Captain Solomon drew a long breath. "Put her on her course again, Mr. Steele," he said to the mate. "We won't lose any more time. You can have this mess cleared up in the morning."
And the sailors jumped for the ropes, although they were pretty tired, and they swung the yards around, two at a time, with a chanty for each. TheIndustrywas sailing away for India again. And, the next day they cleared the smoke out of the hold, and they stowed the cargo that had been taken out in the night, and they put on the hatch and fastened it.
And that's all.
nceupon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on thatnarrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
Once, in the long ago, the brigIndustryhad sailed away from the wharf and out into the great ocean on a voyage to India. And she had been gone from the wide river three or four days, and she was well out into the ocean and no land was in sight, but only water and once in a while another ship. But they didn't see ships asoften as they had at first, and it was good weather and the wind was fair, so that there wasn't anything much for the sailors to do. The mates kept them as busy as they could, washing down the deck and coiling ropes, and doing a lot of other things that didn't need to be done, for theIndustryhad just been fixed up and painted and made as clean as she could be made. And that was pretty clean. So the sailors didn't care very much about doing a lot of things that didn't need to be done, but they did them, as slowly as they could, because, if they said that they wouldn't do things that the mates or the captain told them to do, that would be mutiny. And mutiny, at sea, is a very serious thing for everybody. It satisfied Captain Solomon and the mate wellenough to have the men do things slowly, so long as they did them. For they knew that the men would do things quickly if there was any need for quickness.
Then, one morning, just as it began to be light, the man who was the lookout thought that he saw something in the water about the ship that didn't look quite like waves. And it got a little lighter so that he could make sure, and he called some others of his watch and told them to look and see the school of porpoises. And they all looked, and those men told others who looked over the side, too, and pretty soon all the men of that watch were leaning on the rail and looking at the porpoises. That made the mate who was on watch look over, too, so that every man on deck was looking overthe side into the water. Then the sun came up out of the water.
What they saw was a great many big fishes, all black and shining, and each one had spots of white on its side and a funny-shaped head. Most of them seemed to be about the size of a man, and they swam in a funny sort of way, in and out of the water, sothat their backs showed most of the time, and they glistened and shone and their spots of white made them rather a pretty sight. And now and then they spouted little jets of water and spray out of their heads into the air, just as if they were little whales. Porpoises are more like little whales than they are like fishes, for they have to breathe air, just as whales do, and they spout just as whales do, and they are like whales in other ways. They aren't really fishes, at all.
TheIndustrywas sailing very fast, for the wind was fair and strong, and she had all the sails set that she could set; but the porpoises didn't seem to think she was going very fast, for they had no trouble at all to keep up with her and they could play by the way, too. Andso they did, hundreds of them. Some of them kept just ahead of her stem, where it cut through the water, and they leaped and gambolled, but the ship never caught up with them. And they were doing the same thing all about.
Seeing the porpoises that kept just ahead of theIndustrymade the sailors think of something and they all thought of the same thing at once. Perhaps it was because it was about breakfast time. Four of the men went aft to speak to the mate, who was standing where the deck is higher. And the mate didn't wait for them to speak, for he knew just what they were going to ask him. The men had their hats in their hands by the time they got near.
The mate smiled. "Yes, you may," hesaid. "I'll get 'em." And he went into the cabin.
When he had gone the men grinned at each other and looked pleased and each man was thinking that the mate was not so bad, after all, even if he did make them do work that didn't need to be done, just to kept them busy. But they didn't say anything.
Then the mate came out, and he had two harpoons in his hand.
"There!" he said. "Two's enough. You'd only get in each other's way if there were more. Bend a line on to each, and make it fast, somewhere."
Then Captain Solomon came on deck, and he offered a prize of half a pound of tobacco to the best harpooner. And the men cheered when they heard him,and they took the harpoons and ran forward.
