Two Years Before the Mast

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We kept all sail on, in the hope of forcing over, but, failing in
this, we hove aback, and lay waiting for the tide, which was on
the flood, to take us back into the channel. This was something of
a damper to us, and the captain looked not a little mortified and
vexed. ``This is the same place where the Rosa got ashore, sir,''
observed our red-headed second mate, most malapropos. A
malediction on the Rosa, and him too, was all the answer he got,
and he slunk off to leeward. In a few minutes the force of the
wind and the rising of the tide backed us into the stream, and we
were on our way to our old anchoring-place, the tide setting
swiftly up, and the ship barely manageable in the light breeze. We
came-to in our old berth opposite the hide-house, whose inmates
were not a little surprised to see us return. We felt as though we
were tied to California; and some of the crew swore that they
never should get clear of the bloody[4] coast.

In about half an hour, which was near high water, the order was
given to man the windlass, and again the anchor was catted; but
there was no song, and not a word was said about the last time.
The California had come back on finding that we had returned, and
was hove-to, waiting for us, off the point. This time we passed
the bar safely, and were soon up with the California, who filled
away, and kept us company. She seemed desirous of a trial of
speed, and our captain accepted the challenge, although we were
loaded down to the bolts of our chain-plates, as deep as a
sand-barge, and bound so taut with our cargo that we were no more
fit for a race than a man in fetters; while our antagonist was in
her best trim. Being clear of the point, the breeze became stiff,
and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we would not take
them in until we saw three boys spring aloft into the rigging of
the California; when they were all furled at once, but with orders
to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads and loose
them again at the word. It was my duty to furl the fore royal;
and, while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine view of the
scene. From where I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing but
spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below, slanting
over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable of
supporting the great fabrics raised upon them. The California was
to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze
was stiff, we held our own. As soon as it began to slacken, she
ranged a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the
royals. In an instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped.
``Sheet home the fore royal!-- Weather sheet's home!''-- ``Lee
sheet's home!''-- ``Hoist away, sir!'' is bawled from aloft.
``Overhaul your clew-lines!'' shouts the mate. ``Aye, aye, sir!
all clear!''-- ``Taut leech! belay! Well the lee brace; haul taut
to windward,''-- and the royals are set. These brought us up
again; but, the wind continuing light, the California set hers,
and it was soon evident that she was walking away from us. Our
captain then hailed, and said that he should keep off to his
course; adding, ``She isn't the Alert now. If I had her in your
trim she would have been out of sight by this time.'' This was
good-naturedly answered from the California, and she braced sharp
up, and stood close upon the wind up the coast; while we squared
away our yards, and stood before the wind to the south-southwest.
The California's crew manned her weather rigging, waved their hats
in the air, and gave us three hearty cheers, which we answered as
heartily, and the customary single cheer came back to us from over
the water. She stood on her way, doomed to eighteen months' or two
years' hard service upon that hated coast, while we were making
our way to our home, to which every hour and every mile was
bringing us nearer.

As soon as we parted company with the California, all hands were
sent aloft to set the studding-sails. Booms were rigged out, tacks
and halyards rove, sail after sail packed upon her, until every
available inch of canvas was spread, that we might not lose a
breath of the fair wind. We could now see how much she was cramped
and deadened by her cargo; for with a good breeze on her quarter,
and every stitch of canvas spread, we could not get more than six
knots out of her. She had no more life in her than if she were
water-logged. The log was hove several times; but she was doing
her best. We had hardly patience with her, but the older sailors
said, ``Stand by! you'll see her work herself loose in a week or
two, and then she'll walk up to Cape Horn like a race-horse.''

When all sail had been set, and the decks cleared up, the
California was a speck in the horizon, and the coast lay like a
low cloud along the northeast. At sunset they were both out of
sight, and we were once more upon the ocean, where sky and water
meet.

[1] This word, when used to signify a pulley or purchase formed by
blocks and a rope, is always by seamen pronounced ta-kl.

[2] When our crew were paid off in Boston, the owners answered the
orders of Stimson and me, but refused to deduct the amount from the
pay-roll, saying that the exchanges were made under compulsion.

