us up from our berths up on the cold wet decks. The only time when we could be said to take any pleasure was at night, and morning, when we were allowed a tin pot full of hot tea, or as the sailor significantly call it, water bewitched, sweetened with molasses. This, bad as it was, was still warm and comforting, and, together with our sea biscuits and cold salt beef, made a meal. Yet even this meal was attended with some uncertainty. We had to go ourselves to the galley and take our kid and beef and tin pots of tea, and run the risk of losing them before we could get below. Many a kid of beef have I seen rolling in the scuppers, the bearer lying at his length on the decks. I remember an English lad who was a life of the crew, whom we afterwards lost overboard, standing for nearly ten minutes at the galley, with his pot of tea in his hand, waiting for a chance to get down in the foxhole, and, seeing what he thought was a smooth spell, started to go forward. He had just got to the end of the windlass when a great sea broke over the bounds, and for a moment I saw nothing of him but his head and shoulders, and at the next instant, being taken off his legs, he was carried aft with the sea, until her stern lying up and standing water. He had just got to the end of the windlass when a great sea broke over the bounds, and for a moment I saw nothing of him but his head and shoulders, and at the next instant, being taken off his legs, he was carried aft with the sea, until her stern lifting up and sending the water forward, he was left high and dry at the side of the longboat, still holding on to his tin pot, which had now nothing in it but salt water. But nothing could ever daunt him or overcome for a moment his habitual good humor. Regaining his legs and shaking his fist to the man at the wheel, he rolled below, saying as he passed, a man's no sailor if he can't take a joke. The ducking was not the worst of such an affair, for, as there was an allowance of tea, you could get no more from the galley, and though the others would never suffer a man to go without, but would always turn in a little from their own pots to fill up his, yet this was at best but dividing the loss among all hands. Something of the same kind befell me a few days after. The cook had just made for us a mess of hot scouts, that is, biscuit pounded fine, salt beef cut into small pieces, and a few potatoes. This was a rare treat, and I, being the last at the galley, had it put in my charge to carry down for the mess. I got along very well as far as the hatchway, and was just going down the steps, when a heavy sea, lifting the stern out of water and passing forward, dropping it again, threw the steps from their place, and I came down into the steerage a little faster than I meant to, with the kid on top of me and the whole precious mess scattered over the floor. Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of everything at sea, and if you were to fall from aloft and to be caught in the belly of the sail, and thus saved from instant death, it would not do to look at all disturbed or to treat it as a serious matter. Friday, November 14th, we were now well to the westward of the Cape, and were changing our course to the northward as much as we dared, since the strong southwest winds, which prevailed then, carried us in toward Patagonia. At two p.m. we saw a sail on our larbored beam, and at four we made it out to be a large ship, steering our course under single reef topsoils. We at that time had shaken the reef set of our topsoils, as the wind was lighter, and set the main top gallant sail. As soon as our captain saw what sail she was under, he set the four top gallant sail and fine jib, and the old weller, for such his boats and short sails showed him to be, felt a little ashamed and shook the reefs out of his topsoils, but could do no more, for he had sent down his top gallant mass off the Cape. He ran down for us and answered our hail as the whale ship New England of Poughkeepsie, 120 days from New York. Our captain gave our name and added ninety-two days from Boston. Then they had a little conversation about longitude, in which they found that they could not agree. The ship fell astern and continued in sight during the night. Towards morning the wind having become light, we crossed our royal and sky sail yards, and at daylight we were seen under a cloud of sail, having royals and sky sails for and aft. The spouter, as the sailors call a wild man, had sent up his main top gallant mast and set the sail, and made signal for us to heave too. About half past seven their well boat came alongside, and Captain Job Terry sprang on board, a man known in every port and by every vessel in the Pacific Ocean. Don't you know Job Terry? I thought everybody knew Job Terry, said a green hand, who came in the boat to me when I asked him about his captain. He was indeed a singular man. He was six feet high, wore thick cow-high boots and brown coat and trousers, and, except a sunburnt complexion, had not the slightest appearance of a sailor. Yet he had been forty years in the well trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships, built ships, and sailed ships. His boat's crew were a pretty raw set, just out of the bush, and as the sailors phrased it, hadn't got the hayseed out of their hair. Captain Terry convinced our captain that our reckoning was a little out, and having spent the day on board, put off in his boat at sunset for his ship, which was now six or eight miles at stern. He began a yawn when he came aboard, which lasted, but with little intermission, for four hours. It was all about himself and the Peruvian