They hurried and fastened a rather small rope on to each harpoon, in the way a rope ought to be fastened to a harpoon, and two of the sailors took the two harpoons and went down under the bowsprit, in among the chains that go from the end of the bowsprit to the stem of the ship. They went there so as to be near the water. They might get wet there, but they didn't care about that. And the other end of the rope, that was fastened to each harpoon, was made fast up on deck, so that the harpoon shouldn't be lost if it wasn't stuck into a porpoise, and so that the porpoise shouldn't get away if it was stuck into him.
One of the sailors was so excited that he didn't hit anything with his harpoon,and the sailors up on deck hauled it in. The other sailor managed to hit a porpoise, but he was excited, too, and the harpoon didn't go in the right place. When the sailors up on deck tried to haul the porpoise in, it broke away, and went swimming off.
Then those sailors came back on deck and two others took their places. One of those others had been harpooner on a whaleship before he went on theIndustry. He didn't get excited at harpooning a porpoise, but drove his harpoon in at just exactly the right place, and the sailors up on deck hauled that porpoise in. Afterwards, that sailor got the half pound of tobacco that Captain Solomon had offered as a prize, because he harpooned his porpoise just exactly the right way.
The sailor that went with him struck a porpoise, too, but it wasn't quite in the right place, and the men had hard work to get him.
And then other sailors came and tried, and they took turns until they had more porpoises on deck than you would have thought that they could possibly use.
And all the men had porpoise steak for breakfast that morning and porpoise steak for dinner, and porpoise steak for supper. Sailors call porpoises "puffing pigs," and porpoise steak tastes something like pork steak, and sailors like it. But they had it for every meal until there was only one porpoise left, and that one they had to throw overboard.
And that's all.
"THEY HAD MORE PORPOISES ON DECK THAN YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY USE""THEY HAD MORE PORPOISES ON DECK THAN YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY USE"
nceupon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who hadbusiness with the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they made up their minds that they ought to move their office to Boston. And so theydid. And, after that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston and Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob had their office on India street. Then the change began in that little city and that wharf.
Once, in the long ago, the brigIndustryhad sailed from Boston for a far country, and little Jacob had gone on that voyage. Little Jacob was Captain Jacob's son and Lois's, and the grandson of Captain Jonathan, and when he went on that voyage he was almost thirteen years old. And little Sol went, too. He was Captain Solomon's son, and he was only a few months younger than little Jacob. Captain Solomon had taken him in the hope that the voyage would discourage him from going to sea. But, as it turned out, it didn't discourage him at all, but he liked goingto sea, so that afterwards he ran away and went to sea, and became the captain of that very ship, as you shall hear.
TheIndustryhad been out a little more than a week, and she had run into a storm. The storm didn't do any harm except to blow her out of her course, and then she ran out of it. And the next morning little Jacob came out on deck and he looked for little Sol. The first place that he looked in was out on the bowsprit; for little Sol liked to be out there, where he could see all about him and could see the ship making the wave at her bow and feel as if he wasn't on the ship, at all, but free as air. It was a perfectly safe place to be in, for there were nettings on each side to keep him from falling, and he didn't go out beyond the nettings ontothe part that was just a round spar sticking out.
When little Jacob got to the bow of the ship, he looked out on the bowsprit, and there was little Sol; but he wasn't lying on his back as he was most apt to be, nor he wasn't lying down with one hand propping up his head, which was the way he liked to lie to watch the wave that the ship made. He was lying stretched out on his stomach, with both hands propping up his chin, and he was looking straight out ahead, so that he didn't see little Jacob. And theIndustrywas pitching a good deal, for the storm had made great waves, like mountains, and the waves that were left were still great. The ship made a sort of growling noise as she went down into a wave, and a sort of hissing noise asshe came up out of it, and little Jacob was—well, not afraid, exactly, but he didn't just like to go out there where little Sol was, with the ship making all those queer noises. You see, it was little Jacob's first storm at sea. It was little Sol's first storm, too; but then, boys are different.
So little Jacob called. "Sol!" he said.
Little Sol turned his head quickly. "Hello, Jake," said he. "Come on out. There's lots to see out here to-day."
"Are—are there things to see that I couldn't see from here?" asked little Jacob.
