As soon as we were beyond the point, and all sail out, the order was given, ``Go below, the watch!'' and the crew said that, ever since they had been on the coast, they had had ``watch and watch'' while going from port to port; and, in fact, all things showed that, though strict discipline was kept, and the utmost was required of every man in the way of his duty, yet, on the whole, there was good usage on board. Each one knew that he must be a man, and show himself such when at his duty, yet all were satisfied with the treatment; and a contented crew, agreeing with one another, and finding no fault, was a contrast indeed with the small, hard-used, dissatisfied, grumbling, desponding crew of the Pilgrim.
It being the turn of our watch to go below, the men set themselves to work, mending their clothes, and doing other little things for themselves; and I, having got my wardrobe in complete order at San Diego, had nothing to do but to read. I accordingly overhauled the chests of the crew, but found nothing that suited me exactly, until one of the men said he had a book which ``told all about a great highwayman,'' at the bottom of his chest, and, producing it, I found, to my surprise and joy, that it was nothing else than Bulwer's Paul Clifford. I seized it immediately, and, going to my hammock, lay there, swinging and reading, until the watch below was out. The between-decks clear, the hatchways open, a cool breeze blowing through them, the ship under easy way,— everything was comfortable. I had just got well into the story when eight bells were struck, and we were all ordered to dinner. After dinner came our watch on deck for four hours, and at four o'clock I went below again, turned into my hammock and read until the dog watch. As lights were not allowed after eight o'clock, there was no reading in the night watch. Having light winds and calms, we were three days on the passage, and each watch below, during the daytime, I spent in the same manner, until I had finished my book. I shall never forget the enjoyment I derived from it. To come across anything with the slightest claims to literary merit was so unusual that this was a feast to me. The brilliancy of the book, the succession of capital hits, and the lively and characteristic sketches, kept me in a constant state of pleasing sensations. It was far too good for a sailor. I could not expect such fine times to last long.
While on deck, the regular work of the ship went on. The sailmaker and carpenter worked between decks, and the crew had their work to do upon the rigging, drawing yarns, making spun-yarn, &c., as usual in merchantmen. The night watches were much more pleasant than on board the Pilgrim. There, there were so few in a watch, that, one being at the wheel and another on the lookout, there was no one left to talk with; but here we had seven in a watch, so that we had long yarns in abundance. After two or three night watches, I became well acquainted with the larboard watch. The sailmaker was the head man of the watch, and was generally considered the most experienced seaman on board. He was a thorough-bred old man-of-war's-man, had been at sea twenty-two years, in all kinds of vessels,— men-of-war, privateers, slavers, and merchantmen,— everything except whalers, which a thorough man-of-war or merchant seaman looks down upon, and will always steer clear of if he can. He had, of course, been in most parts of the world, and was remarkable for drawing a long bow. His yarns frequently stretched through a watch, and kept all hands awake. They were amusing from their improbability, and, indeed, he never expected to be believed, but spun them merely for amusement; and as he had some humor and a good supply of man-of-war slang and sailor's salt phrases, he always made fun. Next to him in age and experience, and, of course, in standing in the watch, was an Englishman named Harris, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. Then came two or three Americans, who had been the common run of European and South American voyages, and one who had been in a ``spouter,'' and, of course, had all the whaling stories to himself. Last of all was a broad-backed, thick-headed, Cape Cod[1] boy, who had been in mackerel schooners, and was making his first voyage in a square-rigged vessel. He was born in Hingham, and of course was called ``Bucket-maker.'' The other watch was composed of about the same number. A tall, fine-looking Frenchman, with coal-black whiskers and curly hair, a first-rate seaman, named John (one name is enough for a sailor), was the head man of the watch. Then came two Americans (one of whom had been a dissipated young man of some property and respectable connections, and was reduced to duck trousers and monthly wages), a German, an English lad, named Ben, who belonged on the mizzen-topsail yard with me, and was a good sailor for his years, and two Boston boys just from the public schools. The carpenter sometimes mustered in the starboard watch, and was an old sea-dog, a Swede by birth, and accounted the best helmsman in the ship. This was our ship's company, beside cook and steward, who were blacks, three mates, and the captain.
The second day out, the wind drew ahead, and we had to beat up the coast; so that, in tacking ship, I could see the regulations of the vessel. Instead of going wherever was most convenient, and running from place to place, wherever work was to be done, each man had his station. A regular tacking and wearing bill was made out. The chief mate commanded on the forecastle, and had charge of the head sails and the forward part of the ship. Two of the best men in the ship, the sailmaker from our watch, and John, the Frenchman, from the other, worked the forecastle. The third mate commanded in the waist, and, with the carpenter and one man, worked the main tack and bowline; the cook, ex officio, the fore sheet, and the steward the main. The second mate had charge of the after yards, and let go the lee fore and main braces. I was stationed at the weather cross-jack braces; three other light hands at the lee; one boy at the spanker-sheet and guy; a man and a boy at the main topsail, top-gallant, and royal braces; and all the rest of the crew— men and boys— tallied on to the main brace. Every one here knew his station, must be there when all hands were called to put the ship about, and was answerable for the ropes committed to him. Each man's rope must be let go and hauled in at the order, properly made fast, and neatly coiled away when the ship was about. As soon as all hands are at their stations, the captain, who stands on the weather side of the quarter-deck, makes a sign to the man at the wheel to put it down, and calls out ``Helm's a lee'!'' ``Helm's a lee'!'' answers the mate on the forecastle, and the head sheets are let go. ``Raise tacks and sheets!'' says the captain; ``tacks and sheets!'' is passed forward, and the fore tack and main sheet are let go. The next thing is to haul taut for a swing. The weather cross-jack braces and the lee main braces are belayed together upon two pins, and ready to be let go, and the opposite braces hauled taut. ``Main topsail haul!'' shouts the captain; the braces are let go; and if he has chosen his time well, the yards swing round like a top; but if he is too late, or too soon, it is like drawing teeth. The after yards are then braced up and belayed, the main sheet hauled aft, the spanker eased over to leeward, and the men from the braces stand by the head yards. ``Let go and haul!'' says the captain; the second mate lets go the weather fore braces, and the men haul in to leeward. The mate, on the forecastle, looks out for the head yards. ``Well the fore topsail yard!'' ``Top-gallant yard's well!'' ``Royal yard too much! Haul in to windward! So! well that!'' ``Well all!'' Then the starboard watch board the main tack, and the larboard watch lay forward and board the fore tack and haul down the jib sheet, clapping a tackle upon it if it blows very fresh. The after yards are then trimmed, the captain generally looking out for them himself. ``Well the cross-jack[2] yard!'' ``Small pull the main top-gallant yard!'' ``Well that!'' ``Well the mizzen topsail yard!'' ``Cross-jack yards all well!'' ``Well all aft!'' ``Haul taut to windward!'' Everything being now trimmed and in order, each man coils up the rigging at his own station, and the order is given, ``Go below the watch!''
During the last twenty-four hours of the passage, we beat off and on the land, making a tack about once in four hours, so that I had sufficient opportunity to observe the working of the ship; and certainly it took no more men to brace about this ship's lower yards, which were more than fifty feet square, than it did those of the Pilgrim, which were not much more than half the size; so much depends upon the manner in which the braces run, and the state of the blocks; and Captain Wilson, of the Ayacucho, who was afterwards a passenger with us, upon a trip to windward, said he had no doubt that our ship worked two men lighter than his brig. This light working of the ship was owing to the attention and seamanship of Captain Faucon. He had reeved anew nearly all the running rigging of the ship, getting rid of useless blocks, putting single blocks for double wherever he could, using pendent blocks, and adjusting the purchases scientifically.
