THE GAM Whaling Stories Capt CHAS. H. ROBBINS Vt . I . THE GAM BEING A GROUP OF WHALING STORIES BY CAPT. CHARLES HENRY ROBBINS, REVISED EDITION. tout) Jlluatrattons. SALEM, MASS.: ^EWCOMB & GAUSS 1913 Copyright, 1899, NEWCOMB & GAUSS, Printers Salem, Mass. THE WHALEMAN STATUE. Gift of Hon. William W. Crapo to the city of New Bedford. INTRODUCTION. I HAVE for many years wondered that the romantic and exciting experiences of the whale fishery have not been preserved more often in records in our literature. Occa sionally we have had sketches of one or another detail in this marvellous adventure. But it would seem as if the brave men who engage in such adventure handle harpoons more willingly than they handle pens. And so you shall hear many a story of such adventure told by men who speak of what they have seen, while you do not read one such story. I was very glad, therefore, to hear that Capt. Charles H. Robbins had put to paper some accounts of his own earlier experiences, and that he has been persuaded to publish them ; and to say to any friend of mine that he may place confident reliance on the narrative of Capt. Bobbins, as being that of one who tells of what he saw, of which indeed he was much himself. EDWAED E. HALE. EOXBUKY, May 27, 1899. M62610 PREFACE. No, dear reader, the writer of this book did not rush into print because of the success of any book written upon a similar subject. For years Capt. Bobbins has been putting his material into shape ; and, imperfect as it may be, it has been re-written a number of times. The manu script was ready for publication five years ago, but was held back for further revision. There has been neither desire nor purpose to trade upon anybody else s popularity. " The Gam " is an honest effort to afford entertainment and instruction, and, judged by proper standards, it justifies the claims made for it. CONTENTS. MAKING A MASTER j THE FATTED CALF .... 7 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN 32 MARQUESAS ISLANDS .... 51 BEACH COMBERS ... 55 BRINGING MR. TOWNS END BACK AGAIN ... 60 A GLIMPSE OF SAMOA .... 76 WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE . 81 EIGHT WHALES 37 HISTORIC MUTINEERS ... 89 RUDDER SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE . 102 WHALELAND AND ITS CUSTOMS . . . .122 THE FROZEN NORTH ..... 131 THE CAST-AWAY ... 136 THE WHALEMAN WHO WENT ON THE STAGE . .159 "WHALES HAS FEELIN S" 168 THE GAM 182 AUGUSTINE BAY . . . 195 THE ALBATROSS ... . 205 THE CAPTAIN 228 A TYPICAL WHALEMAN . . 239 X ILLUSTRATIONS CONTINUED. JUNK COMING IN AT WAIST . . . .113 HOISTING ON LOWER JAW ... .121 MINCING THE "BLUBBER" ; . 129 WHALESHIP "YOUNG PHOENIX" BESET IN THE ICE 137 SHIPS RECEIVING CAPTAINS AND CREWS OF ABAN DONED VESSELS . , > .153 "TRYING OUT" . . . . . .145 A CAPTAIN IN His ARCTIC OUTFIT . . . 161 THE FIGHTING WHALE , * . 169 CLEANING UP AND REPAIRING . . .177 THE GAM . . *. - .185 NEW BEDFORD WHARF OF TODAY . . . 195 ST. ELMO S FIRE 205 LANDING PLACE AT ST. HELENA . . .215 "LADDER HILL" AT ST. HELENA . . . .223 THE "BRIARS" 235 FOREWORD. Persistent inquiry for the volume of her father s famous old whaling stories, "The Gam", now long out of print, has led Miss Eobbins to believe that a new edition would be welcome in New Bedford and, indeed, wherever there is interest in the most picturesque industry of the Atlantic coast. It is particularly appropriate that Miss Eobbins should get out the fresh edition, not only because Captain Charles H. Eobbins was her father, but because she belongs in such a singular sense to the old whaling days, having been born on board the Bark Thomas Pope, on one of her long voyages. Geographically, Miss Eobbins would be hard put to it to name her birthplace. But ask her in seaman s latitude and longitude and she can tell to a degree ! The rousing old stories of whale-chasing raise many a question in the minds of the reader which the former volume did not attempt to answer. It has seemed worth while to round out the story prepared from Captain Bob bins yarns and from his old log with some history of the rise and fall of the fascinating industry of whaling. To this new matter has been added a set of superb pictures, reproductions from photographs taken from the life and death of the sperm whale, which will make this edi tion a distinct contribution to the scanty literature of whaling. In the former edition all explanation of the odd title, THE GAM, was deferred to a chapter way over toward the back of the book. And as the words must have a Xll FOREWORD. puzzling sound in a landsman s ear, it will be well to elucidate right here. "Gamming", is deep-sea gossiping. Two whaleships, meeting on a long cruise, perhaps thousands of miles from home, will heave to after the day s whale hunt is over, and the captain s watch of one ship will go a-visiting in the forecastle of the other. And then marvellous would be the whale-stories passed round over the cards and to bacco ! Captain Bobbins grist of just such characteristic whaleman s yarns took the picturesque name, The Gam. ******* The redskins were the first whalemen of North America. White explorers as far back as the days of the Cabots found the Indians expert and intrepid hunters of blackfish and right whale, whose feeding grounds were then close in shore. For more than a century before the country was successfully colonized, train-oil and whalebone were pur chased from the Indians by those British sailors who kept voyaging to the tempting fishing grounds of the New World. The whale played no inconspicuous part in the coming of the Pilgrims, who, when they sought a place in which they might exercise freedom of worship, had a canny eye on the fisheries as a means of livelihood. A Mayflower chronicle records that large whales "of the best kind for oil and bone" came and played round the ship as she lay at anchor inside Cape Cod a fact which helped mightily to decide them to seek no further for a home. Indian-fashion, the Pilgrims and first settlers set about their early ventures in whaling. Drift whales, dead ones floated inshore, made a considerable part of the redmen s catch. But they did not hesitate to launch their light canoes through the surf, swarm in dozens about a monster FOREWORD. X1U whale, keeping agilely clear of his deadly flukes, and with their crude, stone-pointed spears and arrows gradually worry him to death. Then they dragged him ashore, called their "chief lords" together, sang a song of triumph, and, dividing the spoil, gave every member of the tribe a share. Among the Indians no part of the captured whale save the actual bones, was useless. Blubber and lean meat were served up as delicacies, and the oil took* the place of the white man s butter. Stomach and intestines, inflated and carefully dried, did duty as excellent oil-bottles, while the mighty sinews of the flukes made firm lines and ropes for the catching of more whales. Since the savages would accept in pay for their labor, many to them valueless parts of a whale s carcass, the white invaders were happy to employ their savage skill in whal ing, providing them with the deadly European "harping- iron" and lance to replace their light spears. Up to 1650 the settlers probably went little further than to keep a sharp lookout for drift-whales, squabbling vigor ously when they came ashore, enacting statutes to regulate the squabbles, and occasionally going off shore in pursuit of a live whale which, when dispatched, they towed to the beach to be cut up and tried out for oil. In all probability Long Island deserves the honor of organizing whaling on a business basis. Shore lookouts were built from which the "blow" of whales might be seen if they came near shore, and a regular system of watches was established. It is recorded that in this way they "saved" many whales. Saved! It all depends on the point of view. I venture to say it looked different to the whale ! Cape Cod was not much behind. By 1688 Secretary Eandolph was writing home from Massachusetts, "New Plimouth Colony have great profit by whale-killing." By FOREWORD. that time we hear of "squadrons" of small boats setting out for expeditions along the coast, the whole company putting into shore at night to camp on the beach. Such expeditions often remained out for a week or two at a stretch. Verily those were the days of small things. When whaling came to full bloom, the ships sailed on voyages lasting from one to three years, and sometimes longer. Nantucket was a bit slow in getting into the game. Her settlers were not by training, seafaring men. She did not really turn her attention to the blubber-mines afloat all about her until an indiscreet right whale fairly jumped down her throat. A big fellow nosed his way into the har bor and hung about for three livelong days, flaunting him self before the eyes of the landlubbers. It was too much for them. "They invented and caused to be made a har poon" while the whale waited, and all inexperienced as they were, attacked and killed the monster. That woke them up. They set seriously about learning the art of whale-chasing. Eealizing their lack of skill, they sent over to Cape Cod for a tutor, one Ichabod Pad dock, to teach the best way to kill whales and try out the oil. That was 1690. From that time Nantucket whaling advanced by leaps and bounds. At first the islanders got all the prey they wanted without going out of sight of land. Watch was set on a tall mast, and the lookout spying a welcome spout, gave the alarm. Prizes were towed ashore, where try-works had been built, the whale was beached, cut up, and the blubber tried out, the oil being cooled and casked. Long enough after shore fishing had ceased to be profit able, when the whaling fleet consisted of goodly schooners and barks, the fires under the beach try-works were kept blazing. Whales captured at sea were cut up, and FOREWORD. XV the blubber in square pieces was stowed in casks to be tried out at home when the voyage was done. The method was wasteful, and the process of trying out putrid blubber a nauseous one. Yet it was almost the middle of the eight eenth century before any better way was discovered. But I am getting ahead of my story. Two factors con spired to alter the complexion of the whaling outlook very early in the eighteenth century, both for Nantucket, and for Long Island and Martha s Vineyard, which about this time had developed quite a trade in whale-oil. As the whale-hunters grew more numerous and more expert, the whales were driven from their feeding grounds along the coast and it became necessary to go farther and farther from land to make captures. Then, in 1712, an accident introduced the sperm whale to his hitherto unappreciative foes on shore. Captain Christopher Hussey of Nantucket, while cruising in an open boat, was caught by an offshore gale and driven out to sea. The men became exhausted and very likely would have died of exposure had they not chanced to run in among a whole school of sperm whales. One sperm whale had been seen on Nantucket, a drift speci men; and the most fabulous notions were entertained as to the value of the spermaceti. The sight of the huge beasts roused the exhausted whalers to new life. They killed a whale, and the "slick" of the oil oozing from the wounded blubber so smoothed the waves that they weathered the gale, and next day towed their great prize in triumph to land. After that everybody wanted sperm whale, and as the sperm whale never feeds close to shore, it was necessary to fit out vessels large enough to go whaling out in the "deep". Even then, they made short cruises, not more than six weeks, returning to shore after each capture to FOREWORD. land the blubber and sail out again to the sperm grounds. While this was by no means the end of shore-fishing, which continued profitable for many years, it was the opening up of the romance of whale-hunting. Once they had found their way to the deep sea the whalers ventured with every voyage farther and farther from shore. Ves sels of larger capacity were built to accommodate the blubber from a number of whales. According to Spears, the whalemen discovered that warm river in the cold seas the Gulf Stream. It would cer tainly seem that one of them Captain Folger was the first to chart it at the request of Benjamin Franklin. And they discovered that along the margins of the stream great quantities of whale food, or brit, was to be found floating, and that consequently, whales were plenty. This led them to follow the Gulf Stream to Cape Hatteras, to Cuba, to the Bahamas. In 1743 the whalers began to carry their own try-pots, protecting the deck from risk of fire by placing a reservoir full of water beneath the furnaces. It was now possible to try out the sweet blubber as it was cut in from the whale, and the oil, properly boiled and cooled, could be kept in perfect condition for years. This removed the last obstacle to long voyages. Moreover, British governors were displaying an incon venient tendency to try to squeeze personal profit out of the whaling business. The masters found it expedient to Retake themselves to the open seas over which the cupidity of royal governors could have no control. Hence, the Nantucket whaler was found at the Azores, at Madeira, on the coast of Africa, in Patagonia, in Brazilian ports, and even as far south as the Falkland Islands. To the north they penetrated to the mouth of Baffin s Bay, to FOREWORD. Greenland, to say nothing of Labrador and Newfoundland. In 1774 the whale fishery was at the flood. Something like 360 vessels were annually fitted out for whaling cruises, and very nearly five thousand men were shipped annually as seamen on board the fleet, the industry giving occupation indirectly to an army of coopers, blacksmiths, cordwainers, outfitters, stevedores, etc., beside. Between 1771 and 1775 the annual production of sperm oil was 45,000 barrels, whale-oil 8,500 barrels, and of whalebone 75,000 pounds. Sperm candles to the value of $118,000 were exported in 1770. But trouble was ahead. In the long struggle with France for possession of Canada, the colonists had done most of the effective fighting on this side of the water and not a few hardy New England fishermen and whalers as well as farmers had given up their lives to the cause. When, therefore, the fishing grounds off Newfoundland and Lab rador were wrested from France, New England whalemen counted upon enjoying the fruits of the colonial struggle. They reckoned without Great Britain. British tax-payers were clamoring to have the expense of the standing army, which was necessary to hold the newly-gained territory, borne entirely by the colonies; hence the policy of direct taxation which brought on the Eevolution. Moreover, Great Britain was covetous of both Holland and America because of their thriving whale-fisheries. By means of bounties, she had tried to encourage her own whaling, but English ships did not bring in enough oil to supply the home demand. Therefore, by way of crippling her ad versaries, she clapped an import duty on oil and bone com ing from the colonies. Moreover, when New England whalers attempted to cruise in the Newfoundland and Labrador grounds, they XV111 FOREWORD. found themselves in conflict with royal governors whose restrictions and hampering regulations made the fishery practically impossible to any but British ships. By 1775 Parliament was taking the ground that the northern fish eries, won almost entirely by colonial prowess, were the property of England. A bill passed in that year restricted the trade of New England to British ports, and prohibited the colonies from carrying on any fishery on the Banks or any other part of the North American coast. In vain did even Englishmen protest that this was rigor more harsh than that meted out to avowed enemies. In vain was it recalled that among civilized nations at war it was the custom to spare the fishing-craft; "always con sidering that we wage war with nations, not with private individuals." Great Britain could not afford to consider the rules of civilized warfare. She had a double motive in her dealings with the whale fishery. One was to bring the colonies into submission. The other to turn the rich profits of the American whaling industry into British pockets. Hence her treatment of Nantucket, the reading of which is cal culated to make an American burn to fight the Revolution all over again. When the act forbidding all fishing along the American coasts was passed, hundreds of whaling vessels, out on long cruises, could not be recalled. British cruisers were sent out to capture such luckless ships and their crews were offered the choice of service in the British navy or shipment on British whalers! Great numbers of ISTan- tucket whalemen enlisted in the American navy, and many others became privateers, only to fall a prey to British cruisers and merchantmen, for most of them car ried not more than a single cannon. FOKEWOBD. XIX Such whaling vessels as were not captured were mostly burned at the wharf. The British destroyed all shore works storehouses and try-furnaces. Out of her fleet of 150 vessels, Nantucket lost 134 captured and 15 wrecked. Meanwhile, England with her stolen Nantucket whalemen, was able to carry on a very valuable whale fishery on the coast of Brazil. Of a fleet of seventeen ves sels reported in this fishery "all the officers and almost all the men were Americans from Nantucket and Cape Cod, except two or three from Rhode Island and perhaps one from Long Island"! Over 1200 Nantucket men either lost their lives or were taken prisoners before the Revolution came to an end. In the face of all this, one wants to take off one s hat to the plucky little ship "Bedford" from Nantucket, which was the first vessel to display the thirteen rebellious stripes of America in a British port after peace had been declared. Pluck could not save the Nantucket whaling. The British put a duty of eighteen pounds a ton on "rebel" oil, which effectually closed the English market. Moreover, during the war, when fishing was impossible, the Ameri cans had been forced to find substitutes for whale-oil lamps, among other things, tallow candles. Hence the home mar ket was slack. Moreover, poor fellows, their very success in catching whales (the monsters had grown less timid during the war when not pursued, and had multiplied), served to glut the market and depress prices. In despair a goodly number of Nantucket men emigrated to France, to Nova Scotia, and even to England The island still regards them as a parcel of renegades, to take the best whaling blood of America to foreign ports. Between the Revolution and the War of 1812 came a period of great depression in the whaling industry. With XX FOREWORD. the outbreak of hostilities, a number of Xew England whalers took flight round Cape Horn and went to fishing in Pacific waters. Xow did the emigrant whalemen show themselves renegades indeed. For, knowing that their old friends and comrades of Xantucket were whaling in the Pacific, they sailed round the Cape to plunder at their will It is a satisfaction to recall that the United States frigate "Essex" not only came to the release of the Ameri can whalers, but that she made prizes of all but one British ship. The War of 1812 proved to the world that the American navy could make it hot for anybody who meddled with American merchantmen. Then came the golden era for the whalemen. Larger vessels were found to be more profitable, and longer voyages became the rule. The Pa cific swarmed with whalemen, who worked down the west ern coast of South America, visited cannibal islands, crossed to the feeding grounds off the coast of Japan, cruised round Xew Zealand, Tasmania, and New Guinea. They were the geographers of Oceanica. One Xantucket ship, the Columbus, worked her way along the north coast of Africa, into the Red Sea, across the Indian Ocean and so among the islands back to his mates in the Pacific, a route which thereafter became quite popular. In 1835 the first bowhead whale was taken off the coast of Alaska. Bowheads yield amazing quantities of oil, and from this time on much attention was given to northern waters where these ugly monsters are to be found. In 1847 the little bark Superior, from Sag Harbor, nosed her way through Bering s Strait and turned up again 19 months later at Sag Harbor with 80 barrels of sperm, 2400 of whale oil, and 20,000 pounds of whaleboDe a cargo ?: F.ITT ; 7.1- worth a cool $34,000. That opened up he way to the Arctic, which became a Jaiurile *uti^ giuuad. The year 1857 was probably high wafer mark so far as tie nimiber of resseb deariiig Xew Eiigland pom. Xew Bedford had long ago outstripped her early rival, Xan- tucket In 185? Xew Bedford had 329 whalers, or if the minor ports in the bay be added, 426. Xantncket owned but 41, and most of these sailed from other ports. Hie cause of !N antuckefs fl^** as a whaling port was due to a bar which obstructed her harbor, and which, when large whaling ships became the role, proved a serious obstacle. Congress short-sightedly refused aid, and after heroic efforts to float the big ships over the bar by means of a "camel"" or ^**nfiiMP *^ M< ^ operated "V* Hi own steam, the islanders largely gave up the fight, and by 1874 Han- tucket had disappeared from the annals of whaling altogether. The Civil War has been given move than its due of blame for the decline of the whaling; industry. Rebel privateers did some destruction, it is true, and whaling masters, not caring to fit out for cruises under snen risks, sold their ships or transferred them to the mi ulnnl service. Forty vessels were bought by the United States Government lor the fsnmm stone fleet, sunk across the month of the harbors of Charleston and Savannah to put a stop to the blockade running of these southern waters. Had not the fishery been dying from ^"fl*^ causes, however, it would have motuod easily from the blows of the Civil War. as it had already recovered from much severer disasters in the Revolution and the War of 1819. The fact is, it did revive the moment peace was declared; new ships were built and everything started merrily XXli FOREWORD. It is not easy to daunt a whaleman. The gambling ele ment in the business is too strong. He risks his life, he risks being eaten by cannibals, or being frozen into Arctic- ice, he risks financial disaster, but all the time he "runs a chance" of making a prodigious amount of money in a few months. There lies the fascination. Consider the terrible disaster to the Arctic fleet in the autumn of 1871. Trusting to their experience of the locking-in of the ice for the winter, and disregarding the friendly warnings of the Esquimo, who urged them to run for their lives, the whole fleet, some thirty-four vessels, were imprisoned in the ice-sheet. Three were crushed be fore the whalemen were convinced that they must be aban doned with their costly cargoes, and the entire company, twelve hundred seamen, with some women and children, must make their way across the bitter, icy seas to the seven vessels lying on the southern edge of the icefields. The loss in New Bedford alone was over a million dollars. Yet, the next year found twenty-seven whalers risking the precarious northern seas. No, it was neither battle, murder, nor sudden death which took the heart out of the whaling. The causes of its decline were economic. Whalemen had never been financiers. No organization among them had controlled the supply, and glutted markets were forever bringing down prices. Conservation had not begun to be talked of in those days. Whalemen pursued their prey relentlessly farther and farther from shore and even up under the ice of the North Pacific. Then, just when scarcity of whales made longer and longer voyages necessary some times voyages lasting four, five and six years and the price of whale oil correspondingly increased, came the discovery of coal oil. Once the people got over their fear FOREWORD. Xxiil of its explosive character the kerosene lamp made short work of the old whale oil affairs. Two more agencies worked against the trade. The gold fever which drew off the daring, adventurous men who had been the life of whale hunting; and the rise in the cost of living which made the fitting out of whalers so expensive as to heavily cut in on the profit. So long as the crews were made up of Americans, hardy, fearless, and eager for the game, brutality on whaleships had no excuse for being. Crews, even down to the cabin-boy, had the same interest as the captain in making a capture, since they all shared in the spoils. But since the crews have been made up of Portugese from the Azores, or Kanakas, or coal- black Bravas from the Cape Verd Islands, with a sprinkling of Malays and Chinese, the old spirit, the old loyal pulling together has disappeared. It is one thing to drive a panic- stricken Pacific island mongrel into a tussle with a fight ing whale ; it is quite another to control the reckless daring of a pure-blooded Yankee crew. Suffering from all these complaints, the whale fishery has fallen off with some rapidity. In 1883 the whole fleet numbered 125, and of these nineteen were in Pacific waters. Eight years later only forty vessels remained, eighteen in the Pacific. Something like that number are still in service, for sperm oil and whalebone are still ne cessities to modern life. The oil is used for the very finest machine lubricants and in dressing leather. The crude whale oil is in demand in ropewalks, and for mixture with black lead for chain lubricants. Whalebone has never found its equal for the dress and corsetmaker s use, or for the manufacture of whips. Therefore, a few of the picturesque old whale craft will continue to flatter Atlan tic ports. Most of them have been sold into the merchant XXVI FOREWORD. are in a small boat and quite another when you re aboard a big vessel. Captain Jenkins regarded that whale as a huge joke. He shouted to the mate that there was a whale trying to get alongside. "Help him along!" roared he. The mate was quick, but the whale was quicker. When the mate stood up to let him have it, the hugh creature was so near, coming so fast, he didn t have room to swing his iron. He failed to make fast and the whale continued to head for the ship; only, as if irritated, he redoubled his already terrific speed. Still, the captain felt only vexation at losing the prize. A whale attacked can usually be counted on to sound. But this one did not go down, neither did he swerve from his course. When he got within thirty feet of the ship he seemed to see her and tried to dive under her keel, but he was too close. His great, square head struck the bark forward of the mizzen rigging, and five or six feet below the water- line. The Kathleen quivered under the blow as if she had crashed upon a reef. Then she rose at the stern as the whale tried to come up under her, dropping back with a mighty splash. Still the captain was not alarmed. In his narrative, he says, "I asked the cooper if he thought the whale had hurt the ship and he said he didn t think so, for he had not heard anything crack." The whale, meanwhile, had come up to the surface and "laid there and rolled, didn t seem to know what to do." Perhaps his head ached or he was seeing stars. The mate seeing him thus subdued was for getting an iron into him. But Captain Jenkins ordered him alongside. With night coming on and the three other boats out of sight, he didn t think it best to "fool" with that whale any more. So the FOREWORD. mate reluctantly hoisted his boat and joined the captain at the masthead, where his young eyes easily "raised" the boats, all fast to whales. Just then a shout from below warned Captain Jenkins that the whale "hadn t done a thing" to the bark. The forecastle was filling with water. "Quite a hole in her", he says there was. He instantly set signals for all boats to come on board. But a whaleman fast to a whale doesn t lightly let go. The boats paid no attention. The Kathleen s case was beyond help. There was noth ing to do but stow water and bread into the boat, collect Mrs. Jenkins and the parrot she declined to abandon, and take to the sea. Five minutes after the boat was lowered, the Kathleen rolled over to windward. They had no more than time to get clear. Twenty-one souls, with supplies, sunk the small boat so deep in the water that the waves came over the centre board and all hands were kept busy bailing. It was a beautiful moonlight night and the sea was considerately smooth. Yet, as I said, they were just about a thousand miles from anywhere in an open boat, with a modest supply of bread and water. The situation was not cheering. First of all they set their sails and steered in the direc tion where they supposed the other boats to lie. It seemed a thoughtful attention to tell them they needn t waste any time on those whales or on looking for the poor old barky, and to give them some bread and water. By good luck they raised the boats about nine that night. In his moderate whaleman s way, Captain Jenkins says, "They were very much surprised to hear that the Kathleen was gone!" The four boats immediately put about and steered for the island of Barbados, 1060 miles away. Three of them were picked up by a steamer after xxviii FOREWORD. a lapse of twelve hours, but the fourth, getting separated from the rest, made the run to the Barbados in nine days, the mate and nine seamen subsisting that time on 5 gal lons of water and a little ship s bread. The Kathleen was a total loss. As for the whale, Cap tain Jenkins can only hope that the barky s keel killed as many of him as he did of her. MAKING A MASTER.; ONE keen winter morning in 1837, there stood before Captain Lewis Tobey, of the ship Swift, a boy asking permission to go with him on his next voyage. The captain looking sharply at his visitor, saw a lad of hardly fifteen, slight, erect, with dark hair and deep blue eyes, and something about his square chin and firm mouth which he seemed to think argued well for the future. " Take your hands out of your pockets, and tell me your name," demanded the master. " My name is Charles H. Bobbins," replied the boy, his eyes on the hands which were now clasped in front of him. That boy was myself. " Who is your father ? " was the next question. " My father was Lemuel Bobbins, sir," I replied softly. " He died six years ago." The captain remembered that he had seen the boy before. Many evenings when he sat telling sea tales to the friends who were his entertainers on shore, this lad, visiting his chum, the young son of the family, had been among his listeners. The result of that morning interview was a decision that I should go as cabin-boy on the ship Swift, which was very soon to sail. Z MAKING A MASTER. As I walked away, after my conversation with the captain, ?ny unexpressed feeling was that for me real life was about to begin ; the life of achievement, of accomplishment, of profit. I had made what I considered a good bargain with the ship-master. I was to receive fifty dollars before sailing, and fifty dollars on my return home. What boy does not regard a hundred dollars as a fortune ? There was pressing need that real life should begin, that good bargains should be made. Nine living children had my mother, the widow Bobbins, of whom I was the seventh. My birth place had been Mattapoisett, where I had lived six of my fifteen years. The little New Bedford house on hilly Foster Street, which had been my home for nine years, was uncomfortably full, and insufficiently furnished with life s necessities, and there were only two men children among my mother s brood. To the Mercury office, where I had been employed as office boy and paper- carrier, there often came a marine reporter, telling, with the glib tongue and ready imagina tion common to his kind, of the adventures and the gains of those who secure a livelihood by the sea. These relatings, to which were added those of Captain Tobey, aided by my own imagination, MAKING A MASTER. 