[3] We had also a small quantity of gold dust, which Mexicans or
Indians had brought down to us from the interior. It was not
uncommon for our ships to bring a little, as I have since learned
from the owners. I heard rumors of gold discoveries, but they
attracted little or no attention, and were not followed up.

[4] This is a common expletive among sailors, and suits any purpose.

CHAPTER XXX

At eight o'clock all hands were called aft, and the watches set
for the voyage. Some changes were made; but I was glad to find
myself still in the larboard watch. Our crew was somewhat
diminished; for a man and a boy had gone in the Pilgrim; another
was second mate of the Ayacucho; and a fourth, Harry Bennett, the
oldest man of the crew, had broken down under the hard work and
constant exposure on the coast, and, having had a stroke of the
palsy, was left behind at the hide-house, under the charge of
Captain Arthur. The poor fellow wished very much to come home in
the ship; and he ought to have been brought home in her. But a
live dog is better than a dead lion, and a sick sailor belongs to
nobody's mess; so he was sent ashore with the rest of the lumber,
which was only in the way. He had come on board, with his chest,
in the morning, and tried to make himself useful about decks; but
his shuffling feet and weak arms led him into trouble, and some
words were said to him by the mate. He had the spirit of a man,
and had become a little tender, perhaps weakened in mind, and
said, ``Mr. Brown, I always did my duty aboard until I was sick.
If you don't want me, say so, and I'll go ashore.'' ``Bring up his
chest,'' said Mr. Brown, and poor Bennett went down into a boat
and was taken ashore, with tears in his eyes. He loved the ship
and the crew, and wished to get home, but could not bear to be
treated as a soger or loafer on board. This was the only
hard-hearted thing I ever knew Mr. Brown to do.

By these diminutions, we were short-handed for a voyage round Cape
Horn in the dead of winter. Beside Stimson and myself, there were
only five in the forecastle; who, together with four boys in the
steerage, the sailmaker, carpenter, cook, and steward, composed
the crew. In addition to this, we were only four days out, when
the sailmaker, who was the oldest and best seaman on board, was
taken with the palsy, and was useless for the rest of the voyage.
The constant wading in the water, in all weathers, to take off
hides, together with the other labors, is too much for men even in
middle life, and for any who have not good constitutions. (Beside
these two men of ours, the second officer of the California and
the carpenter of the Pilgrim, as we afterwards learned, broke down
under the work, and the latter died at Santa Barbara. The young
man, too, Henry Mellus, who came out with us from Boston in the
Pilgrim, had to be taken from his berth before the mast and made
clerk, on account of a fit of rheumatism which attacked him soon
after he came upon the coast.) By the loss of the sailmaker, our
watch was reduced to five, of whom two were boys, who never
steered but in fine weather, so that the other two and myself had
to stand at the wheel four hours apiece out of every twenty-four;
and the other watch had only four helmsmen. ``Never mind,-- we're
homeward bound!'' was the answer to everything; and we should not
have minded this, were it not for the thought that we should be
off Cape Horn in the very dead of winter. It was now the first
part of May; and two months would bring us off the Cape in July,
which is the worst month in the year there; when the sun rises at
nine and sets at three, giving eighteen hours night, and there is
snow and rain, gales and high seas, in abundance.

The prospect of meeting this in a ship half manned, and loaded so
deep that every heavy sea must wash her fore and aft, was by no
means pleasant. The Alert, in her passage out, doubled the Cape in
the month of February, which is midsummer; and we came round in
the Pilgrim in the latter part of October, which we thought was
bad enough. There was only one of our crew who had been off there
in the winter, and that was in a whale-ship, much lighter and
higher than our ship; yet he said they had man-killing weather for
twenty days without intermission, and their decks were swept
twice, and they were all glad enough to see the last of it. The
Brandywine frigate, also, in her recent passage round, had sixty
days off the Cape, and lost several boats by the heavy seas. All
this was for our comfort; yet pass it we must; and all hands
agreed to make the best of it.