"Of course there are," answered little Sol, scornfully. "You can't see anything from there—anything much."
"The ship pitches a good deal," remarked little Jacob. "Don't you think so?"
"Oh, some," said little Sol, "but it's safe enough after you get here. You could crawl out. I walked out. See here, I'll walk in, to where you are, on my hands."
And little Sol scrambled up and walked in on his hands, with his feet in the air. He let his feet down carelessly. "There!" he said. "You see."
"Well," said little Jacob. "I can't walk on my hands, because I don't know how. You show me, Sol, will you?—when it's calm. And I'll walk out on my feet."
Little Jacob was rather white, but he didn't hesitate, and he walked out on the bowsprit to the place where he generally sat. It was rather hard work keeping his balance, but he did it. And little Sol came after, and said he would show him how to walk on his hands, some daywhen it was calm enough. For little Sol didn't think little Jacob was afraid, and the two boys liked each other very much.
"There!" said little Sol, when they were settled, "you look out ahead, and see if you see anything."
So little Jacob looked and looked for a long time, but he didn't know what he was looking for, and that makes a great difference about seeing a thing.
"I don't see anything," said he. "What is it, Sol—a ship!"
"No, oh no," answered little Sol. "It's on the water—on the surface. We've almost got to one of 'em."
So little Jacob looked again, and he saw what looked, at first, like a calm streak on the water. There seemed to be little sticks sticking up out of the calm streak. Then he saw that it looked like a narrow island, except that it went up and down with the waves. Sometimes he saw one part of it, and then he saw another part. And the island was all covered with water, and the water near it was calm, and it was a yellowish brown, like seaweed. In a minute or two theIndustrywas ploughing through it, and he could see that it was a great mass of floating seaweed that gave way, before the ship, like water, andthe little sticks that he had seen, sticking up, were the stems. A little way ahead there was another of the floating islands; and another and another, until the surface of the sea seemed covered with them. They were really fifteen or twenty fathoms apart; but, from a distance, it didn't look as if they were.
"Why, Sol," said little Jacob, in surprise, "it doesn't stop the ship at all. I should think it would. What is it?"
"Well," answered little Sol. "I asked one of the men, and he laughed and said it was nothing but seaweed—that the ship would make nothing of it. I was afraid we were running aground. And the man said that the rows—it gets in windrows, like hay that's being raked up—he said that the windrows were brokenup a good deal by the storm; that he's often seen 'em stretching as far as the eye could see, and a good deal thicker than these are."
Little Jacob laughed. "What are you laughing at?" asked little Sol, looking up.
"'As far as the eye could see,'" said little Jacob.
"Well," said little Sol, "that's just what he said, anyway."
"I'm going to ask your father about it," said little Jacob. "He'll know all about it. He always knows." And he got up, carefully, and made his way inboard; then he ran aft, to look for Captain Solomon.
He found Captain Solomon on the quarter deck, leaning against the part of the cabin that stuck up through the deck.He was half sitting on it and looking out at the rows of seaweed that they passed. So little Jacob asked him.
"Yes, Jacob," answered Captain Solomon, "it's just seaweed, nothing but seaweed. We're just on the edge of the Sargasso Sea, and that means nothing but Seaweed Sea. The weed gets in long rows, just as you see it now, only the rows are apt to be longer and not so broken up. It's the wind that does it, and the ocean currents. It's my belief that the wind is the cause of the currents, too. I've seen acres of this weed packed so tight together that it looked as if we were sailing on my south meadow just at haying time. I don't see that south meadow at haying time very often, now, but I shall see it, please God, pretty soon."
"Well," said little Jacob, "I should think that it would get all tangled up so that it would stop the ship."
"My south meadow?" asked Captain Solomon. He was thinking of haying, and he had forgotten the Seaweed Sea.
Little Jacob laughed. "No, sir," he answered. "The seaweed. Why doesn't it get all tangled like ropes, so that it stops the ship?"
"The plants aren't long enough," said Captain Solomon. "Come, we'll get some of it for you."