government, and the Dublin frigate and her captain, Lord James Townsend, and President Jackson, and the ship Anne McKim of Baltimore. It would probably never have come to an end, had not a good breeze sprung up, which sent him off to his own vessel. One of the lads who came in his boat, a thoroughly contrived looking fellow, seemed to care very little about the vessel, rigging or anything else, but went round looking at the livestock, and leaned over the pigsty, and said he wished he was back again tending his father's pigs. A curious case of dignity occurred here. It seems that in a well ship there is an intermediate class called boat steers. One of them came in Captain Terry's boat, but we thought he was a coxswain of the boat, and a coxswain is only a sailor. In the weller, the boat steers are between officers and crew. A sort of petty officers, kept by themselves in the waste, sleep amid ships, and eat by themselves, either at a separate table or at the cabin table after the captain and mates are done. Of all this hierarchy we were entirely ignorant, so the poor boat steer was left to himself. The second mate would not notice him, and seemed surprised at his keeping amid ships, but his pride of office would not allow him to go forward. With dinnertime came the experimentum crucius. What would he do? The second mate went to the second table table without asking him. There was nothing for him but famine or humiliation. We asked him into the foalxel, but he faintly declined. The whale boat crew explained it to us, and we asked him again. Hunger got the victory over pride of rank, and his boat-steering majesty had to take his grub out of our kid and eat with his jackknife. Yet the man was ill at ease all the time, was sparing of his conversation, and kept up the notion of condensation under stress of circumstances. One would say that, instead of a tendency to equality in human beings, the tendency is to make the most of inequalities, natural or artificial. At eight o'clock we altered our course to the northward, bound for Juan Fernandez. This day we saw the last of the albatrosses, which had been in our companions a great part of the time off the cape. I had been interested in the bird from descriptions and Coleridge's poem, and was not at all disappointed. We caught one or two with a baited hook which we floated astern upon a shingle. Their long, floppy wings, long legs, and large, staring eyes give them a very peculiar appearance. They look well on the wing, but one of the finest sights that I have ever seen was an albatross asleep upon the water, during a calm, off-cape horn, when a heavy sea was running. There being no breeze, the surface of the water was unbroken, but a long, heavy swell was rolling, and we saw the fellow, all white, directly ahead of us, asleep upon the waves, with his head under his wing, now rising on the top of one of the big billows, and then falling slowly until he was lost in the hollow between. He was undisturbed for some time until the noise of our bows gradually approaching him, roused him. When lifting his head, he stared upon us for a moment, and then spread his wide wings and took his flight. Chapter 6 of Two Years Before the Mast This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Chapter 6. Loss of a Man Monday, November 19. This was a black day in our calendar. At seven o'clock in the morning, it being our watch below, we were aroused from a sound sleep by the cry of All hands ahoy, a man overboard! This unwanted cry sent a thrill through the heart of everyone, and hurrying on deck we found the vessel, hoe flat aback, with all her studying cells set, for the boy who was at the helm leaving it to throw something overboard, the carpenter who was an old sailor, knowing that the wind was light, put the helm down and hoe for aback. The watch on deck were loaning away the quarterboat, and I got on deck just in time to fling myself into her as she was leaving the side, but it was not until out upon the wide pacific in our little boat that I knew whom we had lost. It was George Balmer, the young English sailor, whom I have before spoken of as the life of the crew. He was prized by the officers as an active and willing seamen, and by the men as a lively, hearty fellow and a good shipmate. He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main topmost head, for ring-tail halyards, and had the strap and block a coil of halyards and a marlin spike about his neck. He fell from the starboard foot-up shrouds, and, not knowing how to swim and being heavily dressed, with all these things round his neck, he probably sank immediately. We pulled a stern in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew that there was no hope of saving him, yet no one wished to speak of returning, and we rode about for nearly an hour without an idea of doing anything but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that we must give him up. At length we turned the boat's head and made towards the brig. Death is an all-time solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore, his body remains with his friends, and the mourners go about the streets, but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which gives to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore, you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the event, there is always something which helps you to realize it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a real evidence, but at sea the man is near you, at your side, you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then too at sea, to use a homely but expressive phrase, you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty birth in the folxel, and one man is wanting when the small night watch is mustard. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses fills the loss. All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with his sailor's rude eulogy. Well, for George is gone. His cruise is up soon. He knew his work and did his duty. Almost a good shipmate. Then usually follows some allusion to another world. For sailors are almost all believers in their way, though their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They say God won't be hard upon the poor fellow. And seldom get beyond the common phrase, which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will be passed to their credit in the books of the great captain hereafter. To work hard, live hard, die hard, and to go to hell after all would be hard indeed. Our cook, a simple-hearted old African who had been through a good deal in his day, and was rather seriously inclined, always going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley, talked to the crew about spending the Lord's day badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly as George had and be as little prepared. Yet a sailor's life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting and the sublime with the common place and the solemn with the ludicrous. Not long after we had returned on board with our sad report an auction was held of the poor man's effects. The captain had first, however, called all hands aft, and asked them if they were satisfied that everything had been done to save the man, and if they thought that there was any use in remaining there longer. The crew all said it was in vain, for the man did not know how to swim and was very heavily dressed. So we then filed away and kept the brig off to her course. The law's regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law or a custom established for convenience that the captain should soon hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted from their wages at the end of the voyage. In this way the trouble and risk of keeping his things through the voyage are avoided, and his clothes are usually sold for more than they would be worth on shore. Accordingly, we had no sooner got the ship before the wind than his chest was brought up upon the folk salt, and the sail began. The jackets and trousers in which we had seen him dressed so lightly were exposed and bid off while the life was hardly out of his body, and the chest was taken aft and used as a store chest, so that there was nothing left which could be called his. Sailors have an unwillingness to wear a dead man's clothes during the same voyage, and they seldom do so unless they are in an absolute want. As is usual after a death many stories were told about George. Some had heard him say that he repented never having learned to swim, and that he knew that he should meet his death by drowning. Another said that he never knew any good to come of a voyage made against the will, and the deceased man shipped and spent his advance, and was afterwards very unwilling to go, but not being able to refund was obliged to sell with us. A boy too who had become quite attached to him said that George talked to him during most of the watch on the night before about his mother and family at home, and this was the first time that he had mentioned the subject during the voyage. The night after this event when I went to the galley to get a light, I found the cloak inclined to be talkative, so I sat down on the spars and gave him an opportunity to hold a yarn. I was the more inclined to do so as I found that he was full of the superstitions once more common among seamen, and which the recent death had waked up in his mind. He talked about George's having spoken of his friends and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams and of unusual behavior of men before death. From this he went on to other superstitions, the flying Dutchman, etc., and talked rather mysteriously having something evidently on his mind. At length he put his head out of the galley and looked carefully about to see if anyone was within hearing, and being satisfied on that point asked me in a low voice. I say, you know what countrymen eat copper to be? Yes, I said, he's a German. What kind of a German? said the cook. He belongs to Bremen, said I. Are you sure, Odette? he said. I satisfied him on that point by saying that he could speak no language but the German and English. I'm plaguey glad Odette, said the cook. I was mighty afraid he was a Finn. I tell you what, I've been plaguey civil to that man all the voyage. I asked him the reason of this and found that he was fully possessed with the notion that Finns are wizards, and especially have power over winds and storms. I tried to reason with him about it, but he had the best of all arguments, that from experience at hand and was not to be moved. He had been to the Sandwich Islands in a vessel in which the sailmaker was a Finn and could do anything he was of a mind to. This sailmaker kept a junk bottle in his berth, which was nearly always just half full of rum, though he got drunk upon it nearly every day. He had seen him sit for hours together talking to this bottle, which he had stood up before him on the table. The same man cut his throat in his berth and everybody said he was possessed. He had heard of ships, too, beating up the Gulf of Finland against a headwind and having a ship he even sight a stern overhaul and pass them with as fair a wind as could blow and all studying sails out and find she was from Finland. Oh, oh, said he, I've seen too much of them men to want