6 convinced me that no better employment could befall a man than was to be had on ship-board. To the conviction that it was my duty to materially aid in supporting our family, was added youth s longing for change, and the appeal which the wide, free ocean life made to my poetic temperment. To my mother s opposition to the contemplated voyage, I said, " If I don t go now, I shall at some future time," and her consent was finally given. One February day I went out of the old home gate a very sad feeling boy. The very squeak of the hinges seemed to be saying good-bye. I was going to join the ship. I was already homesick, but even with that terrible feeling tugging at my heart I did not wish things otherwise. The remembrance of the kind tones and genial manner of the captain I had so many times met on shore was a great comfort to me in my loneliness, as with misty eyes I looked farewell to every well- known object as I hurried down the familiar streets which led to the wharf. But alas for my hopes of sympathy ! As having reached the ship, I stood ready for my duties at the foot of the stairs leading below, the captain came on board, carrying in his hand a bandanna handkerchief which, with its ends tied together, served as a receptacle for half a dozen fine apples. 4 MAKING A MASTER. "Here/ he shouted to me, "take these and carry them to my cabin, and if you put one of your teeth in them I will break every bone in your body." Thus early and abruptly I was made aware of the difference between an old school captain ashore and afloat, and reminded of the remark of a previous cabin-boy of the Swift, who had said to me, "You would enjoy hell better than a voyage with Tobey as master." For ten days the Swift lay in port, hemmed in by ice, and I, so near home and so unutterably homesick, was not allowed to leave the ship. The confined sailors, the liquor which they had brought on board as a part of their outfit becom ing exhausted, determined to cut away a boat and land at all hazards, but on its becoming known that the mate had given orders to shoot any sailor who attempted to do this, the men gave up the idea. At last, fearing that longer delay would mean mutiny, the captain had a passage cut through the ice, and the ship cleared the harbor. Then began that drill which transforms raw sailors into experienced seamen. The first thing which a newly shipped hand is required to do is to learn the rigging. Every mast and spar and MAKING A MASTER. 5 sail and rope must be so familiar to him that in the darkest night, without a ray of light, he can handle them quickly, accurately and effectively, knowing everything as well by touch as by sight. To many a newly made sailor it is one of life s most terrible moments when he is first ordered to the masthead, that cruelly- tapering, suggestively- towering spire, a glance at whose skyward reaches causes the brain to reel and the heart to fail. But the mounting is inevitable. If one refuses it, punishment is also inevitable, and the task still to be accomplished. To a kind hearted master this forcing of young sailors into the rigging is an almost heartbreaking experience ; to the calloused captain a most exasperating one. But the Swift s cabin-boy wanted to go into the rigging, longed to learn everything, great and small, about a vessel, and that right quickly. As the days went on, although my duties as cabin-boy were never neglected, I worked much of each day among the men, constantly gaining a thorough knowledge of every form of seamen s craft. In the boats which were sent out to drill for the capturing of whales, I became an expert. While the captain was trying to teach the second and third mate naviga tion, I was sitting in a state-room opposite the cabin occupied by the three, noting all the many 6 MAKING A MASTER. times repeated instructions, and at the end of the lesson I went below and worked out the correct solution to the problem, which I handed to the surprised and delighted master, who thereafter taught me navigation with great thoroughness, and depended upon me to keep the ship s time. It was continually being made evident that this captain of ready blows and fierce language had yet a place in his heart which could be touched by real merit and conscientious devotion to duty, and I often found that presents followed kickings, and the imparting of valuable knowledge or the granting of privileges a torrent of abuse. So rapid was my advancement that during this first voyage, as I became boat-steerer, I was mentally, morally, and physically becoming the well-rounded man. Many a cruise as mate and master did I make after this initial one, but that fifty-four months of untold hardships, of uncounted humiliations, gave me the readiness, the knowledge, the experience, and the resolves from the fusion of which there was evolved the captain of my dreams. THE FATTED CALF. There s many a slip twixt the two mugs ! " O Hoolihan s Proverbs. " NOT by any means," said the Girl. " On the other hand, you are very vividly remembered ! " "And by what?" " By lots of things glorious things, too but I hardly think you re proud of them now ! " " Oh ! I don t know." " I do, though," said a voice from across the supper table. " He s as proud of them as ever he was. Five years haven t changed him a particle. He s just the same incorrigible young rascal he was before he went away to sea ! " " Is that true ? " said the Girl. " I m afraid it is," he laughed, " I m truly afraid it is ! Just ask the old man. He ll tell you. But " the jolly prodigal turned to the Girl at his side. He blushed as her eyes met his. It was so long since he had talked to girls. He felt like a tough, old right whale addressing a little pink water-lily. "But," he made bold to ask, "what are the glorious things you think I m not proud of?" 8 THE FATTED CALF. " Mr. Bobbins, if you please, I prefer not to tell." She tossed her pretty head, and the two long, dark ringlets, nestling against her soft cheeks, seemed to laugh and taunt him. They were as bewitchingly mischievous as her brown eyes, or the dimples that came and went with her smiles, or even that defiant little toss of her head. The tiny gold beads, too, and the big cameo brooch were leagued together against him. So were her smooth, white shoulders. For in those good old days of Forty-one, the Girl, whose picture (in daguerrotype, of course) is still considered the supreme triumph of New Bedford photography, was in the first bloom of her youth and beauty. " Oh, but you re not going to get off so easy ! " said still another voice. " If Dorothy won t tell, we will. You re remembered for putting a flat stone on the top of Daddy Jones s chimney. Yes, and for smoking old Daddy out of his cobbler-shop as if he d been a poor hunted wood-chuck." "And for writing a Bible verse on Daddy Jones s door," cried a lad with a rose in his coat, trying to loom into view from the lee side of a much- hewn turkey. " Don t you remember ? It was when Daddy had got so lazy he never opened his shop till ten in the morning, and the Prodigal and I wrote on his door, "He is not dead, but sleepeth!" THE FATTED CALF. 9 " Yes, yes," cried the blonde girl in lavendar, " for that, too, and for kicking the football against Squire Tomlinson s window so he came out as mad as a March hare, and seized the ball and put it in the stove. 0, we remember you well ! The deeds that New Bedford boys do live after them. Besides, we ve not forgotten how you got another foot-ball next day and filled it with gunpowder, and then kicked that against the window till the Squire came and caught it and put it in the stove just like the first one, and then there wasn t any stove." The Prodigal turned again to Dorothy. " You wouldn t have told those stories, would you ? " He thought this tentative sally a triumph of pure heroism. He was never so timid in his life. He had chased whales and darted harpoons into their slippery black backs out of the dancing prow of a whale-boat ; he had gone among tattooed natives who might have cooked and eaten him had they chosen ; he had clambered down over the ship s bows in a storm to repair a broken bob-stay, and had stuck it out bravely till the bob-stay was mended, though he was plunged twenty times under water before the process was complete ; but those exploits were as nothing beside this highly problematic encounter with ringlets, and dimples, and soft eyes, and tender white shoulders ! 10 THE FATTED CALF. " No, sir," said Dorothy (that was before young people were taught never to say sir to anybody) " I assure you I wouldn t have told those stories ; tortures couldn t have drawn them from me ! " The Prodigal felt thirty feet tall. Dorothy s smile made his heart leap. It was like Words worth s rainbow in its effect. " But," said Dorothy, growing stern all of a sudden, " I expect to be rewarded for my good ness. I ve got you in my power now, and you must do my bidding to the death ! " (She looked straight through him with her round eyes.) " And I greatly fear you ll fail of your quest ; and if you do fail, then you re no true knight ! " (Dimpling again, her pretty cheeks coming up ever so little to make her eyes dance and sparkle.) "Wretched swain," (very serious again, pausing, with tight- closed lips), " I command you to confess all your manifold sins and wickednesses yes, every one of them. Every jolly wrong thing you did while you served as cabin boy on the dear old Swift, and if the sins you confess aren t as picturesque as those you committed in New Bedford before you turned whaleman, then" (a majestic toss of the head that set the ringlets caressing her pink cheeks again) "I ll refuse to grant you forgiveness ! " THE FATTED CALF. 11 " Yes, old fellow, you ll do as Dorothy says, if you re wise. She has her way sooner or later every time and there s no escape. We all have to submit, and you re no exception, even if you are a whaleman ! " Submit ? Of course he would submit. He would have pushed a holy stone up and down the deck from morn till dewy eve (and never growled) if the Girl had bidden him. He would have tarred the rigging from the fore-royal stay to the topping-lift (and left no " holidays") if the Girl had so ordered. He would have slushed the mast in the blaze of the torrid equatorial sun (and without inwardly cursing the lot of poor Jack) if Dorothy s dimpling smiles would have approved his toil. And, as the greater includes the less, he was ready to tell at her behest how he had consti tuted himself a persona non grata aboard the whale-ship Swift. He was twenty. At fifteen he had signed sail ing papers that bound him away as a cabin-boy on a three years voyage sperm-whaling, but the three years had stretched out to four, and the four to nearly five. At last he was home again, after roving so long among the islands of the South Pacific. He had just arrived. In fact, twenty-four hours had not yet gone by since he 12 THE FATTED CALF. had rushed in upon his mother and been formally introduced to his own sisters, who had grown to unrecognizable dimensions since his departure; and this grand New England banquet was being given in his honor by neighbors just over the way. The sixteen young people around the table were his old schoolmates. They called him the Prodi gal ; but well they knew that the boy had come home unstained from his wanderings. With equal pertinence, and not less, they called the turkey a fatted calf." He had perhaps an unusually pleasant way of telling a story, this young sea-rover a way that has remained with him until this day. He hoists his Blue Peter, heaves up his mud-hook, shakes out his canvas and puts to sea. Nobody tries to help him. He sails over his course as straight as a well-found ship, and he comes into port with a new coat of paint, and pendant flying. " Well," said the Prodigal, " if I must, I must. And I ll begin by telling you how the old man put his watch in soak." "Stop!" cried the Girl. "I object. This is not to be a story about an old gentleman. What s more, it s not to be told in sailor language. It s to be about yourself " (such a sweet tone as she said " yourself ") " and it s to be told in faultless THE FATTED CALF. 13 New Bedford English (eyes again, utterly distract ing) or I ll ! " " But," the Prodigal answered, " you ve not yet heard the story. Listen. The old man is the captain (they always call him so on shipboard) ; 6 putting one s watch in soak is not a sea-term at all ; and the story is really about me, and it s told in the only language I know, for I ve lived in the cabin like a fine gentleman. You must remember that the boy s not allowed to go before the mast. " So, here goes." He was now under way. He would forge ahead, all fluking, without further interruption. " After we d been about six months out from home, we anchored at Porter s, one of the Galla- pagos Islands, and there we found an old apple- bowed, square-sterned, painted-ported bark, the Surprise, of Wilmington, Cap n Crocker. Next morning the two old men Crocker and my own cap n gave liberty on shore for all hands, ex cept cooks, stewards, and boys, to hunt terrapin, if you call that liberty. After they had landed, the old man and Crocker called us boys and took us ashore to help them try and catch a seal. Mighty glad we were to go. " We landed on a little island, only three miles round and covered with woods. It was high and very rugged. 14 THE FATTED CALF. " The cap ns gave us youngsters leave to ramble about for an hour, so we thought we d cross the island, get down to the shore on the other side, and follow the beach back to the boat. We had high hopes of finding a seal, for neither of us had ever seen one alive. " It was easy enough getting to the top of the island, but from there on it was all a tangle of gullies and ravines, and when we finally came to the other side we found ourselves looking down from the edge of a three-hundred-foot cliff. It made us dizzy, as you may imagine, to peer over it, but we lay out flat on our stomachs and rested our heads on our hands and our elbows on the rocks, and studied that bluff. It was straight up and down, like the Swift s checkered sides. There was no beach at the bottom. There was a dead flat calm, no waves at all save the everlasting heave and swell that never ceased and never will cease ; and yet the breakers were white at the foot of the cliff and we could hear their roar. It was what we sailors call an iron- bound coast. " Our hearts went down into the soles of our boots. Climb down that precipice ? Crawl along at the water s edge ? Not by a jugful ! THE FATTED CALF. 15 " Suddenly it occured to us we must have been gone a pretty long hour. So we started back disappointed and scared and ashamed the way we had come, as well as we could judge, and we were not far wrong. But everything was against us. Thorns and brambles caught us, one or both. Steep crags got in our way on purpose. Gullies sank under our feet. So fully four hours had gone by when we came in view of the landing place again. The cap ns were hallooing with all their might, but we were too scared to answer and so kept still. That didn t pay, though. When the old man clapped his eyes on me, he hollered out at the top of his lungs, Come here, you rascal. I ll learn you to run away ! I ll learn you to keep me waiting ! Come here till I make a little spread-eaglet of you ! I ll learn you this lesson so it ll stick in your back as well as your head ! Come ! Are you dead ? Show a leg there ! " With that the old man grabbed hold of the boat s warp and was going to give me a thrashing with the bitter end of it. But the other cap n begged me off. " Well, said the old man, I ll put druggs on the rascal so he won t run out so blamed swift. Here s what I ll do. Cap n Crocker can have his way about the little spread-eaglet, but I ll have 16 THE FATTED CALF. mine about that twenty-pound stone over yonder there. Come, sonny wax, bring me that flat stone that big, round one, with the barnacles all over it ! " I went and brought the stone. It was shaped like Daddy Jones s lapstone and it weighed not an ounce under twenty pounds. The old tyrant took that stone and slung it to my back with a strong cord slipped round in a lark s head knot. " c Now/ he roared, I guess you ll not get out of hailing distance again this cruise ! " Then we pushed the boat off through the rollers and made for the large island. I tugged at my oar with the big stone banging against my shoulder-blades and jabbing the barnacles into my back. I would rather have taken the rope-ending. " I thought we d never get ashore, but at last we did. We rushed the boat out of the water on a fine sand beach, a mile or more long and as straight as a street. " The cap ns started ahead, keeping a bright lookout for seals, but we boys lagged behind, and as soon as we dared we got a new stone, the same shape but only about half as heavy, and no barnacles on it, and we put it in place of the twenty-pounder on my back. I tell you, it was a relief ! "BLAST THE BOY ! I VE GOT A PRETTY DRENCHING. THE FATTED CALF. 17 " The cap ns had got a long way in the lead a quarter of a mile at the very least when sud denly I heard a rifle-shot and saw a moving puff of blue smoke. " The old man had shot a seal, and the wounded beast was dancing around the beach like a man in a sack-race, and every jump he made brought him a little nearer the water. " The old man wanted me now as he d never wanted me before, for I had the powder and balls in my pocket to reload his rifle. He hollered like mad. 46 Hurry up, you scoundrel ! Do you hear ? Quick ! Drop your ballast, I tell you ; quick, or I ll thrash you ! Quick I say ! Quick ! QUICK ! L QUICK ! ! ! " I ran as fast as I could, but the sand was soft and the stone was hard and I made sorry work of it. " The old man chased the seal into the water with a club, but as soon as the animal got afloat in the surf he was the better off for the change. He dashed away for life and liberty the old man after him, dealing murderous blows with the cudgel. As I came up, puffing and blowing like a winded walrus, the old man was in up to his ears in salt water and the seal was bleeding from a 2 18 THE FATTED CALF. dozen gashes at once. Another swing of the club put him out of his misery. "The old man came splashing and sputtering out of the surf, dragging his lifeless prey after him. " Blast the boy/ he yelled, I ve got a pretty drenching/ " Cap n Crocker roared with laughter. Better have left the boy free to run, sir ! " The old man shook himself like a wet dog. " ( Cap n/ cried Crocker, rolling from side to side with amusement, can you tell me the time o day ? " The old man felt for his watch, only to dis cover that he had ruined it in the surf ! " Crocker stamped about the beach, bellowing like a facetious big bull. 0-ho-ho ! he howled, I ve seen many a beautiful timepiece go in soak in my day, but never before on account of a rascally cabin boy with a stone on his back ! " So that s how the old man put his watch in soak, your majesty. Please, may I stop now ? " He looked into Dorothy s eyes as he spoke. They looked into his. There was nothing re markable in that, but nevertheless he felt as if he had taken something that didn t belong to him. However, he had no desire to put it back. THE FATTED CALF. 19 " I forgive thee " said the girl. " Isn t that what you hope from me?" A burst of generous laughter shook the table. " What did we tell you ? " said he of the red rose. " Just the same rogue as before he turned blubber-hunter. Daddy Jones was right. You remember he said, < Glad he s gone pesky glad, but I pity that there cap n o his n ! Turkey, doughnuts, mince-pie, and sweet cider had found their way to destruction. The merry party left the table and trooped into the large, old-fashioned parlor, where the fun began afresh. There was dancing, in the quaint manner now gone by ; there were games, of the hilarious sort no longer in vogue; there were songs forgotten, most of them, long ere this. The Prodigal thought it a sumptuous occasion. For five years he had not sat in a cushioned chair or stepped upon a carpeted floor. To his sailorly eyes that staid and demure parlor, with its tall looking-glasses, its marbled wall-paper, and its solemn, mahogany furniture, was princely mag nificence. To all intents it far outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind. But the Girl was there not always at his side, but always responsive. Even if she sat, for the moment, at the farther end of the room, under 20 THE FATTED CALF. the silver candalabra, she made him feel that her interest was in him. Was it her eyes ? Perhaps for they were always brightest as they met his. Or was it her pretty posture ? Very likely for it was always one of eager attention when he spoke. He thought for a moment that he was being mischievously pursued. Then he thought it rather nice to be pursued. Finally he thought the Girl was not at all to blame for pursuing so interesting a person as the returned Prodigal from the South Pacific. Besides, had not he done all he knew how, in his sailorly way, to interest the Girl? "You didn t do as you promised," she said, when they chanced to come side by side again. " You promised to confess all your sins, and you stopped with one though it was a very good one. And now, sir, if you don t confess another this very minute if not sooner, I ll ostracize you ! " " How s that done?" " You ll find out to your grief," said the red rose, "if you don t tell another story as good as the last, and that immediately. " Yes, yes," they all cried, " confess your sins or we ll ostracize you, too, and it ll be some thing awful awful ! " THE FATTED CALF. 21 They drew their chairs close around the Prodi gal. There was no way of escape. He was secretly glad there was none. Doubtless it was not wholly by accident that Dorothy sat directly in front of him. Her seat was a sort of low hassock. She curled herself round it prettily, one knee raised, one little slipper peeping out from the edge of her yellow satin gown, her hands clasped over her knee, and her sweet face lifted up toward his. A girl is her loveliest when she looks up. Probably that is why Dorothy had chosen the hassock. " Well, if I must, I must. This time I ll tell you about the Ten Commandments. " One Sunday, not so very long after the old man had put his watch in soak, I happened to be feeling a bit out of sorts. I knew that if I told the old man I was sick he d dose me with castor oil every hour for a week. So I cast about for a nice, quiet place to lie down and go to sleep. I found just what I wanted and, willingly running the risk of punishment, I curled myself up in the second mate s bunk and sailed for the land of Nod. " Now it was my duty to take the hog-yoke on deck at eleven o clock." (Dorothy s eyes said, " What, sir, do you mean by a hog-yoke?") " That s the quadrant, you know, for the old man 22 THE FATTED CALF. to shoot the sun " (a frown of perplexity on Dorothy s white forehead) "I mean, for the old man to take the sun s altitude and see what latitude we were in. That s the only safe way to steer a ship, you know. "But that day the quadrant didn t come on deck in time. In fact, it didn t come at all. " The old man was frantic. He set all hands searching for me. They hunted in the cabin, they hunted in the fo c sle that s where the sailors live, you know ; you call it ( forecastle/ and that s wrong and they hunted in the steer age ; but nobody could find me. "Then the old man got anxious. He hailed the men at the mast-heads wanted to know if they d seen anything floating on the water astern of the ship, which meant, of course, had the cabin boy gone overboard ? At last the old man got so worried he wasn t content with ordering other folks to hunt, but even turned to and hunted for me himself. "Now all this while I was dreaming of an enchanted island, loaded with treasures, and I was just going to be married to the queen of the island, when there came a tremendous yank at my collar, and the old man landed me on the floor with a shock that all but shivered my timbers and THE FATTED CALF. 23 studded the ceiling with all the blazing stars in creation. " The old man kicked me up the cabin stairway and gave me half an hour to think. Meanwhile, he was thinking, I knew that. He was inventing some wonderful new kind of punishment, and he was going to try it on me as soon as he d got it all invented. " At last he came on deck. Boy/ he shouted, can you say the Ten Commandments ? " No, sir/ I answered. I used to when I was in Sunday school, but I can t now, sir/ " Then you just tumble down the cabin stairs and bring the Bible on deck/ " I did as the old man said, and then he gave me the funniest order you ever heard on a ship. i Go out on the end o that spanker-boom, take that Bible along with you, and don t you dare to come back till you can say the Ten Command ments from beginning to end without a single mistake, or I ll make a little spread eaglet of you ! That s what I ll do ! > " What ? Don t know what the spanker-boom is ? Why, it s the big round spar that keeps the spanker down, and the spanker, you know, is the monstrous hind sail of the ship. What a place to learn the Ten Commandments by heart! That 24 THE FATTED CALF. spanker-boom is the unsteadiest piece of stick aboard any vessel, and the further out you go the livelier it swings. " Well, I tucked the book under my left arm, and crawled along that swinging boom, way out over the hurricane house and far beyond the ship s stern. When I got to the end of it ? I leaned my breast against the topping-lift, with one arm curled round it, and laced my legs together under the boom. " Then I began a hunt for the Ten Command ments. I hadn t the faintest notion where to look for them. First I thought I d try Revelation. Next it seemed more likely they d turn up some where in Ruth.. Again, I had an impulse that led me toward Jonah. Jonah is a very popular book among sailors. It s almost as good as the story of Paul s shipwreck, where they put haw sers round and round the ship, just as if they were strapping a trunk. " But at last I concluded to begin at the first chapter of Genesis, and eat along to windward till I raised the Ten Commandments. Happy thought ! I found them in fifteen minutes. Then I set about learning them. " The boom swung in the wind, the topping- lift quivered from the strain on it, the white wake WHAT A PLACE TO LEARN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS BY HEART. THE FATTED CALF. 25 ran bubbling under me, and the wind blew the pages of the Bible so I thought it would tear them out and whisk them away. Now and then I would look up. Every man on deck was staring aft and wondered what in the name of hemp and oakum the old man had sent the boy out there for ! " As soon as I got the Commandments so I could say them, I crawled back on deck and said my piece to the old man every word right. The old man told me < not to forget em, for if I did he d learn em into my back with a rope s end so they d never come out. " Several Sundays later, instead of giving the crew a day of comparative rest, the old man found them some extra work to do. He con formed to the spirit of the old rhyme, " Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able, And on the seventh, holy-stone the deck and clean-scrape the cable. But the particular application he gave it was, having an old torn sail got on deck and mended. The crew were growling as they went about their task. They were as sullen as a crowd of school boys kept in at recess. "I thought I d see if I could change that a little. So when the old man came on deck, I 26 THE FATTED CALF. strolled past him, muttering just loud enough for him to hear : Remember-the-Sabbath-day-to keep-it-holy-six-days-shalt-thou-labor- and - do all-thy- work-but - the - seventh-day-is-the-Sab- bath-of-the-Lord-thy-God-in-it-thou-shalt - not do-any-work-thou-nor-thy-mate - nor - thy-sec- ond - mate - nor - thy - third- mate-nor-thy-crew nor thy-cook nor thy carpenter nor thy-cooper nor-thy-cabin-boy . " The old man pretended he didn t hear me, but after awhile he went below and I heard his bell ring. " So down I tumbled, and as soon as the old man got his face straight he said, < Boy, what day is this ? " 4 Sunday, sir/ " That so ? Then you go straight to the chief mate and tell him I say knock off work on that sail and quit breaking the Sabbath day ! " After that we used to get a little rest of a Sunday ; and that s the sum and substance of the Ten Commandment story. Please may I stop ? " " Drop anchor ! " laughed the girl. Then the Prodigal suggested a fresh game, and the scene shifted anew. Instead of a group around the Prodigal, you had a group around Dorothy. Now I had all along been thinking what ! I? Ah, I ve let Pussy pop out of my bag of discretion! THE FATTED CALF. 27 Yes, I. A truce to disguises ! The Prodigal was myself, or the self that was then Charlie Robbins, as they all called me Capn n Bobbins, as they call me today. To resume (and with an easier conscience) T, Charlie Robbins, cabin-boy, was thinking that Dorothy was the sweetest girl in the world, that I had made a profound impression upon her, and that my life would be an arid waste if I let her escape me. She was so distractingly pretty, and so dangerously clever. I remembered that when I bade her good-bye five years ago she was a year younger than I. Gratifying reflection she must be so, still ! I was building air-castles. I knew I must move rapidly. Girls are so dif ferent from whales at least to whalemen. For you get fast to a whale and if he runs, you run ; or if he goes down, you wait till he conies up again. Barring accidents, it s only a matter of time till you kill him or he kills you. But with girls its more complicated. Sometimes you re not fast to them when you think you are. Sometimes they