Friday, September 11th. This morning, at four o'clock, went below, San Pedro point being about two leagues ahead, and the ship going on under studding-sails. In about an hour we were waked up by the hauling of the chain about decks, and in a few minutes ``All hands ahoy!'' was called; and we were all at work, hauling in and making up the studding-sails, overhauling the chain forward, and getting the anchors ready. ``The Pilgrim is there at anchor,'' said some one, as we were running about decks; and, taking a moment's look over the rail, I saw my old friend, deeply laden, lying at anchor inside of the kelp. In coming to anchor, as well as in tacking ship, each one had his station and duty. The light sails were clewed up and furled, the courses hauled up, and the jibs down; then came the topsails in the buntlines, and the anchor let go. As soon as she was well at anchor, all hands lay aloft to furl the topsails; and this, I soon found, was a great matter on board this ship; for every sailor knows that a vessel is judged of, a good deal, by the furl of her sails. The third mate, sailmaker, and the larboard watch, went upon the fore topsail yard; the second mate, carpenter, and the starboard watch, upon the main; and I, and the English lad, and the two Boston boys, and the young Cape Cod man, furled the mizzen topsail. This sail belonged to us altogether to reef and to furl, and not a man was allowed to come upon our yard. The mate took us under his special care, frequently making us furl the sail over three or four times, until we got the bunt up to a perfect cone, and the whole sail without a wrinkle. As soon as each sail was hauled up and the bunt made, the jigger was bent on to the slack of the buntlines, and the bunt triced up, on deck. The mate then took his place between the knight-heads to ``twig'' the fore, on the windlass to twig the main, and at the foot of the mainmast for the mizzen; and if anything was wrong,— too much bunt on one side, clews too taut or too slack, or any sail abaft the yard,— the whole must be dropped again. When all was right, the bunts were triced well up, the yard-arm gaskets passed, so as not to leave a wrinkle forward of the yard— short gaskets, with turns close together.
From the moment of letting go the anchor, when the captain ceases his care of things, the chief mate is the great man. With a voice like a young lion, he was hallooing in all directions, making everything fly, and, at the same time, doing everything well. He was quite a contrast to the worthy, quiet, unobtrusive mate of the Pilgrim, not a more estimable man, perhaps, but a far better mate of a vessel; and the entire change in Captain Thompson's conduct, since he took command of the ship, was owing, no doubt, in a great measure, to this fact. If the chief officer wants force, discipline slackens, everything gets out of joint, and the captain interferes continually; that makes a difficulty between them, which encourages the crew, and the whole ends in a three-sided quarrel. But Mr. Brown (a Marblehead man) wanted no help from anybody, took everything into his own hands, and was more likely to encroach upon the authority of the master than to need any spurring. Captain Thompson gave his directions to the mate in private, and, except in coming to anchor, getting under way, tacking, reefing topsails, and other ``all-hands-work,'' seldom appeared in person. This is the proper state of things; and while this lasts, and there is a good understanding aft, everything will go on well.
Having furled all the sails, the royal yards were next to be sent down. The English lad and myself sent down the main, which was larger than the Pilgrim's main top-gallant yard; two more light hands the fore, and one boy the mizzen. This order we kept while on the coast, sending them up and down every time we came in and went out of port. They were all tripped and lowered together, the main on the starboard side, and the fore and mizzen to port. No sooner was she all snug, than tackles were got up on the yards and stays, and the long-boat and pinnace hove out. The swinging booms were then guyed out, and the boats made fast by geswarps, and everything in harbor style. After breakfast, the hatches were taken off, and everything got ready to receive hides from the Pilgrim. All day, boats were passing and repassing, until we had taken her hides from her, and left her in ballast trim. These hides made but little show in our hold, though they had loaded the Pilgrim down to the water's edge. This changing of the hides settled the question of the destination of the two vessels, which had been one of some speculation with us. We were to remain in the leeward ports, while the Pilgrim was to sail, the next morning, for San Francisco. After we had knocked off work, and cleared up decks for the night, my friend Stimson came on board, and spent an hour with me in our berth between decks. The Pilgrim's crew envied me my place on board the ship, and seemed to think that I had got a little to windward of them, especially in the matter of going home first. Stimson was determined to go home in the Alert, by begging or buying. If Captain Thompson would not let him come on other terms, he would purchase an exchange with some one of the crew. The prospect of another year after the Alert should sail was rather ``too much of the monkey.'' About seven o'clock the mate came down into the steerage in fine trim for fun, roused the boys out of the berth, turned up the carpenter with his fiddle, sent the steward with lights to put in the between-decks, and set all hands to dancing. The between-decks were high enough to allow of jumping, and being clear, and white, from holystoning, made a good dancing-hall. Some of the Pilgrim's crew were in the forecastle, and they all turned-to and had a regular sailor's shuffle till eight bells. The Cape Cod boy could dance the true fisherman's jig, barefooted, knocking with his heels, and slapping the decks with his bare feet, in time with the music. This was a favorite amusement of the mate's, who used to stand at the steerage door, looking on, and if the boys would not dance, hazed them round with a rope's end, much to the entertainment of the men.
The next morning, according to the orders of the agent, the Pilgrim set sail for the windward, to be gone three or four months. She got under way with no fuss, and came so near us as to throw a letter on board, Captain Faucon standing at the tiller himself, and steering her as he would a mackerel smack. When Captain Thompson was in command of the Pilgrim, there was as much preparation and ceremony as there would be in getting a seventy-four under way. Captain Faucon was a sailor, every inch of him. He knew what a ship was, and was as much at home in one as a cobbler in his stall. I wanted no better proof of this than the opinion of the ship's crew, for they had been six months under his command, and knew him thoroughly, and if sailors allow their captain to be a good seaman, you may be sure he is one, for that is a thing they are not usually ready to admit. To find fault with the seamanship of the captain is a crew's reserved store for grumbling.
After the Pilgrim left us, we lay three weeks at San Pedro, from the 11th of September until the 2d of October, engaged in the usual port duties of landing cargo, taking off hides, &c., &c. These duties were much easier, and went on much more agreeably, than on board the Pilgrim. ``The more the merrier'' is the sailor's maxim, and, by a division of labor, a boat's crew of a dozen could take off all the hides brought down in a day without much trouble; and on shore, as well as on board, a good-will, and no discontent or grumbling, make everything go well. The officer, too, who usually went with us, the third mate, was a pleasant young fellow, and made no unnecessary trouble; so that we generally had a sociable time, and were glad to be relieved from the restraint of the ship. While here, I often thought of the miserable, gloomy weeks we had spent in this dull place, in the brig; discontent and hard usage on board, and four hands to do all the work on shore. Give me a big ship. There is more room, better outfit, better regulation, more life, and more company. Another thing was better arranged here: we had a regular gig's crew. A light whale-boat, handsomely painted, and fitted out with stern seats, yoke and tiller-ropes, hung on the starboard quarter, and was used as the gig. The youngest lad in the ship, a Boston boy about fourteen years old, was coxswain of this boat, and had the entire charge of her, to keep her clean and have her in readiness to go and come at any hour. Four light hands, of about the same size and age, of whom I was one, formed her crew. Each had his oar and seat numbered, and we were obliged to be in our places, have our oars scraped white, our tholepins in, and the fenders over the side. The bowman had charge of the boat-hook and painter, and the coxswain of the rudder, yoke, and stern-sheets. Our duty was to carry the captain and agent about, and passengers off and on, which last was no trifling duty, as the people on shore have no boats, and every purchaser, from the boy who buys his pair of shoes, to the trader who buys his casks and bales, was to be brought off and taken ashore in our boat. Some days, when people were coming and going fast, we were in the boat, pulling off and on, all day long, with hardly time for our meals, making, as we lay nearly three miles off shore, from thirty to forty miles' rowing in a day. Still, we thought it the best berth in the ship; for when the gig was employed, we had nothing to do with the cargo, except with small bundles which the passengers took with them, and no hides to carry. Besides, we had the opportunity of seeing everybody, making acquaintances, and hearing the news. Unless the captain or agent was in the boat, we had no officer with us, and often had fine times with the passengers, who were always willing to talk and joke with us. Frequently, too, we were obliged to wait several hours on shore, when we would haul the boat up on the beach, and, leaving one to watch her, go to the nearest house, or spend the time in strolling about the beach, picking up shells, or playing hop-scotch, and other games, on the hard sand. The others of the crew never left the ship, except for bringing heavy goods and taking off hides; and though we were always in the water, the surf hardly leaving us a dry thread from morning till night, yet we were young, and the climate was good, and we thought it much better than the quiet, humdrum drag and pull on board ship. We made the acquaintance of nearly half California; for, besides carrying everybody in our boat,— men, women, and children,— all the messages, letters, and light packages went by us, and, being known by our dress, we found a ready reception everywhere.
