THE CALM-BELTS, AND THE TRADE-WINDS—THE ARRIVAL OF THE ALABAMA AT THE ISLAND OF MARTINIQUE—THE CURIOSITY OF THE ISLANDERS TO SEE THE SHIP—A QUASI MUTINY AMONG THE CREW, AND HOW IT WAS QUELLED.
THE CALM-BELTS, AND THE TRADE-WINDS—THE ARRIVAL OF THE ALABAMA AT THE ISLAND OF MARTINIQUE—THE CURIOSITY OF THE ISLANDERS TO SEE THE SHIP—A QUASI MUTINY AMONG THE CREW, AND HOW IT WAS QUELLED.
Wecaptured theWales, as described in the last chapter, on the 8th of November. On the 10th of the same month, we observed in latitude 25°. We were approaching the calm-belt of Cancer. There are three of these calm-belts on the surface of the earth, and the phenomena which they present to the eye of the seaman are very beautiful. A ship coming out of New York, for instance, and bound south, will first encounter the calm-belt which theAlabamais now approaching—that of Cancer. She will lose the wind which has brought her to the “belt,” and meet with light airs, and calms, accompanied, frequently, by showers of rain. She will probably be several days in passing through this region of the “doldrums,” as the sailors expressively call it, continually bracing her yards, to catch the “cats-paws” that come, now from one, and now from another point of the compass; and making no more than twenty, or thirty miles per day. As she draws near the southern edge of the belt, she will receive the first light breathings of the north-east trade-wind. These will increase, as she proceeds farther and farther south, and she will, ere long, find herself with bellying canvas, in a settled “trade.” She will now run with this wind, blowing with wonderful steadiness and regularity, until she begins to near the equator. The wind will now die away again, and the ship will enter the second of these belts—that of equatorial calms. Wending her way slowly and toilsomely through these, as she did through thoseof Cancer, she will emerge next into the south-east trade-wind, which she will probably find somewhat stronger than the north-east trade. This wind will hurry her forward to the tropic of Capricorn, in the vicinity of which she will find her third and last calm-belt.
These three calm-belts enclose, the reader will have observed, two systems of trade-winds. To understand something of these winds, and the calms which enclose them, a brief reference to the atmospheric machine in which we “live, and breathe, and have our being” will be necessary. A philosopher of the East has thus glowingly described some of the beauties of this machine: “It is,” says he, “a spherical shell, which surrounds our planet, to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own superincumbent mass. Its surface cannot be nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It surrounds us on all sides, yet we see it not; it presses on us with a load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us, in all, and yet we do not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the softest down—more impalpable than the finest gossamer—it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of nations on its wings around the world, and crushes the most refractory substances with its weight. When in motion, its force is sufficient to level the most stately forests, and stable buildings with the earth—to raise the waters of the ocean into ridges like mountains, and dash the strongest ship to pieces like toys.
“It warms and cools, by turns, the earth, and the living creatures that inhabit it. It draws up vapors from the sea and land, retains them dissolved in itself, or suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them down again, as rain or dew when they are required. It bends the rays of the sun from their path, to give us the twilight of evening, and of dawn; it disperses, and refracts their various tints, to beautify the approach and the retreat of the orb of day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us, and fail us at once, and at once remove us from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon. We shouldhave no twilight to soften, and beautify the landscape; no clouds to shade us from the scorching heat, but the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its tanned and weakened front to the full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day.
“It affords the gas which vivifies, and warms our frames, and receives into itself that which has been polluted by use, and thrown off as noxious. It feeds the flame of life, exactly as it does that of the fire. It is in both cases consumed, and affords the food of consumption,—in both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and is removed by it, when this is over.”
The first law of nature may be said to bevis inertiæ, and the atmosphere thus beautifully described, following this law, would be motionless, if there were not causes, outside of itself, to put it in motion. The atmosphere in motion iswind, with which the sailor has so much to do, and it behooves him to understand, not only the causes which produce it, but the laws which control it. “Whence cometh the wind, and whither goeth it?” It comes from heat, and as the sun is the father of heat, he is the father of the winds. Let us suppose the earth, and atmosphere both to be created, but not yet the sun. The atmosphere, being of equal temperature throughout the earth, would be in equilibrium. It could not move in any direction, and there would not be the slightest breeze to fan the brow. Now let us suppose the sun to be called into existence, and to begin to dart forth his rays. If he heated the earth, and the atmosphere in all parts alike, whilst there would be a swelling of the atmosphere into greater bulk, there would still be no motion which we could call wind. But the earth being placed in an elliptical orbit, and made to revolve around the sun, with its axis inclined to the plane in which it revolves, now approaching, and now receding from the sun, and now having the sun in one hemisphere, and now in another, the atmosphere is not only heated differently, in different parts of the earth, but at different seasons of the year; and thus the winds are engendered.
Let us imagine this heating process to be going on for the first time. How we should be astonished? The atmosphere having hitherto had no motion, in our experience, we shouldhave conceived it as immovable as the hills, and would be quite as much astonished to see it putting itself in motion, as to see the hills running away from us. But in what direction is the atmosphere now moving? Evidently from the north, and south poles toward the equator, because we know that the intertropical portions of the earth are more heated, than the extratropical portions.
Thus far, we have not given the earth any diurnal motion around its axis. Let us give it this motion. It is revolving now from west to east, at the rate of fifteen miles in a minute. If the atmosphere had been perfectly still when this motion was given to the earth, as we have supposed it to have been before the creation of the sun, the consequence would be a breeze directly from the east, blowing with different degrees of strength, as it was nearer to, or further from the equator. For it is obviously the same thing whether the atmosphere stands still, and the earth revolves, or whether the earth stands still, and the atmosphere moves. In either case we have a wind.