go down and never come up again. And when you re a whaleman you ve little time for courting. The stay in a home port is shockingly short. That ship in the harbor won t lay her 28 THE FATTED CALF. main yard aback and wait till the chase is ended. You must be quick. I made up my mind that I would improve the first and all subsequent opportunities of charming, captivating and otherwise hypnotizing this unex ampled young lady. Whatever form later chances might assume, the near and most available one was my fund of sea-yarns. I was a sort of blubber- hunting Othello. She was my incomparable Desdemona. So I lowered away, every chance I got. Her taste, I thought, was peculiar. She cared little or nothing for whales that tossed one s boat in the air with their flukes, or for the cannibal islanders that cook one and eat one, or for hurri canes and tidal waves and waterspouts and the terrors of "the vasty deep." She demanded yarns about me (how gratifying ! ) and about my "sins." Every time she would look as stern as a whaler s skipper and say, " Avast there ! " and then laugh so prettily that I inwardly cursed myself for ever having adopted the whale man s lot and then say, " Go on, Mr. Bobbins ! I must have the next story now and as good as the last, or I ll ostracize you ! " They were a curious skein of yarns. How I was sent to get the grindstone from the locker THE FATTED CALF. 21) under the cabin-stairs, drew out a bag of letters, and in so doing knocked the grindstone against a demijohn of turpentine, which toppled over help lessly, a reeking, jingling wreck, with the conse quence that thereafter the old man made me keep a Domesday Book, to record everything I managed to lose or break on board the ship ; how I came to be held to blame whenever a tool was mislaid, with the penalty of having to write it in the Book of Judgment, so that by-and-by when I found a lost article I secretly pitched it overboard rather than be blamed for finding it ; how, one Sunday morning, the old man took an observation of the sun and gave the data to me to work out the reckoning, but was not pleased with my answer, and accordingly grabbed me by the hair and lifted me clean off the deck, so that I took care to get my hair cut immediately ; and when the old man made another observation that afternoon and gave it to me in the same way and with the same result, he grabbed for my hair again and, missing that, lifted me off the deck by my ears, saying he d " stretch em out as long as a jackass ! " and this despite the fact that I was right and he was wrong, for we were cruising down the line and during the night we had crossed the Equator, so that we had to apply our corrections differ- 30 THE FATTED CALF. ently ; and also how I stole the cabin molasses keg while we were at Talcuhano, and sold the molasses in apulparee on shore, upon agreement that the empty keg must be brought aboard next evening. But the ship sailed in the morning and both keg and molasses were left behind. Think of the fix that put me in ! Presently the steward wanted some molasses for the " doctor" to cook with, but where in the name of the Great Horned Spoon was that precious molasses keg ? Of course I knew nothing about it absolutely nothing vastly less than nothing ! The men searched everywhere, and the further they searched the madder they got. They swore like great whales. But that was not the worst of it. My con science swore, too. The thought of lying galled me and cut me, till at last I went to the old man and confessed my crime. That made me feel a whole lot better, but it made the old man feel a whole lot worse ! " Blast you, boy, I ll get even with you ! You just waltz forward and tell the cooper I say to give you a dozen barrel-staves. I m going to learn you a lesson that ll last you way over into the next world ! " When I came back with the barrel-staves, the old man stationed me in the waist, where everybody on board could watch me, and said, u Now, sonny wax, you take THE FATTED CALF. 31 this saw and this plane the carpenter s brought you, and you make a new keg to take the place of the one you ve stolen. Here s a chance to show your talent. The crew 11 come around you and give you advice once in a while and encourage you, and when the pretty creature s all done they ll hold up their hands and admire it ! " I worked four days. At the end of that time I had something in the shape of a keg, but it wouldn t hold water or molasses any more than the " doc tor s " cullender. When these four days of atone ment were over, the captain told me to quit. I quitted. How swiftly that pleasant evening ran by ! The merry party broke up all too soon, I thought. And yet not too soon. For one reason, at least, I was glad it was over. Now I should see Dorothy home. It was in the doorway, after the general and particular good-nights, that I asked her if I might. Oh, tragical deception ! The Girl gave me one defiant flash from her brown eyes, and ran like a deer ! That was the last I saw of her. I went home alone. Six weeks later I sailed away in the Balaena, sperm-whaling again. THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. THE case of Dorothy being now got well out of the way, I turn, and not without a grateful sense of relief, to weightier considerations. For this gam of mine you know the term ? is meant to set forth the grave as well as the trivial interests of that young madcap who was so early, and withal so auspiciously, put afloat in the whaling ship Swift. It would, in truth, be far from fair to leave the reader in possession of the startling revelations of the last chapter, unless, over against those light and altogether frivolous narratives, be set some mention of the serious business of whaling, its toil, its peril, its joy and thrill, to say nothing of its magical fascination for a boy of fifteen. Pleasantly my memory runs back sixty years to the day of our departure. Stars and stripes at the peak, Blue Peter at the fore ; officers and crew on board ; four boats on the cranes ; and the hold filled with white oak casks and a stock of pro visions to last three years and more; then, as somebody or other says, "Waiting is what?" Waiting is the pilot. But, once aboard, his majesty takes command, and the voyage is begun. THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 33 The captain, while the pilot remains in the ship, is a mere inactive looker-on, a person of no more consequence than a passenger or a spare figure head. " Mr. Mate, are you all ready ? " " All ready, sir ? " " Then heave ahead ! " " Aye, aye, sir. Man the windlass ! " Now comes the confusion, the hurrying and blundering, invariably seen on board a ship when she is getting under way with a crew made up largely of green hands ; then an attempt on the part of the officers to bring something like order out of this hurly-burly ; and while at every turn of the powerful windlass the chain cable rattles heavily on deck, the Swift walks steadily up to her anchor as if impatient for the word to spread her white wings and be away. " A-vast heaving," shouts the first officer. " A short stay peak, sir ! " "Aye, aye," responds the pilot. " Let fall and sheet home top-s ls and to - gal n-s ls ! " Away sprang half a dozen men aloft, and soon the broad sheets of canvas are unfurled and hauled home and the yards are mast-headed. Next a volley of incomprehensible orders : 3 34 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. " Brace head yards a-starboard ! " " Lay helm aport ! " " Heave up the anchor ! " The first mate answers, " All away, sir ! " and you know then that the good ship has loosed her hold on terra firma, and you watch her move ments, as gracefully as a girl in a minuet she turns her head seaward. The pilot springs to the bow, now and again shouting his orders to the helmsmen, who invari ably echoes the words, that there may be no possibility of mistake. And so, with a breeze fresh and free, we sped down the bay, borrowing a little, now on one shore, then on the other, or shaving close to some rocky ledge, as our sharp-eyed, skillful guide might direct, in order to shorten our course from the confines of harbor to the freedom of the open sea. A little farther, and we open up Gay Head lighthouse on the western end of Martha s Vine yard, so called from the abundance of wild grape vines growing there. Once outside, the tiny pilot- boat, which has been dodging about the heavy ship like a will-o -the-wisp, shoots alongside^ and his lordship the pilot and our friends, mostly men of the sea, hasten to make their adieus, and THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 35 descend to the restless little craft that will soon take them back to their homes. The lingering grasp of hands, the ill-concealed tremor of fare wells, and the moistened, glistening eye, tell of the friendship of men who have together battled with the giant seas and fierce winds of the Horn, who have stood shoulder to shoulder when short ening the wings of their hurrying ship in the shortrlived gales of the Equator, and who have for long years shared alike in common hardships, joys and sorrows. The little fairy shoots ahead, and, flying up into the wind, is soon on our weather beam, homeward bound. Three rousing cheers from her deck, and three from the outward bound, and we are alone on the sea, with nothing binding us to the shore but memories of the past and hopes for the future ! And now, indeed, though with everything yet to learn, I was fairly made a sailor of. There was no possible back-wending, however I might thereafterward mope and whimper. Accordingly I turned my heart manfully toward my strange, new life and faced it with earnest cheer. The first day out, the ship s crew is divided into two watches, larboard and starboard, the former always headed by the first officer and the latter by the second. The men are mustered aft and the 36 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. rules of the ship laid down to them. At seven that evening, the watch is set, the second officer always taking the first night watch from the home port, and those not on duty go below and sleep if they can. Next morning all hands are called aft again, this time for choosing boat s crews. The first officer takes precedence by selecting one man, followed in turn by the second, third, and fourth mates, each choosing one, until every boat has a crew standing by her side. Then follows, usually, the emphatic caution, "Now remember to which you belong, and bear a hand when she s called away ! " And what of the voyage ? Southward ? Yes, in the main ; crossing the Gulf Stream ; battling, stripped for the fight, with many a heavy gale ; passing, with men all the while at our mastheads, through the " horse latitudes ; " lowering our boats, now and then, to give our whalemen practice in rowing ; and taking advantage, now, of every slant of wind to press on our way toward the stormy Horn. Days and long weeks go by, nor are we alone in the tedious struggle. Several sails are in sight, all striving to get south. And so, with bracing round, or squaring the yards, making and shortening sail, and backing THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 37 and filling generally, we get a sharp squall, with rain, from the eastward, and then the old salts cast at each other significant glances, which, if rightly interpreted, would say, "I believe we ve got the Trades at last ! " After a few hours, the wind moderates and hauls to the northward. All sail is set again, with the breeze fresh and free, and we go bowling along to the southward at the rate of ten knots an hour. Oh, the beautiful world of waters ! Almost every day we pass ships showing the flags of different nations, some near and others in the far distance, all under a press of canvas, and all seem ing to revel in the bright sunshine and the breeze. The water, too so warm and so transparent is full of life. Porpoises, dolphins, albicore, and barricota are gambolling and sporting in the sum mer sea. Thousands of birds are on the wing or resting on the waves, while not infrequently a huge fin-back, or sulphur whale rolls lazily along, now throwing clouds of misty spray into the air, and again lashing the water into foam with its broad flukes, doubtless to rid himself of the numerous parasites which persistently strive to fasten themselves upon these worthless vagabonds. Vitality and loveliness are above, beneath and around us, and we seem verily to be sailing on a 38 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. sea of enchantment. The stars seem nearer, and shine and twinkle with that wonderful bright ness seen only in that southern hemisphere. The North star has dipped into the ocean, not to rise again until we cross the Equator on the Pacific ocean. Instead we gaze in novel delight upon the Southern Cross, and we are constantly looking for that mysterious and ghostlike thing known to seamen as the Magellan cloud, and said to mark the entrance to the famous straits of that name. It is enough to make a man quote the spirited lines of Kipling : " O, the blazing tropic night when the wake s a welt of light That holds the hot sky tame, And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors, Where the scared whale flukes in flame! " Round the horn we fly, wrestling with giant seas, and then, while penguins and fur-seals go sporting and harking around the Swift, we pass the rugged, half-glaciered island of Terra del Fuego. Warmer, day by day, grows the air and softer. At last, though never a spouter have we yet raised out of the ocean, our hog-yoke tells us we are upon the rich off-shore whaling grounds. After we had been out from home eight long months we chanced to speak the full-rig ship THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 39 William Rotch, and I then beheld a sight that stirred my soul from truck to keelson and knocked my youthful emotions galley-end wise. For the Rotch had a monstrous whale, just taken, tethered alongside. There he lay, a bit ingloriously, to be sure, for he was riding belly uppermost and tail foremost ; but I felt like a Titan when I looked at him. That was the prey I had gone a-seeking. I was a fighter of dragons and worse. Oh, what more heroic opportunity is offered to man or boy than to join battle with such a monster as that? So thought I (turning sea-green the while with envy of yonder lucky crew) and longed, with inexpres sible heart-hunger, for our own first whale-fight. Moreover, I wished myself at that moment a blood-thirsty pirate ; for, ethical considerations aside, it would have been a gratifying relief to my feelings had we boarded that ship, like " gentlemen of fortune," bowie-knifed her gallant crew, and stolen that whale away. We kept company with the Rotch all night, and we "gammed" that is to say, we exchanged visits back and forth, and enjoyed a general fo c sle pow-wow for ard while the officers made merry in the cabins ; and particularly merry they were that evening, too, for the old man s brother 40 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. was mate of the William Rotch, and the two had not come face to face for many an eventful year. But who knoweth what a day may bring forth ? The sun came red and fierce and savage out of the water. The morning mist lifted lazily off the ocean. The long-expected happened. Try how I will, I cannot recall in any former or any subsequent experience, whether upon land or sea, such a panic and stampede of emotions as in stantly followed a ringing cry from the mast-head. " There she blows ! " I heard a man shout. A haze seemed to rush over my soul. All that happened in the next five minutes is an utter con fusion of tumultuous and ungovernable impres sions. " All hands " must have been called, but I could not hear the words. Every man sprang toward his boat in fact, the movements of the crew were automatic and inerrant yet I made nothing coherent of their desperate hurry. Almost in an instant the boats were lowered swift away ; but not until three long whale-boats were dashing out after the great leviathan and bent now upon actual chase, did I come to myself far enough to take good account of how this vast concern was being brought to pass. I have heard of buck fever. But, lands and seas, it is nothing to whale fever ! THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN". 41 Nevertheless, in the midst of so crazed a mood, I did, without so much as considering it, my appointed duty which, for all that, was not diffi cult ; being, as long beforehand I had been in structed, to remain on board and do nothing. That was a simple task, but by no means agree able. It was certainly a vivid contradiction, as I have often since reflected, that while I, who was least in the struggle, went clean daft for the moment, the whale, who was of all concerned most gravely implicated, lay spouting contentedly only a small way from the Swift, and as wholly free from worry or care as a comfortable cow nibbling pink and white clover-tops. " Boy," said the cooper, for he stood next to me and together we watched the chase, " I ll bet my go-ashore shirt and pantaloons they ll set you a- turning that ar grin-stun ! " This sage observation was the expression of a splendid optimism, for when a whale is being cut in, the cabin-boy turns the grindstone while the cooper sharpens the cutting-spades. " Oh, by Reuben Ranzo ! " yelled the cooper, grabbing me by the collar, " They ll galley him ! " Then, tightening his grip on my neck till I thought he would strangle me, he emphasized his 42 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. sudden plunge into pessimism with a blast of emphatic and unmistakable English. Luckily for my continued existence, the fortunes of the whale-chase suddenly grew brighter. The cooper loosed his unconscious grip on my throat and leaned out over the rail, his eyes bulging with intense interest. The chief mate s boat approached the column of steam that rose from the whale s spout-hole. The harpooner hurled his merciless iron. The iron took hold in the quivering flesh of the whale, and instantly the captain s boat dashed up and a second harpoon went hurtling through the air to plant itself close to the first. The whale writhed with sudden pain and fright, but did not go down. He preferred to fight. The old man, however, had plans of his own ; he would kill the whale, and that immediately. He bellowed a hasty order to the mate, thinking to drive the mate s boat out of his way, but he had not calculated upon the stubborn ambition of that hot-headed officer. The mate never budged. Enraged at his opposition, the captain crowded in between the mate and the monster, and ran his lance into the whale s vitals. Then there was such a commotion as I had never before witnessed. The whale went into a frantic flurry, barrels-full of THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 43 rich, dark blood were hurled into the air from his spout-hole, the boats dashed away from him as they would from an enraged sea-serpent, and behold a half-dozen men floundering about in the water ! " Stoven ! " yelled the cooper, renewing his unconscious assaults upon my collar. " Served him dead right, I swear ! An bless ye, boy, the old lobster-back can t swim a stroke ! " Indeed he could not. There was the captain in the water, as helpless as a lady, and two of his men were trying their best .to keep him from sinking, while one of the two uninjured boats was coming up to take him aboard. " Same old yarn," said the cooper. " I ve sailed with the old man five year if I ve sailed a day, an I tell ye, boy, he s done this lubberly trick forty times over. Gits wearisome, now an then, dead wearisome for them Jacks to float a poor lubber that won t learn swimmin , and dead wearisome for poor old Chips to have to mend the old man s boat after every blessed chase." " Then why doesn t the captain learn to swim?" The cooper ventured no answer. He was watching the mate getting a line fast to Old Blubber. Suddenly he bethought himself of grindstone and spades, and as quickly was off to 44 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. make ready for the work that would turn me into a slavish minion. Even before the boats had come in and had got the whale alongside and well into the fluke-chains, the grinding of spades began. Often and often I had heard men of the sea tell how a whale was cut in and tried out, but now, with my own lucky eyes, I was to see the thing done. But before I describe how the whale was cut in, I must say something about whales in general. There are many kinds, but only two are of importance to whalemen. The right whale is sought for his bone. The sperm whale is sought for his blubber. We of the Swift were sperm whaling. Pictures of whales are uniformly deceptive. They give the impression that a good part of the animal (not fish, a whale is a hot-blooded mam mal) can be seen above the surface of the sea. They also indicate that a whale s spout is made of water. It is no such thing. All you can commonly see of a whale from the ship s deck is his spout and that is a mere column of vapor. It s his breath. Get that once in mind and you ll never call a whale a fish. You never saw a fish breathe air. You never found a fish warm enough THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 45 to belch out white vapor on a summer s day like a steamboat. Such, then, is the whale s spout. And by the spout the two kinds of whales, sperm and right, can be distinguished. A sperm whale has but one spout-hole, and throws the spout forward at an angle of about forty-five degrees a thick spout and not very high, rising from a point near the whale s " nose." A right whale has two spout- holes, very close together. They are about eighteen feet from the end of his head and, of course, much nearer his lungs than is the case with the sperm whale. Consequently the vapor shoots up higher and as straight as a mast. It spreads as it rises. I suppose, too, that the big ness of a whale is something few landsmen could well give account of. As a matter of fact, a sixty- foot whale is about as big as you will ever see. Big enough, says any whaleman big enough to serve as a very worthy adversary to pigmy man who goes to slay him ! Very naturally you ask, as Brutus did (or was it Cassius ? ) : " What meat has this, our Caesar fed on, that he is grown so great ? " That depends on your whale. The sperm whale, having teeth, lives on deep-sea jelly-fish. The right whale, which is as toothless as any 46 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. dotard, lives on a tiny red creature called brit, no larger than a spider, but so numerous as to color the water a yellowish red over whole acres. It is because of his choice of diet that the right whale has his mouth filled with a huge sieve of whalebone. That sieve is to let the brit through and to shut bigger sea-things out. The arrangement is a decided success. I have seen a right whale make a scoop of his broad lips and rush through a field of brit (like a snow- plow through a drift) and leave a trail of blue water behind him. That is a sight to remember and also a sound to remember, for when a right whale is feeding he spouts with tremendous force. At such a time you will have no hope of striking him. But right whales don t concern me nor do I concern right whales. We were after oil and we wanted sperm whales or none. The oil is made from the blubber, mainly, and the blubber covers the whale like a thick coating of fat pork. In one sense it is a blanket; it keeps the whale warm in the coldest sea-water. In another sense it is a shell or even a padded coat ; it relieves the tremendous pressure of the water upon the whale s body when he sounds to the depths of the sea. THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 47 Sperm whales have, as already intimated, their ups and downs. A large sperm whale remains under water from forty-five minutes to an hour and a quarter. That is a fact to go by. When a whale has sounded and you are waiting for him to come up, it is a relief to know that some sort of limit is set upon his delay. But that is not all. You can judge where he will come up. For a whale travels, unless vigorously disturbed, about two miles an hour. So you note which way he headed when he sounded, and you measure off two miles in that direction, and you know where to meet your friend again. This is an infallible rule whenever it works. But a whale has something beside ups and downs and blubber. He has a marvellous sagacity. By some mysterious process, which I suppose the Society for Psychical Research would call "thought transference/ whales pass the news of disaster from one end of a school to another. When one of the company is wounded, every whale within a radius of four miles is advised of the fact. Sometimes the alarm will bring speedy assistance. That gives the whaleman only a better chance to ply his gainful trade. Sometimes a retreat is ordered. The whole squadron will dash away as by some 48 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. instantaneous common impulse, evidently terror- struck. Can a sperm whale be called a globe-trotter ? Be that as it may, the sperm whale migrates far and wide. Ships cruise on the shores of Chili and Peru at a distance of from two to one hundred leagues from the shore, and you will often see both in- and off-shore vessels doing nothing. At other times all will be engaged. "Where were the whales while the ships lay idle ? Roving over the broad seas, no doubt, and many a mile away, a- taking of their ease. It is known to a solid certainty that whales have been harpooned in the Atlantic ocean, and have been afterward taken in the Pacific. The marks on the irons proved the identity of the whale every time. Old Blubber seems to travel for change of scene. It is clear that he is not led to migrate by any fear of the whalemen. Indeed, whales are not easily driven away from their feeding-ground by ships. But whatever the ups and downs of that whale alongside the Swift, and whatever the vicissitudes of his travelling days, one thing was clear. That whale was dead. Like Marley of blessed memory, he was dead as a door-nail. Unlike Marley, how ever, he could never come to life again. They were cutting him in. I saw it done. THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 49 I beheld two stages slung over the side of the ship, each stage six feet long and a foot wide. Men stood upon the stages with sharp spades one to cut the blubber, the other to kill the sharks that would have devoured our prize. I saw an aperture made near the whale s fin. I saw the great hook inserted. I saw a semi-circle cut around the hook. Then they took the falls to the windlass. The windlass wound in the falls. The falls passed through a block at the main-mast head. The falls then became the tackle, heaved hard at the iron hook, and stripped the blubber from the whale. The blubber came off in a continuous spiral strip. The whale meanwhile kept turning over and over in the water. The ripping of the blubber from the carcass was guided by the sharp spade of the officer on the stage. I saw a strip of white, pork-like blubber, twenty-five feet long and five feet wide, hoisted into a perpendicular position and its top touch ing the mast-head. Then they cut the piece ( "blanket-piece," they said) loose from the whale and lowered the blubber into the ship s hold between decks, at the same time attaching the other tackle to a fresh cut in the whale s flesh and preparing to raise another blankei>-piece. 50 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. I saw this process repeated until the blubber was stripped from the whale. I saw the head cut off from the huge beast and hoisted on deck. I felt the great ship strain. The standing-rigging on the starboard side slackened. The mast bent over like a whip- stock. I saw the Swift listed till her plank-shear was nearly level with the water. A filthy column of black smoke rose out of the try-works. They were cutting the blubber into horse-pieces, mincing these pieces, and putting the hashed blubber into huge pots with brick flooring under them and a blazing fire of blubber scraps blazing around them. Thence the oil passed into a huge copper cooler and thence in turn into casks. They made merry over the boiling. They nibbled bits of fried blubber, and they fried doughnuts in the grease. The whole ship was befouled, but we soon had her cleaned up again, man-o -war fashion ; and what was better yet, we coopered a hundred barrels of oil. " Lands and seas," said I to myself, " this is the biggest business afloat or ashore." But as yet I had not chased a whale. MARQUESAS ISLANDS. WE whaled on the equator, crossing it almost daily, until we arrived in the longitude of the Marquesas, or Washington Islands, when we hauled south, and made the fine harbor in Nukahiva, for a stay of two weeks to procure wood, water, potatoes, bananas, etc. The natives of these islands at this time, 1837, were con sidered the handsomest race of all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the men of fine stature, the women of delicate features and of quite light complexion. The inhabitants of the port were friendly, but needed close watching, as their thieving propensities were very strong. On all other parts of the island they were very savage and cannibals. When leaving this island, we took with us an Englishman and a Sandwich Islander as interpreters, and ran over to the island of Roa Poua, about thirty miles distant and one of the same group, for further recruits and pigs. Arriving after a few hours sail, the captain, with two boats crews and interpreters, pulled in to the principal bay; and, after telling the chief what was wanted, left the Sandwich Islander (who was of large stature, fat and sleek) 52 MARQUESAS ISLANDS. to have the recruits, pigs, etc., at the landing ready for him to take off in the morning. On returning, the chief mate, with two boats crews and the English interpreter, pulled in to another bay, and landed himself and interpreter, with boats afloat and oars ready for a spring in case of a surprise. Our rule in those days was, that if the women and girls were at the shore, we were comparatively safe from attack by the natives. At this landing neither men nor women were to be seen, and, fearing ambush, we left for the ship. When the captain left the Sandwich Islander on the shore for the night, he took the chief s son as hostage for the safety of our interpreter. With the ship off and on through the night, in the morning we stood in toward the upper bay. When a canoe came off, with a New Zealand native, who came on board and gave us a full account of how they had killed the Sandwich Islander and eaten him, with a descrip tion of the festivities or revels during the night, the captain ordered the ship put away for Nukahiva. When on her course, with yards trimmed, tacks down, and sheets aft, with a spanking trade wind breeze on the quarter, there comes a scene which would require an artist to MARQUESAS ISLANDS. 