During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made and
mended everything for bad weather. Each of us had made for himself
a suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we got out, and gave
thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung upon the stays to dry.
Our stout boots, too, we covered over with a thick mixture of
melted grease and tar. Thus we took advantage of the warm sun and
fine weather of the Pacific to prepare for its other face. In the
forenoon watches below, our forecastle looked like the workshop of
what a sailor is,-- a Jack-at-all-trades. Thick stockings and
drawers were darned and patched; mittens dragged from the bottom
of the chest and mended; comforters made for the neck and ears;
old flannel shirts cut up to line monkey-jackets; southwesters
were lined with flannel, and a pot of paint smuggled forward to
give them a coat on the outside; and everything turned to hand; so
that, although two years had left us but a scanty wardrobe, yet
the economy and invention which necessity teaches a sailor soon
put each of us in pretty good trim for bad weather, before we had
seen the last of the fine. Even the cobbler's art was not out of
place. Several old shoes were very decently repaired, and with
waxed ends, an awl, and the top of an old boot, I made me quite a
respectable sheath for my knife.

There was one difficulty, however, which nothing that we could do
would remedy; and that was the leaking of the forecastle, which
made it very uncomfortable in bad weather, and rendered half of
the berths tenantless. The tightest ships, in a long voyage, from
the constant strain which is upon the bowsprit, will leak more or
less round the heel of the bowsprit and the bitts, which come down
into the forecastle; but, in addition to this, we had an
unaccountable leak on the starboard bow, near the cat-head, which
drove us from the forward berths on that side, and, indeed, when
she was on the starboard tack, from all the forward berths. One of
the after berths, too, leaked in very bad weather; so that in a
ship which was in other respects unusually tight, and brought her
cargo to Boston perfectly dry, we had, after every effort made to
prevent it, in the way of calking and leading, a forecastle with
only three dry berths for seven of us. However, as there is never
but one watch below at a time, by ``turning in and out,'' we did
pretty well. And there being in our watch but three of us who
lived forward, we generally had a dry berth apiece in bad
weather.[1]

All this, however, was but anticipation. We were still in fine
weather in the North Pacific, running down the northeast trades,
which we took on the second day after leaving San Diego.

Sunday, May 15th, one week out, we were in latitude 14 56' N.,
lon. 116 14' W., having gone, by reckoning, over thirteen hundred
miles in seven days. In fact, ever since leaving San Diego, we had
had a fair wind, and as much as we wanted of it. For seven days our
lower and topmast studding-sails were set all the time,
and our royals and top-gallant studding-sails whenever she could
stagger under them. Indeed, the captain had shown, from the moment
we got to sea, that he was to have no boy's play, but that the ship
was to carry all she could, and that he was going to make up by
``cracking on'' to her what she wanted in lightness. In this way we
frequently made three degrees of latitude, besides something in
longitude, in the course of twenty-four hours. Our days we spent in
the usual ship's work. The rigging which had become slack from
being long in port was to be set up; breast backstays got up;
studding-sail booms rigged upon the main yard; and royal
studding-sails got ready for the light trades; ring-tail set; and
new rigging fitted, and sails made ready for Cape Horn. For, with
a ship's gear, as well as a sailor's wardrobe, fine weather must
be improved to get ready for the bad to come. Our forenoon watch
below, as I have said, was given to our own work, and our night
watches were spent in the usual manner,-- a trick at the wheel,
a lookout on the forecastle, a nap on a coil of rigging under the
lee of the rail; a yarn round the windlass-end; or, as was
generally my way, a solitary walk fore and aft, in the weather
waist, between the windlass-end and the main tack. Every wave that
she threw aside brought us nearer home, and every day's
observation at noon showed a progress which, if it continued,
would, in less than five months, take us into Boston Bay. This is
the pleasure of life at sea,-- fine weather, day after day,
without interruption,-- fair wind, and a plenty of it,-- and
homeward bound. Every one was in good humor; things went right;
and all was done with a will. At the dog watch, all hands came on
deck, and stood round the weather side of the forecastle, or sat
upon the windlass, and sung sea-songs and those ballads of pirates
and highwaymen which sailors delight in. Home, too, and what we
should do when we got there, and when and how we should arrive,
was no infrequent topic. Every night, after the kids and pots were
put away, and we had lighted our pipes and cigars at the galley,
and gathered about the windlass, the first question was,--

``Well, Dana, what was the latitude to-day?''

