Introductory material (continued 3)

June 16

Most doleful to disclose, the Trades began to let go this morning, and at ten o’clock the sky-sails were set for the first time in several days, while at the present moment, the middle of the afternoon, we are doing wretchedly, even though we have come up to south-southwest. As for the day, it was really magnificent; temperature of the air, 80°; of the sea, 78°, while the breeze was of that singular mixture of vigor and balm so often observed in the southeast trade-wind. Not a cloud specked the deep cobalt of the heavens all day save some feathery mare’s-tails near the zenith and a few clusters of pearly clouds on the southeastern horizon.

As usual, though, there was something to mar the serenity of the day; how many days are there without some untoward incident to cast its fell shadow? In this case it was the temper of Captain Scruggs, who no sooner did he perceive that the wind was letting go than he at once began to blackguard the men and the weather in wild, lurid language. Perhaps he wanted to catch up with himself, for it must be chronicled that three days, actually three long days, seventy-two hours, have passed without his having consigned any one’s immortal parts to the fathomless pit! Last evening my wife asked him if about 20° south wasn’t the average spot to lose the Trades; this, in truth, is about the usual place at which the southeast winds vanish, but the disagreeable man glared at us for a few seconds and then snapped, “How do I know? You’re liable to lose ’m anywhere,” with an explosion on the final word.

It is strange how he always tries to show that he knows just a little bit better than any one else; if, for instance, I asked him if Montevideo wasn’t in 34° 50′ south, he would be certain to reply, “No; 34° 55′,” on which occasions the mate usually gazes in wonder at him, and then smiles gently at us, as though to say, “You see, you can’t teach him.”

Ahead of us, distant from fifty to two hundred miles, lie a number of shoal spots, called the Royal Charlotte, David Scott, Hotspur, Busbridge, Victoria, and Fly Banks. There are more than twenty fathoms on all of them, though, except on a certain unnamed shoal, thirty miles south-southeast of the Fly Bank, on which the ship “Professor Airy” struck in 1875. I wonder whether the water is discolored on these spots? It would be rather strange to come suddenly upon a stretch of green sea surrounded on all sides by water of the darkest blue.

In a copy of Harper’s Round Table on board I found an amusing article called “A Yankee Skipper’s Trick,” which seemed good enough to transcribe, so here it is: “A good anecdote is told illustrating the superior enterprise of the Yankee skippers years ago. The New Bedford whalers left port for many a long voyage, sometimes to the far north, at other times to the far south. These intrepid followers of the sea sought and pursued the whale into the ice-clad latitudes about the poles with a natural fearlessness. A squadron sent out by Russia to explore the south seas, and reach the pole if possible, had attained a degree of latitude which the commodore proudly told himself had never been reached before by white man or other human beings. While he reflected upon the fame which would surely embellish his name, his sailors cried, ‘Land ho!’ Off to the south he descried a long, low-lying bit of land, and hastened to shape his course to reach it, there to plant the Russian standard on its highest point, claiming it in the name of His Majesty.

“What was his disgust and astonishment when, as his vessel approached the shore, he observed, over a bit of headland, a flag fluttering from a mast-head. In a few minutes a little schooner poked her nose around the point and came sailing smartly over the waves towards his vessel. The lean, Yankee captain, who was standing in the rigging as the schooner came up in the wind, yelled,—

“‘Ahoy there! What ship is that?’

“‘His Majesty’s ship the ——.’

“‘Well, this is the ‘Nantucket’ from Massachusetts. We’re doing a little piloting in these latitudes, and if you want to run in the cove yonder, why, we’ll pilot you in for a small charge.’

“The commodore’s disgust caused him to square his yards and shape his course to Russia.” Latitude, 16° 11′ south; longitude, 37° 15′ west.

June 17

I don’t expect that we will weather the Abrolhoses after all; we might be able to scrape along, but that would be taking chances, which Captain Scruggs never does. The chief danger in holding on to this course would be that of drifting foul of the reefs which stud the ocean in the vicinity of these islands. Therefore at eight o’clock this evening we will go around on the other tack, and it is to be hoped that we’ll do better than we did yesterday, with only ninety miles of latitude to our credit. This day was even finer than its predecessor, and we had some very grand cloud scenery, the eastern horizon being covered at five in the afternoon with great cirro-cumulus clouds in which we could perceive a number of bright luminous spots on the sea-line, called by sailors “sun-dogs”; being the bases of brilliant rainbows whose arches were concealed by the heavy clouds, producing a strange appearance.

The carpenter is now engaged in hewing out a new maintop-gallant-yard, a slow but interesting piece of work. The old one is weak and may not withstand the heavy weather of Cape Horn, and the maintop-gallant-sail is a very important one. It is as well to observe here, that whenever anything carries away aboard of this ship it is never spliced and forced to do further duty, as is the case on many vessels; the sheet, clew-line, or whatever has parted, is at once unrove, and a brand-new rope takes its place. The first illustration which we had of this was one morning in the Doldrums, when the maintop-gallant-stay-sail-halliards parted with a crack, and the half-dozen men on the end of it, among whom was myself, went down in a heap. Without a word a new piece of manila was rove in its place; and the same thing happened to the spanker-sheet a few nights ago. Indeed, this is one of the distinguishing marks of a Yankee ship. You will rarely find a piece of old running-gear aboard of a square-rigger flying the stars and stripes.

Late yesterday afternoon we caught another dolphin, a small one, weighing about fifteen pounds. He showed none of the splendid blues of our first fish, though the yellows and greens were very fine. Indeed, this dolphin, as he was towed through the water under the counter, resembled nothing so much as a strip of gorgeous, glittering satin, particularly whenever, as the fish rose slightly above the surface, a glossy sheen irradiated his lithe, elegant body. And immediately afterward we captured a bonito, about as large as a bluefish.

And now we have come to the first piece of inhumanity or gross cruelty of which either of us has been a witness on board. What we saw before was not much out of the way, except in regard to the bad language and the general atmosphere of “toughness” that pervaded the encounters; but even they were nothing to speak of when the character of the mates on American sailing ships is taken into consideration. That which I saw this afternoon, though, went far beyond hazing, for it assumed the form of full-fledged brutality. I want to begin at the commencement, so as to bring the whole affair to light and allow the reader to judge for himself.

The actors in the little drama which just escaped being a tragedy were Mr. Rarx and the Finn, Karl Karlsen. This fellow is slow and thick-headed, with a very hazy idea of English, but is always one of the first to jump if he understands the order. He was told this afternoon at about three o’clock to overhaul a certain tackle, one block of which was belayed to a pin in the rail, while the second mate stood by, having in his hand another massive block of a threefold purchase. The captain was below asleep, and I was standing at the forward end of the poop, not twenty feet from Karl. Suddenly Mr. Rarx, who was in a very bad humor, as I could see, walked close up to Karl and picked up a small coil of rope from the deck, and yelling, “You ain’t doin’ that right, d—— you,” made as though he were going to hit him. The man at once set about the job in another way; but the second mate’s temper was so ungovernable that he stepped up to Karl with an expression in his eyes which I never saw before in any man’s, gave him a terrific kick with his “letter-carrier” boots, and as the luckless fellow swung round under the shock and impetus, Rarx drew back the ponderous block which he still held, and which must have weighed nearly fifteen pounds, and flung it full against the sailor’s face. I could hear the thud distinctly, while with a sharp cry the big, powerful man reeled across the deck and would have fallen prone had it not been for the main fife-rail, against which he sunk gradually down, the blood pouring from a wide gash in his nose and forehead, and rapidly forming a little pond on the deck, while a crimson track stretched from where he crouched to the second mate, who stood over by the rail with the block raised above his head, as though challenging any other of the men hard by to take up the row. Half the watch saw the affair, and if looks could have annihilated him, Rarx would have dropped dead on the spot; and I saw Broadhead and the Frenchman, who were putting an eye-splice into the end of a wire rope, flush crimson and bend hard over their work at this miserable act of cruelty.

Meanwhile Karl remained where he fell, groaning, trying to stop the flow of blood which was rapidly saturating his clothes; why the block didn’t crack his head like a walnut will ever remain a mystery to me; it would have broken the skull of any one but a Russian seaman. For some few minutes there was a dead silence fore and aft; then Rarx walked up to Karl, shook him heavily, and cried, “Now, then, get away out o’ this, you —— —— ——; fine mess you’ve made on the deck. Go wipe the blood out o’ yer eyes, and bring a swab and get this out the deck, and don’t you be long about it, neither.” It struck me that this was rather hard lines, having to mop up your own blood; but in a few minutes more Karl recovered enough to totter forward, and when he next appeared he had a bucket of sand and water and a broom, and at the end of half an hour no trace of the assault remained save a large gloomy stain, which will have to wear out.

Later in the evening I remarked to MacFoy that this was the most villanous and unprovoked piece of brutality that I ever imagined, and that it was astonishing that a man who appeared to be such a well-principled fellow as Rarx would do such a thing. “Well-principled, is it? Huh,” was David’s comment; “peaceable enough to you aft I guess, but you’d think different if you could see him dark nights on the main-deck wearin’ ship. Did you ever see a Yankee second mate that wasn’t a hound?” “I don’t know very much about them personally,” I answered, “but they certainly have a hard name; the only other American second mate whom I ever knew was on a foreign ship, where he had to treat the sailors like men.” “Oh,” said MacFoy, “what do you think o’ what you saw this afternoon?” “Well, about the only thing anybody could say about it is that it was damnable,” I answered. Here the bosun looked steadily at me and said, “If you’d seen what I have in these ships for four years you’d think no more o’ that than steppin’ on a cockroach.”