At San Pedro, we had none of this amusement, for, there being but one house in the place, there was nothing to see and no company. All the variety that I had was riding, once a week, to the nearest rancho,[3] to order a bullock down to the ship.
The brig Catalina came in from San Diego, and, being bound to windward, we both got under way at the same time, for a trial of speed up to Santa Barbara, a distance of about eighty miles. We hove up and got under sail about eleven o'clock at night, with a light land-breeze, which died away toward morning, leaving us becalmed only a few miles from our anchoring-place. The Catalina, being a small vessel, of less than half our size, put out sweeps and got a boat ahead, and pulled out to sea during the night, so that she had the sea-breeze earlier and stronger than we did, and we had the mortification of seeing her standing up the coast with a fine breeze, the sea all ruffled about her, while we were becalmed in-shore. When the sea-breeze died away, she was nearly out of sight; and, toward the latter part of the afternoon, the regular northwest wind setting in fresh, we braced sharp upon it, took a pull at every sheet, tack, and halyard, and stood after her in fine style, our ship being very good upon a taut bowline. We had nearly five hours of splendid sailing, beating up to windward by long stretches in and off shore, and evidently gaining upon the Catalina at every tack. When this breeze left us, we were so near as to count the painted ports on her side. Fortunately, the wind died away when we were on our inward tack, and she on her outward, so we were in-shore, and caught the land-breeze first, which came off upon our quarter, about the middle of the first watch. All hands were turned up, and we set all sail, to the skysails and the royal studding-sails; and with these, we glided quietly through the water, leaving the Catalina, which could not spread so much canvas as we, gradually astern, and, by daylight, were off Santa Buenaventura, and our competitor nearly out of sight. The sea-breeze, however, favored her again, while we were becalmed under the headland, and laboring slowly along, and she was abreast of us by noon. Thus we continued, ahead, astern, and abreast of each other, alternately; now far out at sea, and again close in under the shore. On the third morning we came into the great bay of Santa Barbara two hours behind the brig, and thus lost the bet; though if the race had been to the point, we should have beaten her by five or six hours. This, however, settled the relative sailing of the vessels, for it was admitted that although she, being small and light, could gain upon us in very light winds, yet whenever there was breeze enough to set us agoing, we walked away from her like hauling in a line; and, in beating to windward, which is the best trial of a vessel, had much the advantage.
Sunday, October 4th. This was the day of our arrival; and, somehow or other, our captain seemed to manage, not only to sail, but to come into port, on a Sunday. The main reason for sailing on Sunday is not, as many people suppose, because it is thought a lucky day but because it is a leisure day. During the six days the crew are employed upon the cargo and other ship's works, and, Sunday being their only day of rest, whatever additional work can be thrown into it is so much gain to the owners. This is the reason of our coasters and packets generally sailing on Sunday. Thus it was with us nearly all the time we were on the coast, and many of our Sundays were lost entirely to us. The Catholics on shore do not, as a general thing, do regular trading or make journeys on Sunday, but the American has no national religion, and likes to show his independence of priestcraft by doing as he chooses on the Lord's Day.
Santa Barbara looked very much as it did when I left it five months before: the long sand beach, with the heavy rollers, breaking upon it in a continual roar, and the little town, embedded on the plain, girt by its amphitheatre of mountains. Day after day the sun shone clear and bright upon the wide bay and the red roofs of the houses, everything being as still as death, the people hardly seeming to earn their sunlight. Daylight was thrown away upon them. We had a few visitors, and collected about a hundred hides, and every night, at sundown, the gig was sent ashore to wait for the captain, who spent his evenings in the town. We always took our monkey-jackets with us, and flint and steel, and made a fire on the beach with the driftwood and the bushes which we pulled from the neighboring thickets, and lay down by it, on the sand. Sometimes we would stray up to the town, if the captain was likely to stay late, and pass the time at some of the houses, in which we were almost always well received by the inhabitants. Sometimes earlier and sometimes later, the captain came down; when, after a good drenching in the surf, we went aboard, changed our clothes, and turned-in for the night,— yet not for all the night, for there was the anchor watch to stand.
This leads me to speak of my watchmate for nine months,— and, taking him all in all, the most remarkable man I had ever seen,— Tom Harris. An hour, every night, while lying in port, Harris and I had the deck to ourselves, and walking fore and aft, night after night, for months, I learned his character and history, and more about foreign nations, the habits of different people, and especially the secrets of sailors' lives and hardships, and also of practical seamanship (in which he was abundantly capable of instructing me), than I could ever have learned elsewhere. His memory was perfect, seeming to form a regular chain, reaching from his earliest childhood up to the time I knew him, without a link wanting. His power of calculation, too, was extraordinary. I called myself pretty quick at figures, and had been through a course of mathematical studies; but, working by my head, I was unable to keep within sight of this man, who had never been beyond his arithmetic. He carried in his head, not only a log-book of the voyage, which was complete and accurate, and from which no one thought of appealing, but also an accurate registry of the cargo, knowing where each thing was stowed, and how many hides we took in at each port.
One night he made a rough calculation of the number of hides that could be stowed in the lower hold, between the fore and main masts, taking the depth of hold and breadth of beam (for he knew the dimensions of every part of a ship before he had been long on board), and the average area and thickness of a hide; and he came surprisingly near the number, as it afterwards turned out. The mate frequently came to him to know the capacity of different parts of the vessel, and he could tell the sailmaker very nearly the amount of canvas he would want for each sail in the ship; for he knew the hoist of every mast, and spread of each sail, on the head and foot, in feet and inches. When we were at sea, he kept a running account, in his head, of the ship's way,— the number of knots and the courses; and, if the courses did not vary much during the twenty-four hours, by taking the whole progress and allowing so many eights southing or northing, to so many easting or westing, he would make up his reckoning just before the captain took the sun at noon, and often came very near the mark. He had, in his chest, several volumes giving accounts of inventions in mechanics, which he read with great pleasure, and made himself master of. I doubt if he forgot anything that he read. The only thing in the way of poetry that he ever read was Falconer's Shipwreck, which he was charmed with, and pages of which he could repeat. He said he could recall the name of every sailor that had ever been his shipmate, and also of every vessel, captain, and officer, and the principal dates of each voyage; and a sailor whom we afterwards fell in with, who had been in a ship with Harris nearly twelve years before, was much surprised at having Harris tell him things about himself which he had entirely forgotten. His facts, whether dates or events, no one thought of disputing; and his opinions few of the sailors dared to oppose, for, right or wrong, he always had the best of the argument with them. His reasoning powers were striking. I have had harder work maintaining an argument with him in a watch, even when I knew myself to be right, and he was only doubting, than I ever had before, not from his obstinacy, but from his acuteness. Give him only a little knowledge of his subject, and, among all the young men of my acquaintance at college, there is not one whom I had not rather meet in an argument than this man. I never answered a question from him, or advanced an opinion to him, without thinking more than once. With an iron memory, he seemed to have your whole past conversation at command, and if you said a thing now which ill agreed with something you had said months before, he was sure to have you on the hip. In fact, I felt, when with him, that I was with no common man. I had a positive respect for his powers of mind, and thought, often, that if half the pains had been spent upon his education which are thrown away yearly, in our colleges, he would have made his mark. Like many self-taught men of real merit, he overrated the value of a regular education; and this I often told him, though I had profited by his error; for he always treated me with respect, and often unnecessarily gave way to me, from an overestimate of my knowledge. For the intellectual capacities of all the rest of the crew,— captain and all,— he had a sovereign contempt. He was a far better sailor, and probably a better navigator, than the captain, and had more brains than all the after part of the ship put together. The sailors said, ``Tom's got a head as long as the bowsprit,'' and if any one fell into an argument with him, they would call out: ``Ah, Jack! you had better drop that as you would a hot potato, for Tom will turn you inside out before you know it!''