53 describe. The first officer goes to his stateroom for the knives for the purpose of having the top and top gallant masts scraped. He, without giving any thought to our hostage, comes up the gangway with the glittering knives, six of them, in his hand, when, with a scream, our hostage, the handsome boy, nude with the excep tion of tapa about his loins, springs into the bow boat, and, with the agility of a cat, runs on the outer gunwale into the waist boat, reaches in and catches the end of the main clew garnet, and putting a noose around his neck and on to the outer gunwale of the waist boat, is ready for a spring. Catching on to the situation in a flash, the mate dropped the knives and held up both hands, while our interpreter explained and persuaded the hostage to unloosen the rope from about his neck and come on deck. Then he told us that as they had killed and eaten our man, he supposed the knives were to be used to kill him, and to be used in eating him. This boy remained on the ship for a year or more, and rowed the tub oar in the mate s boat. Reaching Nukahiva, the mate was ordered by the captain to take two boats, provided with trade, well-armed, and with the English inter- 54 MARQUESAS ISLANDS. preter, and go into Typee Bay, in further pursuit of fresh pork, fruit, etc. Sailing up the large, open bay, we found three smaller bays or inlets, with grand and beautiful scenery Entering one of these, we arrived at the point where we met the friendly tribe with their chief with his splendid physique and the best assurance of safety. The boats were at once surrounded with women, girls and children, in number one hundred or more, swimming and floating about us, until our boats were loaded with fat porkers, etc. After making presents to the chief, we up anchor and left, having made a successful trading trip. Arriving on board, the ship was put away for the cruising grounds, about the north end of New Zealand, the Vasques ground, and off the island of Eoa, one of the Tonga or Friendly Islands, also taking one season on the south side of Upolu, one of the Samoan group. BEACH COMBERS. DURING our cruise around the Navigator Islands, and while we were sailing along the coast of Upolu, hugging the shore country-whaling, as they say a canoe came off with several natives and a white man as interpreter. They were anxious to trade, offering fowl and fruit in exchange for cotton cloth. While the traders were on board, the man at the masthead sang out, "There she blows!" and sure enough there was a school of sperm whales, cows and calves, going to the leeward. We kept off for them, and, in doing so, passed another canoe, steered by a white man, who had put off from another village to trade. Under the circumstances, the old man thought best not to heave to for them whales won t wait, and traders will so they went away for the land, the white man cursing and swearing and threatening to seize and hold our boats if we attempted to land at their village. We came up with the whales, lowered our boats, and were soon fastened to three. In a short time we had them turned up and dead. We left them with a "waif" that is, a small flag 56 BEACH COMBERS. stuck in each, and it then became the duty of the officer on board to take the whales alongside, while we went in pursuit of others. It was not long before two boats, the captain s and the mate s, struck again, and soon had the old flukers spouting blood. The first and second mates were left with these two, while the captain went on board ship. There he asked the third mate, who was on board as ship-keeper, in what direction the three whales were which we had waifed. The poor fool could not tell. All he could say was they were to windward, and he had passed them. The old man was enraged at this reply, for there were three fine whales, which, if the third mate had done his duty, ought to have been taken alongside and made fast with fluke-chains and towed after the boats in chase. As it was, we found only one of the waifed whales, for it was near dark when we began to search for them. Three whales, however, were already ours, and together they made seventy-five barrels of oil. After stowing down the oil in the hold, we stood in for the island and went on shore to trade. And now we feared the consequence of passing that canoe without allowing her to come alongside, for we had none of us forgotten the threats and curses that promised us trouble if we BEACH COMBERS. 57 landed at their village. The beach-comber tried to have the islanders seize and detain our boats for not having allowed them to come aboard. Nevertheless, we made bold to go ashore, and it was only by sheer luck that we ever got off alive ; for we happened to have among us a fellow who understood the native language, and who overheard the islanders hatching up a murderous scheme to " do for" the whole lot of us. This chance interpreter ran and told the old man, who ordered the boats to put off to the ship. Every Jack tar of us knew that that meant stepping lively, and we wasted no time. We launched those boats as quick as coast-guards, but we were not a moment too soon. For no sooner had we bent to our oars than the whole mob of savages made a rush for us, yelling like a pack of lunatics, and running into the water after our boats, but not succeeding in their attempts to get hold of them. The whole brutal job was the work of that villainous beach-comber, and shows how low a white man will get when he sells his birthright and goes to live with savages. The worst insult you can offer an able seaman is to call him a beach-comber. When we came home after that long, long voyage, we had with us a boat-steerer from this 58 BEACH COMBERS. very island, no beach-comber either, and thereby hangs a tale. He was the only survivor of two boats crews of twelve men from the full-rigged ship William Penn, of Falmouth. The Penns boats were captured and their crews murdered, all but this one man. He was on the island several months eking out a horrible existence, and expecting his life might be taken at any time. It was on a previous voyage in these waters that our captain found the fellow on the island, and helped him to make his escape. He had shipped again with the old man after that voyage was ended, and was still with us. This is how the captain took him off. The ship was cruising near Upolu, and the old man sent in boats to trade, going ashore in one of them himself. On the beach he met this sailor, who told his story and begged the old man to help him get away. The thing had to be accomplished by stealth, for the islanders would have butchered the whole crew if they had got wind of the plan. There was a point about a mile from the village which made out some distance into the sea. This man was to go there in the night, and a boat was to be sent from the ship to take him off. It was a life and death venture, for the reef stretched away BEACH COMBERS. 59 out into the sea, and the surf came pounding down on those rocks with a roar like thunder. No boat could ever live in such a sea, and there was no hope of landing without smashing your boat to match-wood. There was just one thing to be done. The ship s boat must lie well off the reef, and the man must plunge into those bellowing breakers and swim for his life. If he made it, well and good. If he didn t make it, why death on the reef would be luxury compared with death at the hands of those blood thirsty wild men. So the terrible risk was taken. The daring rush into the foam, the desperate fight with the breakers, the long struggle in the dark, and, at last, life and liberty! They picked him up and took him aboard the ship. He remained on her and came home with her ; and he felt so grateful to his deliverer that he shipped with him for another voyage, which was his last. For then he married a Boston lady and lived in that city until he died, not long since, leaving a family to mourn his loss. He was an esteemed friend of mine, and his spirit has gone out, I trust, into the Better Land. BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. Escape me ? Never, Beloved! " Browning. " Tell me, messmate, why in the name of all that s shipshape did you ever come to sea ? " " Shiver my soul if I can tell ! " " Til tell you, boy, Til tell you. You come to sea just to see the world. Ain t I right, Jack ? All you come for was just to see the world. You wanted to clap your blinkin top-lights on Nuka- hiva, an Upolo, an Hivaoa, an the Cape, an Mahee, an all them high-saoundin places you hearn tell on when you was knee-high to a marlin spike." The older man spoke with an air of preternatu ral knowingness. He leaned forward insinuatingly upon the stout iron hoop that ran under his arms. The youth, as he listened to this relentless diag nosis of his distemper, lolled back upon his own iron hoop and thrust his half-akimbo elbows out across it. The two whalemen were upon lookout duty at the mainmast head of that staunch old hooker, the whaling ship Swift. BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 61 "Taownsend," the old sea-dog continued, "I. don t much blame you for coming, but by the bloody wars you re a fool if you desert. We ve had blasted poor luck, I know, blasted poor. And I know, too, we ve all got to lose by it, every Jack Tar of us, all the way from the old man on the quarter-deck down to Charlie Robbins in the cabin. Some ways I d rather be to sea in a merchantman and git reg lar wages stid o goin by lays. But I tell you, Taownsend, you re a blarsted ninny if you try to get aout o this butter-box. First place, them tattoo natives 11 make dunder-funk o your tender timbers fore you been ashore half a day. Nex place, you ll never git a lift off that there island if you once git on it you ll just be a low-daown beach comber all the rest o your natchral days. Third place, the old man ll git the darbies on you n less n a week an* then you ll be back aboard o here an wishin you was plumb dead." A very determined look glaring out of the old blubber hunter s sharp eyes showed that he thought his logic invincible. One fact, however, he had wholly overlooked. Townsend was in debt to the old man. He had shipped for a long lay and had a thumping big bill for outfitting and board before we sailed from 62 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. old New Bedford. So if he remained in the Swift throughout the voyage he would have little or nothing coming to him at its conclusion. There fore, from Townsend s standpoint it was worth while to take big risks and try to ship again. The venture involved no loss and a possible gain. So, despite the grave counsel from the ancient mariner, this daring young citizen of Rochester, N. Y., gazed wistfully toward the splendid wooded island one of the Navigator group, better known under the name of Samoa which rose majesti cally out of the ocean, green, luxuriant, fascinating. It was scarce two miles away. " My stars ! " said Townsend to himself, " my stars, if I was only there ! " No amount of good advice could change Town send s determination to leave the ship. Old Bowline might have informed the officers of Town send s plans, but he thought he had talked the boy out of his folly. So the project developed quite as if it had suffered nothing by interference. "We cruised so near the Samoa Islands that not infrequently the natives would come off in canoes, bringing the usual commodities fruit, cocoanuts, fowl and pigs to trade for cotton cloth, gun powder, iron hoops, and the trinkets and gimcracks they always find so desirable. BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 63 It often happened that a canoe would bring along as trader and interpreter some renegade whaleman who had deserted his ship and turned " beachcomber," living among the natives, and little better than the worst of them. This is one of the strangest things about sailoring. A sea man s civilization will drop off like the cast skin of a rattlesnake when he goes to live among savages. While trading was going on and it would sometimes last two days at a stretch the old man would keep one of the brown-skinned, yellow- haired, frizzle-headed tatooed natives on board as a hostage. The old man had learned caution by bitter experience. At Hivaoa we had found it by no means easy to keep the natives from kidnap ping a red-haired sailor. They thought his scalp worth more than his life. At Auhuga one of our men was actually roasted and eaten. That was a lesson to remember. We never took chances after that. But with a native host age on board the ship, we were not afraid to go a long way in-shore in our boats, though we never quite ventured to land. When the trading was done and we were about to leave, we would send the hostage off in one of our boats, and as soon as we came within swimming distance of the shore 64 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. we would pitch him overboard and make him paddle for terra fir ma. Now it was on one of these occasions, when a hostage was being returned to the bosom of his tribe, that the Rochester boy found an opportun ity to desert. He was in the boat as we took off the native, and when the tatooed man was about to start ashore, Townsend suddenly jumped over board and swam for the land. The officer in charge ordered him to return, but he never paid the least attention just tumbled through the surf, scrambled up the beach and made away inland as fast as his truant heels could carry him. " Blast my luck," said the officer, " blast my ugly luck ! Now I ll have to face the music ! Noiu the old man 11 make me waltz ! " But he checked the outpouring of his chagrined rage. He tried to recover something like dignity before his men. The men, on their part, suppressed their merriment. Without another word from anybody the boat returned to the ship. It was just as the second mate had predicted. The old man flew into a terrible passion, swore hideous blasts of blubber-slicer profanity, cursed everybody and everything from the chief mate to the carpenter s ditty-box, and vowed he d have that Townsend back in his clutches again if he had BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 65 to chase him till the end of time. He didn t care what it cost. Hed get even with that cussed young beach-comber if he had to die for it, and all the rest of us along with him. He d rather get a good fierce grip on Ed. Townsend than try out the last sperm whale in the South Pacific he d be blowed if he wouldn t ! But, as on former occasions, we saw the gale blow by. The worse the old man raged the sooner he would calm down. And when the tempest was over, all that remained of the case against Townsend was a sincere desire, with a proportionate determination, to recover the services of so good a sailor. So the next day we stood in to another bay r about four miles to the leeward of the place that had witnessed Townsend s escape. There, unable to drop our mud-hook, we lay off and on. We had not been long in the bay before a canoe came off with a white man and two natives. That was just the very thing the old man wanted. He received the visitors with eager welcome, invited them into the cabin, ordered drinks for four, and dismissed the steward, warning him to shut the door tight behind him. The quartette remained in solemn executive session for half an hour. Then the cabin door 66 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. opened, the men came up on deck, and as the visitors clambered down into their canoe again I heard the old man whisper over the rail, " Now remember, my man, two white flags and you get your reward ! " Then we stood off and put to sea, cruising the grounds again looking for whales. One warm, bright, clear-shining Southern morn ing we were fanning along under a cloud of canvas over a delightfully smooth sea, when a cry from the clouds called down the spirited warning I had heard on a former occasion : " There she blows ! Sperm whale ! " "Where away?" There was breathless excitement on deck. My heart hammered against my ribs. I shook with bewildered suspense. " Four points on the lee bow, sir." The words stabbed through and through me. "How far off?" " Three miles, sir." The captain was in his element. His eyes blazed. His face was white. His voice was harsh and strident. He was master of a splendid occasion. " Call all hands ! " he thundered. " Get your boats ready ! Square the mainyard ! Put the BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 67 helm up and keep her off ! " Heavens, what confusion ! " Stand by your boats ! " At that, every man knew his place and sprang for it with an eager bound of joy. I was among them. For the first time in my young life I was to go in a whale-boat. I was in the mate s boat. " Lower away boats ! " bellowed His Majesty. Instantly the mate and the boat-steerer sprang into the cedar boat one in either end, boat- steerer forward, officer aft and our crew were over the ship s side before the boat splashed in the water. We pounced upon our thwarts, seized our long oars, looked sharp astern, and took the prompt word of command. I pulled after oar. The sail was up in a twinkling. It bellied out full. We dashed headlong after our prey. We were in the lead. The captain and the second mate followed close. I shall never forget the dazzling sensations of that first moment the tall ship, with her checkered sides and her huge white davits ; the two sharp-bowed clinker built boats five long oars in each ; two on one side, three on the other ; the sun-glint upon the oar-blades as they lifted above the surface, the white splash when they dipped again ; the rapid, nervous, brutal stroke ; 68 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. the pose of the officers as they stood in the stern- sheets of the boats, each with his lifted left hand holding the steering oar, and each with his right hand pushing upon the stroke oar ; and, yet more vivid, the one figure I could see in our own boat. For the mate stood last, steering with one hand and helping me row with the other. How those men sprang to their oars it makes my blood tingle to recall. The oars bent in the water. We ripped through the waves, the spray dashing high and white. We were chasing the whale ! And here is the wonderful thing. I had not yet got a glimpse of the whale. In the confusion and excitement of lowering away, I had not even seen the column of vapor that marked him to view. I sat toiling in that pitching and careening boat, with my back toward the whale. It was terrible going to my death, it might be, and going backward ! The mate s face reassured me. He was cool and determined teeth clenched, eyes glaring, brows knitted, but not a sign of anxiety. He knew no such thing as fear. He thrust out his chin. I could see the cords draw stiff in his neck. His face was red from exertion. Every nerve thrilled with a fierce joy. BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 69 He whispered encouragement to his crew hissed it gasped it. " Spring hard, my lively hearties ! Spring hard ! Break a stick, will you ? will you ? break a stick ! Come, come, come, spring hard ! " We pulled like mad. " Not a word not a word ! If you make the least bit of noise I ll brain every one of you ! Come, come, break an oar!" We exerted ourselves to the uttermost. We bent the oars till I thought they would snap in two. " Give away, boys ! Spring hard ! " The captain tried his best to outfoot us. The water leaped in foam around the prow of his boat. Suddenly the mate s face changed. He bit his lip. His eyes stared fixedly. He threw back his head. " Peak your oar," he hissed. Then he shouted, " Stand up and let him have it ! " I thought my heart would burst. Everything swam before me. I gripped my oar tight. I thought I was fainting. " Starn all," the mate roared. " Starn all, and get out of the suds ! " I fell forward with my full weight upon my oar. The mast and sail came down as by magic. The 70 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. mate rushed forward ; the harpooner rushed aft ; they changed places. The line leaped out of its Flemish coil in the tub. We were fast to a whale ! The whale sounded and the line flew after him. It smoked around the loggerheard, it buzzed as it raced past the men, it groaned in the chocks. They poured water on the loggerhead to keep it from taking fire. The whale, with two harpoons in him, took two hundred fathoms of our line. He was gone but five minutes. Then, oh the horror! A vast, black, shining mass stood up ten feet out of water on our lee beam. It was the whale. He had come up head first, a hundred feet away. The boat-steerer swung the steering-oar with all his might. The boat instantly turned half about. " Haul line, all hands ! " whispered the boat- steerer. The Manila line came in wet and heavy, and ran back into the stern-sheets. We were gaining upon our prey. " Take your oars now." Again we were brought with our backs to the whale. The awful moment was at hand. Oh, for eyes in the back of my head ! The officer must already be standing up, lance in hand, ready to strike the murderous blow. BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 71 The boat-steerer s mouth was half-open with expectancy and behold ! Almost against our boat, and just awash of the surface, the monstrous black bulk of the whale ! He stretched huge and dim under water. Only part of him could be seen. A slanting column of hot white vapor stood up ten feet tall, like a rakish mast. It was the whale s spout. When the mate s lance had been sent into the whale s vitals, the boat dashed away from the monster, and I got my first good view of him. He was cutting and thrashing like a cat in a fit. The water all round him was crimson. Jets of thick, cloggy blood a hogsheadful at each jet leaped six feet high from his spout-hole. Then gradually the jets grew feebler. Then the blood merely poured out. Then the whale took a swift, wide circle against the sun, threw his whole mass out of water, breaching; fell on his side with a hideous, wallowing splash ; stuck one fin up, quivering ; dropped his huge, ivory-toothed jaw, and lay dead, in a lather of blood and foam ! An involuntary yell of triumph went up simul taneously from all three boats. We rowed up to the whale, and before we attached our tow-rope, the mate ran his lance into the whale s eye to make sure the life was all gone 72 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. out of him. He never even quivered. So the line was made fast to a slit cut in old Blubber s spoui>hole, and we towed his huge carcass to the Swift. On the way thither, Brother Bowline, who was pulling bow oar, leaned forward between strokes, and said, in jerky phrases interrupted by his work, " I tell you, Charlie, young Townsend would be sorry enough if he could see us now, don t you say so, boy ? Never saw prettier fight, no body hurt, nothin broke. Lord, how I pity that fool on the island ! " It amazed me to see how easily we towed the tremendous, sixty-foot carcass. After we once got the whale started he seemed to propel himself. You would never think it from his " model," and yet the big beast can run like a race-horse when he s alive. The motion is all but effortless a little squirming movement of the tail sends him whizzing through the water. We cut that whale in and boiled out his blubber. Then we set about a most unaccountable task. The old man ordered it and we had to obey, but we growled while we worked. The task was no less than the sending down of our light yards top-gallants and royals and the striking of fore and mizzen-top-gallant masts. There seemed to be no need for such a procedure. There was only BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 73 a very light breeze blowing, and not a sign of a storm anywhere. Old Bowline thought the crew were being hazed. He reminded his shipmates that the old man had had a such times" before. Didn t every man remember pounding the anchor hour after hour ? Could anybody forget the unnecessary holyston ing of the deck ? Had nobody any recollection of wearing out his knees pushing a " prayer book " and swearing inside his jumpers while he did it ? I, for my part, had quite different suspicions. I could not shake myself wholly free of the notion that all this change aboard the Swift was in some way connected with the old man s farewell admoni tion to the beach-comber : " Remember, now. two white flags, and you get your reward ! " After ten days had gone by, an island rose proudly out of the ocean. It was the same green, wooded paradise we had last put out from a beautiful, mountainous oasis, if one may so speak, in the vast waste of blue waters. We stood in for the beach-comber s bay, my fancy big with expectancy. I knew now why the old man had disguised the ship. It all fell out just as I had expected. We beat our way up the harbor, and I watched the shore 74 BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. with eager eyes. Presently I saw a canoe coming off, dancing on the swell, her paddles dipped first one side and then the other, six Kanakas on her thwarts and a white man in either end. Each white man held up a white flag. Full of waggish fun, the old man made ready to wear ship as soon as the canoe approached, and when the Swift came round so as to expose the five bold capitals painted across her stern, one of the white flags went down as if the man in the canoe s prow had suddenly been shot. The man fell flat in the bottom of the canoe, burying his face in his hands. He was our man Townsend ! The beach-comber brought the canoe alongside, and her crew, Townsend not excepted, clambered on board. We shouted with wicked glee. What d I tell you," said Old Bowline. " Didn t I tell you you was a blarsted ninny ever to desert ? Now you ve got your come-up-ance ! " I called out, " Hoist by your own petard ; hanged on your own gallows; caught by your own flag ! " But the captain called us all aft and prepared to lay down the law. We stood in a sort of loose ring on the quarter deck. Townsend faced the captain. Poor truant, he was pale as the ship s courses ! BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. <0 The old man looked the picture and personifica tion of awful wrath. "Townsend," he began in a sepulchral tone that made us all shiver but he never got any further with his intended oration. " Ha ! ha ! ha-a-a ! " he bellowed. " Thought you d run away from the captain of the whaling ship Swift , didrit you f Oh, ha ! ha ! ha ! ha-a-a ! Come, my hearties, just tow this deserter before the mast and tell him what you think of him ! Far as I m concerned I ve got only this to say : if the poor fool plays me another trick like this, I ll make it hot for him ! " Then, turning to the beach-comber, he said, " We ll settle accounts in the cabin, if you like ! " A GLIMPSE OF SAMOA. IT was in 1839 that the Swift visited Apia on the Samoan group, now famous as having been the home of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, and for years the only place where he could live, for any less beneficent climate would have been death to him. At the time the Swift touched there little missionary work had then been done, and lawless ness and license made the place anything but a pleasant one in which to take liberty. But sailors are bold by nature and by habit, and the Swift s crew were many times ashore during the fifteen months when the vessel was cruising in the vicinity. One village, to distinguish it from others, was called "Devil s Town," a most appropriate name. A short time before the arrival of the Swift a vessel had foundered on the reefs, and from the wreck there had been brought ashore several hundred dollars worth of copper. This was secured by the Swift s captain by the payment of some cotton cloth, two barrels of rum, and a few other things of comparatively slight value. A GLIMPSE OF SAMOA. 77 From the island the ship was provided with " yams," a vegetable somewhat resembling the potato, some of which weigh from twelve to fifteen pounds ; "tarrow," a kind of Samoan turnip, and different kinds of fruit. The Swift brought away from Samoa a white man, who had married a native. He was loth to leave her, and she was almost heart-broken at losing him, but the thought of home was stronger than his affection for his native bride, and so they parted. The soil of the Samoan group, or Navigator s Islands, is enriched by the decomposition of volcanic rocks, and so the vegetation is luxurious and the flowers are exceedingly brilliant. In 1830 the Christian religion began to work its slow change among the people, and now nearly all of the inhabitants are Christians. In 1889 the three powers most interested in the matter England. Germany and the United States recognized the independence of Samoa, and its right to elect its own chief or king according to its own laws and customs, making at the same time, however, provision for the establishment of a superior court for the adjust ment of claims and titles to lands, the raising of taxes, and the restriction of the sale and use of 78 A GLIMPSE OP SAMOA. arms and intoxicating liquors. In spite of all this, in 1892 there began a civil war, which was only terminated by the intervention of German, British and American war vessels. Up and down went the Swift after leaving Samoa, calling at this port for a little stay, putting in at that harbor for a day s replenishing and refreshment, and by-and-by the anchor was made ready to throw in the harbor of that land which poets have sung and sailors have loved through many and many a year; the loveliest and most welcome of all the islands of the sleeping southern sea, Otaheite. Leaving these islands and after cruising for several months, looking from the masthead, with not less than four men on the top gallant cross- trees, from daylight to dark, and finding the sperm whales not plenty, we put away for the Society Islands. After a pleasant passage, w r e had the most beautiful island of all the Pacific in sight, and with Kanaka Jim Crook Toe as pilot through the Towenor passage we passed inside the reefs. With a spanking breeze we run down, with coral reefs on either side of the ship, for three or four miles to one of the finest harbors in the world, Papiete, in the island of Tahiti, where we found six or eight American whalers, A GLIMPSE OF SAMOA. 