to see them board a ship. If they can have their own way, they play the devil with you. As I still doubted, he said he would leave it to John, who was the oldest seamen aboard and would know if anybody did. John, to be sure, was the oldest and at the same time the most ignorant man in the ship, but I consented to have him called. The cook stated the matter to him and John, as I anticipated, sided with the cook and said that he himself had been in a ship where they had had a headwind for a fortnight and the captain found out at last that one of the men with whom he had had some hard words a short time before was a fin and immediately told him if he didn't stop the headwind he would shut him down in the forepeak. The fin would not give in, and the captain shut him down in the forepeak and would not give him anything to eat. The fin held out for a day and a half when he could not stand it any longer and did something or other which brought the wind round again, and they let him up. Dare, said the cook, what you think o dat? I told him I had no doubt it was true and it would have been odd if the wind had not changed in fifteen days, fin or no fin. Oh, sissy, go away, you think cause you've been into college you know better than anybody. You know better than them that I've seen with their own eyes. You wait till you've been to see as long as I have, and then you'll know. We continued sailing along with the fair wind and fine weather until Tuesday, November 25th, when at daylight we saw the island of Juan Fernandez directly ahead, rising like a deep blue cloud out of the sea. We were then probably nearly seventy miles from it, and so high and so blue did it appear that I mistook it for a cloud resting over the island and looked for the island under it, until it gradually turned to a deader and greener color. And I could mark the inequalities upon its surface. At length we could distinguish trees and rocks, and by the afternoon this beautiful island lay fairly before us, and we directed our course to the only harbor. Arriving at the entrance soon after sundown we found a Chilean metaphor brig, the only vessel coming out. She hailed us, and an officer on board, whom we supposed to be an American, advised us to run in before night, and said that they were bound to Valparaiso. We ran immediately for the anchorage, but owing to the winds which drew about the mountains and came to us in flaws from different points of the compass, we did not come to an anchor until nearly midnight. We had a boat ahead all the time that we were working in, and those aboard ship were continually bracing the yards about for every puff that struck us until about twelve o'clock, when we came two in forty fathoms water, and our anchor struck bottom for the first time since we left Boston one hundred and three days. We were then divided into three watches and thus stood out the remainder of the night. I was called on deck to stand my watch at about three in the morning, and I shall never forget the peculiar sensation which I experienced on finding myself once more surrounded by land, feeling the night breeze coming from offshore, and hearing the frogs and crickets. The mountains seemed almost to hang over us, and apparently from the very heart of them there came out at regular intervals a loud equine sound which affected me as hardly human. We saw no lights and could hardly account for the sound until the mate, who had been there before, told us that it was the alerta of the Chilean soldiers who were stationed over some convicts confined in caves nearly halfway up the mountain. At the expiration of my watch I went below, feeling not a little anxious for the day that I might see more nearly and perhaps tread upon this romantic, I may almost say classic, island. When all hands were called it was nearly sunrise, and between that time and breakfast, although quite busy on board in getting up water-casts, etc., I had a good view of the objects about me. The harbor was nearly landlocked, and at the head of it was a landing, protected by a small breakwater of stones, upon which two large boats were hauled up, with a sentry standing over them. Near this was a variety of huts or cottages, nearly a hundred in number, the best of them built of mud or unburnt clay, and whitewashed, but the greater part, Robinson Caruso-like, only of posts and branches of trees. The governor's house, as it is called, was the most conspicuous, being large, with graded windows, and roof of red tiles, yet, like all the rest, only of one story. Near it was a small chapel, distinguished by a cross, and a long, low, brown-looking building, surrounded by something like a polyzade, from which an old and dingy-looking Chilean flag was flying. This, of course, was dignified by the title of Presidio. A set in illustration of the chapel, another at the governor's house, and a few soldiers, armed with bayonets, looking rather ragged, with shoes cut at the toes, were strolling about among the houses, or waiting at the landing-place for our boat to come ashore. The mountains were high, but not so overhanging as they appeared to be by starlight. They seemed to bear off toward the center of the island, and were green and well-wooded, with some large, and, I am told, exceedingly fertile valleys, with mule tracks leading to different parts of the island. I cannot here forget how Stimson and I got the laugh of the crew upon us by our eagerness to get on shore. The captain having ordered the quarterboat to be lowered, we both, thinking it was going ashore, sprang down into the folk-soul, filled our jacket-pockets with tobacco to barter with the people ashore, had, when