I recollect his posing me once on the subject of the Corn Laws. I was called to stand my watch, and, coming on deck, found him there before me; and we began, as usual, to walk fore and aft, in the waist. He talked about the Corn Laws; asked me my opinion about them, which I gave him, and my reasons, my small stock of which I set forth to the best advantage, supposing his knowledge on the subject must be less than mine, if, indeed, he had any at all. When I had got through, he took the liberty of differing from me, and brought arguments and facts which were new to me, and to which I was unable to reply. I confessed that I knew almost nothing of the subject, and expressed my surprise at the extent of his information. He said that, a number of years before, while at a boarding-house in Liverpool, he had fallen in with a pamphlet on the subject, and, as it contained calculations, had read it very carefully, and had ever since wished to find some one who could add to his stock of knowledge on the question. Although it was many years since he had seen the book, and it was a subject with which he had had no previous acquaintance, yet he had the chain of reasoning, founded upon principles of political economy, fully in his memory; and his facts, so far as I could judge, were correct; at least, he stated them with precision. The principles of the steam-engine, too, he was familiar with, having been several months on board a steamboat, and made himself master of its secrets. He knew every lunar star in both hemispheres, and was a master of the quadrant and sextant. The men said he could take a meridian altitude of the sun from a tar bucket. Such was the man, who, at forty, was still a dog before the mast, at twelve dollars a month. The reason of this was to be found in his past life, as I had it, at different times, from himself.
He was an Englishman, a native of Ilfracomb, in Devonshire. His father was skipper of a small coaster from Bristol, and, dying, left him, when quite young, to the care of his mother, by whose exertions he received a common-school education, passing his winters at school and his summers in the coasting trade until his seventeenth year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages. Of this mother he spoke with the greatest respect, and said that she was a woman of a strong mind, and had an excellent system of education, which had made respectable men of his three brothers, and failed in him only from his own indomitable obstinacy. One thing he mentioned, in which he said his mother differed from all other mothers that he had ever seen disciplining their children; that was, that when he was out of humor and refused to eat, instead of putting his plate away, saying that his hunger would bring him to it in time, she would stand over him and oblige him to eat it,— every mouthful of it. It was no fault of hers that he was what I saw him; and so great was his sense of gratitude for her efforts, though unsuccessful, that he determined, when the voyage should end, to embark for home with all the wages he should get, to spend with and for his mother, if perchance he should find her alive.
After leaving home, he had spent nearly twenty years sailing upon all sorts of voyages, generally out of the ports of New York and Boston. Twenty years of vice! Every sin that a sailor knows, he had gone to the bottom of. Several times he had been hauled up in the hospitals, and as often the great strength of his constitution had brought him out again in health. Several times, too, from his acknowledged capacity, he had been promoted to the office of chief mate, and as often his conduct when in port, especially his drunkenness, which neither fear nor ambition could induce him to abandon, put him back into the forecastle. One night, when giving me an account of his life, and lamenting the years of manhood he had thrown away, ``There,'' said he, ``in the forecastle, at the foot of those steps, a chest of old clothes, is the result of twenty-two years of hard labor and exposure— worked like a horse, and treated like a dog.'' As he had grown older, he began to feel the necessity of some provision for his later years, and came gradually to the conviction that rum had been his worst enemy. One night, in Havana, a young shipmate of his was brought aboard drunk, with a dangerous gash in his head, and his money and new clothes stripped from him. Harris had been in hundreds of such scenes as these, but in his then state of mind it fixed his determination, and he resolved never to taste a drop of strong drink of any kind. He signed no pledge, and made no vow, but relied on his own strength of purpose. The first thing with him was a reason, and then a resolution, and the thing was done. The date of his resolution he knew, of course, to the very hour. It was three years before I became acquainted with him, and during all that time nothing stronger than cider or coffee had passed his lips. The sailors never thought of enticing Tom to take a glass, any more than they would of talking to the ship's compass. He was now a temperate man for life, and capable of filling any berth in a ship, and many a high station there is on shore which is held by a meaner man.
He understood the management of a ship upon scientific principles, and could give the reason for hauling every rope; and a long experience, added to careful observation at the time, gave him a knowledge of the expedients and resorts for times of hazard, for which I became much indebted to him, as he took the greatest pleasure in opening his stores of information to me, in return for what I was enabled to do for him. Stories of tyranny and hardship which had driven men to piracy; of the incredible ignorance of masters and mates, and of horrid brutality to the sick, dead, and dying; as well as of the secret knavery and impositions practised upon seamen by connivance of the owners, landlords, and officers,— all these he had, and I could not but believe them; for he made the impression of an exact man, to whom exaggeration was falsehood; and his statements were always credited. I remember, among other things, his speaking of a captain whom I had known by report, who never handed a thing to a sailor, but put it on deck and kicked it to him; and of another, who was highly connected in Boston, who absolutely murdered a lad from Boston who went out with him before the mast to Sumatra, by keeping him hard at work while ill of the coast fever, and obliging him to sleep in the close steerage. (The same captain has since died of the same fever on the same coast.)
In fact, taking together all that I learned from him of seamanship, of the history of sailors' lives, of practical wisdom, and of human nature under new circumstances and strange forms of life,— a great history from which many are shut out,— I would not part with the hours I spent in the watch with that man for the gift of many hours to be passed in study and intercourse with even the best of society.
[1] Sailors call men from any part of the coast of Massachusetts south of Boston Cape Cod men.
[2] Pronounced croj-ac.
[3] This was Sepulveda's rancho, where there was a fight, during our war with Mexico in 1846, between some United States troops and the Mexicans, under Don Andréas Pico.
Sunday, October 11th. Set sail this morning for the leeward; passed within sight of San Pedro, and, to our great joy, did not come to anchor, but kept directly on to San Diego, where we arrived and moored ship on—
Thursday, October 15th. Found here the Italian ship La Rosa, from the windward, which reported the brig Pilgrim at San Francisco, all well. Everything was as quiet here as usual. We discharged our hides, horns, and tallow, and were ready to sail again on the following Sunday. I went ashore to my old quarters, and found the gang at the hide-house going on in the even tenor of their way, and spent an hour or two, after dark, at the oven, taking a whiff with my old Kanaka friends, who really seemed glad to see me again, and saluted me as the Aikane of the Kanakas. I was grieved to find that my poor dog Bravo was dead. He had sickened and died suddenly the very day after I sailed in the Alert.
Sunday was again, as usual, our sailing day, and we got under way with a stiff breeze, which reminded us that it was the latter part of the autumn, and time to expect southeasters once more. We beat up against a strong head wind, under reefed topsails, as far as San Juan, where we came to anchor nearly three miles from the shore, with slip-ropes on our cables, in the old southeaster style of last winter. On the passage up, we had an old sea-captain on board, who had married and settled in California, and had not been on salt water for more than fifteen years. He was surprised at the changes and improvements that had been made in ships, and still more at the manner in which we carried sail; for he was really a little frightened, and said that while we had top-gallant-sails on, he should have been under reefed topsails. The working of the ship, and her progress to windward, seemed to delight him, for he said she went to windward as though she were kedging.