79 one French frigate, and two sloops of war. Having hauled the ship in shore, one chain cable was taken from stern port to shore and secured to the breadfruit tree, and, with one anchor ahead and both chains hove taut, the ship was safely moored. This was the first port for eighteen months, with anchor only dropped once during that time ; and in all this eighteen months without a symptom of scurvy or sickness of any kind, as I recollect it. Having the ship safely moored, the captain comfortably established at his hotel on shore, the first officer, by order of the master, commences overhauling and putting in order from the rails to truck, sending every yard down, loosening truss and yardarm bands, new parcelling under them and replacing, seeing that every block with sheaves and pins was in order, stripping the top mast with top gallant masts standing, putting the rigging in good order, all being fitted, masts stayed, standing rigging set up, yards crossed, running rigging rove, sails bent and furled snug, and all yards squared. After giving all hands several days run on shore, and having filled our water casks, taken wood for the season, taken on board potatoes and yams, filled our lower 80 A GLIMPSE OF SAMOA. rigging with bunches of bananas, and one boat overhead on her keel nearly filled with luscious oranges, the ship was unmoored, with the captain on board and Crooked Toed Jim as pilot, we left one of the finest ports of the world, and the island of Tahiti, the garden of the Pacific Islands, and a hospitable and clever native people, who at that time were being demoralized and decimated through their intercourse with what we term the higher civilization. We proceeded on our voyage, or cruise, to the Vasquez ground and New Zealand section, in sight and out of sight of "French Rock," a small island or rock rising perpendicularly from the ocean, several hundred feet high, located north of North Cape of New Zealand, which was formerly a favorite feeding ground for the sperm whale. Cruising here for several months, then further south for right whales, and after taking several, the captain put away for ports on the Chilean coast. WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. THE Captain tells some of his experiences at Otaheite, which show that though it was a natural paradise, its inhabitants were fond of rum. He says : While lying at Otaheite, one of the Society Islands, we retailed about fifty barrels of rum to the natives and ship s crews. As cabin-boy, I was kept on board to sell it. The price was six dollars a gallon, or a dollar a bottle. We were now eighteen months from home, and we had lost some from leakage. To make up the loss, the captain ordered me to draw two pails-full from each barrel and fill it up with sea water before selling it. I was told not to sell it to any of the sailors from the ships, but the old man very well knew they would manage to get a taste of it. They put their heads together and cooked up a plan to get all the rum they wanted they would simply make the natives " rush the growler " for them, as they say in the Bowery give their bottles and money to the islanders and let them negotiate the purchase, on the basis of a promised commis sion. I could always tell the bottles the crews sent, for they were particularly large and made of 82 WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. a peculiar, dark-colored glass. But this was not the only method I had of catching our men at their tricks. For our crew had liberty on shore as long as we lay at anchor. Each day the captain allowed every sailor a dollar, and even more liberty-money went to the officers. I would mark the money I gave them, and the same coin would come back for rum and be ready for distribution again next day. After awhile the crews from some of the ships were sick and unfit for duty, and presently our men were in the same fix. The captains thought it was from drinking our rum, and they were right, though they were not yet aware that we had been putting salt water in it. They met and had a consultation, and laid the trouble to our "poor" rum. So they waited on our captain and requested him not to sell their crews any more rum, as they were sure that that was the cause of the sickness. The old man replied that he had sold no rum to sailors, and that even if they had got hold of it by trickery, it would not make them drunk, for the salt water in it would act as a soberer. There was so much complaint about our ship that finally the missionaries went to confer with the " queen " of the island. Her Koyal Highness WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. 83 appointed a squad of natives to act as police, to watch and arrest anyone that came ashore with liquor, and to destroy all the rum they could find. The temperance movement was then in its infancy, but there we had legal restriction of the liquor traffic prohibition with a vengeance ! But there was an old native called " Jim," the pilot for the harbor, who had been one of my best customers, though he found the salt water affected him somewhat. One day Jim met the old man on shore, and told him he would like to buy a barrel of rum and would pay him his price, six dollars a gallon, for it but only on condition the captain would put no water in it. The old man came on board in the evening, having given the pilot his word of honor not to water the rum. The old man accordingly gave me instructions to fix a barrel of rum, as Jim would come off for it during the night. I was to fill it and make it tight, and when all was ready, to call the men down to help me get it on deck and overboard for Jim to take on shore. I took a lamp, so as to be able to see down there in the hold where the rum was kept, and I had just started when the Captain called to me from his berth, for he was in bed, ordering me to take the light out and put it on the cabin floor. I could not see very well what I was doing, and I g4 WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. was so tired that the smell of rum made me all but fall asleep. I lay down there in the dark waiting for the measure to fill, and in a moment more I was in the Land of Nod. The old man, however, was wide awake and wondered why I was so quiet and so amazingly slow. He shouted to me to see what had happened, and that brought me to my senses. The measure was quite full by that time oh, yes ! and nearly a barrel of that villianous grog had run away in the dark. We got the cask on deck and over the side, with a piece of rope attached to it, all ready for Jim to tow on the shore. About midnight Jim came off, about half drunk, with a bag of silver dollars. He was ready to pay a big price, but he was bound to have rum without water in it. We called the old man, and Jim was assured that it was all ready for him to take away. But Jim was not to be fooled this way. He wanted to satisfy himself that the rum had not been watered. So we were obliged to hoist it on deck and draw off a glassful. Jim drank part of it, and then asked for a piece of paper, which he first soaked in the rum and then lit from the lamp. The spirits burned brightly, and that con vinced Jim that the bargain was square ; but he failed to observe that the paper itself remained WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. 85 unburnt, being soaked with water from the rum ; for Jim was all wrong in his notion that the old man was using him right. Nevertheless, Jim got the barrel on shore safe and sound, dug a hole in the sand near his hut, and there he buried his prize. But poor Jim had the misfortune to lose the greater part of the stuff, for he went on a roaring drunk that lasted several days, and Her Majesty s coppers kept a bright lookout for the rum. Now, as Jim had regularly dug up the cask once every day to get a new supply of the fiery stimulant, the Imperial Dogberrys soon found it and smashed it, the vile stuff soaking down into the thirsty soil with a rapidity that quite broke old Jim s heart. Our ship got a bad, bad name at Otaheite they called the old hooker " The Floating Grog shop," and we well deserved the title. And yet I would have you remember, reader, that I was not in any way responsible for that rum-selling, though every infernal drop was sold at my hands. I was only a cabin-boy, and I had to do what I was told to do, and that was the honorable business the old man set me about. Just one other incident of our stay at Otaheite seems to me worth telling. I was not allowed to go ashore with the crew on liberty, as I was the only 86 WATERED RUM AT OTAHEITE. one the Captain would trust to have anything to do with selling or dealing out the rum. There was a boy about my age on one of the ships in port, a schoolmate of mine back in New Bedford. He came on board to see me, as he was going ashore on a day s liberty, and I begged the captain to let me go with him. After some teasing the old man consented, telling me to give the keys of the rum- hold to one of the petty officers when I left the ship. Now the second mate was on board and had charge of the ship, while the first mate and watch were ashore on liberty. As I was about to leave the ship, the second mate asked me for the keys. I told him I had obeyed the captain s orders and had given them to another officer. I started ashore, feeling there would be some trouble ; and in this I was not far wrong, for when I came on board that night, I found that there had been a fight for the keys, that the second mate was crazy drunk and wanted to leave the ship, and that the old man had threatened to put him in irons. That need I add ? was my very last holiday on Otaheite. RIGHT WHALES. WE cruised about three months in the Southern Ocean, looking for right whales. We saw many, and took six hundred barrels of oil and about five thousand pounds of bone. One day, when the weather was fine and the ocean very calm, we lowered and gave chase to two monstrous right whales that were going slowly to the leeward. The captain s boat came up to them first and succeeded in striking one. Instantly down went both the whales. When they came up again, the mate struck the other one. They proved to be a bull and a cow the cow was struck first. The bull made the sea foam. He cut around in great fury and stove two of our boats the cap tain s and the mate s and the lines had to be cut to get clear. The second mate came along lively and picked up the crews, which came near sinking his boat. Eighteen men in one boat, and the ship four miles away to leeward a pleasant prospect ! And as the wind had died down com pletely there was nothing for it but to row, and that in an all but sinking boat, so crowded you could hardly move without knocking your neighbor overboard. 88 RIGHT WHALES. But that was not the worst of it. The worst of it fell upon myself and another dare-devil young chap or rather he and I brought it down upon ourselves, for we volunteered. It was this way. The captain was bound not to lose sight of the stoven boats, and wanted two of the men to stay by them until he could bring the old hooker and pick them up. "We two, being young and fearless, offered to take the job. We stood each on the stern and bow of a boat, sunken just to the water s edge, and hung on to a flag-pole for three terrible hours, with the two wounded whales cutting about and making the water white with their huge flukes, only a little way from where we stood. All that while we were afraid for our lives, as we were out in the middle of the ocean and the ship was four miles off. It is always with a shudder that I recall that adventure, though fifty years and more have gone by since then. But I remember that even when the danger was worst, we found room for joking, and one of our men cried out, " Better have paid your washwoman ! " That is the usual gibe when a man is caught in a stoven boat, for there is a belief among whalers that if you don t pay your washwoman you ll suffer the penalty of getting your boat smashed. CUTTING HOLE THROUGH SCALP FOR HEAD CHAINS, SHOWING "BONNET HISTORIC MUTINEERS. MAKING our passage to the eastward, when in the longitude of Pitcairn Island the ship was put to the north, and at 8 A. M. on the next day we made the land, appearing more like a sail or ship in the long distance. On nearing we found the island to be nearly 2000 feet high and about five miles in circumference, with a ledge of rocks making off a few rods from the north and south points. When within two miles of the island, five of the natives came off in their canoes, the canoes being dug out of a tree ten or twelve feet long and about two feet wide, with keel from three to four inches broad. The natives, before coming on board, very politely asked permission of the captain. They speak very good English when talking to English or Americans, but not intelligible at all to me when talking to each other, owing to their talking so very quickly. At nine in the morning I went on shore, and found it very tiresome in walking up the long, steep hill or cliff. Their houses are built of board, planed, the sides and ends. The sides ship and unship, on account of it being very warm. The roofs are thatched with 90 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. the leaves of the trees. We found the people very friendly and hospitable, the young married and single women very diffident. They are tall the most of them and handsomely shaped. Their every-day dress is a loose gown, with no shoes, bonnet or handkerchief. Their children are very pretty and healthy, and are good scholars. The boys at 10 and 11 had gone in the arithmetic as far as the rule of three. The men are well made, tall, with good features, and are very strong. They are very fair and honest in all their dealings. Their principal industry is in cultivating the ground. The island is equally divided among all the people. In trading with ships every family sells an equal share. The women are very strong. I met several coming from the mountain. When down to the village I took the load from some of their backs, and counted five large watermelons as one load. When the boats returned to the ship with the captain, he was accompanied by John Adams, the son of John Adams, one of the survivors of the Bounty, and Christian, the son of Lieutenant Christian, the leader of the mutiny. A real romance of the sea is that surrounding Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands. For from the mutineers of the Bounty, an English ship, and HISTORIC MUTINEERS. 91 their native wives has grown up a peaceful, God-fearing community in an ocean home on the other side of the globe. But few who listen to the Captain s stories know that the Bounty, commanded by Lieutenant Bligh, a Cornishman who had sailed with Captain Cook, was fitted out to carry breadfruit plants from Otaheite, one of the Society Islands, to the West Indies. Certain slave holders with human property in the West Indies had represented to His Majesty George III. that breadfruit would constitute a very cheap and entirely adequate food for their bondsmen in those far away isles. This view the monarch readily adopted, and measures were quickly taken to secure the suggested advantage. It was in 1787 the ship sailed away on her adventurous voyage, and a stormy one it proved. The vessel was buffeted by winds and waves, she was badly provisioned, and her captain and officers were severe and cruel. The route marked out by the government was abandoned, and the vessel touched at the Cape of Good Hope, where she was refitted. From there she went to Australia, and after a short stay sailed directly to Otaheite, where she arrived in October. All were well received, and Captain Bligh and his officers were treated like royal visitors. 92 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. The Captain who has touched at Otaheite in the Swift describes it as one of the dream gardens of the world. He says it is cradled in the arms of the tender-breathed Pacific, with an atmos phere like etherealized, gentle-vintaged wine, endowed with beauty everywhere present, every where voluptuous, marvellously prolific in dif ferent fruits, wonderfully productive of deep- tinted foliage and brilliantly colored flowers, seemingly a favorite which nature has blessed with her most lavish bounty, decked with her most glowing adornment. The natives are a fine looking people, the women being especially attractive, so it is not strange that the sailors of the Bounty thought it a paradise when they landed there years ago. The harsh treatment of Captain Bligh still continued, and it seemed as if it was almost more than the men could bear. Captain Bligh gave the chief many presents, and in return the vessel was loaded with breadfruit trees. For over five months the Bounty lay in this friendly port, but the captain began to suspect his men of treachery and so he sailed away towards the West Indies. Twenty-four days after, the mutiny broke out. Captain Bligh on his return to England gave a graphic account of the affair, which, however, is considered somewhat unjust. HISTORIC MUTINEERS. 93 The mutiny was led by the mate Christian, an Englishman of good family, and it seems that the idea of the men was to return to the island, where they could live almost without work. No blood was shed, but the captain and a portion of the crew were turned adrift in an open boat, from which they were rescued after a long and perilous voyage, and returned to England. It was decided by government that the muti neers must, if possible, be apprehended and fitly punished. The brig Pandora, of twenty-four guns and a hundred and sixty men, under command of Captain Edwards, was dispatched to Otaheite to secure such of the offenders as might be lingering there, and if not all found, to visit the different groups of the Society and Friendly Islands, and places in their vicinity, for the mutineers, who were all to be brought to England in chains. On March 23, 1791, the Pandora anchored in Matavi Bay, Otaheite. Fourteen of the muti neers were found, seized, and put in irons on board the vessel. They knew nothing of the fate of the Bounty. She had been to the Island and sailed away the previous September, with seven native men and twelve women, leaving these men behind. It 94 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. was not until 1814 that their whereabouts were discovered. Sir Thomas Staines gives an account of the little colony founded by Christian and his band. " On my passage from the Marquesas Islands," he says, " I fell in with an island where none is laid down in the Admiralty or other charts. . . . I hove to until daylight, and then closed to ascer tain if it was inhabited, which I soon discovered it to be, and, to my great astonishment, found that every individual on the island (forty in number ) spoke very good English. They proved to be the descendants of the deluded crew of the Bounty, who, from Otaheite, proceeded to the above-mentioned island, where the ship was burned. " Christian appears to have been the leader and sole cause of the mutiny of that ship. A venerable old man, named John Adams, is the only surviving Englishman of those who quitted Otaheite in her, and whose exemplary conduct and fatherly care of the whole of the little colony could not but command admiration. The pious manner in which all those born on the island have been reared, the correct sense of religion which has been instilled into their young minds by this old man, has given him the pre-eminence HISTORIC MUTINEERS. 95 over the whole of them, to whom they look up as the father of one and the whole family. " A son of Christain was the first born on the island, now about twenty-five years of age, named Thursday October Christian; the elder Christian fell a sacrifice to the jealousy of a Otaheitan man within three or four years after their arrival on the island. ^ " The island must undoubtedly be that called Pitcairn, though erroneously laid down in the charts. It produces in abundance yams, plan tains, hogs, goats and fowls; but the coast affords no shelter for a ship of any description, neither could a ship water there without great difficulty. " During the whole time they have been on the island only one ship has communicated with them, which took place about six years ago ; and this was the American ship Topaz, of Boston, Matthew Folger, master. " The island is completely iron-bound with rocky shores, and the landing in boats must be at all times difficult, although the island may be safely approached within a small distance by a ship." Young Christian, a tall, straight limbed, hand some young fellow, with very dark hair and a winsome, open countenance, visited Captain 96 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. Staine s ship, his costume consisting of a loin, or " tappa," cloth, and a straw hat ornamented with black cock s feathers. His companion was also a handsome youth, son of George Young, the Bounty s midshipman. When the young men were taken below, and refreshments were set before them, they both arose, and one of them repeated with folded hands, "For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful." It was found, indeed, that from their English fathers and Otaheitan mothers there had been born a race of beauties; olive-skinned, with lovely dark eyes, perfect teeth, abundant dark hair, and expressions which told of benevolent feelings and warm hearts. Many scenes of blood left Adams and Young the only survivors of the fifteen males who had landed on the island, and in her preservation of these two Providence was kind, for they were the two of all the number in whose hearts was the resolution to make this little sea-pent, isloated island a God-fearing and intelligent community. They had a Bible and a prayer-book. Divine services were held each Sunday, and morning and evening prayers were said in all the houses. Young did not long survive his companions, but HISTOKIC MUTINEERS. 97 Adams lived to be the instructor, the governor, adviser, and in all essential things the father of the entire people. He had a ring with which he for years married every couple that was united on the island. Great harmony prevailed in the little community. If any difficulty arose it was referred to "Father Adams/ who always and speedily managed to set things right. Some time previous to 1825 a whaleship which anchored off the island left on shore a young man who had become so fascinated with the life of the small colony that he wished to remain among its people. In this man the young people found an enthusiastic instructor, and all a close and unselfish friend. His name was John Buffet. John Adams died on March 29, 1829, sixty-fire years of age, having lived on Pitcairn Island forty-one years. There had come to the island in 1828 a man named John Hunn Nobbs, who had married Sarah, grand-daughter of Fletcher Christian. Mr. Nobbs having proved an excellent friend and wise counsellor, on him fell the mantle of the expiring " father" of the people. When in 1851 Rear- Admiral Fairfax Moresby visited Pitcairn, he took a special interest in Mr. Nobbs and his family, and procured a passage for him to London, where he was ordained a deacon 7 98 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. in August, 1852, and a priest in November. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel put him on its list with a salary of fifty pounds a year, and he was introduced to many distinguished people, among them being Queen Victoria, who gave him portraits of herself and the Royal family. He returned to Pitcairn in 1853. Pitcairn had now become too small for its inhabitants, to which had been added a number of English families, and soon after the return of Mr. Nobbs, Admiral Moresby wrote the Admiralty that measures should be taken for securing a more adequate dwelling place for the people of this " small rock in the West. Government had abandoned Norfolk Island as a convict station, and as this island was regarded as especially desirable for the new home of the Pitcairn colony, over tures, which proved successful, were made for securing it for that purpose. Though almost broken-hearted at leaving their beloved Pitcairn, the colonists gratefully acquiesced in the plans made in their behalf, only stipulating that they were to live, as heretofore, in seclusion from the outside world. They landed on Norfolk Island in June, 1856. There is nothing to relate of the Norfolk Islanders, except the gradual introduction among HISTORIC MUTINEERS. 99 them of mercantile life and educational facilities, and the constant broadening and deepening of life in all its forms. The establishment on the Island of a mission college in 1866, was of the greatest importance to the people. Being at one time near Savage Island in a calm and entirely smooth sea, a large sperm whale hove in sight, coming towards the ship. After spouting, or breathing, some fifty or sixty times, it turned flukes and went down. The boats were immediately lowered and placed, by direction of the captain, when the whale spouted, having been down nearly one hour. He was nearest the captain s boat, who, with paddle and with little noise, slipped alongside the big fellow. When the boat-steerer threw his harpoons, only one of them entered the whale. He, not liking the sensation, at once sounded, taking out nearly two hundred and fifty fathoms of line. In the mean time, the other boats were pulling for dear life to the assistance of the captain, who was now hauling in the two hundred and fifty fathoms of line. As the chief mate s boat drew near, the whale having broke water and for the time being very quiet, the captain called out that he had but one iron in and for us to be quick and get fast. Now the boat is being rushed square off and on 100 HISTORIC MUTINEERS. to the whale, with boat-steerer on his feet, harpoon in hand. Before near enough to dart, the whale settles out of sight, and, in an instant, rising strikes the boat on the port bow with his jaw, knocking all of us overboard except the tub oarsman, who was jammed between the tub, with two hundred and fifty fathoms of line in it, and the side of the boat. When the writer came up, he caught the gunwale, and, raising himself to enter, he found the whale s jaw occupying the length of the boat, on the thwarts or seats. Thinking there was not room for him, he called to the Swede to jump. At this instant the whale rolled with the line so caught in his teeth as to hold the boat right over him. Starting at good speed to run, with boat thumping on his back, until she turned bottom up, and the poor Swede was seen no more. The second mate s boat approaching, it took the mate in, and, while the third mate picked up the men and was saving boat oars, etc., we at once proceeded to help the captain secure the whale. The master was a most excellent whaleman, never darting the lance when he could get near enough to set on the whale, that is, hold on to the pole and push his lance into the vitals of the whale ; and now, while the vicious whale had his eye on our boat, HISTOKIC MUTINEERS.:-, t \ / .101 the captain rushed in. In Ian0e,^ahd; out: of frfre spout hole with his breath came the thick buckets or barrels of blood, when the victory was won. The whale was taken to the ship, cut in, and boiled out over eighty barrels of sperm oil. RUDDER SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. ** Strangers in strange places should always be strangers." Ruth Ashmore. " TAINT much like a New Bedford Sunday, eh boy?" " Not by a long sea mile! " " Church in the morning Holy Joe in his heavenly togs. Bull-fight in the afternoon Holy Joe on deck with blood in his for ard lights, b gawsh ! Granny Howland ! what a crew these here heathen Chilenos be ! Eh, boy ? " " Pious, though." "Eh?" " Pious, Rudder, pious as a saint in a stained- glass window. I was on shore yesterday ; and Rudder, you ought toVe seen the turn-out. Beats man-o -war s men at quarters. Pretty as a New Bedford Fourth-o -July. Long strings o priests and such ; big crew o sogers ; band o music ; flags and candles; and all the dagoes in Talca- huano turned loose and shouting Spanish so I thought they d bust an oar sure ! I gave SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 103 chase, o course, and they made off to windward and brought up in some kind o big square." "Plaza," said Kudder. "That s what these here heathen Chilienos calls it." " Yes," I went on, " that s the word. Funny lingo they talk here. And, Rudder, that whole turn-out was brought up all standing by an order from the colonel, or general, or whatever they call their f old man/ and then they got out a dummy of Judas Iscariot." "Effigy," laughed Rudder, "That s the word you re soundin for." " Well, effigy then. That whole ship s company fell in line again, and peppered that effigy with cold lead. Then they set the old moss-back afire, beginning with his boots, and when the fire crept up amidships he blew himself to bits, like a bomb lance, and all the people yelled and jumped and crowed. Don t you call that pious, Rudder ? " Well, t ain t my notion of piosity. Piosity, boy, is to keep out o jail, keep out o bull-fights, and steer clear o them dev lish pulparees. That s what / call piosity. An them pulparees I tell you, boy them pulparees is the sartin road to Granny Howlan s wash tub. Why, there s one now, boy." (A moment of hesitation, a wriggle of futile resistance.) "Say we go in?" 104 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. I laughed outright. So did Rudder, and in we went. A pulparee is by interpretation a grog-shop. Pulparia is the Spanish, but we mariners give it a turn of our own. Dark and grimy is the pulparee; desperate and dangerous are the idlers that lounge there ; vile and strong is the fiery liquor they drink. I stepped across the well-worn threshold with a stinging sense of guilt. I had never entered such a place before. I was a thorough-going teeto taller. And besides I began to wonder how ever should I manage to comport myself becomingly in the fellowship of these hard and reckless chole drinkers. I was sorry, now, that I had let Rudder Simpson take me in tow. My embarrassment, however, was soon relieved, for a superb native, gorgeous in many dazzling colors, stepped up to Simpson and engaged him in conversation. " Bowling-alley o," said the glittering stranger, " Senor lika play nine-pinza ? " " You re right/* said Rudder, flattered with the attention, " Where away ? " " Come," said the dazzling personage, with a stagy gesture. He lookei as if he had just stepped out of " Carmen." SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 105 The Personage led the way into the street, and we followed. We passed on together along a thoroughfare crowded with Chilian merrymakers. Here an organ grinder had gathered a motley crowd of listeners. Yonder a man and a woman, bothpeones, were dancing the zamacueca. Leisure ly throngs strolled by on their way to the bull-fight. Now and then a pretty senorita peered out at us through a grated window piercing some stout adobe wall. Spanish was spoken on every hand. Kudder and I enjoyed the novelty of the situation. It was a great thing to have a notable personage to serve as guide and guardian, as we roamed through that old, white-walled, red- tiled Chilian town. We came at last to a sort of cheap inn, or posada, entering which, we crossed the enclosed patio and found ourselves in the bowling alley. Here the Personage bargained with the sallow, round-shouldered, little proprietor, and explained to Rudder the terms of the agreement. It was simplicity itself. The loser of the game was to pay for the use of the alley. Then the game began. The Personage threw off his emerald-hued poncho and gave it to me to hold. With a magnificent wave of his patrician hand, he said to me, " You, senor, pick up ze nine-pinza!" 