At any rate, I’ll never forget the scene at the instant before the block struck Karl’s face: about half the watch in the rigging looking angrily down, the clumsy form of the Russian spinning round from the kick, and the second mate standing over him, red with anger, in the act of swinging the block well back to gather force for the blow. And this is what is known as “discipline” in Yankee deep-water men! Well, my only comment is, thank God that my wife wasn’t on deck to see it. Latitude, 17° 45′ south; longitude, 38° 5′ west.

June 18

No one to-day made the least allusion to yesterday’s sinister deed until this evening; Mr. Rarx was as bland as usual, and after supper all that the skipper said was, “They tell me the second mate had a little fun yesterday.” This indifference served to corroborate the bosun’s remark about what he had seen in Yankee ships. I think that the skipper wanted me to express my opinion and then he was going to tell me his in a loud voice before the men; but I asked him if there wasn’t a ship over to leeward, pointing abaft the beam; it served the purpose very well, for he fetched up his lumbering, prehistoric telescope and passed five minutes or so in looking for a vessel which wasn’t there, so that he forgot all about Rarx and the Finn.

To our great astonishment we were enabled by a little shift of wind to fetch by the Abrolhos Islands and to keep on, as we were on the port tack. It was a matter of great satisfaction to us all, and it put the captain in quite a radiant humor. The wind has been pretty well from the eastward of late, and even if it hasn’t been very strong, it enabled us for the first time in many days to round in the weather-braces and take advantage of what there was. Last night was exactly like the weather during a summer northeaster on the New England coast, one of those disagreeable spells which occur two or three times in July and August that fill the hearts of the hotel proprietors with dismay. A dense drizzle, increasing at times to heavy showers, prevailed throughout the night, accompanied by a mist which concealed everything one hundred yards away; while at times we had short but severe puffs of wind, for which we had to stow the sky-sails. At 9.30 in the evening a very strong breeze came out of the east; and, increasing, the second mate, whose watch it was, went forward to haul down the jib-topsail. So he left us on the poop in a heavy shower, and in a few minutes we heard some sharp slatting, but paid no attention to it, supposing that the jib-topsail-sheet had got adrift. Presently Mr. Rarx came back breathing heavily, and remarked, “Very funny; I don’t see how that sail could go like that.” “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Wrong? Why, the main-top-gallant-stay-s’l’s clean gone out the bolt-ropes, and in a minute we’ll have the old man up here tellin’ me ’twas my fault.”

Sure enough, in a few moments the captain’s bushy face arose through the companion-way, and he said without preliminary, “I suppose that was the main-t’-gallant-stay-s’l that went, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Rarx, meekly, “I was——”

“I suppose you were going to say that you was about to haul it down; well, you needn’t bother to explain; if you hadn’t had it too flat ’twouldn’t have went; thirty years ago, men didn’t sign as second mate till they knew how to trim a sail.”

The blighting sarcasm with which he said this put the second mate’s temper on edge again, and I expect that he’ll store this up against the skipper for possible future use, for he is unquestionably a fine sailor-man.

It is rather remarkable that we have caught no fish lately, as the sea in the vicinity of the Abrolhos Islands is the greatest fishing-ground on the whole Brazilian seaboard. For twenty-four hours now we have been on soundings with an average depth of forty fathoms; and while the water is of a dirty green color, it is wonderfully phosphorescent, though not quite equalling the water on the equator; still, when the patent log was hauled in last evening at eight o’clock (it hung up and down at that hour), the line was a rope of fire, dripping with silver sparks, and long after it had been coiled away over a pin it continued to emit brilliant flashes of phosphoric light.

Our new main-topgallant-yard is coming along nicely. It is being trimmed down from one of the double top-gallant-yards which the ship used to carry; this is a rather remarkable fact, that if a vessel carries double top-gallant-sails the yards will be larger in every way than if they were single. It would be hard to conceive a more gnome-like appearance than that presented by the carpenter to-day as he was hewing at the spar with an adze, seen from a distance of about one hundred feet; nearer, the illusion vanished. But his tall, peaked felt hat, immensely broad face, open dungaree-jumper which refused to meet over his globular person, and short, fat legs, lent him, when he rested on his adze with wide-spread feet, a wonderfully elfin aspect.

In a squall this morning I noticed that the mate wore for the first time a tremendously thick garment of red cloth, which he called a llama coat, being made of the wool or hair of that quadruped. It looked something like a flannel shirt, but was not split up the sides, and seemed to be as thick as a felt slipper. Mr. Goggins says that he has never yet seen the rain which can penetrate it. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is the fact that he has worn it for fifteen years and intends to wear it fifteen more. How sailors hate oil-skins! Their aversion to them is universal, and seems to be unreasonable. The captain, for instance, has several ancient, heavy suits which he calls his Cape Horn clothes. Whenever his presence is required for any length of time in a heavy rain, he dons one of these suits and goes on deck in a soft felt hat and a pair of slippers, only to return in fifteen or twenty minutes with dripping garments, his slippers sobbing at every step; in two minutes, though, he is arrayed in another suit, with the same foot-gear, and marches on deck again to repeat this operation as long as his dry clothes hold out. All this for dislike of oil-skins and boots. Latitude, 19° 56′ south; longitude, 38° 15′ west.

June 19

Rio is said to possess a superb climate in the winter months; but if it is finer than the weather which we are having now it must be supernaturally beautiful. For twenty-four hours we have run before a fresh northeast breeze, the only fault to be found with which is the fact that, as we are now dead before the wind, the after-sails are the only ones which draw, blanketing the others. The course this morning was given to the quartermaster, southwest, which will not be altered except in case of necessity till we have passed the Falklands. No mention has been made, by the way, of our helmsmen, dignified by the name of quartermasters. They do not really hold this rank, as they are merely sailors who have been picked out by the mates as the best helmsmen, and receive no more wages than able seamen. The idea of this is to have only certain men to steer the ship, that they may thoroughly understand her under all circumstances. It is curious to see how much less tanned these men are than the others, owing to the protection of the wheel-house.

The old mate continues to crawl growlingly about the decks, grumbling at various actual and phantasmagorical afflictions. His mode of progression is a sort of creeping prowl, as he thrusts his face into every nook and cranny, with a hundred wrinkles in his great, flabby nose, as though he were continuously assailed with disagreeable odors. He hazes the men a great deal more than the second mate does, though I do not think that he is particularly courageous; a flock of Gogginses might, like jackals, prove dangerous, but singly, his valor I’m sure would dwindle at close quarters. Being a poor seaman, the men have no respect at all for him, and in the presence of the skipper he bawls at the sailors and makes a feint of hitting them, glancing at the old man for approval, as he rolls about, exhorting them in his most rasping voice to “Come now, git a move on.”

Mr. Rarx gets several times more work out of his watch, for he knows how to handle the men; and as he has recovered his equanimity he continues to exhibit his claims to being a humorist. His men were hoisting the yards up taut in the second dog-watch yesterday, and when they came to the maintop-gallant-halliards, they burst into a fine chanty, “Whiskey”; then when they had finished with the main-yards they began on the foretop-gallant-halliards, but without a song. The yard seemed to stick a bit; and as sailors can always do twice the work with the inspiration of a song, Mr. Rarx called out, “Give us a little more of that whiskey, fellows”; which so tickled the fellows’ fancies that some of them shook in their extremity of mirth, though a sailor must always laugh at a mate’s joke. If the second mate were not such a bad-tempered man he would not be an unpleasant companion, for he talks well and is always very neat; but his recent villanous deed deprives his conversation of most of its erstwhile attractions, while he appears to think absolutely nothing of it.

Louis Jacquin is indisputably the best sailor in the forecastle, though young Broadhead, the New Yorker, is by no means a bad second. Louis’s marlinspike seamanship is really beautiful; and it turns out, as I expected, that he has served a long period in the French navy. Strange how sailors shift back and forth from man-of-war to merchantman. This man has good principles, too; for when the little bosun Rumps began to blackguard the skipper the other day, saying, “I’d like to have a crack at you ashore,” looking up at the poop, the Frenchman said, “Zat ees not right”; nor was this intended for me to hear. Louis made a queer mistake the other day. He was telling Broadhead about the attractions of Paris, and finally asked him, “Have you evair seen Père la Chère?” “What’s that?” said Broadhead. “Père la Chère, zee cemetarie,” answered Jacquin. It was an odd mistake for a Frenchman to make.

The captain is in fine feather now that we are doing well, but is annoyed that we do not meet more steamers. I never saw a skipper so anxious to be spoken and reported as Captain Scruggs; and last evening when a large steamer passed us bound south, probably to Rio, he almost wept because it was dark.

One of our two cabin cats has vanished; it was the “coon-cat,” and after a long search to-day we were forced to the belief that it has fallen overboard. It is hard luck, and its companion, the Maltese, is inconsolable. The captain seems really cut up about it, for he has all a sailor’s fancy for animals. One of Mr. Goggins’s traits, however, is his cruelty to the poor, ugly alley-cat which belongs to him,—another illustration of the sort of creature that he is. Latitude, 22° 30′ south; longitude, 39° 25′ west.