But the atmosphere was not still, when we gave the diurnal motion to the earth. There was already a breeze blowing, as we have seen, from the north, and south poles toward the equator. We have thus generated two winds—a north wind and an east wind. But these two winds cannot blow in the same place at the same time; and the result will be a wind compounded of the two. Thus in the northern hemispherewe shall have a north-east wind, and in the southern hemisphere we shall have a south east-wind.
These are the two trade-winds, enclosed by the three calm-belts which have been described to the reader. The three arrows on the preceding page will illustrate the manner in which the north-east trade-wind is formed by the north wind and the east wind, which our theory puts in motion.
Why it is that the trade-winds do not extend all the way from the poles to the equator, but take their rise in about the thirtieth parallel of latitude, north and south, we do not know. The theory would seem to demand that they should spring up at the poles, and blow continuously to the equator; in which case we should have but two systems of winds covering the entire surface of the earth. This non-conformity of the winds of the extra-tropical regions to our theory, does not destroy it, however, but brings into the meteorological problem other and beautiful features. Having put the winds in motion, our next business is to follow them, and see what “circuits” they travel. The quantity of atmosphere carried to the equator by the north-east and south-east trade-winds, must find its way back whence it came, in some mode or other; otherwise, we should soon have all the atmosphere drawn away from the poles, and piled up at the equator. We can easily conceive this, if we liken the atmosphere to fleeces of wool, and suppose an invisible hand to be constantly drawing away the fleeces from the poles, and piling them up at the equator. But how to get it back is the difficulty. It cannot go back on the surface of the earth, within the tropics, for there is a constant surface current here toward the equator. There is but one other way, of course, in which it can go back, and that is, as an upper current, running counter to the surface current. We may assume, indeed, wemustassume, that there are two upper currents of air, setting out from the equator, and travelling, one of them to the 30th degree of north latitude, and the other to the 30th degree of south latitude.
What becomes of these two upper currents, when they reach these parallels of latitude, is not quite so certain; but there is good reason for believing that they now descend, become surface currents, and continue their journey on to thepoles. It is further supposed that, when they reach the poles, they “whirl about” them, ascend, become upper currents again, and start back to the 30th parallel; and that, when they have returned to this parallel, they descend, become a surface current again—in other words, the trade-wind—and proceed to the equator as before.
But there is another, and more beautiful problem still, connected with these winds. It is their crossing each other at the equator, of which the proofs are so abundant, that there can be but little doubt concerning it. And yet the proposition, looked at apart from the proofs, is a very startling one. One would think that when the two winds met at the equator, there would be a general intermingling, and confounding of particles, and that when they ascended to form the upper currents, of which I have spoken, the northern particle would beas likely to turn back to the north, as to cross the equator and go south. The preceding figure will illustrate the crossing. Let A represent the equator, the arrows near the surface of the circle the two trade-winds, and the two cross arrows, two particles of wind in the act of crossing. The difficulty is to conceive how these particles should cross, without mixing with each other, and losing their identity; or why they should not turn back, as well as continue their course. What law of nature is it, that makes the particles of atmosphere which have come from the north pole, so separate and distinct from those which have come from the south pole, as to prevent the two from fusing, and becoming one? Is it because the two particles, as they have gyrated around their respective poles, have received a repulsive polarity? Whatever may be the reason, there can be no doubt, as remarked, that they do actually cross. One strong proof of their crossing is, that we cannot conceive, otherwise, how the great atmospheric machine could perform its office of distributing rain over the earth in due proportions. The reader will recollect that there is from a fourth, to a third, more land than water, in the northern hemisphere, and that there is from a fourth to a third more water than land in the southern hemisphere. The consequence of this unequal distribution of land and water in the two hemispheres is, that the northern hemisphere requires more rain than the southern, in the proportion in which it has more land to be rained upon. Now it is these mysterious trade-winds, of which we have been speaking, that are the water-carriers of the two hemispheres. These winds, on their way to the equator, generally reach the 30th parallel as dry winds. These dry winds, sweeping over the tropical seas, take up, in the shape of vapor, the water with which, in due time, they are to fertilize the fields of the farmer, and make the rose blossom. The quantity which they take up is in proportion to the sea-surface, or evaporating surface, they have respectively passed over. Now, if we will examine the jars of these water-carriers, when they reach the equator, we shall find that the northern jars are not nearly so full as the southern jars; the reason being, that the northern winds have passed over less evaporating surface.
Now, if the two systems of winds, with their jars thus filled, were to turn back to their respective hemispheres, and pour down upon them their water, in the shape of rain, the consequence would be, as the reader sees, that we should have less rain in the northern hemisphere, than they would have in the southern hemisphere; whereas, we require more, having more land to be watered. The atmospheric machine would thus be at fault. But the all-wise and beneficent ruler of the universe, makes nothing faulty. We know from the evidence of that silent witness, the rain-gauge, that more water falls in the northern hemisphere, than in the southern; in other words, that the more heavily laden of those jars which we examined, a moment ago, at the equator, have come to us, instead of returning to the south; the less heavily laden jars going south. The crossing of the winds thus satisfies our theory, and nothing else can; which is, of course, the most conclusive of all proofs.