"Oh!" cried little Jacob. "Will you? Thank you, sir."
And Captain Solomon told two of the sailors to come and to bring a big bucket. The bucket had a long rope fastened across, and the end was long enough toreach from the water up to the deck of theIndustry. They use buckets like that to dip up the salt water; and, when the ship is going the sailors have to be very careful and very quick or they will lose the bucket, it pulls so hard.
So one sailor dipped the bucket just as they were passing over one of the rows of seaweed; and the other sailor took hold of the rope, too, as soon as he had dipped the bucket, and they pulled it up and set it on deck. Captain Solomon stooped and took up a plant. There were two plants in the bucket. Little Sol had come when he saw the sailors with the bucket.
And Captain Solomon showed the boys that a plant was about the size of a cabbage, and that it had a great many littleballoons that grew on it about as big as a pea, and these balloons were filled with air to make the plant float. Some of them were almost as big as a nut, and little Sol and little Jacob had fun trying to make them pop.
Then little Sol found a tiny fish in the bucket that was just the color of the weed; and little Jacob saw another, and then he saw a crab drop from the weed that Captain Solomon was holding, and the crab was just the color of the weed, too. And they amused themselves for a long time with hunting for the queer fishes and crabs and shrimps, and something that was like a mussel, but it wasn't just like one, either. And they found a place in the weed where were some little balls. And they opened the balls, andlittle Sol said he'd bet that they were where some animal laid its eggs. But little Jacob didn't say anything, for he didn't pretend to know anything about it. But Captain Solomon got tired of holding that weed, so he dropped it back into thebucket and went away. And, at last, when little Jacob and little Sol got tired of hunting for things in the weed, the sailors threw it over into the ocean again.
And that's all.
nceupon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had businesswith the ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown up with weeds and grass.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their office to Boston. After that their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, the brigIndustryhad sailed from Boston for a far country and she had got down into the warm parts of the ocean. Little Jacob and little Sol had gone on that voyage. Little Sol always got out on deck, in the morning, a little while before little Jacob got out. And, one morning, he had gone on deck and little Jacob was hurrying to finish his breakfast, when little Sol came running back and stuck his head in at the cabin door.
"Oh, Jake," he called, "come out here, quick! There are fishes with wings on 'em, and they are flying all 'round."
Then little Jacob was very much excited, and he wanted to leave the rest of his breakfast and go out. All of a sudden he found that he wasn't hungry. ButCaptain Solomon was there, and he smiled at little Jacob's eagerness.
"Better finish your breakfast, Jacob," he said. "The flying fish won't go away—not before you get through."
"Thank you, sir," said little Jacob. "I'm all through. I don't feel hungry for any more."
"All right," said Captain Solomon. "But if you and Sol get hungry you can go to the cook. I have an idea that he will have something for you."
Little Jacob was already half way up the cabin steps. "Thank you, sir," he said; but there was some doubt whether he had heard. Captain Solomon smiled again and got up and followed him.
Little Sol was in his favorite place on the bowsprit, and little Jacob was goingthere as fast as he could. He settled himself in his place and began to look around.
"Where, Sol?" he asked. "Where are the—oh!"
For, just ahead of the ship, a school of fish suddenly leaped out of the water, and went flying about fifteen or twenty feet above the water for a hundred feet or more. And they kept coming. Little Jacob could hear the humming of their long fins, but he couldn't see their fins, they went so fast. Little Sol had thought they were wings; and it was as nearlyright to call them wings as to call them fins.
"Oo—o, Sol!" cried little Jacob. "Aren'tthey pretty? And aren't they small? And don't they fly fast?"
"M—m," said little Sol.
"Look at these over there!" cried little Jacob, again. "See! They are flying faster than the ship is going. They are beating us!"
Little Jacob was pointing to some fish that were flying in the same direction that theIndustrywas sailing. They went ahead of her and dropped into the water.
"H'mph!" said little Sol. "There isn't much wind, anyway. If there was, I'll bet they wouldn't beat us." There really was a good deal of wind.