June 20

At nine o’clock this morning I sighted a vessel’s upper canvas ahead, far down in the southwest; she seemed to be a bark, and as such I reported her to the skipper. The breeze was from the eastward and blowing fresh, so that every sail was drawing to the utmost, and we were doing nearly eleven knots at the time. Slowly we drew up on the vessel, slowly but certainly, and at eleven o’clock she proved to be a ship, and we concluded that she was one of the Englishmen which sailed a week ahead of us: the “Balclutha,” from London, the “Merioneth,” from Swansea, and the “Peleus,” from Hamburg, all bound to San Francisco, and the “Annesley,” from Cardiff for Portland, Oregon. It was quite probable that we would fall in with each other hereabouts. In spite of the power of our glasses, however, it was impossible to tell for a long while whether she was a Yankee or a Britisher, until all at once she yawed, when the sun reflected from her sails showed that they were of cotton, so that the chances were in favor of her hailing from the States. We paid no further attention to her, though, till after dinner, when, by that time having raised her hull out of the water, we perceived that she carried a stunsail on the starboard side! Here was a spectacle as unusual as a blue moon in these days of scanty rigs and short crews! Still, in spite of her extra cloths, we overhauled her, and soon made the additional discovery that, like ourselves, she crossed three sky-sail-yards. (What a graceful, slender look they give to a vessel!) Captain Scruggs at this instant emerged from the cabin with his ancient, feeble-looking, clattering, brass telescope under his arm, levelled it at the flying stranger, bracing the long, tottering tubes against the top-gallant-backstays, gazed at her for a full minute, and announced her name,—the “Judas Dowes.” Now, this vessel sailed from New York for San Diego six days before we did, and though she has a fine record as a fast sailer, lo! we have overhauled her on the fortieth day. I am under the impression that Captains Scruggs and Platt had a wager as to who would pass the equator first; and as the “Dowes” undoubtedly crossed ahead of us, our skipper was in quite a bad humor when he found who the stranger was. We asked him if he couldn’t be mistaken, to which he disdainfully answered, “Mistaken? Of course not; wasn’t I master of her four years before I took the ‘Hosea Higgins’?” “Does Platt recognize us, do you suppose?” I asked him then. “Most certainly he does,” testily replied the captain; “who wouldn’t know them upper topsails?” And in truth the “Higgins” could be picked out among a score of other vessels simply by her long topmasts. There is every prospect of passing the “Judas Dowes” in the night, for at the moment, 4 P.M., we cannot be more than seven or eight miles apart.

Many people, even those identified with affairs nautical, will be surprised to learn that there are still fully half a dozen of our ships which make a regular practice of carrying stunsails whenever they will draw. Those vessels which I am certain follow this plan are the “Paul Revere,” the “Judas Dowes,” and the “Indiana.”

The sail which the “Dowes” carried this afternoon probably doesn’t add half a knot to her speed; but some of the ships mentioned carry such an extra spread of canvas as to very decidedly augment their sailing powers. For instance, Mr. Rarx said, “While I was second mate of the ‘Paul Revere’ awhile ago, we had stuns’ls that added a thousand square yards to the ship’s canvas and put two knots on her speed.” Some seafaring people of the present day do not believe that fifty years ago our famous clippers carried royal-stunsails, a leading maritime publication in New York saying a year ago, “We never heard of a ship-master foolish enough to carry royal-stunsails.” Now this is a mistake, for Mr. Goggins has positively asserted that about thirty years ago he was in a bark for some months that set these auxiliary sails, the vessel’s name, according to the mate, being the “Chickloa,” so called after a large coffee plantation in Guatemala. Far more conclusive proof, however, is to be found in “Two Years before the Mast,” in which Dana, always minutely accurate, mentioned the royal-stunsails set on the ship “Alert,” in which he returned to Boston from California.

Last evening at the pumps I had some interesting yarns from Murphy, who is a round, jolly, chubby individual, very active and good-natured. The second mate says that this fellow is not at all a bad lot, and that his only fault lies in his inclination to be a little “fresh.” Murphy commenced about the American bark “St. James,” in which he went out from New York to Shanghai in ninety-seven days three years ago. “Oh, but she’s just a daisy, she is! Why, she’s a square-rigged yacht. And go, I tell you honest, I saw her log fifteen knots on that voyage under the tops’ls and fores’l between Tristan d’Acunha and the Cape; and if ever you want to sail with a nice man, you ship with Cap’n Banfield; there’s no better.” As a matter of fact, the “St. James,” which is a very large vessel to be bark-rigged, being of fifteen hundred tons, is the most yacht-like square-rigger under the stars and stripes, and a friend of mine who went out to Shanghai in her on this very voyage which Murphy mentioned, in speaking from a passenger’s stand-point, corroborated every word of the sailor’s, and said that it would be impossible to find a more agreeable man to sail with than Captain Banfield, who for some time was in the large Boston schooner yacht “Alert.”

In contradistinction to this fast passage of the “St. James” friend Murphy spoke as follows: “The last time I went round the Horn was in the Yankee ship ‘Centennial,’ and we were a hundred and ninety-nine days from New York to ’Frisco. We had a terrible time off Cape Horn, and ran back twice to the Falklands for repairs, and at last a third time we bore away for Montevideo. We passed close to Stanley this time, too, but there was a heavy gale on and we dasn’t try for that place again. As we ran by, though, we saw an American ship tryin’ to weather the Billy Rocks at the entrance to Stanley Harbor, and we passed so close to her that I heard the cap’n say as how he could see the sailors in the riggin’ with the glasses. We afterward found out ’twas the ‘City of Philadelphia.’” Then I remembered the tragedy of this ship. She sailed from Philadelphia for San Francisco a little over two years ago. Her captain had just bought her for himself, and she had on board a passenger travelling for his health. The vessel was disabled off Cape Horn, bore away for Stanley for repairs, missed stays off the harbor, struck on the terrible Billy Rocks in a gale of wind, and every soul on board perished.

The last Yankee square-rigger to lay her bones upon the beach was the “Commodore,” which ran on Malden Island in the Pacific, in 5° south and 155° west, about a year ago, while on a voyage from Honolulu to New York with sugar. All hands saved.

Murphy, like Louis, is a man-o’-war’s man, and said that the last government vessel in which he served was the “Olympia.” “Oh, Lord, she’s a terror for work,” he added. “I’ll bet she can’t beat this packet in that line,” said one of the men. “She can’t, eh? I’d just like to see you try her once. This ship’s a playground compared to her.” This, in part, bears out what Mr. Rarx said, that this is one of the hardest ships for work that he has ever seen. If sailors get enough to eat, though, by far the best way to run a ship is to keep them hard at work continuously; they will always be in far better humor, and when they turn in they will think more about sleep than about imaginary grievances, which foremast hands are very prone to do. Latitude 25° 12′ south; longitude, 42° 14′ west.

June 21

Oh, simple, childish Captain Platt of the “Judas Dowes!” This morning when day broke we looked in vain for this vessel, for behold the watery expanse void of objects fashioned by the hand of man save ourselves. We had confidently expected to see the “Dowes” upon our quarter, where, in truth, she would have been if Captain Platt hadn’t shown the white feather, sheering off under cover of the darkness and secreting himself beyond the horizon.

How odd it is to meet an acquaintance away down here near the end of Brazil! The last time that we saw the “Judas Dowes” she lay on the opposite side of the pier from the “Higgins,” both ships having just come in from sea; and lo! we renew our intimacy far down here, thousands of miles from home, below the southern tropic. And a sort of mutual good-fellowship springs up between us, for are we both not going to fling down the gauntlet to the dreadful Horn in the darkness and gloom of midwinter? Everything is so very smooth and sunny and cheerful here at present, that it is hard to believe that there are, no doubt, at this moment, giant four-masters struggling in the grip of an Antarctic sou’wester, hove to, with a tarpaulin in the after-rigging, or driving before it for their lives, buried to the rails in those great Cape Horn surges which roll so grandly onward in their endless journey around the globe.

Turning, then, from such violent scenes, it is doubly pleasant to be wafted thus along over a motionless sea, rippled by the fresh northeasterly breeze that blows us over two hundred miles of water every day. It is warm, too, for this latitude at this season, 77° at noon, for the sun to-day reached the most northerly point of his declination, and at four o’clock this morning, at Greenwich, he entered the constellation of Cancer, ushering in the first day of the southern winter.

Our skipper has formed the very obnoxious habit of immersing beer and Apollinaris bottles in the galvanized iron bucket which holds our drinking-water in the pantry, for the purpose of cooling them off; so that we were shocked one day to observe several labels floating about in the water, having added to it glue and other equally unpleasant foreign substances. Fortunately, the weather will soon be cold now, which will, I hope, put an end to these objectionable proceedings.

Every Sunday thus far Captain Scruggs has blossomed out in a white “biled” shirt, with a standing collar turned over in front, by reason of which he suffers torments throughout that day, until about three in the afternoon, when indications of a sudden metamorphosis begin to appear. First he begins to move restlessly in his chair, elevates and depresses his chin with great force, inserts his hand inside the band and tugs away at it, and finally, unable to stand it any longer, off comes the offending collar with a great wrench, while he passionately nods and revolves his massive head, to free himself of all restraint, as though he had been in a pillory.