But we have other proofs. For a number of years past, as the East India ships would be returning home from their voyages, they would report a curious phenomenon to have befallen them, as they passed the parallel of the Cape de Verde. This was the falling, or rather silting down upon their decks and rigging, of a brick-dust or cinnamon-colored powder. This dust, which when rubbed between the thumb and forefinger would be impalpable, would sometimes nearly cover the entire deck and rigging. The ships would be hundreds of miles away from the land, and where could this dust come from? The fact puzzled the philosophers, but having been reported so often, it ceased to attract attention. Still it was a fact, and was laid away carefully in the archives of philosophy for future use. Years passed away, and the great traveller and philosopher, Humboldt, arose to instruct and delight mankind. He travelled extensively in South America; and, among other places, visited the lower valley of the Orinoco. He happened there in the dry season, and gives a graphic account of the wild and weird spectacle of desolation which met his eye in that season of universal drought.
All annual vegetation lay dead and desiccated on the immense pampas or plains. The earth was cracked open, gaping,as it were, for rain. The wild cattle were roaming about in herds, bellowing for their accustomed food and water; many of them perishing. Even the insect world, so numerous and vivacious in all southern climates, had perished. Their tiny little organisms lay in heaps, fast disintegrating, and being reduced to powder, by the scorching and baking rays of a perpendicular sun, between which and the parched earth, not so much as a speck of cloud appeared. The philosopher examined a number of these little organisms with his microscope. They were peculiar to the region in which he found them, and he was struck with the fact. There was another phenomenon which he observed. A number of little whirlwinds were playing their pranks about the arid waste, sporting, as it were, with dead nature. These little whirlwinds, as they travelled hither and thither, would draw up into their vortices, and toss high into the upper air, the impalpable dust that lay everywhere, and which was composed, in great measure, of the decomposed and decomposing organisms of which I have spoken. The atmosphere, at times, when filled with this dust, would assume a yellowish, or pale straw-colored hue.
The reader probably, by this time, sees my design of connecting the dusty remains, described by Humboldt, with the rain dust reported by the mariners to have fallen on the decks and rigging of their ships, in the neighborhood of the Cape de Verde islands. But the “rain-dust” was of brick-dust, or cinnamon color, when collected by the masters of the ships, as specimens, and the heavens, when filled with the dust thrown up by the whirlwinds, as described by Humboldt, appeared to him to be of a straw color. Here is a discrepancy to be reconciled, and we must call in the aid of another philosopher, Captain M. F. Maury, late Superintendent of the National Observatory, at Washington, before alluded to in these pages, and to whom I am indebted for many of the facts here quoted. Captain Maury was struck with this discrepancy, and in reconciling it with the theory here discussed, makes the following statement: “In the search for spider lines, for the diaphragms of my telescopes, I procured the finest, and best threads from a cocoon of a mud-red color; but the threads of this cocoon, as seen singly in the diaphragm, were of a golden color; therewould seem, therefore, no difficulty in reconciling the difference between the colors of the rain-dust, when viewed in little piles by the microscopist, and when seen attenuated and floating in the wind by the regular traveller.”
There remains but another link in the chain of evidence, to render it complete. It remains to be shown how the whirlwind dust, of the valley of the lower Orinoco, can be identified with the rain-dust of the Cape de Verde. Ehrenberg, a German philosopher, has done this, in our day. Some specimens of the rain-dust having been sent him by ship-captains, he brought them under his microscope, as Humboldt had done the whirlwind-dust, and to his great astonishment, and delight, he found it to be the same. These facts correspond entirely with our theory of the crossing of the trade-winds at the equator. The reader has been with us near the mouth of the Orinoco. This great river disembogues near the island of Trinidad, which we visited in theSumter, in about the latitude of 9° N. The vernal equinox is the dry season here, and at this season, the north-east trade-wind is quite fresh. Running counter to this wind, in the upper atmosphere, there is, according to our theory, a strong south-west wind blowing. Now, if the reader will inspect a map, he will find that a south-west wind, starting from the mouth of the Orinoco, will blow over the Cape de Verde islands. The rest is plain. The whirlwind-dust is tossed high enough into the upper atmosphere, to be taken in charge by the counter south-west wind, is carried to the Cape de Verde, and there silted down upon the decks and rigging of the passing ships, as gently as so many snow-flakes, becoming the rain-dust which so long puzzled the philosophers!
We have reasoned, hitherto, on the supposition, that the three calm-belts, one of which theAlabamais now passing, and the two systems of trade-winds which they enclose, are stationary within certain limits. But this is not so; the whole system of belts and winds is moved north and south, as the sun passes now into one hemisphere, and now into another. The calm-belt of Cancer is not always in the latitude of 30° N.; nor is the calm-belt of the equator always at the equator. The reader will recollect that we observed, on board theAlabama, on the 10th of November, in latitude 25° N., and that we were only just then entering the calm-belt of Cancer. The reason is, that the sun, on that day, was in the southern hemisphere, well advanced toward his extreme limit in that hemisphere, and that he had dragged, as it were, the whole system of belts and winds after him. The figures below will make this idea plain. Let the broad, dark lines in the circles represent the system of belts and winds, all in one; and in circle A let the sun be in the northern hemisphere, and in circle B let him be in the southern.
The reader will see, how the sun, having hitched this system of belts and winds to his chariot wheels, as it were, has drawn it after him. The distances north and south, to which they have been drawn, are exaggerated in the figures, but this is only for the purpose of better illustration. The reader will see, from this diagram, how much farther South theAlabamawill have to run, in November, to catch the north-east trade-wind, than she would have had to run in May. We may now return to our ship, and our cruise, and when I shall mention the trade-winds and the calm-belts, hereafter, the reader will not, I hope, regret the time I have consumed in refreshing his memory on so interesting a subject. We spoke several English vessels after burning theWales, and a couple of them, bound to Demerara, kept company with us through the calm-belt. We sent a boat on board one of them, from New York, but shehad neither news nor newspapers. At length, when we had reached the parallel of about 20°, we began to receive the first gentle breathings of the trade-wind. Our light sails aloft began first to “belly out,” and then a topsail would fill for a moment, until the ship rising on the gentle undulations of the sea, and falling again, would flap the wind out of it. The zephyr—for, as yet, it was nothing more—visibly gained strength, however, from hour to hour, and on the 16th of November, I find the following record in my journal: “Beautiful, clear weather, with a moderate trade-wind, from about east by south, and the well-known fleecy trade-clouds sailing leisurely over our heads.”