Tuesday, October 20th. Having got everything ready, we set the agent ashore, who went up to the Mission to hurry down the hides for the next morning. This night we had the strictest orders to look out for southeasters; and the long, low clouds seemed rather threatening. But the night passed over without any trouble, and early the next morning we hove out the long-boat and pinnace, lowered away the quarter-boats, and went ashore to bring off our hides. Here we were again, in this romantic spot,— a perpendicular hill, twice the height of the ship's mast-head, with a single circuitous path to the top, and long sand-beach at its base, with the swell of the whole Pacific breaking high upon it, and our hides ranged in piles on the overhanging summit. The captain sent me, who was the only one of the crew that had ever been there before, to the top to count the hides and pitch them down. There I stood again, as six months before, throwing off the hides, and watching them, pitching and scaling, to the bottom, while the men, dwarfed by the distance, were walking to and fro on the beach, carrying the hides, as they picked them up, to the distant boats, upon the tops of their heads. Two or three boat-loads were sent off, until at last all were thrown down, and the boats nearly loaded again, when we were delayed by a dozen or twenty hides which had lodged in the recesses of the bank, and which we could not reach by any missiles, as the general line of the side was exactly perpendicular, and these places were caved in, and could not be seen or reached from the top. As hides are worth in Boston twelve and a half cents a pound, and the captain's commission was one per cent, he determined not to give them up, and sent on board for a pair of top-gallant studding-sail halyards, and requested some one of the crew to go to the top and come down by the halyards. The older sailors said the boys, who were light and active, ought to go; while the boys thought that strength and experience were necessary. Seeing the dilemma, and feeling myself to be near the medium of these requisites, I offered my services, and went up, with one man to tend the rope, and prepared for the descent.
We found a stake fastened strongly into the ground, and apparently capable of holding my weight, to which we made one end of the halyard well fast, and, taking the coil, threw it over the brink. The end, we saw, just reached to a landing-place, from which the descent to the beach was easy. Having nothing on but shirt, trousers, and hat, the common sea rig of warm weather, I had no stripping to do, and began my descent by taking hold of the rope with both hands, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with the other. In this way I descended until I came to a place which shelved in, and in which the hides were lodged. Keeping hold of the rope with one hand, I scrambled in, and by aid of my feet and the other hand succeeded in dislodging all the hides, and continued on my way. Just below this place, the precipice projected again, and, going over the projection, I could see nothing below me but the sea and the rocks upon which it broke, and a few gulls flying in mid-air. I got down in safety, pretty well covered with dirt; and for my pains was told, ``What a d—-d fool you were to risk your life for half a dozen hides!''
While we were carrying the hides to the boat, I perceived, what I had been too busy to observe before, that heavy black clouds were rolling up from seaward, a strong swell heaving in, and every sign of a southeaster. The captain hurried everything. The hides were pitched into the boats, and, with some difficulty, and by wading nearly up to our armpits, we got the boats through the surf, and began pulling aboard. Our gig's crew towed the pinnace astern of the gig, and the launch was towed by six men in the jolly-boat. The ship was lying three miles off, pitching at her anchor, and the farther we pulled, the heavier grew the swell. Our boat stood nearly up and down several times; the pinnace parted her tow-line, and we expected every moment to see the launch swamped. At length we got alongside, our boats half full of water; and now came the greatest trouble of all,— unloading the boats in a heavy sea, which pitched them about so that it was almost impossible to stand in them, raising them sometimes even with the rail, and again dropping them below the bends. With great difficulty we got all the hides aboard and stowed under hatches, the yard and stay tackles hooked on, and the launch and pinnace hoisted, chocked, and griped. The quarter-boats were then hoisted up, and we began heaving in on the chain. Getting the anchor was no easy work in such a sea, but as we were not coming back to this port, the captain determined not to slip. The ship's head pitched into the sea, and the water rushed through the hawse-holes, and the chain surged so as almost to unship the barrel of the windlass. ``Hove short, sir!'' said the mate. ``Aye, aye! Weather-bit your chain and loose the topsails! Make sail on her, men,— with a will!'' A few moments served to loose the topsails, which were furled with reefs, to sheet them home, and hoist them up. ``Bear a hand!'' was the order of the day; and every one saw the necessity of it, for the gale was already upon us. The ship broke out her own anchor, which we catted and fished, after a fashion, and were soon close-hauled, under reefed sails, standing off from the lee shore and rocks against a heavy head sea. The fore course was given to her, which helped her a little; but as she hardly held her own against the sea, which was setting her to leeward— ``Board the main tack!'' shouted the captain, when the tack was carried forward and taken to the windlass, and all hands called to the handspikes. The great sail bellied out horizontally, as though it would lift up the main stay; the blocks rattled and flew about; but the force of machinery was too much for her. ``Heave ho! Heave and pawl! Yo, heave, hearty, ho!'' and, in time with the song, by the force of twenty strong arms, the windlass came slowly round, pawl after pawl, and the weather clew of the sail was brought down to the water-ways. The starboard watch hauled aft the sheet, and the ship tore through the water like a mad horse, quivering and shaking at every joint, and dashing from her head the foam, which flew off at each blow, yards and yards to leeward. A half-hour of such sailing served our turn, when the clews of the sail were hauled up, the sail furled, and the ship, eased of her press, went more quietly on her way. Soon after, the foresail was reefed, and we mizzen-top men were sent up to take another reef in the mizzen topsail. This was the first time I had taken a weather earing, and I felt not a little proud to sit astride of the weather yard-arm, pass the earing, and sing out, ``Haul out to leeward!'' From this time until we got to Boston the mate never suffered any one but our own gang to go upon the mizzen topsail yard, either for reefing or furling, and the young English lad and I generally took the earings between us.
Having cleared the point and got well out to sea, we squared away the yards, made more sail, and stood on, nearly before the wind, for San Pedro. It blew strong, with some rain, nearly all night, but fell calm toward morning, and the gale having blown itself out, we came-to,—
Thursday, October 22d, at San Pedro, in the old southeaster berth, a league from shore, with a slip-rope on the cable, reefs in the topsails, and rope-yarns for gaskets. Here we lay ten days, with the usual boating, hide-carrying, rolling of cargo up the steep hill, walking barefooted over stones, and getting drenched in salt water.
The third day after our arrival, the Rosa came in from San Juan, where she went the day after the southeaster. Her crew said it was as smooth as a mill-pond after the gale, and she took off nearly a thousand hides, which had been brought down for us, and which we lost in consequence of the southeaster. This mortified us: not only that an Italian ship should have got to windward of us in the trade, but because every thousand hides went towards completing the forty thousand which we were to collect before we could say good by to California.
While lying here, we shipped one new hand, an Englishman, of about six-and-twenty years, who was an acquisition, as he proved to be a good sailor, could sing tolerably, and, what was of more importance to me, had a good education and a somewhat remarkable history. He called himself George P. Marsh; professed to have been at sea from a small boy, and to have served his time in the smuggling trade between Germany and the coasts of France and England. Thus he accounted for his knowledge of the French language, which he spoke and read as well as he did English; but his cutter education would not account for his English, which was far too good to have been learned in a smuggler; for he wrote an uncommonly handsome hand, spoke with great correctness, and frequently, when in private talk with me, quoted from books, and showed a knowledge of the customs of society, and particularly of the formalities of the various English courts of law and of Parliament, which surprised me. Still he would give no other account of himself than that he was educated in a smuggler. A man whom we afterwards fell in with, who had been a shipmate of George's a few years before, said that he heard, at the boarding-house from which they shipped, that George had been at a college (probably a naval one, as he knew no Latin or Greek), where he learned French and mathematics. He was not the man by nature that Harris was. Harris had made everything of his mind and character in spite of obstacles; while this man had evidently been born in a different rank, and educated early in life accordingly, but had been a vagabond, and done nothing for himself since. Neither had George the character, strength of mind, or memory of Harris; yet there was about him the remains of a pretty good education, which enabled him to talk quite up to his brains, and a high spirit and amenability to the point of honor which years of a dog's life had not broken. After he had been a little while on board, we learned from him his adventures of the last two years, which we afterwards heard confirmed in such a manner as put the truth of them beyond a doubt.