the officer called for four hands in the boat, nearly broke our necks on our haste to be first over the side, and had the pleasure of pulling ahead of the brig with a tow-line for half an hour, and coming on board again to be laughed at by the crew, who had seen our maneuver. After breakfast, the second mate was ordered ashore with five hands to fill the water-casks, and, to my joy, I was among the number. We pulled ashore with empty casks, and here again fortune favored me, for the water was too thick and muddy to be put into the casks, and the governor had sent men up to the head of the stream to clear it out for us, which gave us nearly two hours' leisure. This leisure we employed in wandering about among the houses, and eating a little fruit which was offered to us, ground apples, melons, grapes, strawberries of an enormous size, and cherries abound here. The latter are said to have been planted by Lord Anson. The soldiers were miserably clad, and asked with some interest whether we had shoes to sell on board. I doubt very much that they had the means of buying them. They were very eager to get tobacco, for which they gave shells, fruit, etc. Knives were also in demand, but we were forbidden by the governor to let anyone have them, as he told us that all the people there, except the soldiers and a few officers, were convicts sent from Valparaiso, and that it was necessary to keep all weapons from their hands. The island, it seems, belongs to Chile, and had been used by the government as a penal colony for nearly two years, and the governor, an Englishman who had entered the Chilean navy, with a priest, half a dozen taskmasters, and a body of soldiers, were stationed there to keep them in order. This was no easy task, and, only a few months before our arrival, a few of them had stolen a boat at night, boarded a brig lying in the harbor, sent the captain and crew ashore in their boat, and gone off to sea. We were informed of this, and loaded our arms and kept a strict watch on board through the night, and were careful not to let the convicts get our knives from us when on shore. The worst part of the convicts I found were locked up under sentry in caves dug into the side of the mountain, nearly half way up, with mule tracks leading to them, once they were taken by day and set to work under taskmasters upon building an aqueduct, a wharf, and other public works, while the rest lived in the houses which they put up for themselves, had their families with them, and seemed to me to be the laziest people on the face of the earth. They did nothing but take a paseo into the woods, a paseo among the houses, a paseo at the landing place, looking at us and our vessel, and too lazy to speak fast, while the others were driven about in a rapid trot in single file, with burdens on their shoulders, and followed up by their taskmasters, with long rods in their hands, and broad brim straw hats upon their heads. Upon what precise grounds this great distinction was made I do not know, and I could not very well know, for the governor was the only man who spoke English upon the island, and he was out of my walk, for I was a sailor ashore as well as on board. Having filled our casks we returned on board, and soon after the governor, dressed in a uniform like that of an American militia officer, the Padre, in the dress of the gray friars, with hood and all-complete, and the captain, with big whiskers and dirty regimentals, came on board to dine. While at dinner a large ship appeared in the offing, and soon afterwards we saw a light well-boat pulling into the harbor. This ship lay off and on, and a boat came alongside of us, and put on board the captain, a plain young Quaker, dressed all in brown. The ship was the Cortez, woman, of New Bedford, and had put in to sea if there were any vessels from round the horn, and to hear the latest news from America. They remained aboard a short time, and had a little talk with the crew, when they left us and pulled off to their ship, which, having filled away, was soon out of sight. A small boat which came from shore to take away the governor and Sweet, as they styled themselves, brought, as a present to the crew, a large pail of milk, a few shells, and a block of sandalwood. The milk, which was the first we had tasted since leaving Boston, we soon dispatched. A piece of the sandalwood I obtained, and learned that it grew on the hills in the center of the island. I regretted that I did not bring away other specimens, but what I had, the piece of sandalwood, and a small flower which I plucked and brought on board in the crown of my tarpaulin, and carefully pressed between the leaves of a volume of calper's letters, were lost with my chest and its contents by another's negligence on our arrival home. About an hour before sundown, having stowed our water casks, we began getting underway, and were not a little while about it, for we were in thirty-fathoms water, and in one of the gusts which came from offshore had to let go our bow anchor, and as the southerly wind draws round the mountains and comes off in uncertain flaws, we were continually swinging round, and had thus got a very foul haws. We hoeved in upon our chain, and after stoppering and unshackling it again and again, and hoisting and hauling down sail, we at length tipped our anchor and stood out to sea. It was bright starlight when we were clear of the bay, and the lofty island lay behind us in its still beauty. It was bright starlight when we were clear of the bay, and the lofty island lay behind us in its still beauty, and I gave a parting look and bade farewell to the most romantic spot of earth that