It is Sunday, and muster-day, and theAlabamahas once more been put in perfect order. She has had a coat of paint, inside and out, her masts have been freshly scraped, and her rigging re-rattled, and tarred down. Her guns are glistening in the new coat of “composition” which the gunner and his mates have put upon them; her engine-room is all aglow with burnished brass and steel; her decks are white and sweet, and her awnings are spread. The muster is over, the men are lying listlessly about the decks, and our lady passengers are comfortably seated on the quarter-deck, with several of the young officers around them, and with the children playing at their feet. Such was the contrast which theAlabamapresented, on that quiet Sabbath day, with her former self only a few weeks back, when we had been rolling and tumbling in the Gulf Stream, with crippled yards, torn sails, and her now bright sides seamed and defaced with iron-rust from her corroding chains.
We were soon ready to go into port—our first port since leaving Terceira. Men and officers were all desirous of a little relaxation, and were pretty soon on the look-out for land. On the next day, at twoP. M., we made the island of Dominica—the same Dominica that lay so fast asleep in the gentle moonlight, on the night that the littleSumterran so close along it, like a startled deer, after her escape from theIroquois. We were returning to our old cruising-ground, after an interval of just one year, in a finer and faster ship, and we cared very little now about theIroquois, and vessels of her class. Having doubled thenorth-east end of Dominica, during the night, at four o’clock, the next morning, we lowered the propeller, put the ship under steam, and ran down for the island of Martinique. We passed close enough to the harbor of St. Pierre, where we had been so long blockaded, to look into it, and see that there were no men-of-war of the enemy anchored there, and, continuing our course, ran into the anchorage of Fort de France, and dropped our anchor at about tenA. M.
Rear-Admiral Condé was still Governor, and I sent a lieutenant, immediately, to call on him, and report our arrival. He received me kindly, notwithstanding the little sharp-shooting that had passed between us, in the way of official correspondence—and franked the ports of the island to me as before. I had long since forgiven him, for the want of independence and energy he had displayed, in not preventing the Yankee skipper from making signals to theIroquoison the night of my escape, as the said signals, as the reader has seen, had redounded to my benefit, instead of Palmer’s. In an hour or two, we had landed our prisoners; the ladies and their husbands taking a very civil leave of us. In the course of the afternoon, our decks were crowded with curious Frenchmen, come off to look at the “pirate” ship, of which they had heard so much, through Mr. Seward’s interesting volumes of “English Composition,” called “State Papers,” and the villification and abuse of the Northern press. They were evidently a little puzzled at finding in theAlabamaa rather stylish-looking ship of war, with polite young officers to receive them, at the gangway, and show them round the ship, instead of the disorderly privateer, or pirate, they had expected to find. I could see some of these gentlemen eying me with curiosity, and with evident disappointment depicted in their countenances, as my young officers would point me out to them. They had come on board to see a Captain Kidd, or Blue Beard, at the least, and had found only a common mortal, in no wise distinguished from the officers by whom he was surrounded, except, perhaps, that his gray coat was a little more faded, and his moustache a little more the color of his coat.
The ship was surrounded with bum-boats, laden with fruits, and other supplies for the sailors, and a brisk traffic was going on, alongside, and in the port gangway, in pipes, and tobacco,orchata, and orange-water; and, as we found as night began to set in, in something a little stronger. We had no marine guard on board theAlabama, and there was, consequently, no sentinel at the gangway in the daytime. We were necessarily obliged to rely upon the master-at-arms, and the quartermasters, for examining all boats that came alongside, to see that no liquor was smuggled into the ship. These petty officers were old sailors like the rest, and I have rarely seen a sailor who could be relied upon, for any purpose of police, where his brother sailor was concerned.
Whilst I was below, a little after sunset, taking a cup of tea, and enjoying some of the delicious fruit which Bartelli had provided for me, I heard some confusion of voices, and a tramping of feet on the deck over my head, and soon afterward, the first lieutenant came into my cabin to tell me, that there was considerable disorder in the ship. I repaired on deck immediately, and saw at a glance that the crew was almost in a state of mutiny. It was evidently a drunken mutiny, however, and not very alarming. An officer had gone forward to quell some disturbance on the forecastle, when one of the sailors had thrown a belaying-pin at him, and others had abused him, and threatened him with personal violence. Some of the men, when directed to assist in seizing and confining their more disorderly comrades, had refused; and as I reached the deck, there was a surly, and sulky crowd of half-drunken sailors gathered near the foremast, using mutinous language, and defying the authorities of the ship. I immediately ordered the first lieutenant to “beat to quarters.” The drum and fife were gotten up, and such was the effect of previous discipline upon the crew, that the moment they heard the well-known beat, and the shrill tones of the fife, they “fell in,” mechanically, at their guns—some of them so drunk, that their efforts to appear sober were quite ludicrous.