106 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. Rudder could not have made me do it. I should have fought to the last eyelash. But for the personage why, certainly, with pleasure ! It was a great treat to watch those two men play. What a curious contrast ! The Personage would take his cigarrito between the fingers of his left hand, poise the wooden ball in the palm of his right hand, strike a startling, statuesque attitude, and then, with a sudden spring that sent the long red sash swinging against his yellow breeches, and brought the huge silver spurs of his tall boots banging against the floor, he would hurl the ball down the alley. Then he would pose like Hamlet when he says, " To be or not to be," and wait to see the result. Rudder, on the other hand, rolled into range with a slovenly waddle and discharged his missile without further ado. Whish-sh-sh-sht, bumpety- bump-bump-bump, whir-r-r-r , crash ! Down would go the nine-pins never less than six gener ally all nine ! But with the Personage it was not so. Had he been drinking augadente who knows ? I picked up nine-pins for fully an hour. From time to time I saw a pained look in the Personage s proud face, for the Personage was playing a losing game. SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 107 When the hour was done, Rudder said, " Now colonel, you settle with the Czar ! " " / how you say a? / paya ze gamo? No, senor, no ! You win, you paya ! I lose ze gamo. You lose ze oro how you say a ? ze monee ! " "No, ye don t," cried Rudder. " Blowed if ye do ! " " Si, senor. How you say ? yes, sirra ! " " Blast ye ? " bawled Rudder. Pay down that cash or I ll make old rags out o yer rainbow togs. Blowed if I don t ! Hear that, Dago ? " Now, as a matter of solemn fact, the Personage had not so much as a piastre in his wallet. He had already spent his last copper for augadente in the pulparee. Rudder was not uncommonly quick of percep tion. It was a moment before he fully grasped the enormity of the outrage the Personage had perpetrated upon him. When he saw through the scheme, he boiled with wrath. Before he had time to lay into the Personage, the round- shouldered proprietor stuck his sallow visage through the door of his lair, and seeing what was up, made haste to insure himself against fraud. He expostulated fiercely with Rudder and the Personage, demanding four times the usual fee. 108 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. " Say, old boss," said Rudder, " this sunset dandy here won t pay down the cash ; an if he don t, I ll shiver his blarsted timbers, b gawsh ! Hear that, ye blasted Dago f " The Personage puffed his cigar rito in silence. Rudder gazed at his enemy a second in unutter able malice. Then he swung his huge palm in air and brought it across the face of the Per sonage with a slam that knocked that worthy s cigarritto clean into his mouth, light and all ! Now, I flatter myself that my wits work quicker than Rudder Simpson s. In an instant I got three different views of the situation. First, this was a den of robbers and the Personage was a decoy to lead us into peril, the provocation being raised by him to induce us to begin the fight and take the consequence if ever the case got into court. Second, this was a first-class hotel, but full of the friends of the Personage, who would be willing to take his part in a quarrel. Third, the hotel was well-nigh deserted because of the bull-fight, and therefore there would be few witnesses of what might presently occur. In any contingency, the scene of the battle must be immediately trans ferred to the open street. To this end I grabbed the Chileno s green poncho, slapped him on the head with it, to SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 109 attract his attention, and then turned and ran like a gallied whale. The Personage dashed after me, Rudder Simpson dashed after the Personage, and the round-shouldered alley-owner dashed after Rudder Simpson. I led my excited followers a swift chase across the patio, plunged headlong through the posado and brought up in the street. Once there I dropped the poncho, and just as I did so, the agile Simpson landed a merciless right-swing on the Chileno s starboard ear. Neither the stoop-shouldered proprietor nor the eighteen-year-old cabin-boy cared to get mixed up in the row, so we two stood well back from the mill. We were not alone, however, for the battle was no more than joined when up came a dozen sailors from various ships in the harbor. " I sy," bawled a ruddy Cockney, " ere s a bloody row the syme as a bloody bull-fight! Wat s on?" " It im, Yank, it im bloomin ard ! " "Avast ! " cried a Nantucket whaleman. "His chimney s afire ! He s spoutin blood ! It s his flurry ! " "No, taint; he s only a little groggy. There, my hearties, bring the claret give away, boys!" 110 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. " That s right, Jack, you re a good un, eart an and ! " " Watch im, watch im ! There, good un ! " By this time the Personage had lost his silk sash, his shirt was torn open from shoulder to belt, and his hairless head was, as Dr. Doyle would say, a study in scarlet. Eudder, on the other hand, was still in prime condition. He was badly out of wind and he had a lump under his left eye like a pigeon s egg, but there was unlimited fight in that huge, lanky frame of his. He made a furious lead at his foe. The two men grappled and clinched. The Spaniard was forced to the wall. " Owe it to him, Yank ! " " Look sharp, Yank ; e ll spur." And spur he did. That was what he had been waiting for. He jabbed the sharp steel rowel deep into the calf of Rudder Simpson s leg and ground it to and fro in the wound. " Down killick ! " " Kill the Dago ! " In Rudder s effort to escape the spur he had lost his balance, and the two desperate men fell to the earth together. " Bully for you ! " " Kill im, Yank ! " " Don t get gallied ! " SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. Ill But best he could do, Eudder was forced under. Then I heard a half-smothered cry : " Help quick more beef!" The Spaniard was biting Rudder Simpson s nose ! ! I sprang to the rescue. As I did so, a dozen Chilenos came up out of the ground. A dozen more dropped down from the sky. I battered the Spaniard with both fists till I thought I had killed him, and then Two seconds later it was several hours after ward. I opened my eyes or rather, my eye, for one of them somehow stayed shut and observed important changes in my surroundings. Four walls had closed around me. A low couch had worked its way in under my back. A heavy- raftered roof unaccountably met my gaze. In other words, I had been carried into a house and rescued from the blood-thirsty Chilenos. It was night. I took in the situation only by degrees. A dark- eyed woman was sitting at the foot of the couch. She was brightly clad, and she had a brilliant shawl thrown over her shoulders. Her hair hung in two heavy, dark braids. The woman gazed across the room. Her attention was fixed upon someone speaking. That someone knelt before 112 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. an image of the blessed Virgin, and was praying aloud to the holy Mother of God ? I had never heard such pathos in a woman s voice. It was the agony of unanswered prayer. It was a sweet voice. The woman was very young. I could not understand what she said, but I know she was entreating the Maid of Galilee to spare my life. I could not bear to see the woman so sad ; so I moved gently on the couch. " Oh, Inez ! " cried the mother. The girl sprang from her knees. The two women embraced each other and bent over me. Their brown eyes shown with exultant joy ; their hair brushed my face. I felt like a person suddenly required to make a speech. I had been saved saved from the fury of a blood-thirsty mob ; these women had saved me I owed my life to them ! Oh, how could I thank them enough ? I tried to frame some sort of expression for my gratitude; but then it occurred to me that I had a capital excuse for saying absolutely nothing at all. I knew not a single word of Spanish. What an agreeable relief ! But had I attempted even the feeblest sentence, it would inevitably have been interrupted, for just JUNK COMING IN AT WAISTV SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 113 then there was a deafening uproar in the street. I could hear loud cries. The words were Spanish. I could nevertheless understand one word, Ameri cano, and I realized that I was the person so earnestly held in request. Inez rushed to the windows to make sure that the shutters were securely barred. As she did so, she left a pretty picture in my memory her white arms outstretched, her head thrown back, her hair luxuriant and beautiful. She was my guardian angel. I lifted my head to watch her, but the effort made me dizzy, and I swooned again. I think it must have been only a few minutes before I was myself once more, but when I next realized the possible gravity of the situation, the mob had gone and we were for the moment safe. Inez sat by my side, stroking my hand and look ing distractingly lovely. I noticed the pungent odor of some foreign drug. On the table was an open flask. But now there came a fresh assault upon the street door. Again I heard cries. Chilenos ? No, the rabble had gone their way. Vigilantes ? No, those mounted night patrolmen were apparently quite indifferent to the fact of my existence. The voices were familiar voices, and the words were English. 114 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. " Hi there, boy ! You in there, you rascal ? Come, turn to ! None o your sogering ! Do you hear the news ? Tumble up, lively / " It was the old man ! I shouted back, " Spanish folks in here. Don t known English. Can t tell em to open the door ! " " Open it yourself, then, you leatherhead ! " That was unmistakably the mate s voice. Now my preservers, hearing English spoken and realizing that the men on the doorstep must be acquaintances of mine, or at all events no enemies, else I should have been afraid to answer, opened the door. In strode the two burly men. The captain never looked so big, the mate was never so surly. "Well," the old man observed in a tone of infinite disgust, " here you are with your head broke ! " My head was not exactly " broke," though it was by no means attractively embellished by my recent battle with the Personage. I had a gash about an inch long over my left eye, and that luckless optic was completely closed by the black ened swelling. The old man roared at me with such thunderous ferocity that Inez was frightened. She seemed to SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 115 think my destruction was now a matter of grim certainty. She threw herself upon her knees between the old man and his prey. Her mother at the same time seized the mate by the collar. It was like a scene in a melodrama! I found the gust of cool night air from the open door very refreshing. There was a certain ener gizing property also in the old man s harsh voice. I rose from the couch. I felt so much better that I thought I could walk alone. I tried yes, I could. My first impulse was to kiss Inez (the dear girl!); but it occurred to me she would hardly like to be kissed by a chap with a broken head and a game eye. I found it somewhat easier to refrain from kissing her mother. I had not the slightest temptation to kiss the old man. As it was, I bowed, and waved my hand in a futile sort of pantomime, and wished with all my heart I could put my farewell into words, for then I should have made Inez promise to write often. I was pitiably conscious of figuring in an awkward and inglorious attempt at sentiment. It was as absurd as that place in Fanny Burney s novel where it says, " They both wept, curtseyed and withdrew." Very little was said about the affair, however, as we three Americanos returned to the Swift. 116 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. Of course I was wriggling with curiosity to know what in creation had become of Rudder Simpson and the Personage. I wanted to know, too, what had been the result of the fight and the subse quent riot. I suppose it was part of the old man s vengeful design to keep me in ignorance of the facts. Next day, as I rose from my bunk, I was seized with a sudden fit of dizziness from loss of blood, the old man said and in consequence I was ordered to remain in bed all day. I have always supposed that that was done in malice. The old man babied me there in port as you never saw him baby me at sea. I spent that day imagining all possible and impossible outcomes of the affray. I sent Rudder to jail, had him tried for bloody murder and shot like a dog. I visited a similiar fate upon the Per sonage. I even congratulated myself that it had not been my own lot to leave my bones in the Potter s Field at Talcahuano. Over and over I turned the story till it became a sort of waking nightmare, growing constantly more and more hideous. I have heard of the fashionable woman who said she couldn t go to Europe because she was reading seventeen serial stories. My own interest in this Chileno romance was hardly less keen. SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 117 The day passed uneventfully, but late that evening a shout went ringing through the ship, calling all hands. All hands ! And in port ! what possible emergency could occasion such an appeal to force as that ? I leaped from my bunk, grabbed hastily for boots and trousers, pulled them on in a jiffy, and dashed up the cabin stairs. It was bright as day only it was a horrible, yellow-red light. All was confusion on deck. Orders were given in quick succession. All hands were needed to save the ship. I sprang up the ratlines with the rest. I heard a voice say, " She s the Ganges, shipmates, the Ganges, poor barky ! " He was right. Off to windward lay the handsome, well-found, full- rigged ship Ganges of Fall Kiver, swathed in a shroud of flames. In my excitement I obeyed orders automati cally, not stopping to consider the meaning of the words I acted upon. Somehow I had got the hollow of my feet set upon the foot-rope and my arms flung over the particular yard assigned me as my post of honor. I could see the Ganges ablaze from stem to waist. A man at my right was doing precisely what I was doing, waiting for a bucket to be passed to him. The man had a white nose. It was covered with sticking plaster. 118 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. " Why, Rudder," I exclaimed, "I didn t know you were alive ! " " Oh, yes," said the imperturbable Simpson. " Nose in a sling, but still seaworthy. Rigged up jury-nose see ? " The fire burst through the Ganges main-hatch, sending up a fountain of rushing, soaring, spread ing, fluttering red sparks. They scattered out over the sky. They fell in hot showers upon a score of anchored ships. Every endangered ves sel had men aloft. Buckets were passed from tarry hand to tarry hand. We drenched the masts and yards and sails and rigging. " Why in the name o sea-sense, don t somebody scuttle the old hooker ?" Praia to." " Don t wonder ; no fun to go below in a blazin butter-box resky, blamed resky. But why in blazes don t Oh, look, boy, look ! clap yer for ard lights on that they done it a ready ! " So they had. The old ballahoo settled away, like a spaded shark, and went hissing to the bottom, only her blazing masts still stuck out of the water. " Good," said Rudder, " bully for every man Jack of em ! " 119 Those various men Jacks were at that time afloat in their whale-boats, and now they made for a ship near by. The light had nearly faded away, but we could still see them. In fact, we could see the whole Bay of Conception, and the " long, black land " six miles away across the harbor. "Well," said Rudder, " s pose the old man ll keep us a-soakin ? this here riggin a good haour more, blast im ! " "Then, Rudder," said I, "tell me how that fight came out. I don t know a thing that hap pened after I was hit." " Well," said Rudder, " tain t no great twister. Chilenos an mobs an Dago police, an the steward o that there Ganges, that s jest naow a-bunkin in Granny s wash-tub there, stuck in his blazin innards an took to the haw-spittle, an not a blamed stitch o liberty for them sweet, lob-lolly boys sence ! Them s the facts, boy." "And what do you think now of that big Chileno Personage duke, baron, earl some such nabob ? " "Not by a jugfull ! That there rainbow dandy, so says Slush Dooley (an he s knocked araoun Talky-wanno nigh onto a twelve-month), that there rainbow dandy, says he, why, he s just a darned old farmer. Them togs is what they wear 120 SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. up-country. Blow all their cash on their jeans ! An I tell you, boy, they ain t no true piosity in splicin elbows with Dago strangers not of a Sunday, no, sir not if the court knows herself, an (feeling of his plastered nose, and glancing mournfully at my bandaged head and blackened eye) she thinks she do ! " We finally bade adieu to the beautiful islands of the South Pacific ocean, and began our home ward voyage. We had a fair passage to the Cape, but as we neared that point of storms and gales, the days grew shorter and the weather more boisterous. When we ran to the eastward, we encountered heavy gales, with a tremendous sea running. Although the gales were a fair wind for us, the old man did not run nights, as the ship was deeply laden with oil, and he was afraid of losing our boats or having our decks swept by the sea washing over us. We hove to several nights, and on one of these nights we lost a man over board. Thanks to the tireless exertions of the crew, he was saved from a watery grave. He had been sent aloft to loose the fore-top-sail during the night and was stepping from the top sail yard to the rigging, when the ship fetched a heavy roll to the windward. He missed his hold and fell into the sea ; but as he was to windward, HOISTING ON LOWEK JAW. SIMPSON, MYSELF AND THE PERSONAGE. 121 the sea washed him up to the side of the vessel, The night was very clear and the moon was full, so we could see the huge waves wash him up the ship s side and the receding wave, or undertow, take him away - sometimes fifty feet away. It would have been folly to attempt to lower a boat at that time. There was, however, only one other thing to do, and that we did. The men tied ropes around their bodies and hung over the side to grasp him if possible. After a while a sailor caught him by his foot, but his boot came off and we were almost ready to give him up as lost. Yet in a short time he was seen again, and was thrown to the side. Jus\, at that moment one of our men seized him by the arm, and with help got him on board. The poo: fellow was nearly done for, but by rubbing him, and wrapping him in warm blankets, and giving him hot drinks, we saved him. I have hinted at this story before. This was the man Townsend who tried to desert us at the Navigator Islands. WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. THERE are many kinds of whales, and as much aristocracy among them as in European society. The king among them, and, indeed, of all the sea s inhabitants, is the Greenland, or right whale. This sovereign is sometimes seen on the coast of Britain, and occasionally in even more southern latitudes, but its favorite and most occupied quarters are the northern seas, chiefly in the Arctic regions. Of its grotesque and unsymmetrical body ; which is often from sixtv to seventy feet long, the head occupies from H third to a fourth of the entire length, the right side of the skull being larger than the left. It has two small fins, or flippers, but its progress is made by means of the tail, which is five or six feet long and twenty feet wide. The dirty looking, almost entirely black, skin is naked with the exception of a few bristles about the jaws, its surface being moistened by an oily fluid. The lower surface of the true skin extends into a thick layer of blubber or fac, which is from a foot to two feet in thickness This blubber fortifies WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. 123 the animal against cold, and, by rendering the body much lighter, helps to resist the pressure of the water in great depths. The eyes, about the size of those of an ox, are situated on the side of the head, and have very acute sight. The spout-holes of the right whale are from eight to twelve inches long and comparatively narrow, and are situated on the most elevated part of the head. The powerful tail can shiver with one blow a large boat to splinters, or toss it and its crew a long distance into the air. The plates of baleen, or whalebone, suspended from the roof of the mouth number three to four hundred on each side. The base of each plate is embedded in the membrane that covers the palate, the edge forming a loose fringe com posed of pliant bristles. The Rorqual is of the same family as the Greenland whale, but a sort of poor relation, as it is despised and rejected by whalers unless it is the only prey they can seize upon. He is larger than the Greenland whale, sometimes measuring a hundred feet, and is a sort of slaty gray and whitish beneath. Like his haughty relatives he is found for the most part in Arctic seas. He feeds on large prey, his throat being much more capacious than that of the right whale. 124 WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. If the Greenland whale is king of the deep, the sperm whale is prince. This whale is black, and is found in nearly all seas, but most frequently in southern hemspheres. What sailors call the "bull whale," an ancient male, has a large gray spot on the front of the head. The throat is large enough to admit the body of a man. The mouth has no baleen. The upper jaw is without teeth; the lower jaw having twenty-five or thirty on either side, according to the age of the animal, which are conical and slightly recurved, deeply embedded in the gum, from which they reach for about two inches. The lower jaw is extremely narrow, the teeth fitting into cavities in the upper jaw. These teeth weigh from one to three pounds each. This whale has a single spout or blow-hole situated near the front of the head. The enormous head of the sperm whale is mostly occupied by a cavity in front of and above the skull, called by whalers " the case," which some times holds as many as fifteen barrels of spermaceti. This substance hardens on cooling. The oil with which it is mixed in the case is separated from it by drawing and squeezing, and the yellow unctuous spermaceti becomes the beautiful, pearly-white, flaky substance of crys- WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. 125 taline purity which we know. This oil gives to the fore part of the whale s body a lightness which enables the animal to float and rest. The "junk," a thick, elastic mass which occupies the head under the case, also yields a considerable quantity of sperm oil. The sub stance called ambergris, which is used in the most expensive perfumery, and in some Catholic and Mohammedan churches as incense, is found in the intestines of diseased sperm whales, and is supposed to be generated by indigestion. It is extremely rare, and often commands the astound ing price of three hundred dollars a pound. There are many other kinds of whales, but they are for the most part imperfectly classified, and of little interest save to naturalists. The tongue of a right whale is a soft, thick mass, and has been known to yield twenty-five barrels of oil. Whale flesh is firm, coarse, and red in color. It has been calculated from the transverse lines on the plates of baleen, each line being supposed to denote an annual check of growth, that whales attain to the age of eight or nine hundred years, but it is by no means certain that this assumption is well grounded. The infant whale is from eight to twelve feet long, and can swim the moment it is born. The 126 WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. mother shows every mark of fondness for her offspring, and the little one, in itself of slight value, is sometimes harpooned and drawn along side a boat that the mother may be induced to follow. Suckling is done at the surface, mother and baby rolling from side to side that each may breathe in turn. There is no essential difference in the manner in which the most highly civilized people and the rudest tribes prosecute whale fishery. Both approach the animal in boats, and attack it by harpoons to which lines are affixed, following up and repeating the attack until the strength of the whale is exhausted and it is obliged to succumb. The most simple harpoon used in whale fishery is a spear about three feet long, with a flattened point, which has sharp edges and two large flattened barbs. These harpoons are attached to long lines. Many improvements have been made in whale fishery tools. As much depends upon the blade- like edges of the harpoon s barbs as their power to hold when in. Many ingenious devices of movable barbs have been contrived which close on the shaft of the instrument when entering the animal s side, and open outward as soon as there WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. 127 is any strain on the shaft. Another modern device is the gun harpoon, a short bar of iron with a barb at the end, and a ring with a chain for attachment to the line. This is fired from a gun in the hands of the officer. A very effective expedient was suggested by the eminent toxicologist, Sir K. Christison, of Edinburgh University. By this device glass tubes con taining prussic acid are so placed in the shafts of the harpoon that the instant the line is pulled tight they are broken, the poison occasioning instant death. Another mode of employing prussic acid is to enclose a glass tube containing it in a hollow bullet about four inches long, which is fired from a rifle made for the purpose, the bullet also containing an explosive connected with a fuse which is kindled as the rifle is fired, so that the bullet bursts immediately after entering the body of the whale, and spreads its deadly contents through the flesh. Strychnia is sometimes used instead of prussic acid with similar results. A whale killed by these methods only disappears for about five minutes, then comes to the surface and instantly dies. But rapid and effective as are these last-named methods, their use is strongly disliked by whalers, who have an unconquerable aversion to handling 128 WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. the carcass of an animal which has been killed by such deadly poisons, and they a^e now wholly discontinued. Whaling is a very ancient industry, as in the ninth century the Norwegians sent their quaintly- fashioned boats to Greenland in search of them. Other early maritime nations showed great spirit in whale fishery, but so vigorously did the Dutch pursue the industry, that in the latter part of the seventeenth century they furnished nearly all Europe with oil. The New England colonies entered upon the enterprise at a very early date ; at first by simply going out in boats on their own shores. When in the eighteenth century these shores had become deserted by whales, ships were fitted out for the northern seas, New Bedford becoming the most important whaling port ID the world. But this industry suffered during the Revolu tion, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the disasters of the sea, for thirty-four vessels from New Bedford were wrecked at one time in the north Pacific. But it was ruined at last by the substitution of petroleum for whale oil. The ship owners had to look for other ways of using their great vessels. One of these was quite unique. In the war of 1861, the United States MINCING THE "BLUBBER". WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. 129 Government, wishing to block the ports of Savannah and Charleston and several less impor tant entries to southern harbors, decided upon the novel plan of sinking a large number of abandoned, stone-laden vessels in these ports. The whaler, because of its peculiar model, was especially adapted to this purpose, and twenty- four of the forty-five crafts which formed the Stone Fleet were bought and refitted at New Bedford. Fifty cents a ton was offered for stone, and many a wall was torn down, and many a cobblestone heap and roadside accumulation levelled to furnish forth the necessary weightings. The whalers were from three hundred to four hundred tons burthen, and were always built of the best material. A fair price for such a ship was about $22,000, and her three years outfit cost about $20.000 more. Besides all the neces sary provisions for officers and men, there were added casks for the oil, spare sails, cordage, and boats. Such a vessel carried about thirty-two men. America is at present more actively engaged in whale fishery than any other country, San Francisco being one of its most important ports. The whale is now sought almost exclusively for the bone, for which no adequate substitute has 130 WHALE-LAND AND ITS CUSTOMS. been discovered, and which, owing to its growing scarcity, commands from three to six dollars a pound. THE FROZEN NORTH. BUT the Captain s stories were not always of the sunny South, with its islands covered with graceful palms and luxuriant verdure, and teem ing with life. One tale was of the terrible frozen North, which to know is almost like death, so fearful is its breath, and so fatal the clutch of its awful fingers. For there the sailors see ice everywhere, clinging to the spars, and jamming with tremendous solidity about the sides of the vessels, holding them with the grip of death in this land of desolation. The ships of which the Captain told this story were so staunch and goodly and gracefully named withal. Out from the Golden Gate, from New London s harbor, from the wharf at New Bedford, from the port of Boston, and the shores of far Hawaii had sailed the Onward, the Florence, the Clara Bell, the Acors Barnes, the Josephine, the Camilla, the St. George, the Mount Wollaston, the Cornelius Howland, the James Allen, the Java, the Rainbow, the Arctic, the Desmond, and the Three Brothers. Whalers all, ten from New Bedford, manned by stalwart, brave-hearted 132 THE FROZEN NORTH. fellows, eager for adventure, ripe for risks, alert and hardy, not all speaking one language, but all stimulated by the one hope of a pros perous voyage, and rich remuneration as its results. It was in 1876, after a successful cruise of seven months, the Arctic was crushed in the ice July 7th, off Sea Horse Island, eighteen miles from the Bend, her crew being distributed among the other vessels. On August 1st the fleet reached Point Barrows, where it became completely hemmed in by ice. The Florence saved herself by managing to keep in the rear of a grounded iceberg, and the Rainbow and Three Brothers reached a point of safety at Point Barrows. The rudder of the Clara Bell becoming broken, she drifted ashore, and was jammed into the ice, while the other vessels were driven northward by the floating ice, struggling in vain to reach open water. Early in September, they found themselves completely ice-bound off Smith s Bay, twenty or thirty miles from land, and with no prospect of release. Their only hope seemed to lie in the abandonment of the vessels; a course which was finally agreed upon. Tents made from the sails, rations of bread and meat for twenty-five days, with a change of THE FROZEN NORTH. 