It is a curious fact that hardly a single ship-master will say anything in favor of Nelson; personally, I have never yet met one who would admit that this greatest of sea-fighters was better or worse than any other naval commander, for all of whom they appear to have a silent disdain. A sea-captain usually takes as his model Napoleon or Cæsar or even the present emperor of Germany; our skipper reveres the memory of Napoleon and considers him the embodiment of everything grand and exalted; as for Nelson, he won’t even deign to talk about him, and brusquely dismissed the subject to-day by saying that Nelson didn’t even have much command or influence over his men!

There was a vast deal of shouting and confusion on board all day, occasioned by the shifting of the old sails to the new, strong suit for Cape Horn; as the captain said, “Now we’re gettin’ ready for business.” It is the general idea that old sails, nearly worn out, are bent for the bad weather, whereas the very newest of all are sent aloft, for old canvas would melt like wet paper in a really hard squall. Therefore the ship now glitters in a brand-new suit of clothes and presents quite a fine appearance; a yachtsman, however, would contemplate with dismay sundry streaks of mildew and tar-stains on the main-sail, though this is the first time that it has ever been stretched on a yard. So long are our topmasts that the big, upper main-topsail has a double row of reef-points in it; all the uppers are three times as deep as the lowers, which seem but strips of tape in comparison; when this vessel has nothing set but the lower topsails, it must verily be a howling gale. Latitude, 27° 50′ south; longitude, 44° 30′ west.

June 22

Good-by, sweet north wind! Farewell, bright, blue skies and balmy weather! We turned out this morning to find the ship ploughing into a short, severe sea, heading south-southeast, with nothing set above the topsails and a strong wind whistling from southwest, or dead ahead. The change came last evening in the second dog-watch; it was hard upon eight o’clock, and the mate was telling me something about the fit of the upper mizzentop-sail, when, looking ahead, he suddenly cried, “By jimminy, look at that cloud; here comes the river Plate,” and ran forward, bawling, “Let go the sky-sail-halliards!” Looking quickly toward the southwest I beheld a very wonderful sight; for, extending from west to east, about twenty degrees above the horizon, was a strange, narrow band of black cloud which came rushing toward us at headlong speed, with a gray bank of mist beneath it extending to the horizon. This mass had apparently risen by the exercise of some magic, for fifteen minutes previously there was not the least indication of it in the sky. Even as we looked, another ribbon of sable cloud formed at an angle of forty-five degrees to the first, and cornucopia-shaped (though not vertical like a tornado), with the big end toward us, came charging down upon us with all our kites aloft.

The mate’s yell brought the skipper on deck, who sang out instantly, “Get the sky-sails and royals in as quick as you can, Mr. Goggins. Keep her off there; hard up.” This last to the helmsman; for in an instant our northerly breeze had been nipped off, and the wind was now from the west; therefore, as the yards were squared, there was a great thrashing about of new canvas. Nothing parted, though, and by 8.30 we were pretty well straightened out, but were surprised an hour later to see the wind let go a good deal, while the ship came up to her course again, southwest. But the captain, glancing at a gray mist to windward, muttered, “There’s dirt in that yet”; and sure enough, at five this morning we had our first taste of nasty weather, and breakfasted in a severe squall which played tenpins with the dishes. Once more it eased up before dinner and we set the fore- and mizzentop-gallant-sails; but while the skipper was enjoying his postprandial siesta, the second mate came below and, poking first his head and then his shoulders into the cabin in that peculiarly cautious manner of mates desiring to speak to the old man, aroused him with, “There’s too much wind coming for the t’-ga’nt-s’ls, sir”; to which the captain answered, “All right; tie ’em up,” jumping on deck, whither we followed him. It is remarkable how quickly sailors rouse themselves from insensibility to alert action; only a moment previously the captain was breathing heavily in a deep sleep, yet no sooner did Mr. Rarx touch him and make the above observation than the answer came instantly, as though the skipper were talking in his sleep.

The wind when we reached the deck was rapidly increasing and had knocked us off to south again, with a bad, greasy look to windward, and it was raining heavily. The men were hauling on the lee maintop-gallant-clew-line and buntlines, while Mr. Rarx was settling away the halliards and swearing that never, since Noah took charge of the ark, was there a slower gang on a ship’s deck, as he ordered four hands aloft to put the gaskets on the sail, the wind blowing their oil-skin jackets up over their heads as they trotted up the ratlines, exposing them to a hard drenching in the pelting rain.

During the forenoon watch we sighted a sail, which was doubtless the “Judas Dowes” again. It is astonishing how enormously a slight elevation will add to the visibility of objects at sea. From the deck, for instance, this vessel was sunk to her royals, and at the moment it was utterly impossible to tell whether she was a ship or a bark; but by mounting to the top of the wheel-house, only seven feet above the deck, all three of her upper topsails were in plain sight.

We saw Louis Jacquin fly into a regular Frenchman’s passion yesterday afternoon while shifting the sails. He was at the lee upper mizzen-topsail yard-arm, putting the finishing touches on some gear, when the second mate shouted up to him, “All ready to sheet home?” To which he answered, “All ready, sair”; evidently misunderstanding the question; for no sooner did those below man the sheet on which Louis was seated than crack! went that individual’s black head against the under side of the yard, and he was then thrown off to leeward, only preventing himself from going over for good by a piece of wonderful agility. Oh, what a rage he was in! He thought that Mr. Rarx did it intentionally, and the atmosphere smoked with foreign imprecations; and even at that distance we could see his angry blue eyes (he has china-blue eyes and raven hair) snapping and popping away as he roared down, “Eh! well, sair; what is zee mattair below? Do you want to heave me ovair side wiz your sheet?” and it was several hours until he recovered his composure.

Our new maintop-gallant-yard is all but finished and has been secured under the starboard rail till needed. A little remains still to be done to it, and these finishing touches the goblin carpenter insists on bestowing upon it in spite of the showers of spray; and it is an amusing sight to watch him pop out of his shop, snip off a few shavings, working like a demon for thirty or forty seconds, and then pop into his den again to avoid a sea. By reason of all this spray flying and damp weather, I have donned my Cape Horn red-leather slippers purchased from the slop-chest and said to be impervious to water. But they defy comfort equally well, being as inflexible as Cape Horn itself, and are spangled inside with perfect little galaxies of wooden pegs, so that I fain would have boiled them as the pilgrim did his pease. If man were provided with hoofs instead of feet, it is conceivable that he might contrive to become accustomed to these slippers; as it is, I cannot understand it.

Having crossed the thirtieth parallel, we are now “off” the river Plate in the sailor’s sense, who always speaks of being off the Plate when between 30° and 40° south. At least one gale is usually experienced before these ten degrees of latitude have been crossed, though ships generally reach the thirty-fifth degree before anything happens. Latitude, 30° 25′ south; longitude, 45° 33′ west.

June 23

A pampero! By heaven’s thunder, we are battling in the vortex of one of these river Plate howlers, with a high, confused sea, and the ship plunging heavily into it, almost denuded of canvas! Yesterday at 4.30 a reef was tied in the foretop-sail, as the wind showed signs of rapidly freshening; but there was a lull from five until midnight, when it began to breeze up again, and when we went on deck at 7.30 this morning, behold! a strong gale coming out of the west-southwest and the ship, under a reefed maintop-sail and foresail, was pounding considerably in a very ugly sea, but not taking much green water aboard. By the way, when a ship is under an upper maintop-sail, it is, of course, to be understood that all three lower topsails are set as well; and a “reefed fore- and maintop-sails” means only the uppers, as the lowers are too narrow for reef-points.

Wonderful to relate, there astern of us at daybreak was the redoubtable “Judas Dowes,” with the same canvas set as ourselves. We knew her by her stunsail-boom, and she was apparently gaining on us and was making better weather of it than we were. I never heard the wind so shriek and roar in a ship’s rigging as it did this morning, and it whipped the tops off the seas and sent them flying aboard in storms of whistling spray, which seemed to cut the face like powdered glass. It kept on breezing, too, and at 9.30 the old man ordered another reef tied in the maintop-sail. Thus far the damage from wind or sea was limited to the injury of one man, Louis Jacquin, who was thrown across the forecastle-head against an anchor-fluke with great force, badly lacerating his left leg, and incapacitating him from other work than steering. And still the wind increased, and at half-past eleven the skipper estimated its velocity at fifty-five nautical miles an hour. At noon I started to go on deck to bring down a book which I had left in the wheel-house; and, without stopping to put on oil-skins, I got into a leather jacket and went up out of the companion door. The captain was leaning against the lee side of the wheel-house, and I was about to join him, when he called out, “Hey, don’t you see that sea,—jump!” I looked over my shoulder and beheld a huge hill of water rising higher and higher alongside, in that peculiar, lazy manner of very large waves. Still, trusting to my own judgment, I did not think that it would break aboard, when there was a crash like a broadside of artillery, relieving me of any further suspense, and I was swept completely off my feet (and this on the poop), only saving myself from bringing to against the rail by a lucky clutch of the lazarette hatch-house. Then swash came the water back again, and I was once more half buried in the cold brine; but, watching a chance, the skipper and I shot across to the companion door, opened it, and were assailed with the cry, “The cabin’s flooded,” which rang out above the gale. It was even so. The great sea had stove the forward skylight on the cabin-house, and had deluged the dining-room with hundreds of gallons of salt-water. It is impossible to conceive of such a wreck as we encountered below. The poor little gentle Malay was leaning against the table almost in tears, trying to keep his feet under him, while Sammie was doing noble work with a bucket, baling out the water which was swirling about with the rolling, to a clinking chorus of plates, cruets, thick glass tumblers (as indestructible as granite), knives, forks, and spoons, which had been swept off the table when the water broke full upon it. Ten minutes later our dinner would have been reposing on it; and fancy the calamity in that event! But it is too dreary to contemplate. Indeed, the dinner was delayed nearly an hour, and we had neither soup nor dessert,—the first occasion on which we ever knew these courses to be omitted at sea; the weather must truly be violent when it so happens. But we had plenty of good scorching hot coffee; and, it might be asked, why is it that during the heaviest weather at sea the coffee is always boiling, while in one’s private house it is only after a protracted warfare with the cook that the coffee comes in at a higher temperature than lukewarm?