This was what I had reckoned upon. At quarters, the officers always appeared armed, as if they were going into battle. There were very few arms about the deck, upon which the sailors could lay their hands—the cutlasses and pistols being kept locked up, in the arms-chests. Of course, I now had it all my own way—thirty armed officers being more than amatch for 110 men armed with nothing but sheath-knifes and belaying-pins. I began now to quell the mutiny; or rather it was already quelled, and I began to bring Jack back to his senses. In company with my first lieutenant and aide-de-camp, I passed along the platoons of men as they stood at their guns, and stopping wherever I observed a drunken man, I ordered his comrades to arrest him. This was immediately done, without demur in any instance, and the culprit was ironed. In this way I got as many as twenty disorderly fellows. These drunken men, the moment the attempt was made to arrest them, began to show fight, and to be abusive in their language. They were, however, soon overpowered, and rendered harmless. In this way I passed forward and aft, two or three times, eying the men as I passed, to be certain that I had gotten hold of all the rioters.
When I had done this, I directed the mutineers to be taken to the gangway, and calling two or three of the most active of the quartermasters, I made them provide themselves with draw-buckets, and commencing with the most noisy and drunken of the culprits, I ordered them to dash buckets of water over them in quick succession. The punishment was so evidently novel to the recipients, that they were at first disposed to deride it. With drunken gravity they would laugh and swear by turns, and tell the “bloody quartermasters” to “come on with their water,theywere not afraid of it.” But I was quite sure of my remedy, for I had tried it before; and as the drunken fellows would call for more water, in contempt and derision, I gratified them, and caused bucketsful to be dashed on them with such rapidity, that pretty soon they found it difficult to catch their breath, in the intervals between the showers. The more they would struggle and gasp for breath, the more rapidly the buckets would be emptied upon them.
The effect was almost electric. The maudlin fellows, somewhat sobered by the repeated shocks of the cold water, began now to swear less vociferously. In fact, they had no voice to swear with, for it was as much as they could do, to breathe. They no longer “bloodied” the quartermasters, or called for more water. Being reduced thus to silence, and still the waterdescending upon them as rapidly as ever, with half-sobered brain, and frames shivering with the cold, they would now become seriously alarmed. Did the captain mean to drown them? Was this the way he designed to punish them for mutiny, instead of hanging them at the yard-arm? They now turned to me, and begged me, for God’s sake, to spare them. If I would only let them go this time, I should never have cause to complain of them again. I held off a little while, as if inexorable to their prayers and entreaties, the better to impress upon them the lesson I was teaching them, and then ordered them to be released. When their irons were taken off, they were sober enough to go below to their hammocks, without another word, and “turn in” like good boys! It took me some time to get through with this operation, for I had the delinquents—about a dozen of the most noisy—soused one at a time. The officers and crew were all this while—some two hours—standing at their guns, at quarters, and I could, now and then, overhear quite an audible titter from some of the sober men, as the drunken ones who were undergoing the shower-bath would now defy my authority, and now beg for mercy. When, at last, I had finished, I turned to my first lieutenant, and told him to “beat the retreat.”
And this was the way, reader, in which I quelled my first, and only mutiny on board theAlabama. It became a saying afterward, among the sailors, that “Old Beeswax was h—ll upon watering a fellow’s grog.”
THE ALABAMA AT MARTINIQUE—IS BLOCKADED BY THE ENEMY’S STEAMER, SAN JACINTO—HOW SHE ESCAPED THE “OLD WAGON”—THE ISLAND OF BLANQUILLA, THE NEW RENDEZVOUS—COALING SHIP—A YANKEE SKIPPER—HOW THE OFFICERS AND MEN AMUSED THEMSELVES—THE CAPTURE OF THE PARKER COOKE, UNION, AND STEAMER ARIEL.
THE ALABAMA AT MARTINIQUE—IS BLOCKADED BY THE ENEMY’S STEAMER, SAN JACINTO—HOW SHE ESCAPED THE “OLD WAGON”—THE ISLAND OF BLANQUILLA, THE NEW RENDEZVOUS—COALING SHIP—A YANKEE SKIPPER—HOW THE OFFICERS AND MEN AMUSED THEMSELVES—THE CAPTURE OF THE PARKER COOKE, UNION, AND STEAMER ARIEL.
I foundhere at her anchors, as I had expected, my coal-ship, theAgrippina. She had been lying here eight days. Her master, an old Scotchman, who, like most old sailors, was fond of his grog, had been quite indiscreet, as I soon learned, in talking about his ship, and her movements. Instead of pretending to have come in for water or repairs, or to hunt a market, or for something of the kind, he had frequently, when “half seas-over,” in the coffee-houses on shore, boasted of his connection with theAlabama, and told his brother tars that that ship might be daily looked for. Eight days were a sufficient space of time for these conversations to be repeated, in the neighboring islands; and as I knew that the enemy had several cruisers in the West Indies, I was only surprised that some one of them had not looked in upon theAgrippinabefore. It would not do for me to think of coaling in Martinique under the circumstances, and so I ordered my coal-ship to get under way forthwith, and proceed to a new rendezvous—a small island on the Spanish Main, where, in due time, we will rejoin her. I had the satisfaction of seeing her get a good offing before nightfall, and knew that she was safe.
It was well that I took this precaution, for on the very next morning, before I had turned out, an officer came below to inform me that an enemy’s ship-of-war had appeared off theharbor! Dressing myself, and going on deck, sure enough, there was one of the enemy’s large steamships, lying close within the mouth of the harbor, with one of the brightest and largest of “old flags” flying from her peak. She did not anchor, lest she should come under the twenty-four hours’ rule; but pretty soon lowered a boat, and communicated with the authorities on shore. It soon transpired that she was the famousSan Jacinto, a name which has become inseparably connected in the American memory, with one of the greatest humiliations ever put upon the Great Republic. Wilkes, and Seward, and theSan Jacintohave achieved fame. They began by attempting to make a little war-capital out of John Bull, and ended by singing, as we have seen, the “seven penitential psalms;” or, at least, as many of these psalms as could be sung in “seven days,”short metre being used. I could not help thinking, as I looked at the old ship, of Mr. Seward’s elaborate despatch to Lord Russell, set to the tune of “Old Hundred,” and of the screams of Miss Slidell, as she had been gallantly charged by the American marines, commanded, for the occasion, by an officer bearing the proud old name of Fairfax, and born in the State of Virginia!