"But aren't they pretty colors, Sol?" said little Jacob. "They're all colors of blue and silvery. I can't see them very plainly, they go so fast. I wish I could see them plainer."
Captain Solomon was standing near enough to hear what little Jacob said.
"If you'll come inboard, Jacob," said Captain Solomon, "you can see them. We're catching them."
"THE SAILORS WERE HAVING A GOOD TIME""THE SAILORS WERE HAVING A GOOD TIME"
And little Jacob turned his head, and then he scrambled in. Now and then some of the flying fish flew right across the deck of theIndustry. And some of them came down on the deck, and some struck against the masts and ropes; and the sailors were standing all about, looking excited, as if they were playing a game. They had their caps in their hands, andwhen the fish flew across the deck, they tried to catch them in their caps. And some they caught and some they didn't; but the sailors were having a good time, and they laughed and shouted at their play.
And a sailor who had just caught a fish in his cap brought it to little Jacob.
"Now you can see it plainer," said Captain Solomon.
Little Jacob looked and he saw a fish that was less than a foot long, and the color on its back was a deep, ocean blue, and the fins were a darker blue, and it was all silvery underneath. And it had long fins coming out of its shoulders, almost as long as the fish, and they looked very strong and almost like a swallow's wings.
By and by little Jacob looked up atCaptain Solomon. "Why do the men want to catch so many of them?" he asked. "Because it's fun?"
"Well, no," said Captain Solomon. "It is great fun. I've done it myself, in my day. But these fish are very good to eat. Any kind of fresh meat is a good thing, when you know there's nothing better than salted meat to fall back on. You'll see how good they are, at dinner."
Little Jacob sighed. "Oh," he said. "Thank you for showing me."
And he was rather sober as he went back to his place on the bowsprit to watch. But when dinner time came, he ate some of the flying fish and thought they were very nice, indeed.
And that's all.
nceupon a time there was a wide river that ran into the ocean, and beside it was a little city. And in that city was a wharf where great ships came from far countries. And a narrow road led down a very steep hill to that wharf, and anybody that wanted to go to the wharf had to go down the steep hill on the narrow road, for there wasn't any other way. And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the ships had to go on that narrowroad, the flagstones that made the sidewalk were much worn. That was a great many years ago.
The wharf was Captain Jonathan's and Captain Jacob's and they owned the ships that sailed from it; and, after their ships had been sailing from that wharf in the little city for a good many years, they changed their office to Boston. After that, their ships sailed from a wharf in Boston.
Once, in the long ago, the brigIndustryhad sailed from Boston for a far country, and little Jacob and little Sol had gone on that voyage. Little Jacob and little Sol were very much interested in the things that they saw every day and in the things that were done every day on the ship by the sailors and by the mates and byCaptain Solomon. But those things that happened the same sort of way, every day, interested little Jacob more than they did little Sol. Little Sol liked to see them a few times, until he knew just what to expect, and then he liked to be out on the bowsprit, seeing the things that he didn't expect; or he liked to be doing things. And the things that he did were the sort of things that nobody else expected. So the things that little Sol did were an amusement to the sailors and to the mates; and sometimes they were an amusement to Captain Solomon and sometimes they weren't. When they didn't amuse Captain Solomon they didn't usually amuse little Sol, either.
Every captain of a ship keeps a sort of diary, or journal, of the voyage that shipis making. This diary is usually called the ship's log. And every day he writes in it what happened that day; the courses the ship sailed and the number of miles she sailed on each course; the sails that were set and the direction and strength of the wind; and the state of the weather and the exact part of the ocean she was in and the time that she was there.
The exact part of the ocean that the ship is in is usually found by looking at the sun, just at noon, through a little three-cornered thing, called a sextant, that is small enough for the captain or the mate to hold in his hands; and by seeing what time it is, by a sort of clock, when the sun is the very highest. Then the captain goes down into the cabin and does some arithmetic out of a book, using the thingsthat his sextant had told him, and he finds just exactly where the ship was at noon of that day. Then he pricks the position of the ship on a chart, which is a map of the ocean, so that he can see how well she is going on her course.