He sailed from New York in the year 1833, if I mistake not, before the mast, in the brig Lascar, for Canton. She was sold in the East Indies, and he shipped at Manilla, in a small schooner, bound on a trading voyage among the Ladrone and Pelew Islands. On one of the latter islands their schooner was wrecked on a reef, and they were attacked by the natives, and, after a desperate resistance, in which all their number, except the captain, George, and a boy, were killed or drowned, they surrendered, and were carried bound, in a canoe, to a neighboring island. In about a month after this, an opportunity occurred by which one of their number might get away. I have forgotten the circumstances, but only one could go, and they gave way to the captain, upon his promising to send them aid if he escaped. He was successful in his attempt; got on board an American vessel, went back to Manilla, and thence to America, without making any effort for their rescue, or, indeed, as George afterwards discovered, without even mentioning their case to any one in Manilla. The boy that was with George died, and he being alone, and there being no chance for his escape, the natives soon treated him with kindness, and even with attention. They painted him, tattooed his body (for he would never consent to be marked in the face or hands), gave him two or three wives, and, in fact, made a pet of him. In this way he lived for thirteen months, in a delicious climate, with plenty to eat, half naked, and nothing to do. He soon, however, became tired, and went round the island, on different pretences, to look out for a sail. One day he was out fishing in a small canoe with another man, when he saw a large sail to windward, about a league and a half off, passing abreast of the island and standing westward. With some difficulty, he persuaded the islander to go off with him to the ship, promising to return with a good supply of rum and tobacco. These articles, which the islanders had got a taste of from American traders, were too strong a temptation for the fellow, and he consented. They paddled off in the track in which the ship was bound, and lay-to until she came down to them. George stepped on board the ship, nearly naked, painted from head to foot, and in no way distinguishable from his companion until he began to speak. Upon this the people on board were not a little astonished, and, having learned his story, the captain had him washed and clothed, and, sending away the poor astonished native with a knife or two and some tobacco and calico, took George with him on the voyage. This was the ship Cabot, of New York, Captain Low. She was bound to Manilla, from across the Pacific; and George did seaman's duty in her until her arrival in Manilla, when he left her, and shipped in a brig bound to the Sandwich Islands. From Oahu, he came, in the British brig Clementine, to Monterey, as second officer, where, having some difficulty with the captain, he left her, and, coming down the coast, joined us at San Pedro. Nearly six months after this, among some papers we received by an arrival from Boston, we found a letter from Captain Low, of the Cabot, published immediately upon his arrival at New York, giving all the particulars just as we had them from George. The letter was published for the information of the friends of George, and Captain Low added that he left him at Manilla to go to Oahu, and he had heard nothing of him since.
George had an interesting journal of his adventures in the Pelew Islands, which he had written out at length, in a handsome hand, and in correct English.[1]
[1] In the spring of 1841, a sea-faring man called at my rooms, in Boston and said he wished to see me, as he knew something about a man I had spoken of in my book. He then told me that he was second mate of the bark Mary Frazer, which sailed from Batavia in company with the Cabot, bound to Manilla, that when off the Pelew Islands they fell in with a canoe with two natives on board, who told them that there was an American ship ahead, out of sight, and that they had put a white man on board of her. The bark gave the canoe a tow for a short distance. When the Mary Frazer arrived at Manilla, they found the Cabot there; and my informant said that George came on board several times, and told the same story that I had given of him in this book. He said the name of George's schooner was the Dash, and that she was wrecked, and attacked by the natives, as George had told me.
This man, whose name was Beauchamp, was second mate of the Mary Frazer when she took the missionaries to Oahu. He became religious during the passage, and joined the mission church at Oahu upon his arrival. When I saw him, he was master of a bark.
Sunday, November 1st. Sailed this day (Sunday again) for Santa Barbara, where we arrived on the 5th. Coming round Santa Buenaventura, and nearing the anchorage, we saw two vessels in port, a large full-rigged, and a small, hermaphrodite brig. The former, the crew said, must be the Pilgrim; but I had been too long in the Pilgrim to be mistaken in her, and I was right in differing from them, for, upon nearer approach, her long, low, shear, sharp bows, and raking masts, told quite another story. ``Man-of-war brig,'' said some of them; ``Baltimore clipper,'' said others; the Ayacucho, thought I; and soon the broad folds of the beautiful banner of St. George— white field with blood-red border and cross— were displayed from her peak. A few minutes put it beyond a doubt, and we were lying by the side of the Ayacucho, which had sailed from San Diego about nine months before, while we were lying there in the Pilgrim. She had since been to Valparaiso, Callao, and the Sandwich Islands, and had just come upon the coast. Her boat came on board, bringing Captain Wilson; and in half an hour the news was all over the ship that there was a war between the United States and France. Exaggerated accounts reached the forecastle. Battles had been fought, a large French fleet was in the Pacific, &c., &c.; and one of the boat's crew of the Ayacucho said that, when they left Callao, a large French frigate and the American frigate Brandywine, which were lying there, were going outside to have a battle, and that the English frigate Blonde was to be umpire, and see fair play. Here was important news for us. Alone, on an unprotected coast, without an American man-of-war within some thousands of miles, and the prospect of a voyage home through the whole length of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans! A French prison seemed a much more probable place of destination than the good port of Boston. However, we were too salt to believe every yarn that comes into the forecastle, and waited to hear the truth of the matter from higher authority. By means of the supercargo's clerk I got the amount of the matter, which was, that the governments had had a difficulty about the payment of a debt; that war had been threatened and prepared for, but not actually declared, although it was pretty generally anticipated. This was not quite so bad, yet was no small cause of anxiety. But we cared very little about the matter ourselves. ``Happy go lucky'' with Jack! We did not believe that a French prison would be much worse than ``hide droghing'' on the coast of California; and no one who has not been a long, dull voyage, shut up in one ship, can conceive of the effect of monotony upon one's thoughts and wishes. The prospect of a change is a green spot in the desert, and the probability of great events and exciting scenes creates a feeling of delight, and sets life in motion, so as to give a pleasure which any one not in the same state would be unable to explain. In fact, a more jovial night we had not passed in the forecastle for months. All seemed in unaccountably high spirits. An undefined anticipation of radical changes, of new scenes and great doings, seemed to have possessed every one, and the common drudgery of the vessel appeared contemptible. Here was a new vein opened,— a grand theme of conversation and a topic for all sorts of discussions. National feeling was wrought up. Jokes were cracked upon the only Frenchman in the ship, and comparisons made between ``old horse'' and ``soup meagre,'' &c., &c.
We remained in uncertainty as to this war for more than two months, when an arrival from the Sandwich Islands brought us the news of an amicable arrangement of the difficulties.
The other vessel which we found in port was the hermaphrodite brig Avon, from the Sandwich Islands. She was fitted up in handsome style; fired a gun, and ran her ensign up and down at sunrise and sunset; had a band of four or five pieces of music on board, and appeared rather like a pleasure yacht than a trader; yet, in connection with the Loriotte, Clementine, Bolivar, Convoy, and other small vessels, belonging to sundry Americans at Oahu, she carried on a considerable trade,— legal and illegal, in otter-skins, silks, teas, &c., as well as hides and tallow.
The second day after our arrival, a full-rigged brig came round the point from the northward, sailed leisurely through the bay, and stood off again for the southeast in the direction of the large island of Catalina. The next day the Avon got under way, and stood in the same direction, bound for San Pedro. This might do for marines and Californians, but we knew the ropes too well. The brig was never again seen on the coast, and the Avon went into San Pedro in about a week with a replenished cargo of Canton and American goods.
This was one of the means of escaping the heavy duties the Mexicans lay upon all imports. A vessel comes on the coast, enters a moderate cargo at Monterey, which is the only custom-house, and commences trading. In a month or more, having sold a large part of her cargo, she stretches over to Catalina, or other of the large, uninhabited islands which lie off the coast, in a trip from port to port, and supplies herself with choice goods from a vessel from Oahu, which has been lying off and on the islands, waiting for her. Two days after the sailing of the Avon, the Loriotte came in from the leeward, and without doubt had also a snatch at the brig's cargo.