We paid no sort of attention to the arrival of this old wagon of a ship. She was too heavy for me to think of engaging, as she threw more than two pounds of metal to my one—her battery consisting of fourteen eleven-inch guns—and her crew was more than twice as numerous as my own; but we had the speed of her, and could, of course, go to sea whenever we pleased. I was glad, however, that I had gotten theAgrippinasafely out of her way, as she might otherwise have been indefinitely blockaded. We remained quietly at our anchors during the day; such of the officers visiting the shore as desired, and the stewards of the messes being all busy in laying in a supply of fruits and other refreshments. We were, in the meantime, quite amused at the warlike preparations that were going on on board theSan Jacinto. The captain of that ship, whose name, I believe, was Ronckendorff, made the most elaborate preparations for battle. We could see his men aloft, busily engaged in slinging yards, stoppering topsail sheets, getting up preventer braces, and making such other preparations,as theVictoryorRoyal Sovereignmight have made on the eve of Trafalgar.
Poor Ronckendorff, what a disappointment awaited him! theAlabamawas going to sea that very night. There was a Yankee merchant-ship in the harbor, and just at nightfall, a boat pulled out from her to theSan Jacinto, to post her, probably, as to the channels and outlets, and to put her in possession of the rumors afloat. The fates were much more propitious as to weather, than they had been to the littleSumter, when she eluded theIroquois. The night set in dark and rainy. We ran up our boats, lighted our fires, and when the steam was ready, got under way, as we would have done on any ordinary occasion, except only that there were no lights permitted to be seen about the ship, and that the guns were loaded and cast loose, and the crew at quarters. In the afternoon, a French naval officer had come on board, kindly bringing me a chart of the harbor, from which it appeared that I could run out in almost any direction I might choose. I chose the most southern route, and giving my ship a full head of steam, we passed out, without so much as getting a glimpse of theSan Jacinto! The next news that we received from the “States,” informed us that theSan Jacintowas perfectly innocent of our escape until the next morning revealed to her our vacant place in the harbor. Her commander was even then incredulous, and remained cruising off the harbor for a day or two longer, until he could satisfy himself that I had not hauled my ship up into some cunning nook, or inlet, and hid her away out of sight!
The next afternoon I had joined my coal-ship, and we ran in to our anchorage, together, in the little, barren island of Blanquilla, off the coast of Venezuela, where we came to about nightfall. This was one of those little coral islands that skirt the South American coast, not yet fully adapted to the habitation of man. It was occasionally visited by a passing fisherman, or turtler, and a few goat-herds, from the main-land, had come over to pasture some goats on the coarse grass. As we ran in to this anchorage, which I remembered well from having visited it once in a ship of war of the old service, I was surprised to see a Yankee whaling schooner at anchor. She was lying very close in with the beach, on whichshe had a tent pitched, and some boilers in operation, trying out the oil from a whale which she had recently struck. The master of this little vessel, seeing us running down the island, under the United States colors, came off, in one of his boats, to pilot us in, and was apparently quite pleased to find himself on board one of his own gun-boats. He told us all he had heard about theAlabama, and went into ecstasies over our fine battery, and the marvellous accounts of our speed, which some of the young men gave him, and declared that we were the very ship to “give the pirate Semmes fits.”
A terrible collapse awaited him. When I had let go my anchor, I sent for him, and told him who we were. That we were no less than the terribleAlabamaherself. He stood aghast for a moment. An awful vision seemed to confront him. His little schooner, and his oil, and the various little ’ventures which he had on board, with which to trade with the natives along the coast, and turn that “honest penny,” which has so many charms in the eyes of his countrymen, were all gone up the spout! And then he stood in the presence of the man whose ship he had characterized as a “pirate,” and whom he had told to his face, he was no better than a freebooter. But I played the magnanimous. I told the skipper not to be alarmed; that he was perfectly safe on board theAlabama, and that out of respect for Venezuela, within whose maritime jurisdiction we were, I should not even burn his ship. I should detain him, however, as a prisoner, for a few days, I added, to prevent his carrying news of me to the enemy, until I was ready myself to depart. He gladly assented to these terms, and was frequently afterward on board the ship during our stay.
We lay five days at the little island of Blanquilla, coaling ship, and getting ready for another cruise. We broke out our hold for the first time, and cleansed and whitewashed it. We hoisted out our boats, and rigged them for sailing; and in the afternoons, after the excessive heats had moderated a little, sailing and fishing parties were formed, and the officers had some very pleasant little picnics on shore. Fish were abundant, and on occasion of these picnics, a fine red-fish, weighing twenty pounds and more, would sometimes be foundcut up, and in the frying-pan, almost before it had ceased floundering. The crew were sent on shore, “on liberty,” in quarter watches, taking their rifles and ammunition, and fish-spears, and fishing-lines along with them. The water was as clear as crystal, and there being some beautiful bathing-places along the beach, bathing became a favorite amusement. Although this coast abounds in sharks of large size, they are not found to be dangerous, when there is a number of bathers enjoying the sport together. The shark is a great coward, and rarely attacks a man, unless it can surprise him.