133 clothing and a blanket for each man, were stored in the boats, which were to be dragged over the ice. It was hoped that enough open water might be found under the ground ice to float the boats southward till the two ships, supposed to be outside the ice pack, could be found. The men carried the baggage ahead for half a mile, then leaving it, returned to drag the boats forward. The exceedingly rough ice was in many places brittle, and some of the men fell through it, thus becoming drenched, and suffering horribly with cold. The company lay down at night worn, spent, famished with cold, only four miles from its starting point. The next morning a blinding northeast snow storm was raging, and a number of the wayfarers, sick, lame, and discouraged, turned back to the ships. On September 6th, the intrepid wanderers reached open water, in which they floated their boats towards the land. On the 9th they sighted the Rainbow and Three Brothers at Point Barrows, and reached them before night. These vessels were in the vise-like clutches of the ice, and could not move. After a consultation between their crews and the newcomers, it was decided that the whole company should start 134 THE FROZEN NORTH. towards the open sea, probably a hundred and thirty miles away, dragging the boats on sleds across the ice. The sleds were made and the journey begun. At Cape Smith the Florence was found, and it was decided that the almost hopeless journey towards the open sea should be abandoned, and that they all should winter on the Florence at Cape Barrows. The boats were prepared for whaling, whale meat being the only obtainable food. On September 13th, there swept out from the east a wind, which must have seemed to the beleagured ones the very breath of God, soft, warm and continuous, before which the ice broke and parted and floated away ; and the released Florence set her joyful sails, and turned her prow in the direction of a more genial clime. On the afternoon of the 18th, the Rainbow and the Three Brothers joined the Florence, bringing the crew of the Clara Bell, which had been frozen into the ice. The ships appointed a rendezvous at St. Lawrence Bay, where they would take water. All arrived on the 23rd, and there parted ways, the Florence heading for San Francisco, where she arrived later, the others departing for Honolulu. Of those who remained upon and returned to the vessels, nothing was ever heard. They were THE FROZEN NORTH. 135 probably carried to the northeast by the immense ice packs, which closed them round for ten miles, and there perished. The loss of property through this fleet was estimated at four hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. It is, of course, first of human life and human suffering that one thinks in connection with such disasters as this, but there is something very like tragedy in the penniless, dishevled, beaten, bruised, scarcely-saved condition of these men, whose sustenance, and, perhaps, that of wives and children, depends upon the success of their voyages. On November 5, 1871, there appeared at San Francisco, from Honolulu and Australia, the steamer Moses Taylor, reporting the loss of thirty-three whalers, some of them crushed and broken by bergs and floes, all of them abandoned in the Arctic seas. No lives were lost, but the estimated financial loss was one and a half million dollars. Were one to follow the result of that loss into individual lives, numberless tragedies might be brought to light, many new dirges of sorrow sounded. THE CAST-AWAY. Alone, alone ; all, all alone ! Alone on a wide, wide sea ! " Ancient Mariner. TRISTAN DE ACUNHA-ALMOST A WRECK, 1 As beautiful Nancy was walkin one dy, She met a young sylor, all hon the Mgh-wy, E stept up beside er, and to er did sy, O ware hare ye goin , tell me pretty myde ? " " BULLY good ! " shouted a dozen gruff voices, " You sing like a gen leman o forshun ! Take nother turn around the capstan an give us nex versh ! " " Close-reef, first," replied the Cockney singer. " Ware s the bloody bottle ? Ere, Weatherface, the bottle, you lubber ! " The British tar threw back his burly head and took an observation through his tumbler. He glanced round expectantly upon the crowd of whalemen, awaiting a more distinct encore. 66 Nex versh ! " roared Weatherface, making the low coral walls re-echo, " Nex versh ! " Then they all shouted together, a Go on, Jack ! Go on ! " THE CAST- A WAY. 137 So Jack Burkett took up his song again, sitting astride the canoe s bows in that abandoned boat- house, the light from a single lantern streaming warm and yellow in his hard face while he sang, " As beautiful Nancy was walkin* one dy, She met a young sylor, all hon the igh-wy, E stept up beside her," "Avast! Avast!" bawled Mattapoisett Joe, " Avast ! you boozy lime-juicer, you ve sung that verse a ready. You re half-seas over, lad. You re drunk as old Weatherface." " Old on, ye bloody Yank ! Hif ye don t like me bloody chanty, then just ye sing us a bloody chanty as ye do like." "The bottle," said Mattapoisett Joe, with a bland smile. " Will my brave friend Weatherface kindly pass me the bottle ? First I ll splice the main-brace, and then I ll sing, as requested. Come, my bullies, we 11 all drink together ! Fill up your glasses how s this for a toast ? 1 Be cheery, my lads ! May your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is a-striking the whale !* There, clink your glasses ! now shoot the sun!" 138 THE CAST-AWAY. Up went twenty chins in air. Down went twenty scalding gulps of New England rum. Mattapoisett set his empty tumbler on the coral window-sill, leaned heavily against the wall, folded his brawny arms, and began, his round, mellow baritone filling the boat-house with a fine, vibrant melody. It was a voice that would have been worthy of applause in better company. " When sunk deep in sleep on the ocean, Neath southern skies brilliant blue dome, In fancy I hear the trees rustle, That shaded my window at home. I hear the flocks bleat in the meadows, The cries of the men to their teams, But dearer to me are the many Loved faces I see in my dreams." " Good, good, good ! " they shouted, Britons and Yankees alike. Mattapoisett Joe had chosen the one song that would soften every heart, the " one touch of nature " that would make the whole sailor-world kin. He took up the second verse : " First rises the old chimney corner, And then my dear father I see, Whose pride ties are over, are over, His children to have on his knee. And then by the bunk-board stands mother, With eyes full of sweet, loving joy, Who, ere going to rest, bends to offer A prayer for her poor sailor boy." THE CAST-AWAY. 139 Had the light from the lantern been a very little brighter, all hands might have beheld real tears welling up in the eyes of Jack Weatherface, but whether his tender sentimentality was due to musical responsiveness, or to an affectionate dis position, or to a guilty conscience, or to the effects of New England rum, no fellow can say for certain. His feelings, however, were those of the whole company. The song had found their hearts. Mattapoisett sang on, with a half perceptible quiver in his voice : "All changeless beside me is standing, A sweet girl I know, oh so well ! , A voice murmurs, Break not your promise, You made in the green, leafy dell ! Now she s gone ; and I start from my pillow, Aroused by the sea-birds wild screams, And I m far, far away from those loved ones, Whose faces I see in my dreams ! There was a moment of silence. Then " Bravo ! Bravo ! " burst from the throats of the whalemen. The low rafters shook with their applause. Six tumblers were smashed in the uproar, and the sashing was knocked clean out of the window- frame. " Come/ said Mattapoisett, " Curse the doleful chanty ! Let s take a cruise around the old 140 THE CAST-AWAY. French town ! There s a bottle half-full. Put it under the canoe. When we come back we ll finish it off, and then well be half -full, eh, my hearties ? " With that the twenty ruffians burst through the door, all but one, the English cooper, who, for half-inebriated reasons of his own, preferred to remain behind in the boa1>house. Now the palm wooded summit of " Mt. Blanc/ looking down from the altitude of three thousand feet, has seen many a wild time in old Victoria. Often and often has the little island of Mane*, though biggest of all the Seychelles, been fairly made to shake under the riotous revelling of whaling crews ashore. But of all the fierce nights, this black and starless evening was among the fiercest ; and of all the disorderly gangs ashore on Mahe, these Yankees of mine and these British tars from the " lime-juicer " were far to the fore. " You know the old saw, ship-mates," sang out Mattapoisett Joe, " We must all hang together or we ll all hang separately ! " " Aye-aye," said Jack Burkett, " splice helbows heverybody. Hey ? my lively earties. Splice helbows hall ands ! " And so they did; nineteen tipsy sailors all lock ing arms and careering wildly through the town. THE CAST-AWAY. 141 They danced around a gens d armes, they over turned a fruiterer s truck, they smashed a dozen windows, and they kissed all the girls they could find on the streets. Then they locked arms once more, and charged down the main avenue of Victoria on their way back to the boat-house. " Half bottle left ! " gurgled poor, old Weather- face. " Splice main brace, brace main splice, close-reef ! " As has already been intimated, the cooper of the English whaleship, though absent, had not been made conspicuous by his absence. Now, however, as the rollicking party tumbled into the boai>house again, the cooper became shockingly conspicuous by his presence. He lay stretched out in the canoe, like the Lady of Shalott, and he was quite as unconscious as that unfortunate celebrity. Beside him lay the bottle ( a " dead soldier " ) entirely empty. At first sight of so horrid a spectacle a howl of dismay went up from the crowd. "Blast his toppy blood-lights!" roared Weatherface. "How ll we main splice-brace now ? " "Curse the cooper," said Burkett, "we ll cooper im; we ll put the oops on im; we ll ammer is styves ! " 142 THE CAST-AWAY. But Mattapoisett was the recognized ring leader. "Avast!" he cried, "See all clear! Shove them big doors open ! We 11 do for the son of a sea-cook ! We 11 do for him hand some ! Bear a hand there, my bully chummies, handsomely ! Cheerily ! Now, shipmates, all together ! " With that the ruffians seized hold of the cooper s canoe, rushed it swiftly down the beach, and launched it out into the darkness and the night. Then they staggered back into their lair, shut the big doors, laid in a new bottle of "close- reef," drank the health of the cast-away cooper, and toasted his many virtues. They topped off the barrel-smith s obsequies with that ghastly sailor-song since made famous by Stevenson : ** Fifteen men on the dead man s chest, Yo - ho -ho, and a bottle of rum." " Rum, rum, rum, an bottle o ho - ho ! " mut tered the hilarious Weatherface. " Let by-gones be gones ! Somebody sing sholly janty ! " Burkett, so merry that he had quite forgotten his somewhat recent discomfiture, called lustily for a chanty from Mattapoisett Joe. The whole crowd took up the cry. THE CAST-AWAY. 143 It was really wonderful what a cargo Matta- poisett could carry. He was a little uncertain in his steps, and he had an air of general inaccuracy that shook one s faith in his mental stability, yet his tongue had not forgotten its cunning. The song as a song was a genuine triumph. Ah, yes ; but the selection was most unfortunate. It was entitled " The Sailor s Grave," and ran like this : " Our bark was far, far from the land, When the fairest of our gallant band, Grew deadly pale and weaned away, Like the twilight hours of an autumn day. We watched him through long hours of pain ; Our cares were great, our hopes in vain. At death s stroke he showed no coward alarms, But smiled and died in his messmates arms. " We had no costly winding-sheet, We placed two-pound shot at his feet ; He lay in his hammock as snug and proud As a king in his long robe, marble bound. We proudly decked his funeral vest, With the stars and stripes across his breast We gave him these as a badge of the brave, And then he was fit for a sailor s grave. "Our voices failed, our hearts grew weak, Hot tears were seen on brownest cheek, A quiver played on the lip of pride, As we lowered him over the ship s dark side. A plunge, and a splash, and it all was o er, The billows rolled as they rolled before ; But many a wild prayer hallowed the wave, As he sank to rest in a sailor s grave. It may seem strange till you stop to think of it, but no applause rewarded the song. Each man 144 THE CAST-AWAY. had solemn and guilty thoughts in his heart, which were roused into terrible activity by Burkett s ill-chosen chanty. Yet no one spoke. The men were squatting on the boat-house floor, leaning lazily against the white walls. The yellow lantern was smoking dismally. At this junction, so ominous of sullen resent ment and its possible result in blows, if not bloodshed, a sudden interruption changed the scene abruptly. There was a loud rapping on the door and cries of " Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez aux gens d armes, vous etes nos prisonniers ! Place aux officiers ! " A dozen uniformed Frenchmen, armed to the teeth, dashed into the boat-house ; great con fusion ensued ; several pistol-shots were fired into the air ; there were grapplings and blows here and there ; and then the biggest of the gens d armes, no doubt a sort of prefect of police, screamed out in broken English, a Silence ! Je command silence ; you think you pouvez raise le didble in zis place ! You think you pouvez embrace tous les dames! I tell you non, non, NON, messieurs ! " Amazed at the brilliant behavior of the prefect, the whalemen " came to order." In an instant the boathouse seemed transformed from a field of battle to a court of justice. THE CAST-AWAY. 145 Mattapoisett pleaded for the whole crowd, urging that his followers were a well-meaning lot of lads ; gentle little things, you know, and very young ; and that they were not altogether familiar with the customs of Mahe, and had offended unwittingly. How were an innocent crew of foreigners to know that the ladies of Victoria objected to being promiscuously kissed ? In New Bedford, he insisted, it was so different. They were very, very sorry, and would never^ never, never disturb the island again. The upshot of the matter was that the drunken sailors were all shipped off to the whalers in the- harbor; and, thanks to Mattapoisett s logic and rhetoric, no arrests were made. However a gens d armes came aboard the Hope to notify me that my crew had received an official reprimand, and from the Hope he went directly to the captain of the lime juicer. " del!" he said, "Vos hommes, ne sont-ils pas mechants ?" Now, when the English officers counted noses next morning, they found many a grog-blossomed bill, but there were not quite bills enough to suit them. Some one was missing. There was no cooper to be found amongst the crew ! 10 146 THE CAST-AWAY. Apparently the cooper had deserted ; or was it not possible that he had been arrested and jailed for participation in the night s disturbances ? In either case there was but one thing to do appeal to the authorities on shore. This the bold Briton reluctantly did, hating above all things to ask a favor of a Frenchman. At the same time he sent off a boat to call at every ship in the harbor and request that diligent search for the missing cooper be made on board. The day went by ; the whole island and the whole harbor were searched with the utmost care ; but the lost sheep could nowise be brought back into the fold. A council extraordinary met in the forecastle of of the lime juicer that afternoon and chose Jack Burkett as their unwilling spokesman, deputing him to proceed to the quarter-deck and to render to the captain a full and complete confession of their manifold sins and wickednesses, neither dis sembling nor cloaking them, but acknowledging them all " with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart." So Burkett went aft upon the hateful errand. He told the whole disgraceful story nineteen sailors crazy with rum, the English cooper set adrift in an oarless and paddleless canoe, and a strong tide running out to the ocean. THE CAST-AWAY. 147 Rage like that of a frenzied demon blazed from the old man s tough countenance. He swore a volley of terrible curses. But as soon as he came to himself he realized that not a moment was to be lost in the mere indulgence of righteous wrath ; so, calling " Hall ands " aft, he detailed the men to various duties in rescue service. The mast-heads were to be manned directly. Two boats were to spread the news through the harbor and ask assistance in the name of human ity. The other boats were to sail and row out to sea as far as they dared and with all speed, keep ing wide apart, to cover as large an area as possible, and search for the cooper s canoe. I gladly lent my services in so imperative an enterprise. I was the more eager to help find the cooper because, years and years before, I had seen a cooper buried at sea, and my sympathies were touched and my fears aroused by the recollection of that pitiful scene. Was the poor English barrel-smith to be lost in the deep, buried in its restless waters, and not to be honored with even the formal reading of a written service ? It is strange with what vividness such impres sions live in one s memory, and upon what slender grounds of suggestion they rise anew into activity. 148 THE CAST-AWAY. It seemed but as yesterday that we had left Talcu- huano for a cruise on the coast of Chili, and we were only a few days from port when our cooper fell violently ill. We were within a day s sail of Valparaiso, so the old man steered for that port and went on shore for medical advice. He returned with some medicine, but it proved of no avail. Next day the cooper died. We kept him till the following afternoon, and then we buried him. At four o clock the ship s headway was stopped, the stars and stripes flung out at half-mast, and all hands called to bury the dead. Wrapped in his blanket and sewed in strong canvas, with a bag of sand ballast at his feet, the dead man s body was brought to the waist and laid gently on the gang way board. As the captain read the solemn service, the men uncovered and bowed their heads. At the words " We commit his body to the deep," the pall-bearers lifted the body slowly at the head ; and then all that remained to us of our ship mate was the pleasant memory he left behind him, for he had always been a favorite among our crew. So we left him to his peaceful, dreamless sleep, " there to await the general resurrection in the last day." That night I read with a better understanding the cheering words of the Apostle, THE CAST-AWAY. 149 " This mortal shall put on immortality." (You didn t know they had Bibles on whale-ships? Yes, they do ; and what s more, they read them.) I had witnessed many burials on shore, but none had ever impressed itself so indelibly upon my mind as this solemn burial at sea. Nor was this the only tragical recollection that haunted my mind as we joined in that heart breaking search for the castaway. For my thoughts went out to a certain, place upon the northern end of Bird Island, one of this same Seychelles Group a spot I have ever since called the mournfullest as well as the most deso late place in the whole world. There, grouped together upon a lonely, sun-beaten flat, whose stillness is broken only by the heavy, rolling surf that dashes on the shore, are the graves of a dozen sailors who have been buried from whale-ships cruising around those banks for whales. Once more I seemed to be standing alone among those uncared-for graves, and looking out across the waste of waters toward the distant home, thinking I could see some poor mother waiting and longing and watching, and at last so grievously disappointed ; or perhaps a wife and her little children, enduring prolonged separation from the one best loved of all, because they are 150 THE CAST-AWAY. saying, " It can t be much longer, dearie, it cant be much longer ! " Then was this poor English cooper to be denied even so desolate a resting-place as the sailor s cemetery on Bird Island ? And who I could not help asking who would be the broken-hearted ones at home ? Who would listen with grief and with tears to the shameful story of the drunken castaway and his tragical end ? Oh, there would be sorrow and mourning in that little English hamlet on the Devonshire coast ! Not tonight, nor tomorrow night ; but a whole year hence, it might be, or even longer, when the tale would be told at home by the very men who had sent the cooper to his doom. Darkness settled like a pall upon our dishearten ing enterprise. The stars, blazing down from that southern sky, glared pitiless and cruel. The moon red, sullen, mockingly splendid rose out of the ocean and made a broad, straight path to the horizon. (Out upon that path, the men said, the cooper s canoe had gone.) " Mt. Blanc " loomed black in the far distance. We could still see the lights on the ships in the harbor, though the lights of the town had already sunk into the sea. THE CAST-AWAY. 151 At last we turned back and went aboard the whalers. We had satisfied ourselves that the cooper had ere this met his death. There was grief and remorse aboard the Hope. Half our men had murder written red across their souls. All the next day the crew brooded and repented and growled. There were no songs in the fore castle. There was no mention of " The Sailor s Grave." There was no allusion to faces seen in dreams. They had all seen the same face. Nor was there any inclination to go ashore. The town was a haunted town, the boatrhouse a haunted house. The men longed to leave port. In the changeless routine of sailing or the adventurous vicissitudes of whale-hunting, they could forget their crime. And so even the third day went by much as had the others before it, though there was a lively scuffle in the forecastle late that afternoon. Mat- tapoisett Joe was knocked down and jumped upon by three of his shipmates. When I looked into the matter I found that Mattapoisett had been assaulted as a punishment for what do you think ? whistling ! A trivial offense, you say. Yes, but listen. " You can t blame us, sir, said Weatherface, when all hands had been called aft for the investi- 152 THE CAST-AWAY. gation. "He was whistling the tune of that devilish song, " Fifteen men on the dead man s chest, To- ho - ho, and a bottle of rum. If you was us, you d jumped on him, too, sir! I turned to the bruised whistler, and I said, " Joe, my man, what shall I do to these lads ? " " Let em all go, sir," said Mattapoisett, " I got no more n I deserved." "Now go forward, every man of you," said I, " and let me hear no more of your troubles." I say the third day went by. Perhaps that is an over-statement. As my men started forward, the sun was already setting. The whole harbor was red in its glare. No sooner had the crew left the quarter-deck than loud cheers were heard off to starboard. The men on the British whaler were dancing about like lunatics, pitching their caps into the air, and shouting themselves hoarse. " Urrigh ! Urrigh ! ! Urrigh ! ! ! " they yelled. " Ere s for the cooper, once more, boys, Urri-i-i-i-igh ! " A tiny fishing smack had been beating up the harbor for the last hour, and now she was coming alongside the lime-juicer. Once within hailing THE CAST- A WAY. 158 distance, her skipper had cried out to the British captain, "Ahoy, monsieur! Ahoy! J ai votre coopier ! " No cooper was seen, but the cooper s canoe followed close in the wake of the sloop. Just then two heads appeared above the fisher man s hatch-way. A moment more, and a third head came in view. It was the cooper pale and sick and haggard, but still alive carried in the arms of his preservers. " Hurray ! Hurray ! " our sailors answered when they fully took in the situation. Then they danced as wildly as the Englishmen, hugged each other like school-girls, and all but wept for joy. " Hip, hip ! " shouted Mattapoisett Joe, forget- ing his bruises. " Hurr-a-a-a-a-a-a-y ! ! ! !" yelled the whole crew, and I yelled with them. That night after supper I gave orders to my men to put on their Sunday clothes, and to dress our boats with all the bunting they could carry. Weatherface was to bring his fiddle or be put in irons. Little Tom Bunker was to bring his accor dion or suffer a similar penalty. The cabin-boy, a mere creeper on the face of the earth, was to remain behind as ship-keeper. 154 THE CAST-AWAY. Then we manned the boats, lowered away, and pulled to the merry lime-juicer. We found ourselves no unexpected guests. Elaborate preparations had been made for our entertainment. The " doctor " had filled his " cop pers " with the most toothsome of land fare. The crew had dressed up to receive us. The ship had been loaded with bright-colored bunting. The decks had been cleared for dancing. There was an all-round, rollicking, sailorly good time that lasted till midnight. The poor cooper, though fully conscious of the honors being paid him, was too weak and wretched to join in the festivities. A doctor from on shore came off to look at him, and recommended hot milk as a harmless restorative. When I looked in upon the cooper the poor fellow turned his head mournfully on his pillow and said, " Shiver my soul, but I feel like a ard-boiled owl ! " Next morning we hoisted our Blue Peter, a homeward bounder. It was worth a cask of sperm oil to hear our crew sing at the windlass as they hove up anchor. I was an old sea-dog even in those days; I didn t come through the cabin windows ; I was put through the mill, ground and bolted ; but never in all my long and varied salt water experience had I heard a crew sing better. THE CAST- A WAY. 155 Mattapoisett s resonant baritone carried the solo lines superbly. The crew shouted the refrain with spirit or, as little Tom Bunker said, " with great venom." 41 My boy he was a sailor, he sailed away to sea, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " But when he went to sea he vow,d he d soon come back to me! Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! "He sailed upon a vessel, a- whaling for to go, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " It was a tedious journey, but he was bound to go, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " The captain was a good man, a sailor to the core, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! "T was early in the morning, the watch was down below, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " A sailor in the mainmast crow s-nest sang out There she blows! Heave away, my hearties, heave away, my boys ! ** They lowered the boats and struck the whale, and soon the monster died, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " They tied a rope upon him tight, and towed him alongside, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " We cut him in and tried him out, and stowed him down below, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! "We ll set all sail, and head her straight, and homeward we will go, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " And soon we shall be home again; our friends we soon shall see, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! * And when we see New Bedford, we will no more go to sea, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " And when we go longside the wharf, and put our feet on shore, Heave away, my hearties ; heave away, my boys ! " You can gamble that we ll never go a-whaling any more, Heave away, my hearties; heave away, my boys! " It was just about Christmas time, fine hot weather, that we came within sight of Tristan de Acunha, Lat. 37 S., and Long. 12 16 W. The 156 THE CAST-AWAY. Portuguese discoverer, whose name the island bears, put in his first appearance, so I have read, in 1506. He certainly deserves to have his name thus immortalized for he gave the world a new treasure, indeed a very pearl of an island, seven miles across, as round as a dollar, and enclosing a fresh-water lake which never freezes. That, no doubt, is explained by the volcanic nature of the whole formation. Cliffs, straight as a castle wall, tower up from the water s edge to a height of two thousand feet. Harbor there is none, and but for a narrow inlet on the north side, no ade quate landing place. A group of white-washed stone houses on the north-west shore is the nearest approach to a town anywhere on the island. Now the reason all these details have fastened themselves so tenaciously upon my memory is that right here I came near losing my ship. It was late in the afternoon, and we were taking off supplies from the shore. The wind our only stay since it was too deep water for our best bower to touch bottom had died out to a calm. It was an Irishman s hurricane, straight up and down; and yet the strong ground-swell of the ocean kept carrying us further and further in shore. We cracked on every stitch of canvas we THE CAST-AWAY. 157 could spread, and with half a hand at the billows we should have forged ahead all fluking ; but as it was, our sails hung as limp as the dangling damp sheets on an indoor clothes-horse. There was not a bubble of white water at our prow. There was not a streak or ripple in our wake. And yet moment by moment those awful cliffs grew taller. We sent out a boat with a line then two boats then three ! trying our sturdiest to ratch the precious barky out of imminent danger. At last the cliff-crests seemed to rise no higher, though we dared not trust our eyes, we so longed to see them stop rising. Already the breakers pounded ominously at their feet. Already the sea-birds, nesting amongst their crags, called hideously near. By chance or rather, as I have always said, by the providence of God another ship and she a whaler, lay not far from us. I set my colors for assistance, and down into the water came her boats, the davit-blocks creaking and the whale men shouting encouragement to our three boats crews. Swift as so many racers in a regatta, the stranger s cedar craft came ripping through the smooth water, every dip and plash of their oars seeming measurably to lift and lighten the burden of our suspense. Six boats and thirty-six men saved the Hope from being sent on that iron- 158 THE CAST-AWAY. bound shore. We towed her well off shore, and a tardy flaw of wind at last bellied out her canvas. Then is it any wonder that I have never forgotten Tristan de Acunha ? THE WHALEMAN WHO WENT ON THE STAGE. Being in a ship is being in jail, with a chance of being drowned." Dr. Samuel Johnson. JOHN PIERCE certainly came down from aloft. There could be no possible doubt about that. I certainly spoke with him as he passed me on his way to the forecastle. This much, I am sure, will never be called in question. But what followed even to this hour it makes me shudder, sickened with dread, to recall what followed the days of anxiety, the grim mystery, the final despair, and the haunting, harrowing problem of that tragical disappearance ! We had put in at Fayal to ship home some hundred barrels and more of sperm oil, and then cleared away and steered to the south, carrying all sail to get away from the island. We left at five in the afternoon, and by eleven o clock that night, when we had made about fifteen miles offing, I gave orders to take in our top-gallant sails, and poor Pierce went aloft with the others. As he slid down the backstay and passed me on deck, I had a pleasant word with him, and then he 160 WHALEMAN" ON THE STAGE. went forward and was lost to view in the darkness. Many a time since then have I had reason to be glad that my last words to the man were kind. At four next morning, when the watch was called, no John Pierce could be found. Every nook and every smallest cranny in the whole ship was looked into, but all to no purpose. Not a trace of the fellow could we discover. Reluctantly at last we gave him up as lost, convinced against our wills that he had tumbled overboard during the night. A solemn hush fell upon us. Hardened, though most of us were, and accustomed to the constant dangers of a seaman s calling used though we were to these sudden disappearances from life and duty we could never be reconciled to them. Indeed, it seemed as if each new death of this sort were more dreadful than the one before it. But, as usual, the sense of shock and of wrong went by. The man s absence ceased to impress us. At last we had almost forgotten the circum stance of his taking off. About one year from the night of Pierce s disappearance, we were cruising off Madagascar. I happened that day to be running over my log-book and chanced upon the entry of the facts noted above. There \vas the record in my own A CAPTAIN IN HIS ARCTIC OUTFIT. WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. 