Well, the wind kept on blowing still harder, and at two in the afternoon had attained the fury of a full-grown pampero. And the sea! Oh, how it boiled and seethed like frothy cream! And how the wind screamed aloft in the squalls! Fortunately, they came at comparatively long intervals, with sunshine between; but while one lasted it was nearly impossible to catch sight of a square yard of dark water, for the surface was as white as milk; and the crests of the tall seas were fairly wrenched off and shot through the air with terrific force, the atmosphere being full of flying spoondrift which the toughest skin couldn’t face, while the horizon was everywhere filled with ponderous, breaking seas. Our motion all day was very severe: first a heavy roll which dipped the lee rail under, while the water boiled up to the lee fore-dead-eyes; then the awkward weather roll down the windward side of the sea; and finally a deep, headlong dive into the valley, with a wall of water on either hand. The skipper thought that the average height of the larger seas was about forty feet from crest to trough,—not so large as the Cape Horn rollers; but it must be borne in mind that this was a very quick, vicious sea, with not more than three hundred feet between the crests, so that solid water was bound to come aboard even on the poop.

Well, well, it was a magnificent sight; and as we are now accompanied by a cheerful flock of Cape pigeons, everything has a true Southern Ocean look. My wife was not in the least frightened during the day; but she had such a good grounding on our first voyage that it is not astonishing. We made no departure in the twenty-four hours but two degrees of latitude, which was extremely good work, considering that we were by the wind in a pampero. Latitude, 32° 25′ south; longitude, 45° 33′ west.

June 24

In the morning watch to-day the gale broke after blowing for twenty-four hours, the main-sail being set at four o’clock, during which process both mates were knocked down flat on the deck by an unexpected sea while they were standing by the main-hatch. At eight this morning the wind had moderated to a light, fitful breeze, and we wallowed all the forenoon in a high, broken sea; indeed, throughout the night we could get but little sleep owing to the severe rolling. Glancing to leeward as soon as we appeared on deck, there was our old friend the “Dowes” on our beam, distant a little more than a mile, bobbing about under her top-gallant-sails as we were, though she carried her cross-jack and we the spanker. She made, indeed, a fine picture as she forged sullenly ahead, showing a glistening sheath of copper as she divided the slopes of the larger seas, with a glint of brass from the poop when the sun peered out from between light showers. At nine o’clock we perceived several agitated figures close to her wheel, and presently a string of flags blew out and were run up to her gaff-end, and quite a little conversation ensued. The first signal which Platt made was DWV, signifying “How are you?” This we answered with BRC, which is to say, “All well.” Then followed in rapid succession, “When did you sail?” “When did you pass the equator?” “A pleasant voyage,” to all of which we replied with the various flag combinations which spelled the words; each then dipped the ensign three times, and the interview was brought to a close. It was very interesting thus conversing with the sly wretch, and it is singular how much interest foremast hands always take in such proceedings, carefully following every shift of flag, some of the older sailors always professing to be able to read the signals, often telling their messmates the most absurd things, which they implicitly believe.

I never saw so great a change in any one as came over Captain Scruggs yesterday during the gale. He was as quiet and retiring as the most bashful of individuals, and in fact exhibited an amount of anxiety surprising in so aggresive and domineering a person. Nearly all masters of sailing ships, as noted before, are nervous in bad weather; and in truth, a gale of wind at sea is something to make one quiet and mindful of man’s trivial strength when measured against the mighty powers of nature. But the captain was unnaturally reserved and almost crushed, and asked me half a dozen times what I thought of it; while at 2.30 in the afternoon, standing on the weather side of the wheel-house, he put his face close to my ear and shouted, “It’s blowing harder than ever,” with a rising inflection, as though awaiting my inexperienced opinion. This morning, however, he was his same old self again, drenching Sammie with heavy showers of profanity on the least provocation. In spite of his depression yesterday, the skipper gave vent to one of his quaint sayings. At the time he had on a cap, which, though not tied under his chin, resisted the utmost violence of the squalls; on commenting upon this to him, he cried, “They’re great things; you ought to have one; ’twould stop on as long as your pants.”

Some of the sailors are beginning to grumble even so soon as this. I had a talk with old Kelly this afternoon at the pumps and in a low voice he let fall his opinions on various subjects. Now, this man has been well educated and talks evenly, without effort, and the inflections and tone of his voice indicate that by birth his natural sphere in life is a good deal higher than that of a common sailor. “Well,” he remarked. “I’ve been in square-riggers for thirty-three years now, but I never did see one like this for yelling and cursing; why, they knock all the sense out of a man’s head the way they shout. And work, you talk about galleys, but there never was a gang of slaves driven as we are.” This must be taken with the usual amount of salt, which should always be liberally sprinkled over the conversation of the average sailor; still, when a second mate acknowledges that the men are hard pushed, there is not much doubt about its being true. Kelly is right, though, about the shouting of Captain Scruggs; if there wasn’t so much sea-room I believe that we would all be deafened by this time; and the worst part of it is that this sort of thing is absolutely useless. I have frequently known the skipper to work the men into such a state that they were paralyzed and unable to execute the simplest order.

At the present moment, sitting in the cabin, we can hear the wind beginning to sing again in the rigging, and a second gale would not surprise us in the least, for there is, in addition, a heavy swell rolling up from the southwest, all of which cannot be the result of our late gale.

This roaring of the wind aloft when it is blowing very hard is resolvable into several different tones: the heavy shrouds taking the base, the somewhat lighter backstays resembling the barytone, the halliards and braces standing for the tenor, while the buntlines and clew-lines take the part of a piercing falsetto, as shrill as a thousand piccolos; the whole blending into a resonant chorus of orchestral power, with grand, majestic crescendi like the double open diapason of a cathedral organ. Latitude 32° 35′ south; longitude, 44° 50′ west.

June 25

The question which agitates us at this moment is, are we going to have another pampero? for it is breezing up fast from west-southwest, the same old quarter. We didn’t have much wind this forenoon, but by dinner-time it freshened so that at one o’clock the skipper said to the mate in tones of despair, “Get that upper mizzentop-sail in, Mr. Goggins”; and no sooner were the men down on deck again than came the order, “Reef the foretop-sail.” All hands were on deck, and the foreshrouds were instantly filled with the yellow figures scurrying aloft, and in half an hour the ship was once more under snug canvas.

At four yesterday afternoon, chancing to look under the foot of the main-sail, my wife and I saw a large four-masted bark under top-gallant-sails bound north and steering in such a way as to pass within easy signalling distance; and the skipper lost no time in appearing on deck in answer to a summons, at once ordering the ship’s number to be made. On came the stranger, and in a few minutes we could see that she had lost her mizzen-royal, yard, mast, and everything. She was a very ugly vessel, narrow and dingy, built of wood, with a curious stern like nothing we had ever seen before, and no more apparent sheer than a billiard-table. Very soon she was abreast of us, but no answering flags fluttered from her gaff, and we wondered what manner of ship this was thus to ignore signals. We thought that she was going to pass us by completely unnoticed, when there crawled feebly to her spanker-gaff the green, white, and red banner of Italy. The meaning of this manœuvre was that this ill-starred old ship, which was evidently an ancient steamer, was totally destitute of flags bar her national ensign; and, having no signals, she would, of course, possess no code-book, and therefore our number, standing out stiffly a hundred feet from the deck, would be quite unintelligible to her.

No sooner was this ship hull down astern than another one arose ahead. We were below at the time, and when we reached the deck we were almost abreast of each other. Our name was still flying from the signal-halliards, while the other had hoisted FGH, meaning “What is your longitude?” We gratified her wish and she doubtless got our name all right, but refused to tell us hers; but, dipping her ensign, went surging heavily along on her homeward-bound course. A long time passed before we could make out what her ensign was, for it was a flag seldom seen on the ocean highways, and the mate had the honor of being the first to distinguish it. It was the flag of Chile: a broad horizontal band of red below, the upper half being divided into two squares, white and blue, with a large white star in the upper left-hand corner. She, too, was a wooden ship, but not so villanous-looking as the Italian, and carried double top-gallant-sails on the fore and main. We all hope that she’ll report us, for we have sailed through thirty-six degrees of latitude without having sighted any vessel which would be likely to report us on arrival. How happy our relatives and friends will be when they see our report in the ship-news columns by that steamer just north of the line, “Spoken, ship ‘Hosea Higgins.’ Scruggs, New York for San Francisco, June 6. Latitude, 2° north; longitude, 28° west!”