Tuesday, November 10th. Going ashore, as usual, in the gig, just before sundown, to bring off the captain, we found, upon taking in the captain and pulling off again, that our ship, which lay the farthest out, had run up her ensign. This meant ``Sail ho!'' of course, but as we were within the point we could see nothing. ``Give way, boys! Give way! Lay out on your oars, and long stroke!'' said the captain; and stretching to the whole length of our arms, bending back again so that our backs touched the thwarts, we sent her through the water like a rocket. A few minutes of such pulling opened the islands, one after another, in range of the point, and gave us a view of the Canal, where was a ship, under top-gallant-sails, standing in, with a light breeze, for the anchorage. Putting the boat's head in the direction of the ship, the captain told us to lay out again; and we needed no spurring, for the prospect of boarding a new ship, perhaps from home, hearing the news, and having something to tell of when we got back, was excitement enough for us, and we gave way with a will. Captain Nye, of the Loriotte, who had been an old whaleman, was in the stern-sheets, and fell mightily into the spirit of it. ``Bend your backs, and break your oars!'' said he. ``Lay me on, Captain Bunker!'' ``There she flukes!'' and other exclamations current among whalemen. In the mean time it fell flat calm, and, being within a couple of miles of the ship, we expected to board her in a few minutes, when a breeze sprung up, dead ahead for the ship, and she braced up and stood off toward the islands, sharp on the larboard tack, making good way through the water. This, of course, brought us up, and we had only to ``ease larboard oars, pull round starboard!'' and go aboard the Alert, with something very like a flea in the ear. There was a light land-breeze all night, and the ship did not come to anchor until the next morning.
As soon as her anchor was down we went aboard, and found her to be the whale-ship Wilmington and Liverpool Packet, of New Bedford, last from the ``off-shore ground,'' with nineteen hundred barrels of oil. A ``spouter'' we knew her to be, as soon as we saw her, by her cranes and boats, and by her stump top-gallant-masts, and a certain slovenly look to the sails, rigging, spars, and hull; and when we got on board, we found everything to correspond,— spouter fashion. She had a false deck, which was rough and oily, and cut up in every direction by the chines of oil casks; her rigging was slack, and turning white, paint worn off the spars and blocks, clumsy seizings, straps without covers, and ``homeward-bound splices'' in every direction. Her crew, too, were not in much better order. Her captain was a slab-sided Quaker, in a suit of brown, with a broad-brimmed hat, bending his long legs as he moved about decks, with his head down, like a sheep, and the men looked more like fishermen and farmers than they did like sailors.
Though it was by no means cold weather (we having on only our red shirts and duck trousers), they all had on woollen trousers,— not blue and ship-shape, but of all colors,— brown, drab, gray, aye, and green,— with suspenders over their shoulders, and pockets to put their hands in. This, added to Guernsey frocks, striped comforters about the neck, thick cowhide boots, woollen caps, and a strong, oily smell, and a decidedly green look, will complete the description. Eight or ten were on the fore topsail yard, and as many more in the main, furling the topsails, while eight or ten were hanging about the forecastle, doing nothing. This was a strange sight for a vessel coming to anchor; so we went up to them, to see what was the matter. One of them, a stout, hearty-looking fellow, held out his leg and said he had the scurvy; another had cut his hand; and others had got nearly well, but said that there were plenty aloft to furl the sails, so they were sogering on the forecastle. There was only one ``splicer'' on board, a fine-looking old tar, who was in the bunt of the fore topsail. He was probably the only thorough marline-spike seaman in the ship, before the mast. The mates, of course, and the boat-steerers, and also two or three of the crew, had been to sea before, but only on whaling voyages; and the greater part of the crew were raw hands, just from the bush, and had not yet got the hay-seed out of their hair. The mizzen topsail hung in the buntlines until everything was furled forward. Thus a crew of thirty men were half an hour in doing what would have been done in the Alert, with eighteen hands to go aloft, in fifteen or twenty minutes.[1]
We found they had been at sea six or eight months, and had no news to tell us, so we left them, and promised to get liberty to come on board in the evening for some curiosities. Accordingly, as soon as we were knocked off in the evening and were through supper, we obtained leave, took a boat, and went aboard and spent an hour or two. They gave us pieces of whalebone, and the teeth and other parts of curious sea animals, and we exchanged books with them,— a practice very common among ships in foreign ports, by which you get rid of the books you have read and re-read, and a supply of new ones in their stead, and Jack is not very nice as to their comparative value.[2]
Thursday, November 12th. This day was quite cool in the early part, and there were black clouds about; but as it was often so in the morning, nothing was apprehended, and all the captains went ashore together to spend the day. Towards noon the clouds hung heavily over the mountains, coming half-way down the hills that encircle the town of Santa Barbara, and a heavy swell rolled in from the southeast. The mate immediately ordered the gig's crew away, and, at the same time, we saw boats pulling ashore from the other vessels. Here was a grand chance for a rowing-match, and every one did his best. We passed the boats of the Ayacucho and Loriotte, but could not hold our own with the long six-oared boat of the whale-ship. They reached the breakers before us; but here we had the advantage of them, for, not being used to the surf, they were obliged to wait to see us beach our boat, just as, in the same place, nearly a year before, we, in the Pilgrim, were glad to be taught by a boat's crew of Kanakas.
We had hardly got the boats beached, and their heads pointed out to sea, before our old friend, Bill Jackson, the handsome English sailor, who steered the Loriotte's boat, called out that his brig was adrift; and, sure enough, she was dragging her anchors, and drifting down into the bight of the bay. Without waiting for the captain (for there was no one on board the brig but the mate and steward), he sprung into the boat, called the Kanakas together, and tried to put off. But the Kanakas, though capital water-dogs, were frightened by their vessel's being adrift, and by the emergency of the case, and seemed to lose their faculties. Twice their boat filled, and came broadside upon the beach. Jackson swore at them for a parcel of savages, and promised to flog every one of them. This made the matter no better; when we came forward, told the Kanakas to take their seats in the boat, and, going two on each side, walked out with her till it was up to our shoulders, and gave them a shove, when, giving way with their oars, they got her safely into the long, regular swell. In the mean time, boats had put off to the Loriotte from our ship and the whaler, and, coming all on board the brig together, they let go the other anchor, paid out chain, braced the yards to the wind, and brought the vessel up.
In a few minutes, the captains came hurrying down, on the run; and there was no time to be lost, for the gale promised to be a severe one, and the surf was breaking upon the beach, three deep, higher and higher every instant. The Ayacucho's boat, pulled by four Kanakas, put off first, and as they had no rudder or steering-oar, would probably never have got off, had we not waded out with them as far as the surf would permit. The next that made the attempt was the whale-boat, for we, being the most experienced ``beach-combers,'' needed no help, and stayed till the last. Whalemen make the best boats' crews in the world for a long pull, but this landing was new to them, and, notwithstanding the examples they had had, they slewed round and were hove up— boat, oars, and men— all together, high and dry upon the sand. The second time they filled, and had to turn their boat over, and set her off again. We could be of no help to them, for they were so many as to be in one another's way, without the addition of our numbers. The third time they got off, though not without shipping a sea which drenched them all, and half filled their boat, keeping them baling until they reached their ship. We now got ready to go off, putting the boat's head out; English Ben and I, who were the largest, standing on each side of the bows to keep her head out to the sea, two more shipping and manning the two after oars, and the captain taking the steering oar. Two or three Mexicans, who stood upon the beach looking at us, wrapped their cloaks about them, shook their heads, and muttered ``Caramba!'' They had no taste for such doings; in fact, the hydrophobia is a national malady, and shows itself in their persons as well as their actions.