``Why, fourteen, north; and she has been going seven knots ever
since.''

``Well, this will bring us to the line in five days.''

``Yes, but these trades won't last twenty-four hours longer,''
says an old salt, pointing with the sharp of his hand to leeward;
``I know that by the look of the clouds.''

Then came all manner of calculations and conjectures as to the
continuance of the wind, the weather under the line, the southeast
trades, &c., and rough guesses as to the time the ship would be up
with the Horn; and some, more venturous, gave her so many days to
Boston Light, and offered to bet that she would not exceed it.

``You'd better wait till you get round Cape Horn,'' says an old
croaker.

``Yes,'' says another, ``you may see Boston, but you've got to
`smell hell' before that good day.''

Rumors also of what had been said in the cabin, as usual, found
their way forward. The steward had heard the captain say something
about the Straits of Magellan, and the man at the wheel fancied he
had heard him tell the ``passenger'' that, if he found the wind
ahead and the weather very bad off the Cape, he should stick her
off for New Holland, and come home round the Cape of Good Hope.

This passenger-- the first and only one we had had, except to go
from port to port, on the coast-- was no one else than a gentleman
whom I had known in my smoother days, and the last person I should
have expected to see on the coast of California,-- Professor
Nuttall, of Cambridge. I had left him quietly seated in the chair
of Botany and Ornithology in Harvard University, and the next I
saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor's
pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his
trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells. He
had travelled overland to the Northwest Coast, and come down in a
small vessel to Monterey. There he learned that there was a ship
at the leeward about to sail for Boston, and, taking passage in
the Pilgrim, which was then at Monterey, he came slowly along,
visiting the intermediate ports, and examining the trees, plants,
earths, birds, &c., and joined us at San Diego shortly before we
sailed. The second mate of the Pilgrim told me that they had an
old gentleman on board who knew me, and came from the college that
I had been in. He could not recollect his name, but said he was a
``sort of an oldish man,'' with white hair, and spent all his time
in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells
and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels full of them. I
thought over everybody who would be likely to be there, but could
fix upon no one; when, the next day, just as we were about to
shove off from the beach, he came down to the boat in the rig I
have described, with his shoes in his hand, and his pockets full
of specimens. I knew him at once, though I should hardly have been
more surprised to have seen the Old South steeple shoot up from
the hide-house. He probably had no more difficulty in recognizing
me. As we left home about the same time, we had nothing to tell
each other; and, owing to our different situations on board, I saw
but little of him on the passage home. Sometimes, when I was at
the wheel of a calm night, and the steering required little
attention, and the officer of the watch was forward, he would come
aft and hold a short yarn with me; but this was against the rules
of the ship, as is, in fact, all intercourse between passengers
and the crew. I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to
know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him
and his business. They were as much at a loss as our old sailmaker
was with the captain's instruments in the cabin. He said there
were three,-- the chro-nometer, the chre-nometer, and the
the-nometer. The Pilgrim's crew called Mr. Nuttall ``Old
Curious,'' from his zeal for curiosities; and some of them said
that he was crazy, and that his friends let him go about and amuse
himself in this way. Why else a rich man (sailors call every man
rich who does not work with his hands, and who wears a long coat
and cravat) should leave a Christian country and come to such a
place as California to pick up shells and stones, they could not
understand. One of them, however, who had seen something more of
the world ashore, set all to rights, as he thought; ``O, 'vast
there! You don't know anything about them craft. I've seen them
colleges and know the ropes. They keep all such things for
cur'osities, and study 'em, and have men a purpose to go and get
'em. This old chap knows what he's about. He a'n't the child you
take him for. He'll carry all these things to the college, and if
they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head
of the college. Then, by and by, somebody else will go after some
more, and if they beat him he'll have to go again, or else give up
his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covey knows the
ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here
where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of
coming.'' This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr.
Nuttall's credit, and was near enough to the truth for common
purposes, I did not disturb it.