To-day at noon we were almost exactly in the latitude of Cape Agulhas, so that the Horn is thirteen hundred miles south of the southernmost extremity of the Eastern Hemisphere, a difference of latitude greater than that which separates Halifax and Key West, or New York and Havana. Latitude, 34° 46′ south; longitude, 45° 20′ west.

June 26

At quarter to five yesterday the skipper, thinking that we would do better on the other tack, wore ship at that hour in half a gale of wind. There was a deal of excitement and bad language on the captain’s part, which so rattled the helmsman that we were thirty-five minutes in wearing, about eighteen or twenty minutes being our average. There was a heavy sea running at the time, too, and in spite of cautions my wife insisted upon sitting on top of the after-cabin skylight during the process of wearing, and when we began to roll heavily when before the wind and sea, the expected happened; for my wife fetched away and would have had a very severe fall if the captain hadn’t grasped her tightly and held on. I tried to reach her in time, but lost my foothold, sat down vehemently, shot straightaway across the smooth deck-house with incredible speed, and brought to with a smash against the deck-house monkey-rail. I kept astonishingly cool in the flight across, and even selected where to put my feet when I should reach the rail; indeed, it was an illustration of the theory that if a man is not paralyzed with horror at some frightful spectacle the presence of danger sharpens his wits, and his mind becomes clear and calculating. Immediately after wearing, the captain ordered the main-sail reefed, and at eight in the evening a single reef was tied in the maintop-sail, the weather being very squally, with much rain and hail.

To-day dawned with a light west-southwest wind and a clear sky, with a long, southerly swell which made us roll dreadfully all night. At nine o’clock we broke off to the southward of northwest; so the captain wore round once more, and now we are making south by west half west, Skippers have an odd way sometimes of saying south by west, accenting strongly the “by” as a precaution against mistaking the course for south-southwest, if slurred over quickly.

We thought that we had finished with the “Judas Dowes,” but no; this morning at dawn she was in plain view, five miles astern, and overhauled us so rapidly that when we went on the other tack she had neared us to three miles. No sooner had she observed us in the act of wearing than up went her main-sail and cross-jack, and she followed suit; there is no gainsaying the fact that the “Dowes” is the faster ship on a wind, though free things are reversed. By standing so long on the starboard tack through Wednesday’s gale and some heavy winds since we found, when braced up on the port tack last night, that the cargo had shifted slightly, and that on this leg the ship had a tendency to roll to windward. The captain said that the cargo hadn’t actually shifted, but had listed, as sailors call it, the effect on the ship being perceptible to no one but a seaman.

Mr. Rarx told me the other day that he spent two years on the West African coast, between Sierra Leone and Lagos, aboard of an English supply steamer; and that while there he saw what, in his estimation, was the loftiest-rigged vessel that ever floated. “You can talk about your talkabouts,” said he, “but that English man-o’-war had four yards above her main-royal. I’m tellin’ you a fact,” he added.

Well, we are dawdling away day after day up here in about 35° south instead of clipping down past the Plate the other side of 40°. The captain says that after we have passed that parallel until we reach 50° south we will probably have a number of fine days, clear and exhilarating, with magnificent sunsets. We have had some good views of the Magellan Clouds lately, as the sky at night in the south has been quite clear. They are strange-looking things, with somewhat the appearance of the nebula in Andromeda. Latitude, 34° 39′ south; longitude, 46° 26′ west.

June 27

Very strong west to west-southwest winds, and the vessel laboring in a broken sea in corkscrew dives under single-reefed fore- and maintop-sail. It was fine up to midnight, when it clouded over and commenced to blow, so that we had to shorten sail; and at eight this morning, the ship diving deeply, the upper mizzentop-sail was stowed altogether. The “Dowes” made a valiant attempt to hold on to us; but I think that we can carry on better in heavy winds, for when day broke she had vanished astern.

Last evening at the pumps Olsen and I talked together for the first time. He is a very decent fellow and the quietest man in the ship. “I never did see anythin’ like the shoutin’ here,” he observed, the first thing. “Oh, blow that,” quoth Murphy; “it goes in one ear and out the other.” “That’s all right,” answered Olsen, “but I ain’t used to it; and every time the old man hollers me heart’s in me mouth. If I ever sign in an American ship again it’ll be the ‘S. P. Hitchcock.’ When me and Coleman come round from Honolulu in her little while ago, we did more work in one watch there than we do here all day, and there wasn’t any yellin’ at all. You never saw Cap’n Gates on the main-deck neither; he knew his business. On the whole, I like British vessels about the best of any, except the way they carry on is fearful, and bein’ iron ships they can stand it. I sailed in the British ship ‘Dominion’ once from Barry to San Francisco, and I never did see such sail-carryin’. As for the main-deck, you couldn’t put your foot on it in bad weather without fear of goin’ overboard. One night in the Pacific, about 45° south, in a southerly gale, there came a crack, and away went all three t’-gallant-masts overboard, all from carryin’ on.”

Olsen’s remark about Captain Gates’s knowing his business was a cut at Captain Scruggs for prowling around the deck forward at all hours of the day and night. Sailors hate this; and while a ship-master has the right to scour his vessel fore and aft if he sees fit, he is generally never seen forward of the galley, unless something special has happened.

After dinner to-day, when we went up on the poop, we found that both wind and sea had increased, but there was nothing to warn us of what was to happen. We had arranged the folding-chairs against the wheel-house, sheltered from the violence of the wind by the bulwarks, and I was in the act of arranging a rug around my wife, when the skipper cried out, “Now, then, mind yourself!” We felt the ship rising higher and higher on an unusually heavy sea, and, looking forward, were just in time to see a great, white cataract roar over the weather-side abaft the main-rigging. Half of it tumbled into the waist, while the other half broke with a stunning crash full against the forward end of the poop-deck-house. It wrenched away a heavy wooden shutter, built to repel just such an attack as this, snapping a thick brass hook as if it had been of glass, washed away a short, massive ladder leading to the top of the deck-house, and then bore down upon us like a freshet. Captain Scruggs again came to the rescue, and, picking my wife up, chair and all, held her clear of the flood; while the only thing for me to do, seeing that my wife was safe, was to fall across one of the stern-bitts hard by and lift my legs out of the water as I best could; and here I remained for two minutes, floundering and wallowing about as though on a pivot, and this just after an especially hearty dinner. When most of the water had run off, the skipper placed my wife’s chair on the deck again with such dexterous cunning as to disengage the supporting-bar in the rear, letting the whole contrivance down flat, so that my wife lay prone upon the deck in the chill sea-water, which still swirled about our feet. It didn’t seem to disturb him much, and he only remarked, as he stamped on the deck, squirting little jets of water out of his Cape Horn slippers, “There, that’s more water than I’ve seen on this ship’s poop since I’ve had her.” It was really a grand spectacle as the sea broke on board, and would have made a superb subject for a camera.

We are now in the very heart of the violent river Plate region, being at noon to-day abreast of that vast estuary, whose mouth is three degrees in width. The Rio de la Plata, or River of Silver, is, like Cape Hatteras, the dividing line between two climates: that of the torrid Brazils and of the cold, bleak pampas of the Argentine and Patagonia, just as Hatteras is the turning-point, so to speak, in the climates of our Southern and Middle Atlantic States. They are, too, about equidistant from the equator. A rather noteworthy fact is that, bar Cape Horn, the three stormiest localities in the Southern Hemisphere are almost exactly in the same latitude, though thousands of miles apart: the river Plate, Cape Agulhas, and Cape Leewin, at the southwestern end of Australia. Latitude, 36° 55′ south; longitude, 47° 20′ west.

June 28

By way of variety, light winds were vouchsafed to us for the twenty-four hours, varying from southwest to northeast, and we made not fifty miles of southing in that time. Very suddenly last night at nine o’clock the wind let go at southwest, and instantly came out of the southeast, backing gradually to northeast, where it is now; but though a fair wind we are not doing three knots an hour. However, the glass is falling and a change is no doubt at hand, and the sea has gone down till nothing remains but a sullen, greasy roll from south-southeast. We earnestly hope for a strong, fair wind which will give us at least eight knots, for the skipper’s temper is failing rapidly, and he is beginning to rage at the weather. Generally, by the fiftieth day from New York he has crossed the parallel of 50° south, so that in round numbers we are about seven hundred miles north of his average, this being our forty-eighth day at sea. It has been noted previously, I think, that he has never been more than one hundred and thirty days on a voyage, and has made eight voyages between New York and San Francisco in less than one hundred days; his longest passage of the Horn—that is, from 50° to 50°—was nineteen days; the shortest, eleven. Fine work, all this, which few ship-masters can equal.