Watching for a ``smooth chance,'' we determined to show the other boats the way it should be done, and, as soon as ours floated, ran out with her, keeping her head out, with all our strength, and the help of the captain's oar, and the two after oarsmen giving way regularly and strongly, until our feet were off the ground, we tumbled into the bows, keeping perfectly still, from fear of hindering the others. For some time it was doubtful how it would go. The boat stood nearly up and down in the water, and the sea, rolling from under her, let her fall upon the water with a force which seemed almost to stave her bottom in. By quietly sliding two oars forward, along the thwarts, without impeding the rowers, we shipped two bow oars, and thus, by the help of four oars and the captain's strong arm, we got safely off, though we shipped several seas, which left us half full of water. We pulled alongside of the Loriotte, put her skipper on board, and found her making preparations for slipping, and then pulled aboard our own ship. Here Mr. Brown, always ``on hand,'' had got everything ready, so that we had only to hook on the gig and hoist it up, when the order was given to loose the sails. While we were on the yards, we saw the Loriotte under way, and, before our yards were mast-headed, the Ayacucho had spread her wings, and, with yards braced sharp up, was standing athwart our hawse. There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged, clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind. In a minute more our slip-rope was gone, the head-yards filled away, and we were off. Next came the whaler; and in half an hour from the time when four vessels were lying quietly at anchor, without a rag out, or a sign of motion, the bay was deserted, and four white clouds were moving over the water to seaward. Being sure of clearing the point, we stood off with our yards a little braced in, while the Ayacucho went off with a taut bowline, which brought her to windward of us. During all this day, and the greater part of the night, we had the usual southeaster entertainment, a gale of wind, with occasional rain, and finally topped off with a drenching rain of three or four hours. At daybreak the clouds thinned off and rolled away, and the sun came up clear. The wind, instead of coming out from the northward, as is usual, blew steadily and freshly from the anchoring-ground. This was bad for us, for, being ``flying light,'' with little more than ballast trim, we were in no condition for showing off on a taut bowline, and had depended upon a fair wind, with which, by the help of our light sails and studding-sails, we meant to have been the first at the anchoring-ground; but the Ayacucho was a good league to windward of us, and was standing in in fine style. The whaler, however, was as far to leeward of us, and the Loriotte was nearly out of sight, among the islands, up the Canal. By hauling every brace and bowline, and clapping watch-tackles upon all the sheets and halyards, we managed to hold our own, and drop the leeward vessels a little in every tack. When we reached the anchoring-ground, the Ayacucho had got her anchor, furled her sails, squared her yards, and was lying as quietly as if nothing had happened.
We had our usual good luck in getting our anchor without letting go another, and were all snug, with our boats at the boom-ends, in half an hour. In about two hours more the whaler came in, and made a clumsy piece of work in getting her anchor, being obliged to let go her best bower, and, finally, to get out a kedge and a hawser. They were heave-ho-ing, stopping and unstopping, pawling, catting, and fishing for three hours; and the sails hung from the yards all the afternoon, and were not furled until sundown. The Loriotte came in just after dark, and let go her anchor, making no attempt to pick up the other until the next day.
This affair led to a dispute as to the sailing of our ship and the Ayacucho. Bets were made between the captains, and the crews took it up in their own way; but as she was bound to leeward and we to windward, and merchant captains cannot deviate, a trial never took place; and perhaps it was well for us that it did not, for the Ayacucho had been eight years in the Pacific, in every part of it,— Valparaiso, Sandwich Islands, Canton, California, and all,— and was called the fastest merchant-man that traded in the Pacific, unless it was the brig John Gilpin, and perhaps the ship Ann McKim, of Baltimore.
Saturday, November 14th. This day we got under way, with the agent and several Mexicans of note, as passengers, bound up to Monterey. We went ashore in the gig to bring them off with their baggage, and found them waiting on the beach, and a little afraid about going off, as the surf was running very high. This was nuts to us, for we liked to have a Mexican wet with salt water; and then the agent was very much disliked by the crew, one and all; and we hoped, as there was no officer in the boat, to have a chance to duck them, for we knew that they were such ``marines'' that they would not know whether it was our fault or not. Accordingly, we kept the boat so far from shore as to oblige them to wet their feet in getting into her; and then waited for a good high comber, and, letting the head slue a little round, sent the whole force of the sea into the stern-sheets, drenching them from head to feet. The Mexicans sprang out of the boat, swore, and shook themselves, and protested against trying it again; and it was with the greatest difficulty that the agent could prevail upon them to make another attempt. The next time we took care, and went off easily enough, and pulled aboard. The crew came to the side to hoist in their baggage, and heartily enjoyed the half-drowned looks of the company.
Everything being now ready, and the passengers aboard, we ran up the ensign and broad pennant (for there was no man-of-war, and we were the largest vessel on the coast), and the other vessels ran up their ensigns. Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway. We were determined to show the ``spouter'' how things could be done in a smart ship, with a good crew, though not more than half his numbers. The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails set, and, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting upon a black speck. Before we doubled the point, we were going at a dashing rate, and leaving the shipping far astern. We had a fine breeze to take us through the Canal, as they call this bay of forty miles long by ten wide. The breeze died away at night, and we were becalmed all day on Sunday, about half-way between Santa Barbara and Point Conception. Sunday night we had a light, fair wind, which set us up again; and having a fine sea-breeze on the first part of Monday we had the prospect of passing, without any trouble, Point Conception,— the Cape Horn of California, where, the sailors say, it begins to blow the first of January, and blows until the last of December. Toward the latter part of the afternoon, however, the regular northwest wind, as usual, set in, which brought in our studding-sails, and gave us the chance of beating round the Point, which we were now just abreast of, and which stretched off into the Pacific, high, rocky, and barren, forming the central point of the coast for hundreds of miles north and south. A cap-full of wind will be a bag-full here, and before night our royals were furled, and the ship was laboring hard under her top-gallant-sails. At eight bells our watch went below, leaving her with as much sail as she could stagger under, the water flying over the forecastle at every plunge. It was evidently blowing harder, but then there was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had gone down bright.
We had been below but a short time, before we had the usual premonitions of a coming gale,— seas washing over the whole forward part of the vessel, and her bows beating against them with a force and sound like the driving of piles. The watch, too, seemed very busy trampling about decks, and singing out at the ropes. A sailor can tell, by the sound, what sail is coming in; and, in a short time, we heard the top-gallant-sails come in, one after another, and then the flying jib. This seemed to ease her a good deal, and we were fast going off to the land of Nod, when— bang, bang, bang— on the scuttle, and ``All hands, reef topsails, ahoy!'' started us out of our berths; and, it not being very cold weather, we had nothing extra to put on, and were soon on deck. I shall never forget the fineness of the sight. It was a clear, and rather a chilly night; the stars were twinkling with an intense brightness, and as far as the eye could reach there was not a cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a defined line. A painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck upon it. Yet it was blowing great guns from the northwest. When you can see a cloud to windward, you feel that there is a place for the wind to come from; but here it seemed to come from nowhere. No person could have told from the heavens, by their eyesight alone, that it was not a still summer's night. One reef after another we took in the topsails, and before we could get them hoisted up we heard a sound like a short, quick rattling of thunder, and the jib was blown to atoms out of the bolt-rope. We got the topsails set, and the fragments of the jib stowed away, and the fore topmast staysail set in its place, when the great mainsail gaped open, and the sail ripped from head to foot. ``Lay up on that main yard and furl the sail, before it blows to tatters!'' shouted the captain; and in a moment we were up, gathering the remains of it upon the yard. We got it wrapped round the yard, and passed gaskets over it as snugly as possible, and were just on deck again, when, with another loud rent, which was heard throughout the ship, the fore topsail, which had been double-reefed, split in two athwartships, just below the reef-band, from earing to earing. Here again it was— down yard, haul out reef-tackles, and lay out upon the yard for reefing. By hauling the reef-tackles chock-a-block we took the strain from the other earings, and passing the close-reef earing, and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting the sail, close reefed.