Sometimes it is cloudy at noon, so that he can't look at the sun then, but it clears up after dark. Then the captain looks through his sextant at the moon, or at some bright star, and finds his position that way. And sometimes it is cloudy for several days together, so that he can't take an observation with his sextant in all that time. Captains don't like it very well when it is cloudy for several days together, for then they have nothing to tell them just where the ship is, but what is called "dead reckoning."
Captain Solomon usually had the speed at which the ship was sailing measured several times every day. When he wanted that done, he called a sailor to "heave the log;" and the sailor came and took up a real log, or board, fastened to the end of a long rope, while one of the mates held an hour glass. But there wasn't sand enough in the glass to run for an hour, but it would run for half a minute. And when the mate gave the word, the sailor dropped the log over the stern of the ship and the mate turned the glass. And the sailor held the reel with the rope on it, so that the rope would run off freely, and he counted,aloud, the knots in the rope as it ran out. For the rope had knots of colored leather in it, and the knots were just far enough apart so that the number of knots that ran out in half a minute would show the number of sea miles that the ship was sailing in an hour. And when the sand in the glass had all run out, the mate gave the word again, and the sailor stopped the rope from running out. So Captain Solomon knew about how many miles theIndustryhad sailed on each course, and he could put it down in his book.
That wasn't a very good way to tell where the ship was, by adding up all the courses she had sailed and getting her speed on each course, and adding all these to the last place that they knew about,but, when Captain Solomon couldn't get an observation with his sextant, it was the only way there was. That isn't the way they tell, now-a-days, how many miles a ship has sailed, for there is a better way that gives, more exactly than the old-fashioned "log," the number of miles. But they still have to add up all the courses and the miles sailed on each course to find a ship's place, when they can't take an observation. That is what is called "dead reckoning," and it isn't a very good way at its best.
"LITTLE JACOB LIKED TO WATCH CAPTAIN SOLOMON""LITTLE JACOB LIKED TO WATCH CAPTAIN SOLOMON"
Little Jacob liked to watch Captain Solomon writing up the log for the day. He always wrote it just after dinner. And when he had finished dinner, he would get out the book and clear a place on the table to put it; and then he took a quillpen in his great fist and wrote, very slowly, and with flourishes. And when he had it done he always passed the book over to little Jacob.
"There, Jacob," he said, with a smile. "That please you?"
"Oh, yes, sir," answered little Jacob. "Thank you, sir." And he began to read.
One day, when they had been out of Boston about three weeks, little Jacob watched Captain Solomon write up the log, and, when he got it, he thought he would turn back to some days that he knew about and read what Captain Solomon had said about them. And so he did.
October 2, 1796. 8 days out. Comes in fresh gales & Flying clouds. Middle & latter part much the same, with all proper sail spread. Imploy'd varnishing Deck and scraping Foreyard. Saw a Brig and two Ships standing to the N. & W. A school of porpoises about the ship a good part of the Morning, of which the Crew harpooned a good number and got them on deck. I fear they are too many for us to acct. for before they go Bad.Course ESE 186 miles. Wind fresh from S. & W. Observatn, Lat. 34 20 N. Long. 53 32 W.
October 2, 1796. 8 days out. Comes in fresh gales & Flying clouds. Middle & latter part much the same, with all proper sail spread. Imploy'd varnishing Deck and scraping Foreyard. Saw a Brig and two Ships standing to the N. & W. A school of porpoises about the ship a good part of the Morning, of which the Crew harpooned a good number and got them on deck. I fear they are too many for us to acct. for before they go Bad.
Course ESE 186 miles. Wind fresh from S. & W. Observatn, Lat. 34 20 N. Long. 53 32 W.
That didn't seem to little Jacob to be enough to say about the porpoises. He sighed and turned to another day.
October 5, 1796. 11 days out. Comes in Fresh breezes and a rough sea fr. S. & E. Spoke Brig Transit of Workington fr.—S. Salvador for Hamburg. Middle & latter part moderate with clear skies and beautiful weather. Ran into some weed and running threw it off and on all day.