My wife asked the skipper last evening if he had ever lost a ship. He said no, but that he had had one or two narrow calls. “One of the worst cases of smash-up I ever saw,” he continued, “happened to me when I had the ‘Judas Dawes’ about six years ago. We were well down in the southeast Trades in the Pacific, bound from ’Frisco to New York; the weather had been squally, and on this particular day, in about 14° south, I had specially told the mate not to loose the jib-topsail, but when I went below after dinner for a nap the beggar did it. When I went on deck again at four there was a squall makin’ ahead, and I ordered some hands to stand by the sky-sail-halliards, for I didn’t know the jib-topsail had been loosed. Well, sir, the squall hit us (it was a corker) and snapped off the jib-boom; and, as I ran forrad, crack went the foretop-mast, then the maint’-gallant-mast, and at last over went the mizzen-t’-gallant-mast. In all my goin’ to sea I never saw the like of it; ’twas as bad nearly as the ‘May Flint,’ only we had smooth water. Forrad we were a wreck, with nothing at all above the foreyard, while alongside was a fearful mass o’ gear slammin’ against the ship, and you know those Trades in the Pacific blow fresh. Well, we cleared up the wreck after hard work, sent up a few of the old yards that weren’t too far gone to fish, made sail, and crossed Sandy Hook Bar, ninety-eight days from ’Frisco, under a jury-rig.” Captain Scruggs has as great a reputation for fast passages as any living American ship-master in the California trade, but we’ll have to have better luck if we are to reach port in less than one hundred and thirty days from New York.

We are entering that region most celebrated in the world for its sunsets; it would be interesting to know whether there is anything in this, or whether it is imagination on the part of captains. At any rate, we witnessed one this evening finer than any which we have ever seen before; the sun sinking into the core of a huge, crimson cavern in the centre of an inky cloud, from behind which shot up scores of slender, golden arrows toward the zenith, presenting a scene of such lurid magnificence as to fill the heart with reverence and wonder. And by that same token, the sun is getting low in the northern sky, his altitude at meridian being only a little above 30°, or about the same as at New York towards the end of December.

The day being chill and raw, with a noon temperature of 52°, a fire was lighted in the cabin stove for the first time; and as the thermometer below has stood for a long while at 55° and a dismal drizzle prevailed all day, the heat and glow of the fire were grateful beyond expression. Latitude, 37° 42′ south; longitude, 47° 40′ west.

June 29

From six o’clock yesterday evening till noon to-day we had a breeze so light that at times the sky-sails flapped idly against the masts, and for several hours we were becalmed on a motionless sea,—a sea so wonderfully smooth that, but for the temperature, we might readily have fancied ourselves in the equatorial Doldrums again. At four yesterday afternoon a crisp little breeze came whipping along out of the south (although it lasted only two hours) driving away the squalls and muggy air, a bright, rosy atmosphere taking their place at sundown, with a horizon as sharply cut as the edge of a razor. As for the night which followed, it was as brittle and sparkling as any evening in Nova Scotia, wanting only the flashing pennons of the Aurora Borealis to complete the picture. The firmament glittered with splendid constellations, the stars dancing and scintillating with the glance of steel, as though electric sparks, while the Milky Way seemed firm and solid enough to walk upon. A magnificent sunrise succeeded this matchless night, and we stood entranced by the glory of the scene for half an hour, watching the lovely colors shift every few seconds like the revolutions of a kaleidoscope, changing the tiny, pink, shell-like clouds into glowing, golden embers as the great orb touched the horizon and threw a path of crimson fire even to the vessel’s side. Where are the gales of wind which are supposed to scream incessantly over the Southern Ocean? Where are the giant seas which sweep the South Atlantic with their foaming crests? It is not difficult to answer the latter question, for we will not meet with any of those tremendous rollers which have made Cape Horn the hobgoblin of navigators till we have cleared Staten Land and receive the full fury of the thousands of miles of tempestuous ocean which lie to the south and west of the Horn. It is true that on our first voyage we experienced very heavy weather when in this latitude; but then we were bound the other way and were near the forty-third eastern meridian (about four hundred miles the other side of Good Hope) at this parallel; the weather, as a general rule, is far worse farther to the eastward at 40° south than in here near the land, where bright skies and much smoother seas are the rule rather than the exception. We are not more than three hundred and fifty miles from South America now, so that even if we did have a heavy westerly gale (westerly winds are almost constant south of 30° south) the sea could not rise to such heights as it does off Agulhas and Cape Horn.

But these gentle winds we cannot understand; at dinner-time to-day, though, a nice little breeze came along from the westward, and we are humming along under the sky-sails, doing well except that we are not making much westing, as we can’t do better than south by west.

The captain is like one demented. As MacFoy whispered to me this afternoon when the jib-topsail-sheet parted, throwing him into a paroxysm, “If he doesn’t get a fair wind soon he’ll go mad.” In truth, he has been in a passion all day, chassezing up and down the main-deck as though he had a devil. Just before the sheet went he had a spasm of tautening things up, and went braying about with a voice of brass, driving the men like animals before him; he had just ordered the above sheet flattened in when crack it went, and in a few seconds the clew of the sail was in fluttering ribbons, for the wind, though not strong, whipped away the old canvas as though it were a cobweb. The mate caught it too when he came out of his cavern at quarter to twelve to take the sun, and by the time that we sat down to dinner the old man had worked him into a speechless state, so that throughout the meal he sat crushed and silent, with a face like a cigar Indian. These repasts on such occasions are pregnant with gloomy thoughts, stillness reigning as the skipper fiercely gnaws at his dinner, clicking his teeth, while the whole top of his head seems to move as he chews, his temples particularly rotating like the eccentrics of a steam-engine. His head is quite bald, and his face is embellished with such enormous whiskers that his whole head looks like an inverted sea-anemone; and when he is angry, as he was to-day, his black eyes so glitter and snap under such shaggy brows that they seem about to jump out and annihilate you. After dinner, which appeared to increase his ill-humor, being a dyspeptic, he went up to put some new panes of glass into the skylight which the sea had broken. He fussed and fumed around with putty, diamond, and chisel for half an hour, at the end of which time he had one pane nicely adjusted, when it cracked across one corner. This almost prostrated him, and when two other cracks appeared in rapid succession, each calling forth a low, intense “d——,” he simply got up and ran away.

Then this amiable man commenced on the mate again, who, of course, began to “bullyrag” the men, and finally brought down young Louis Eckers to his knees with a hard blow in the face with his fist. This was due solely to temper, because he had to repeat an order which Louis didn’t understand on account of his ignorance of English.

Our first albatross presented himself to view this morning. When you are making your first long voyage there is generally some confusion at first, resulting in the more or less similarity between an albatross and a molly-hawk. The latter are large birds and really look a good deal like the former; but when you have seen an albatross half a dozen times, you will never forget his appearance. There is no mistaking that great beak or the odd hunchback-look of those shoulders, much less the majestic flight of the stately bird as he skims along close to the surface of the sea and then rises in a splendid circle on those great wings of his. Our friend of this morning, however, did not long abide with us, but, after looking us over, wheeled about and vanished in the south. A Cape pigeon struck the taffrail this morning and fell on the poop by the wheel-house. He was a beautiful little creature, with a snow-white breast, dark-brown wings splashed with white, and a glossy black head and neck, with a sheen as of satin on the feathers. After sufficiently admiring the little fellow and showing him to the cat, who wouldn’t approach within ten feet of him, we hove it overboard, and it whizzed screaming away to rejoin its companions, who now follow us in scores. Latitude, 38° 12′ south; longitude, 49° 35′ west.

June 30

The bright happy weather of yesterday has given place to a chill, gloomy day with half a gale from the westward, while the ship under reefed topsails has been digging into a strong head-sea in quite a violent manner. How tender and delicate, so to speak, even the best and largest of wooden vessels really are! For instance, at nine last evening the second mate said that he thought he would put the gaskets on the royals, the sky-sails having come in before supper.

“What on earth do you want to stow the royals for?” said I; “there certainly is not wind enough for that.”

“No, it’s not the wind,” he answered, “but this sea’s makin’ ahead, and she’ll strain goin’ into it with the royals on her.”

There certainly was a southerly sea running, but the ship was diving easily, without wrenching or pounding; and it surely was very surprising that a powerful ship like this would have to shorten sail for such a swell. “And that’s just the great point in favor of an iron ship,” said Mr. Rarx; “you can drive her through most anything and not give her a thought. You know the ‘William J. Rotch’? We opened her all up forrad a-drivin’ of her into a head-sea beatin’ up the Sea of Japan trying to find Willywoodstock in a fog.”

“Where’s that place? It’s new to me,” said I.

“Siberia,” was his reply; and it was not until some hours afterward that I grasped his meaning; he intended to say Vladivostok.

As the night wore on it grew squally, and at three in the morning the fore- and maintop-sails were reefed, while at four o’clock the massive iron hook on the cross-jack-tack carried away, and the sail was saved only by the prompt and good work of both watches. I awoke in the midst of the operation, and above the boom of the seas we could hear the skipper’s hurricane voice shouting, “Haul away on those buntlines; haul away on those buntlines; HAUL AWAY ON THOSE BUNTLINES.”

At five yesterday afternoon, just before we clewed up the sky-sails, we sailed through a whole fleet of albatrosses, feeding quietly on the water. It was the first time that we had seen so many of the big birds at rest at one time, and they looked very large and dignified as they rose and sunk upon the swell. To say that we sailed through them is not strictly correct, though, for when we had approached to within two hundred yards or so they rose from the surface and went sailing away into the southwest. It is always interesting to watch them rise from the water, flapping their immense wings, each two yards long, and rapidly paddling with feet as large as cabbage leaves to gain an impetus; when, the wind striking beneath their pinions, they stow their great feet somewhere in their stern feathers, and with a couple of powerful strokes of wing away they soar up to windward; and you can watch an albatross for half an hour at a time thereafter, and not a single alar movement can be discerned.