My gig was a fine boat, fitted with a lug sail, and I used frequently to stretch off long distances from the land in her, enjoying her fine sailing qualities, in the fresh sea-breeze that would be blowing, the greater part of the day. At other times I would coast the island along for miles, now putting into one little cove, and now into another, sometimes fishing, and at others hunting sea-shells, and exploring the wonders of the coral banks. Pelican, gulls, plover, and sand-snipe were abundant, and my boat’s crew, when we would land, and haul our boat up for a stroll, would sometimes make capital shots. Indeed, we generally returned on board laden with fish, game, and marine curiosities, of various kinds,—prominent among which would be specimens of the little coral insect, and its curious manufactures. Miniature limestone-trees, with their pointed branches, shrubs, fans, and a hundred other imitations of the flora of the upper world would be fished up from beneath the sparkling waters, live their day of wonder, and when they had faded and lost their beauty, be thrown overboard again.
We found here flocks of the flamingo—a large bird of the crane species, with long legs and bill, for wading and feeding in the shallow lagoons which surround the island. Its plumage is of the most delicate pink, inclining to scarlet, and when the tall birds are drawn up in line, upon a sand beach, where there is some mirage, or refraction, they look not unlike a regiment of red-coated soldiers. They are quite shy, but we carried some of them on board, out of the rich plumage of which Bartelli made me some fans. Officers and men, both of whom had been long confined on board ship—it being now three months since theAlabamawas commissioned—visiblyimproved in health whilst we lay at Blanquilla. The reader may recollect that we captured in the brigDunkirk, a deserter from theSumter. We had tried him by court-martial before reaching Martinique, and sentenced him to serve out his term, under certain penalties. At Martinique, we found him a chief spirit among the mutineers, whose grog I had “watered” as described in the last chapter. Another court now sat upon his case, and in obedience to its sentence, the fellow was turned upon the beach at Blanquilla, with “bag and hammock.” This worthy citizen of the Great Republic joined the Yankee whaling schooner, and went into more congenial company and pursuits.
Having finished our coaling, and made the other preparations necessary for sea, I dispatched my coal-ship, which had still another supply of coal left, to another rendezvous—the Arcas islands, in the Gulf of Mexico, and gave the Yankee schooner leave to depart, telling the master to make a free sheet of it, and not let me catch him on the high seas, as it might not be so well for him a second time. He took me at my word, had all the sail on his little craft in the twinkling of an eye, and I question whether he stopped this side of Nantucket.
My object, in running into the Gulf of Mexico, was to strike a blow at Banks’ expedition, which was then fitting out for the invasion of Texas. This gentleman, who had been a prominent Massachusetts politician, but who had no sort of military talent, had risen to the surface with other scum, amid the bubbling and boiling of the Yankee caldron, and was appointed by “Honest Abe” to subjugate Texas. Banks had mounted a stud-horse, on Boston Common, on militia-review days, before the war, and had had himself lithographed, stud-horse, cocked-hat, feathers, and all, and these were credentials not to be despised. I had learned from captured Northern papers, that he was fitting out at Boston and New York, a large expedition, to consist of not less than 30,000 men. A large proportion of this army was to consist of cavalry and light artillery. To transport such an army, a large number of transport-ships would be required. The expedition was to rendezvous at Galveston, which the enemy had captured from us, not a great while before.
As there were but twelve feet of water on the Galveston bar, very few of these transport-ships would be able to enter the harbor; the great mass of them, numbering, perhaps, a hundred and more, would be obliged to anchor, pell-mell, in the open sea. Much disorder, and confusion would necessarily attend the landing of so many troops, encumbered by horses, artillery, baggage-wagons, and stores. My design was to surprise this fleet by a night-attack, and if possible destroy it, or at least greatly cripple it. The Northern press, in accordance with its usual habit, of blabbing everything, had informed me of the probable time of the sailing of the expedition, and I designed so to time my own movements, as to arrive simultaneously with the stud-horse and the major-general, or at least a day or two afterward.
It was to be presumed, of course, that some of the enemy’s gun-boats would accompany the expedition, but I hoped to be able to fall so unexpectedly upon their convoy, as to find them off their guard. There was no Confederate cruiser in the Gulf, and I learned from the enemy’s own papers, that theAlabamawaswell on her way to the coast of Brazil and the East Indies. The surprise would probably be complete, in the dead of night, and when the said gun-boats of the enemy would be sleeping in comparative security, with but little, if any steam in their boilers. Half an hour would suffice for my purpose of setting fire to the fleet, and it would take the gun-boats half an hour to get up steam, and their anchors, and pursue me.
It was with this object in view, that we were now getting under way from the island of Blanquilla. But the Banks’ expedition would not arrive off Galveston, probably, before about the 10th of January, and as we were now only in the latter days of November, I had several weeks on my hands, before it would become necessary for me to proceed to my new rendezvous. I resolved to devote this interval to the waylaying of a California treasure-steamer, as a million or so of dollars in gold, deposited in Europe, would materially aid me, in my operations upon the sea. I could purchase several moreAlabamas, to develop the “nautical enterprise” of our people, and assist me to scourge the enemy’s commerce.
There were two routes by which the California steamersreturned from Aspinwall—one by the east end of Cuba, and the other by the west end. I chose the former for my ambuscade, as being probably the most used. To reach my new cruising-ground, I put my ship under sail, and made a detour by the way of the islands of Porto Rico and St. Domingo, passing through the Mona Passage, through which much of the West India commerce of the enemy passed, with the hope of picking up something by the way. We left our anchorage at Blanquilla on the 26th of November, and made the island of Porto Rico on the morning of the 29th. We coasted along the south side of this island, with a gentle breeze and smooth sea, sufficiently near to enjoy its fine, bold scenery, passing only a couple of sail during the day—one a large French steamer, bound to the eastward, and the other an English bark. We showed them the United States colors. The bark saluted the “old flag,” by striking her colors to it, but the “old flag” did not return the salute, as it was hoisted at the wrong peak. The Englishman must have thought his Yankee friend rather discourteous.