October 5, 1796. 11 days out. Comes in Fresh breezes and a rough sea fr. S. & E. Spoke Brig Transit of Workington fr.—S. Salvador for Hamburg. Middle & latter part moderate with clear skies and beautiful weather. Ran into some weed and running threw it off and on all day.
CoursesESE 98 m.Wind strong fr. N. & E.,moderating to gentle airs.SSE. 54 m.Observatn.,——Lat. 30 22 N.Long. 47 30 W.152
And it seemed to little Jacob that it was a shame to say no more than that about that strange Seaweed Sea and the curious things that were to be found in it. But it was Captain Solomon's log and not little Jacob's. He turned to another day, to see what there was about the flying fish.
October 11, 1796. 17 days out of Boston. Comes in with good fresh Trades and flying clouds. Middle & latter part much the same. Saw a ship standing on our course. Not near enough to speak her. At daylight passed the ship abt. 5 miles to windward. All proper sail spread.Great numbers of Flying Fish (Sea Swallows)all about the ship, and the men imploy'd in catching them. It gave the men much pleasure and a deal of sport and the Fish very good eating.Course SSE 203 miles. Wind NE. strong, Trades. Observatn., Lat. 18 10 N. Long. 37 32 W.Chronometer losestoo much.Took Spica and Aquila at 7 p. m., Long. 35 30 W.
October 11, 1796. 17 days out of Boston. Comes in with good fresh Trades and flying clouds. Middle & latter part much the same. Saw a ship standing on our course. Not near enough to speak her. At daylight passed the ship abt. 5 miles to windward. All proper sail spread.
Great numbers of Flying Fish (Sea Swallows)all about the ship, and the men imploy'd in catching them. It gave the men much pleasure and a deal of sport and the Fish very good eating.
Course SSE 203 miles. Wind NE. strong, Trades. Observatn., Lat. 18 10 N. Long. 37 32 W.
Chronometer losestoo much.
Took Spica and Aquila at 7 p. m., Long. 35 30 W.
Little Jacob didn't know what Spica and Aquila were, and he asked Captain Solomon.
"They are stars, Jacob, and rather bright ones," said Captain Solomon. "My chronometer—my clock, you know—was losing a good deal, and I looked through my sextant at them to find out where we really were."
"Oh," said little Jacob; but he didn't understand very well, and Captain Solomonsaw that he didn't. It wasn't strange that he didn't understand.
Little Jacob sat looking at the log book and he didn't say anything for a long time.
Captain Solomon smiled. "Well, Jacob," he said, at last, "what are you thinking about? I guess you were thinking that you wished that you had the log to write up. Then you could say more about the things that were interesting. Weren't you?"
Little Jacob got very red. "Oh, no, sir," he said. "That is, I—well, you see, the things that are new and interesting to me—well, I s'pose you have seen them so many times that it doesn't seem worth while to you to say much about them."
"That is a part of the reason," answered Captain Solomon. "The other part isthat it doesn't seem necessary. Anything that concerns the ship is put down. We don't have time—nor we don't have the wish—to put down anything else."
"Of course," said little Jacob, "it isn't necessary."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Jacob," said Captain Solomon. "I'll let you write up the log, and then you can write as much as you like about anything that interests you."
Little Jacob got very red again. "Oh!" he cried, getting up in his excitement. "Will you let me do that?Thankyou. I thank you very much. But—but how shall I put down all those numbers that show how the ship goes?"
"I'll give you the numbers, as you call them," said Captain Solomon, "and I'lllook over the log every day, to see that you put them down right."
"I'll put them down just exactly the way you tell me to," said little Jacob. "And I thank you very much. And I—I write pretty well."
And little Jacob ran to find little Sol and to tell him about how he was going to write the log of the voyage, after that. And he did write it, numbers and all, and it was a very interesting and well written log. For little Jacob could write very well indeed; rather better than Captain Solomon. Captain Solomon knew that when he said that little Jacob could write it.
And that's all.