The Scottish bosun entertained me last night for some time in drawing comparisons between various sailing ships. I asked him how the men liked it here. “Why, can’t you tell?” said he. “They don’t like it at all; and I can tell you it’s no child’s play aboard here. Most of the men, you see, have come out of British ships, where they don’t break men’s bones with clubs or their hearts with drivin’.”

“If you like British ships better than ours, what did you sign in this one for?” I asked.

“Why did I?” he replied. “Why, for the same reason that lots of others do,—for the sake o’ the Snug Harbor. Ye see, if any man serves five years in American ships and can prove it, he can end his days in peace and comfort in the Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island, where they take care of him. But, say, I never see a skipper like this one before. Has he slept at all since we came to sea? I’m hanged if I think so, for at all times o’ the night the first thing you know there’s th’ old man standin’ within two foot of you on the main-deck, like a black spook. Lord knows how he gets around, I don’t.”

To-day we attained the highest southern latitude which my wife and I ever reached, as on our first voyage around the other cape 39° 5′ was the southernmost point. Having crossed the fortieth parallel, we have also probably passed without the influence of the river Plate region; but it is too bad that we are not two hundred miles farther to the westward. Latitude, 40° 31′ south; longitude, 51° 10′ west.

July 1

Strong winds from the westward, shifting in the morning watch to southeast, and a rough sea prevailed up to noon to-day, when it cleared up, a persistent rain having added its portion to the dreariness of the weather. At five this morning, when the wind shifted to the southeast, we wore and stood in shore on the port tack, heeling well over to a strong breeze. Both wind and sea increased as the morning advanced, and at nine we had to take some of the sails off the ship. And here mark the skipper’s perversity: at this particular moment we were in quite a severe squall, and I shouted to him, “It’s breezing all the time.” “No, it ain’t,” he replied, harshly; “the wind’s lettin’ go.” Ten minutes later he ordered the maintop-gallant-sail to be clewed up, and in another five minutes he ordered in the spanker. Anything to differ from me and express an opinion of his own, even if he has to act against it.

After these two sails had come in the ship was easier, but the sea was making very rapidly, and in another hour we were taking large quantities of water aboard. It was a wild sight then: an immense squall overhanging us and darkening the heavens and the sea; the ship enveloped in clouds of whirling spray; the driving rain, whipping us with the sting of a lash; the crash of a sea now and then against the forward house; and the flock of sea-birds astern wheeling and diving through the squall, with a brace of gaunt, gray albatrosses sailing calmly along, as though this were a tropic zephyr.

During one of these squalls the carpenter was observed at work on the weather side of the forecastle-house, dodging the seas as each gave warning of its approach by a peculiar motion just before it broke aboard, which one soon learns to know. We were beginning to think that if he didn’t look sharp he would catch it, when a great mass of water arose alongside, faltered a moment high up above the rail, and then, with overwhelming fury, the whole sea thundered aboard. First it flattened Chips out against the deck-house as though he had been crucified against it; then it lifted him, mighty man though he is, and drove him with terrible force against the pumps; while the huge volume of water, encountering the various obstacles in its mad career about the deck, shot into the air as high as the mainyard, totally blotting out the waist of the ship. What saved that carpenter from mortal hurt is beyond human ken. The mate says that it was his sheathing of blubber which encases his carcass like that of a seal. At any rate, he painfully gathered up his clumsy, massive frame and stumbled forward with both hands on his left leg, which proved to be very badly bruised, and he complains now of a hard pain in his chest. This was by far more water than we have had on board at any one time, and it is difficult to conceive of the grandeur of such a sea breaking aboard, though it is an awful sight withal; its power seems resistless, and as it sweeps over the side with a peculiar, crushing sound, one involuntarily grips the rail or a belaying-pin with the grasp of a vice.

When this last squall had passed, lo! a ship to windward, and I was again the first to sing out “Sail ho.” There is much secret pleasure for me in this; for, whenever it occurs, the captain always walks over to Mr. Goggins, who is generally wool-gathering at the break of the poop, and asks him if there is anything in sight. “Naw, sir, there hain’t nothin’. Oh, yes, there’s a sail to wind’ard, sir, through the fog.” “Oh, thanks,” usually answers the skipper ironically, by which the mate knows that he’s been caught again.

Visions of the “Dowes” appeared to us as we studied the stranger as closely as the flying spray and rain would permit, the ship being under her topsails with the main-sail hauled up. Presently, though, we saw that she had no sky-sail-yards, proving that she was not our friend; while her short, thick, pole bowsprit showed that she was doubtless a metal ship, which belief was later confirmed by painted ports.

At noon the sun burst through the dense pall of cloud, and an afternoon of dazzling beauty followed, with the good old “Higgins” surging ahead over the long, blue, foaming seas, a sky of sapphire overhead, dappled with a few thin, cirrus clouds and a grand breeze over the beam, giving us about eight knots on a southwest-half-west course. Just at noon the other ship, too, presented a splendid appearance. To begin with, she was a very handsome vessel, and had so altered her position as to be close astern, a little on our weather quarter, distant about one-third of a mile. Her topsails and courses (she had set her main-sail and cross-jack) were swelled out like great cylinders, while her painted ports lent her the dignity of an old-time frigate; and she presented to us a perfect ideal of the poetry of motion as she rolled deeply but easily, now sinking into a valley to her lower yards, now cleaving the lofty crest of a breaking sea which veiled her in a storm of spray.

At half-past one we decided to signal her, and ran up our number, to which she instantly replied that she was the “La Pallice”; then we informed her that we were from New York bound to San Francisco, fifty-one days out, while she proved to be from Hamburg for the same destination, and was fifty-nine days at sea; after which we dipped our ensign, which she answered with the tricolor of France.

We are reading Nansen’s “First Crossing of Greenland” together with the greatest interest, being one of the most charmingly written of all stories of Arctic work. What a delightful time we will have with his “Farthest North”! We have it on board, but I am waiting till we pass 50° south, so that we can read it in a part of the world almost as rough and desolate as he passed over in his great journey. Latitude, 42° 24′ south; longitude, 52° 36′ west.

July 2

We had a good breeze from the south all last night and this morning, which put us off to about west by south; but, as our aim for the past four or five days has been to make westing rather than southing, this breeze was most acceptable. The strong wind of yesterday eased up in the second dog-watch last night, and we carried the top-gallant-sails without trouble afterward.

A great change has taken place in the temperature, for at eight this morning the thermometer stood at 38° in the air and 47° in the water,—a fall in thirty-six hours of 15° in the atmosphere and 16° in the sea. People who have never been exposed for consecutive hours to a temperature at sea of between 30° and 40° can have no just idea of how penetratingly cold the wind is when the mercury drops below 40°, or of how many clothes it is necessary to wear if one wants to stay on deck a long while without constant motion. For example, I have on now two suits of heavy underwear, pilot-cloth trousers, a heavy jersey, a whip-cord waistcoat, a padded leather jacket, and a mackintosh; the costume is completed with mention of knitted woollen gloves and socks and leather boots and ditto hat. Now, there are numerous brawny, burly individuals who will ridicule this mass of apparel, and insist that one ought to keep moving, which would make it unnecessary. But to begin with, our promenade is here limited to seventy-five feet instead of several hundred, as in the case of a transatlantic steamer; and, besides, I have not that maniac passion for pedestrianism which lays so fierce a hold on some people the instant that they set foot upon a vessel’s deck. When I want exercise, half an hour at the pumps, even in cold weather, is sufficient; and I’ll warrant that it would be enough for the brawny, burly individuals before noticed. Neither of us came to sea to stay below, so we pile on sufficient clothes to repel even the strongest blasts, and can sit comfortably and unruffled for hours on deck without a break.

Points in connection with such a voyage as this can be learned only by experience; our first one gave us all that was necessary, so that we knew exactly what to bring with us this time. A leather jacket very thickly lined is almost inconceivably useful, as are a pair of heavy leather knee-boots, at least one size too large, to allow for woollen socks. Such boots well greased will be sufficiently water-tight for all ordinary purposes, and if they should become water-logged, they can always be dried at the galley-fire; rubber boots, though, should never be omitted from the sea wardrobe. The best head-gear is a woollen cap with ear-flaps, and a sou’wester, of course, for bad weather. As to oilskins, there is now manufactured a water-proof stuff, which has proved in this case to be everything that is claimed for it. It is brown in color, and in texture much like a mackintosh, but harder to the touch, and is in two pieces,—short jacket and trousers. These suits have been used in the life-saving service on the Atlantic coast, and the only objection which the men made to the suits was that the sand cut the stuff in a high wind, so that in a short time it became quite porous. At sea, however, I have never found the equal of one of these suits; and, as a test, I stood for two hours yesterday in drenching rain and spray in one position, so as to allow the elements full continuous sweep at one point, and when we went below the inside of the jacket was not even damp. A long oil-skin coat is extremely unwieldy at sea, for if it is blowing at all hard the skirts cling to the legs most aggravatingly, and I have had some hard falls by being thus tripped. All mates wear long yellow coats, however, and I wondered why until yesterday, when I asked Mr. Goggins if a short jacket and pants wouldn’t be more comfortable; but he replied, indignantly, “Wot do yer think I am, a foremast ’and?” It seemed to me that a mate who has to wear a long coat to distinguish him from an ordinary sailor must be like the man who tells another that he himself is a gentleman,—he must be somewhat in doubt about it.