my eyes had ever seen. I did then and have ever since felt an attachment for that island altogether peculiar. It was partly no doubt from its having been the first land that I had seen since leaving home, and still more from the associations which everyone has connected with it in his childhood from reading Robinson Carouselle. To this I may add that the height and romantic outline of its mountains, the beauty and freshness of its verju and the extreme fertility of its soil, and its solitary position in the midst of the wide expanse of the South Pacific as all concurring to give it its charm. When thoughts of this place have occurred to me at different times, I have endeavored to recall more particulars with regard to it. It is situated about 33 degrees 30 minutes south in this distant a little more than 300 miles from Valparaiso on the coast of Chile, which is in the same latitude. It is about 15 miles in length and five in breadth. The harbor in which we anchored, called by Lord Anson, Cumberland Bay, is the only one in the island two small bites of land on each side of the main bay, sometimes dignified by the name of Bayes, being little more than landing places for boats. The best anchorage is at the western side of the harbor, where we lay at about three cable lengths from the shore, in a little more than 30 fathoms water. This harbor is open to the north northeast, and in fact nearly from northeast, but the only dangerous winds being the southwest on which side are the highest mountains it is considered safe. The more remarkable thing, perhaps, about it is the fish with which it abounds. Two of our crew who remained on board caught in a short time enough to last us for several days, and one of the men, who was a marblehead man, said that he had never saw or heard of such an abundance. There were cod, beam, silverfish, and other kinds whose names they did not know or which I have forgotten. There is an abundance of the best of water upon the island, small streams running through every valley, and leaping down from the sides of the hills. One stream of considerable size flows through the center of the lawn upon which the houses are built, and furnishes an easy and abundant supply to the inhabitants. This, by means of a short wooden aqueduct, was brought quite down to our boats. The convicts had also built something in the way of a breakwater, and worked to build a landing place for boats and goods, after which the Chilean government intended to lay port charges. Of the wood I can only say that it appeared to be abundant. The island in the month of November, when we were there, being in all the freshness and beauty of spring, appeared covered with trees. These were chiefly aromatic, and the largest was the myrtle. The soil is very loose and rich, and wherever it is broken up, there are spring-up radishes, turnips, round apples, and other garden fruits. Goats, we were told, were not abundant, and we saw none, though it was said we might, if we had gone into the interior. We saw a few bullocks winding about in the narrow tracks upon the sides of the mountains, and the settlement was completely overrun, with dogs of every nation, kindred, and agree. Hens and chickens were also abundant, and seemed to be taken good care of by the women. The men appear to be the laziest of mortals, and indeed, as far as my observation goes, there are no people to whom the newly invented Yankee word of loafer is more applicable than to the Spanish Americans. These men stood about doing nothing with their cloaks little better in texture than an Indian's blanket, but of rich colors thrown over their shoulders with an air which it has said that a Spanish beggar can always give to his rags, and with politeness and courtesy in their address, though with holes in their shoes, and without a sew in their pockets. The only interruption to the monotony of their day seemed to be when a gust of wind drew round between the mountains and blew off the boughs which they had placed for roofs to their houses, and gave them a few minutes' occupation and running about after them. One of the gusts occurred while we were on shore, and afforded us no little amusement in seeing the men look around, and, if they found that their roofs had stood, conclude that they might stand too, while those who saw theirs blown off after uttering a few Spanish oaths gathered their cloaks over their shoulders and started off after them. However, they were not gone long, but soon returned to their habitual occupation of doing nothing. It is perhaps needless to say that we saw nothing of the interior, but all those who have seen it give favorable accounts of it. Our captain went with the governor and a few servants upon mules over the mountains, and upon their return. I heard the governor request him to stop at the island on his passage home, and offer him a handsome son to bring a few deer with him from California, for he said that there were none upon the island, and he was very desirous of having it stopped. A steady, though light southwesternly wind carried us well off from the island, and when I came on deck for the middle watch I could just distinguish it from its hiding a few low stars in the southern horizon, though my unpracticed eyes would hardly have known it for land. At the close of the watch a few trade-wind clouds which had arisen, though we were hardly yet in their latitude, shut it out from our view, and the next day, Thursday, November 27th, upon coming on deck in the morning, we were again upon the wide Pacific, and saw no more land until we arrived upon the western coast of the great continent of America. End of chapter 7