We entered the Mona Passage, lying between St. Domingo and Porto Rico, after nightfall, but the moon was shining sufficiently bright to enable us to get hold of the small islands of Mona and Desecho, and thus grope our way in safety. The currents in this strait being somewhat uncertain, the navigation is treacherous when the weather is dark. Early on the next morning, we were off the Bay of Samana, and were running with a flowing sheet along the coast of St. Domingo. I had approached the Mona Passage with much caution, fully expecting to find so important a thoroughfare guarded by the enemy, but there was nothing in the shape of a ship of war to be seen. The enemy was too busy blockading the Southern coasts to pay much attention to his commerce. In the course of the morning, we boarded a Spanish schooner, from Boston, bound for the old city of St. Domingo, from which we received a batch of late newspapers, giving us still further accounts, among other things, of the preparation of the Banks’ expedition, about which all New England seemed, just then, to be agog.
The great Massachusetts leader had been givencarte blanche, and he was making the best possible use of it. He was fittinghimself out very splendidly, but his great expedition resembled rather one of Cyrus’ or Xerxes’, than one of Xenophon’s. The Boston papers dilated upon the splendid bands of music, the superb tents, the school-marms, and the relays of stud-horses that were to accompany the hero of Boston Common. But the best feature of the expedition was the activity and thrift which had suddenly sprung up in all the markets of New England, in consequence. The looms, the spindles and the shoemakers’ awls were in awful activity. In short, every man or boy who could whittle a stick, whittled it, and sold it to the Government. The whalemen in New Bedford, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard were in especial glee. They were selling all their whaling ships, which were too old, or too rotten for further service, to the Government, for transports, at enormous prices. Many a bluff old whaler that had rode out a gale under the lee of an iceberg at the Navigators’ Islands, or “scraped her keel on Coromandel’s coast,” forty years before, was patched and caulked and covered over with pitch and paint, and sold to an ignorant, if not corrupt, army quartermaster, for as good as “bran new.” No wonder that the war was popular in New England. There was not only negro in it, but there was money in it also.
Filling away from the Spanish schooner, which we requested to report us, in St. Domingo, as the United States steamerIroquois, we continued our course down the island. It was Sunday, and the day was fine. The crew was dressed, as usual, for muster, and what with the ship in her gala-dress of awnings, and glitter of “bright-work,” the island, the sea, and the weather, a more beautiful picture could not well have been presented to the beholder. In the distance were the blue, and hazy hills, so fraught with the memories of Columbus, and the earlier Spanish explorers. Nearer to, was the old town of Isabella, the first ever built in the New World by civilized men, and nearer still was the bluff, steep, rock-bound coast, against which the most indigo of seas was breaking in the purest and whitest of foam. The sailors had thrown themselves upon the deck in groups, each group having its reader, who was reading aloud to attentive listeners the latest war-news, as gleaned from the papers we had received from theSpanish schooner; and the officers, through whose hands the said newspapers had already passed, were smoking and chatting, now of Columbus, and now of the war. Presently the shrill cry of “sail ho!” came ringing from aloft; and the scene on board theAlabamashifted almost as magically as it does in a theatre. Every man sprang to his feet, without waiting for an order; the newspapers were stuck away in cracks and crannies; the helm was shifted, to bring the ship’s head around to the proper point for chasing, and studding-sails, and kites were given simultaneously to the wind.
When we began to raise the spars and sails of the chase above the sea, from the deck, there was a general exclamation of “Yankee!” The tapering royal and sky-sail masts, with the snowiest of canvas, told the tale, as they had told it so often before. A run of a few hours more brought us up with the American barkParker Cooke, of, and from Boston, bound to Aux Cayes, on the south side of the island of St. Domingo. If theCookehad been chartered, and sent out for our especial benefit, the capture could not have been more opportune. TheAlabama’scommissariat was beginning to run a little low, and here was theCookeprovision-laden. We had found, by experience in theSumter, that our Boston friends put up the very best of crackers, and ship-bread, and sent excellent butter, and cheese, salted beef and pork, and dried fruits to the West India markets; nor were we disappointed on the present occasion. Both ships were now hove to, under short sail, within convenient boating distance, and the rest of the day was consumed in transporting provisions from the prize. It was sunset before we concluded our labors, and at the twilight hour, when the sea-breeze was dying away, and all nature was sinking to repose, we applied the torch to theCooke.
As we filled away, and made sail, I could not but moralize on the spectacle. Sixty years before, the negro had cut the throat of the white man, ravished his wife and daughters, and burned his dwelling in the island of St. Domingo, now in sight. The white man, in another country, was now inciting the negro to the perpetration of the same crimes against another white man, whom he had called brother. The white man who was thus inciting the negro, was the Puritan of New England,whose burning ship was lighting up the shores of St Domingo! That Puritan, only a generation before, had entered into a solemn league and covenant, to restore to the Southern man his fugitive slave, if he should escape into his territory. This was the way in which he was keeping his plighted faith! Does any one wonder that theAlabamaburned New England ships?
We began now to receive some “returns” of the effect of our late captures upon Northern commerce. The papers captured on board theCookewere full of lamentations. Our pious brethren did not confine themselves to the forms set down by Jeremiah, however, but hissed their execrations through teeth grinding with rage. I will not treat my readers to any of these specimens of the art Philippic, but will confine myself to a few business excerpts instead, taken indiscriminately from the New York and Boston papers.