With the exception of Mr. Nuttall, we had no one on board but the
regular ship's company and the live stock. Upon the stock we had
made a considerable inroad. We killed one of the bullocks every
four days, so that they did not last us up to the line. We, or
rather the cabin, then began upon the sheep and the poultry, for
these never come into Jack's mess.[2] The pigs were left for the
latter part of the voyage, for they are sailors, and can stand all
weathers. We had an old sow on board, the mother of a numerous
progeny, who had been twice round the Cape of Good Hope and once
round Cape Horn. The last time going round was very nearly her
death. We heard her squealing and moaning one dark night after it
had been snowing and hailing for several hours, and, climbing over
into the sty, we found her nearly frozen to death. We got some
straw, an old sail, and other things, and wrapped her up in a
corner of the sty, where she stayed until we came into fine
weather again.

Wednesday, May 18th. Lat. 9 54' N., lon. 113 17' W. The northeast
trades had now left us, and we had the usual variable winds, the
``doldrums,'' which prevail near the line, together with some rain.
So long as we were in these latitudes, we had but little rest in
our watch on deck at night; for, as the winds were light and
variable, and we could not lose a breath, we were all the watch
bracing the yards, and taking in and making sail, and ``humbugging''
with our flying kites. A little puff of wind on the larboard
quarter, and then-- ``larboard fore braces!''-- and studding-sail
booms were rigged out, studding-sails set alow and aloft, the yards
trimmed, and jibs and spanker in; when it would come as calm as a
duck-pond, the man at the wheel standing with the palm of his hand
up, feeling for the wind. ``Keep her off a little!'' ``All aback
forward, sir!'' cries a man from the forecastle. Down go the braces
again; in come the studding-sails, all in a mess, which half an
hour won't set right; yards braced sharp up, and she's on the
starboard tack, close-hauled. The studding-sails must now be
cleared away, and set up in the tops and on the booms, and the
gear cut off and made fast. By the time this is done, and you are
looking out for a soft plank for a nap,-- ``Lay aft here, and square
in the head yards!'' and the studding-sails are all set again on the
starboard side. So it goes until it is eight bells,-- call the
watch,-- heave the log,-- relieve the wheel, and go below the
larboard watch.

Sunday, May 22d. Lat. 5 14' N., lon. 166 45' W. We were now a
fortnight out, and within five degrees of the line, to which two
days of good breeze would take us; but we had, for the most part,
what the sailors call ``an Irishman's hurricane,-- right up and
down.'' This day it rained nearly all day, and, being Sunday and
nothing to do, we stopped up the scuppers and filled the decks with
rain water, and, bringing all our clothes on deck, had a grand wash,
fore and aft. When this was through, we stripped to our drawers,
and taking pieces of soap, with strips of canvas for towels, we
turned-to and soaped, washed, and scrubbed one another down, to
get off, as we said, the California grime; for the common wash in
salt water, which is all that Jack can get, being on an allowance
of fresh, had little efficacy, and was more for taste than
utility. The captain was below all the afternoon, and we had
something nearer to Saturnalia than anything we had yet seen; for
the mate came into the scuppers, with a couple of boys to scrub
him, and got into a contest with them in heaving water. By
unplugging the holes, we let the soapsuds off the decks, and in a
short time had a new supply of clear rain water, in which we had a
grand rinsing. It was surprising to see how much soap and fresh
water did for the complexions of many of us; how much of what we
supposed to be tan and sea-blacking we got rid of. The next day,
the sun rising clear, the ship was covered, fore and aft, with
clothes of all sorts, hanging out to dry.

As we approached the line, the wind became more easterly, and the
weather clearer, and in twenty days from San Diego,--

Saturday, May 28th, at about three P.M., with a fine breeze from
the east-southeast, we crossed the equator. In twenty-four hours
after crossing the line, we took, which was very unusual, the
regular southeast trades. These winds come a little from the
eastward of southeast, and with us they blew directly from the
east-southeast, which was fortunate for us, as our course was
south-by-west, and we could thus go one point free. The yards were
braced so that every sail drew, from the spanker to the
flying-jib; and, the upper yards being squared in a little, the
fore and main top-gallant studding-sails were set, and drew
handsomely. For twelve days this breeze blew steadily, not varying
a point, and just so fresh that we could carry our royals; and
during the whole time we hardly started a brace. Such progress did
we make that at the end of seven days from the time we took the
breeze, on--

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