161 hand, a deep border of black drawn around it. I found that I had departed from the usual dry and formal log-book style. Indeed, I had sentimental ized not a little. Viewing, in calmer mood, this eulogy of John Pierce, I could not help feeling a little amused. I had always made fun of funeral sermons, and here I had been preaching one myself in black and white. As I was in the midst of this reverie, the cabin- boy dropped down the stairway to bring word that a whale-ship had just been sighted. It was not long after that, with customary ceremonies, we spoke her. She proved to be an old friend from Sag Harbor. We kept fairly close together until sundown, and then the Sag Harbor captain and boat s crew came on board to spend the evening. There in the boat, to our utter amazement, was JOHN PIERCE ! He had grown a stubby beard since last we had seen him, but that was no dis guise. There he was (to my infinite relief) alive and well the same unmistakable, happy - go - lucky, jolly Jack Tar as before he had gone to his watery grave. It was enough to make a man believe in the transmigration of souls ! I was mightily glad to see him alive, though, to tell the truth, I had not greatly missed his services. 11 162 WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. We got a part of the story from the Sag Harbor captain. It seems they had sailed out of port about ten in the morning, the next day after Pierce s strange disappearance. At four that after noon, when they were about fifteen miles from the land, the man at the lookout on the mainmast head reported something in sight, floating on the water about two miles from the ship. The captain went aloft with the glass to have a look at it, but could not make out what it was, only he was certain it was something alive, for it kept moving and wriggling all the while, as if to attract attention from the ship. The old man s curiosity was so thoroughly aroused by this time that he veered off his course and steered straight for the strange object. " When I came near enough," said the captain, " What should I see through my glass but a little live man, squatting on the surface of the water and waving his arms ! Yes, that s the real truth, and I give an honest seaman s word for it." My eyes were well open by this time, and I was beginning to believe the story. Talk about mermaids and sea-serpents and the Flying Dutchman and the rest of the fo cas le nonsense ! Here was a real, genuine thing to beat em all ! WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. 163 " But the lad s aboard now. Here, John Pierce, come into the cabin, my man, and tell Captain Bobbins the stiffest twister he ever listened to ! Come, make a clean breast of it. Tell us how you proved yourself the fool - hardiest, dare- devilest galley-growler that ever earned a sailor s blessing ! " Pierce had already come, unwilling and with much hesitation, through the cabin door. Appar ently he was gladder to see me than he was to have to talk with me. " Give us your flipper, boy ; how are you ? " said I. Pierce grinned sheepishly. " Oh, I m all right," he answered, a right enough anyhow for a fellow that s been a whole good year in the bottom of the sea." " Come, come," said the captain, " out with it ! Tell the whole outrageous yarn from beginning to end or I ll log you, haze you, clap the darbies on your wrists, make a spread eagle of you, and invite you to walk the plank; and then if that won t do, I ll shut you up in the run and feed you on bread and water ! " We laughed, all three, and the bashful Pierce sat down between the two " old men " and took up his parable. 164 WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. " Fact is," he began reluctantly, " Stormy Jones and I got sick o the voyage. No thin personal, Cap n, only we just thought we d got to have a change. " So I says to Jones, shipmate, says I, let s move ! " Avast, says he, where the deuce ll we move to ? " Then says I to Jones, Stormy, says I, you know them stages ? " What o them stages ? Jones asks, never taking my meaning. " Then I says to Jones, Bear a bob, messmate, till I tell you the news. This is what we ll up and do. We ll lower one of them stages over the ship s bows in the middle o some dark night and we ll float away on it, us two, and before we re old and gray and toothless some ship or other ll come along and pick us up. " Risky, says Jones. " Aye, aye, sir, says I, < Its risky, maybe, and risky maybe not. Ships go in schools like cow whales on these here grounds. Say we try it, my man! " Then Stormy agrees, old hypocrit as he is, and next thing you know he goes and backs out of it, and I finds myself turned captain and mate WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. 165 and crew and cabin-boy of a craft eight feet long and just fifteen inches wide. But I says to myself, 6 Pierce, you fool, you re in for it now, so trust to luck for your miserable life. If you don t do the act that Jones will tell the crew, and then you ll have hell afloat the rest of the voyage. " Well, Cap n Bobbins, you remember that night I took my leave. You thought I d gone overboard, didn t you ? You was dead right, cap n, dead right, right as a right whale. That s just where I had gone. But you thought I d lost the number of my mess, and in that you were all wrong ! " I stared at Pierce, my eyes big with wonder. The Sag Harbor captain stared at me, a broad grin covering his hard red face as he watched me take in this ridiculous confirmation of his story. I said nothing. " Go on, Pierce," said Pierce s captain. " Well," said the sailor, " you ve got most of the yarn a ready, sir. But, Lord ! how my heart sickened when I heard that stage go plunk into the water on the Pope s bow. Then I slipped down onto it and let go. It was all I could do not to holler for help as the stage slipped aft in the swash. Oh, but I was sick o the job ! After awhile I did holler, but it was too late. Nobody 166 WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. could hear me. Then I says, Pierce, my hearty, you ll never 11 see your Nancy ! " You know the rest. The cap n here picked me up when I was as hungry as a polar bear, and deathly faint and scared and discouraged. " But what beats me, Cap n Bobbins, is that Jones held his tongue all that while and never told you the news ; for if ever a seaman was rigged with self-acting jawing tackle, it s that same lubberly coward of a stormy Jones ! " This ended the mighty yarn. The Sag Harbor man beamed red as a sunset. " Aha, sir," said he, " you thought I could swear through a nine-inch plank, didn t you ? But it s true, every word, just as I tell you and just as my man Pierce has said. And, Pierce, if the Cap n has no objections, you may go for ard and see if you can t find some of your old shipmates in the fo cas le." " Pierce," I added, " when you feel like it, you may come back here and read your epitaph in the log-book. You ll never recognize it as your own, I ll warrant." Then the Sag Harbor man lit his pipe, leaned back in his chair, crossed his stout legs, and changed the subject. By the way, Cap n," said WHALEMAN ON THE STAGE. 167 he, " what do you hear from New Bedford ? They tell me its the busiest station on the Underground Railroad." t t WHALES HAS FEELIN S." " Whales has feelin s as well as anybody. They don t like to be stuck in the gizzards, an hauled alongside, an cut in, an tried out in these here boilers no more n I do! " Barzy Mack s Biology. THE whale having gone down, we waited for him to come up again. Three boats danced idly upon the warm Madagascan water the mate s, the second mate s and my own. The sun blazed viciously down from a cloudless sky. We lay well apart, covering a large area of swelling, billowy sea. When the whale came up again, the real battle would begin. A whole hour we waited in anxious expectance. As is natural at such times, my thoughts, mean while, ran back years and years to other whales and other fights. Once when I was a cabin boy I had stood three hours in the stern of a stoven boat, sunk just to the gunwale, while two wounded whales were cutting about and making the water white with their huge flukes, so near that it seemed they must kill me. Was the monster, down below in those vague amethystine depths, preparing some such terrors for the present occa sion ? I recalled, too, how once a dying whale had brought his spout-hole up against our boat ^> ^ s* ,,i H. L "# ! e: ; "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." 169 and belched barrelsfull of gore all over us, so that when I opened my eyes every man was painted red completely covered with fresh, hot blood, so that we all jumped into the water for a hasty bath. Was this sunken leviathan making ready to serve us thus today ? I also remembered how a gigantic spouter had tossed me on his flukes boat, boat s crew, craft and all whist! twenty feet into the air, till it seemed that we d never come down ; and how I found myself at last launched adrift, clinging to a piece of the steering-oar, which had snapped off at the stern- post of the shattered boat. Had not this whale flukes also ? How would he use them ? Should / be his victim ? or the mate ? or the third mate ? There is something delicious in this exciting uncertainty. It makes your blood tingle. It makes your nerves thrill. It makes you feel yourself ready to face the whole world of perils and proudly conquer them all. You stand in the stern-sheets, leaning on the steering-oar, and as you look into the faces of those five stalwart men on the thwarts before you, you tell yourself they are fine heroes, every man Jack of them. Yes, heroes ! Soldiers face no greater perils. Soldiers win no worthier laurels. Back of every trophy of military valor, you must needs see human blood- 170 "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." shed, human bereavement, human cruelty, and, far too often, the human lust for name and place. But the whaleman s glories are sullied by no such shameful pollution. Is he rich when his sea- toiling days are done ? He has impoverished no one. Instead, he has added to the world s wealth. Is he successful in the pursuit of his calling ? No widow and no tearful orphans mourn over his triumphs. Is he proud of his profession ? He can claim for it the good name of an honest liveli hood, a lawful and law-abiding business, a field for soldierly courage purged of soldierly brutality. Nor do tyrany and oppression follow in his paths. Instead, come only the blessings of a peaceful prosperity. So, as I was saying, you stand and wait, a-tingle with enthusiasm. You are in your glory now. You would not for the whole world be any other thing but a whaleman. You are glad that your boyhood anticipated this splendid life of adven ture, and aspired after its high responsibilities. To its toils and its perils you willingly devote your youth and best manhood. You will be proud, in long years to come, to recount the history of your daring sea-battles. Few landsmen can understand these things. You must go a-blubber-hunting on your own "WHALES HAS FEELIN s." 171 account, fully to grasp their meaning. In fact I know of only one land-lubber who ever really caught the spirit of the whale-hunt, and that is old Walt Whitman, who wrote those splendid, pictorial lines (albeit they go devoid of rhyme, and, in place of precise metre, have only a feeble and slovenly wobble) : " O the whaleman s joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! I feel the ship s motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me. I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There she blows ! Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest we descend, wild with excitement, I leap in the lowered boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, lethargic, basking, I see the harpooner standing up, I see the weapon dart from his vigorous arm ; swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, running to windward, tows me. Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again, 1 see a lance driven through his side, pressed deep, turned in the wound, Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast. As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and narrower, swiftly cutting the water I see him die. He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then falls flat and still in the bloody foam." Barring the single sentence " I see the moun tainous mass/ (apparently Whitman thought a whale cruised around two-thirds out of water, like 172 " WHALES HAS FEELIN s." a steam-boat) that is a perfect description of the taking of the whale. It is more than that. It is the picture of the inner experience of the chase and the fight the joy of it, the glow of it, the wild, fierce thrill of it ! I was wishing with all my heart, as we waited for that submarine lounger to return to the sur face, that I could somehow tell which boat would get a chance to fasten to him. But a sudden end to reminiscence and philoso phizing. Look ! There is frantic excitement in the mate s boat off to leeward " Stand up and give it to him ! Quick, quick, quick I " See ! a figure erect in the boat s bow a long shaft wielded in both hands high over the man s head a momentary poise a swift, springing motion a sudden recoil the harpoon hurtling through the air the slender line singing after it the weapon sunk fast in something, and that something sinking rapidly into the depths, dragging the line through the chocks so fast the druggs could do nothing to steady it fifty fathoms a hun dred two hundred ! The mate and the har- pooner have changed places. The men dodged the flying line. Now followed a fresh period of suspense anxious, but brief. "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." 173 After a few minutes, there was a sudden uproar in the second mate s boat. Again the excited cry, " Stand up quick give it to him ! ! Again a heavy harpoon was sent a-whizzing through the air, and plunging deep into that awful, water- hidden something. Again the confusion in the boat and the preparation for lancing. Responsive to the stab of this second harpoon, the monster sullenly settled under water. The battle was now well joined. What next ? Suddenly and all unexpected, the whale came up again like a submarine boat. He bumped his back against the blades of the first mate s oars, His shiny black hump stood fully a foot out of water. The men could, feel the damp heat of his spout. We could hear the sound of it. This time old Blubber had gore in his eye. He was in for carnage and calamity and consternation. He lifted his huge square nose ten feet into the air, and dropping his long under-jaw, deliberately calculated his distance. Then with a hideous swing of his whole appalling mass, he veered round and took that whale-boat into his mouth. His ivory teeth smashed through the cedar clinker- work. The boat went to pieces like an egg-shell. The mate s crew flung themselves headlong into the water, and escaped by the skin of their teeth. 174 "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." Now the whale turned suddenly about. His rage redoubled. He would have blood or die for it. Making for the third officer s boat, he threw his cruel jaw across it, turning it bottom-up and staving it in. Again, as by a miracle, every man escaped unhurt. A pretty situation ! There were now two boats crews floundering and sputtering in the water, while the whale was lashing the waves into froth with his flukes and sending the suds flying in every direction. With the one remaining boat, I succeeded in picking up the swimmers, and in ferrying them away to the ship. Fortunately we had not far to travel. How beautiful the Clara Bell looked as the boat came round so that I faced her again ! Never had I thought her graceful, half-clipper lines such an exquisitely perfect model. Never had winged- dragon figure-head impressed me as such a con- sumate triumph of the wood-carver s art. Never had the two white streaks along her side from stem to stern seemed such a splendid decoration. Never, in all the days I had sailed in her, had she looked the white-robed angel-guardian she did now. She stood with her main-yard hauled aback. She nodded and dipped, and rose jauntily on the "WHALES HAS FEELIN s." 175 ocean swell. She was the joyfullest ship on all the seas. We were going back to her " Oh, ain t I all-fired glad we got done with that wild-eyed monster ?" The speaker was dripping with brine. " I calc lated I was clean daown- swallered like old Jonah all-fired sure I were ! " " Maybe I ain t glad, too ! oh, maybe not ! I could look way down in the dratted brute s dratted big gizzards. Deep ? Maybe not. Oh, no. Felt like I was dangled over the drattedest deep pit in the whole dratted world." "I wouldn t touch that there man-eater with the far-end of a spare yard not for money ;" said a third, squeezing the salt-water out of his beard, "no, not for money. I tell you, mess mates, it s homicide an man-slaughter, an bloody murder with malice aforethought to take an dump two boats crews down the gullet o that pesky man-eater, I tell you ! " But think not, gentle reader, that these words were spoken in anything graver than jest. That this whale was a tough one, I have no inclination to deny not the slightest. I followed the sea forty-one years, I was captain of a ship twenty-eight years, I have sailed more than a million miles, and I have had a hand in the taking of about twelve thousand barrels of oil ; but this 176 "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." fighting leviathan off Fort Dauphin was one of the fiercest bits of blubber I ever raised out of the ocean. Yet neither I nor my men had any thought of surrender. We had already wasted two boats on him and we meant to be paid for the outlay. We insisted upon exacting a war indemity, payable in sperm oil a hundred or a hundred and twenty barrels the more the merrier ! We clambered up the ship s side and over the rail. From the deck we could get a startling view of the enemy. The infuriated beast lay wounded, only a short distance from the ship, thrashing around amongst the floating debris oars, paddles, lanterns, and water-kegs to say nothing of what remained of our two boats, the one a stoven wreck, the other smashed to splinters. It would have turned a landsman cold and stiff with horror. Nor am I certain that all our crew were anxious to renew the battle. Be that as it may, we immediately got down two new spare boats from the skids overhead. We made them ready for a desperate encounter as we were going into the face of death. We meant to have the chances in our favor. The boats must be made as light as possible, so as to be able to dart away in an instant, if necessary, when the whale showed fight again. To this end, CLEANING UP AND REPAIRING. " WHALES HAS FEELIN s." 177 we hastily prepared the most severely abridged outfit not an inch of line, and not a single piece of craft beyond a gun and a bomb-lance in the mate s boat and two hand-lances in mine. We manned the boats with strong crews. The mate took the second mate along with him, and I took the third mate. We lowered the boats and sped away toward our prey. How bright, how amber-hued, the southern sunlight, as it fell languorous and beautiful upon the ocean billows ! How buoyant the dance of our hurrying boats ! How impressive the swoop and the soaring of the white gulls and albatrosses ! And yet, I dare say, not one of us responded to the fine romanticism of nature we were bent upon too desperate an errand. There may be a perennially fascinating charm in whaling life when viewed from afar, but there are times when the business assumes a grim ugliness at close range. The poetry of the sea has always been written by landsmen. It always will be. Charm assuredly there had been in the suspense and expectant anxiety preceeding this desperate fight charm enough, when its horrors were only a possibility ; but now, when the mystery was pierced, the terrors become hideous facts, and the nature of the foe fully known, the fun was gone 12 178 "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." altogether. When a fighting whale has chewed up two of your boats and beaten you roundly in his first pitched battle, it is a little unpleasant to go at him again. Our blood ran high, as we approached the infuriated monster. His spout stood up as tall as ever. He had been no whit enfeebled by his tremendous exertions. Two harpoons stuck out of his back. His flukes swung in air with deadly force and rapidity. The mate went to leeward of him and fired a bomb-lance into him, but missed his vitals. Instantly the wounded creature turned about, heaved his head way out of water, opened his cavernous mouth, and made a frightful lunge for the mate s boat. I was just in time. I stood in the bow of my boat, hardly able to wait long enough to choose the right spot for the stab. I was mad with excitement. I plunged the long lance deep into the whale s vitals, and the blood came belching out of his spout-hole rich and red and warm, and after a few moments our victim turned up dead and in a few moments more we had him in the fluke chains along side the Clara Bell. Deafening indeed were the cheers from the ship s deck when we had won that desperate "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." 179 fight; warm was the hand-grip of mess-mates as we climbed aboard ; broad and bland the smile on every sun-browned face ! We were all alive. We were all unhurt. We had killed the whale. The inevitable well-worn joke now went the rounds. " Better have paid your wash-woman ! " " You needn t talk, Jack ; you re as wet as a draownded shark." " Don t care if I be. Ain t no gearin tween wash-tubs an whale-boats. Who said there was ? " " You did, you slushy hypocritter, you. Ef taint so, then what d you say I cheated my wash-woman for, jest on accaount o me bein in a stoven boat, you loony beach-comber ? " " Clew down your jawin -tackle, sonny wax ! Cheerily, oh!" This sort of mock-malice stood for the best of good-will. The more those men berated each other the better they felt all around. When they took the falls to the windlass and manned the bars it was a joy to hear them sing. Sailor-songs are not metrically faultless, any more than Whitman s poems ; but they have the Jack Tar spirit of the forecastle breathing all through them, and hear and there a touch of easy humor. This particular song ran, as I remember it, some thing after this fashion : 180 " WHALES HAS FEELIN s." * O, Johnny was no sailor, (Renso, boys, Renso.) Still he shipped on a Yankee whaler, (Renso, boys, Renso. ) He could not do his duty, (Renso, boys, Renso.) And he tried to run away then, (Renso, boys, Renso.) They caught and brought him back again, (Renso, boys, Renso.) And he said he never would go again, (Renso, boys, Renso.) They put him pounding cable, (Renso, boys, Renso.) And found him very able, (Renso, boys, Renso.) He said he d run away no more, (Renso, boys, Renso.) He only waited to get on shore, (Renso, boys, Renso.) So when he put his feet on shore, (Renso, boys, Renso.) A-whaling he would go no more, (Renso, boys, Renso.)" What a whale that was ! He was the biggest fellow I ever fell in with. He measured sixty- four feet over all, and he had a sixteen-foot jaw. His flukes stretched sixteen feet from tip to tip. He made a hundred and thirty barrels of oil. " Think what that old spouter must have weighed," said the mate, when we had got him coopered. " One hundred and thirty barrels at eight pounds a gallon that makes let me see that makes " (scratching of head, squirming of eyebrows, smile of relief at last) " that makes "WHALES HAS FEELIN S." 181 two thousand, seven hundred and sixty pounds of oil." " Here, here ! " I said, " work that out on paper, Mr. Wilson ; let s be accurate. I d really like to get at the facts." So Mr. Dorman figured it out in unimpeachable black and white. He was right. Thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty pounds of oil! " Now, Cap n Bobbins," he continued, " you ll grant it s within limits to say, one-third oil, two- thirds waste?" " Yes, a fair estimate ; nobody can dispute that." THE GAM. " I d ruther gam for fifteen minutes than slush the mast for fifteen weeks." Rubaiyat of Salthorse Dooley. "WHAT did you say your old man s name was ? " " Bobbins, shipmates, an* as thorough a seaman as ever trod the quarter-deck." "Strict?" "Yes an no. You don t feel like you was being governed, an yit ev ry man aboard done what he said, ev ry time. They ain t no half- laughs an sailor s grins about him. He s straight up an down, like a yard o pump water ! " " A jolly wag, too ! " broke in a third heavy voice. " You ought to seen him play it on them full-rig Mohammedans at Johanna. By George, it was fun ! Worth a man s hull advance pay! " Two bells ! One o clock in the morning ! And the ships were gamming still. The two captains were holding high converse in the Clara Bell s cabin, and until the visiting master saw fit to return to his vessel, the visiting watch from the stranger made merry in the Clara Bell s fore castle. It was a delight to see new faces. It was a rare treat to hear new voices. It was a fine, novel pleasure to match yarns all round. THE GAM. 183 The men sat on the stout sea-chests along the sides of that semi-circular room in the whale-ship s bow. There were eighteen men in all ; nine were hosts, nine were guests. Light streamed down upon them from greasy lamps hung up on the bitts. The air was dim with the smoke of cheap tobacco. Gamming is distinctly a whaleman s pastime. Merchant ships will pass each other in mid-ocean without a sign of recognition, steam-craft will go by with a snobbish air that almost approaches hostility, but whale-ships, when they meet, are friendlier. They will heave to, after the day s cruising is over and there is no longer any chance of raising whales, and the captain s watch of one ship will entertain the captain s watch of the other ship. Similarly, the two chief mates watches come together. This is called " gamming." On that particular occasion the Clara Bell s forecastle had been a hilarious roistering place since seven in the evening. There had been songs and cards and smoke ; and smoke and cards and songs. There had been long-spun, hair-lifting narratives of whaling adventures. There had also been news from home some of it a year old, but still very startling ; and some of it six months new, every word an eye-opener. 184 THE GAM. And now they had taken to telling land-yarns and stories of recent ports. Plainly, the gam was about gammed out. " Well, chummy, what about Johanna ? "Dy e know the place?" " Know it ? Guess I do. Here s my tarry flipper on it ! Know Johanny, do I ? I knowed Johanny fore I d learnt my three L s. It s got high hills round it, an you can see em forty mile out to sea, ain t I right ? An them white stone houses in the town they ain t no taller, b gosh, than a whaleship s hurricane house. Ain t that so, messmate ? An them copper-colored natives, an their gaff-tops l turbans, an their white gowns as if they was goin to be buried at sea, an the beetle-nut they chews that gits their teeth as black as tar an gits the deck as red as blood, b gosh, so nothin short o the prayer-books 11 take it off ag in, don t I remember em ? Who says I ain t been to Johanny ? " But the third voice, who seemed to think him self particularly predestined and foreordained to man the pumps and keep the stories flowing, urged again, " What about the old man and the natives ? Tell us, chummy. " So " Bilge " Dennett took his pipe out of his broad mouth, and tapping the bowl gently against THE GAM. 185 the sea-chest, dumped the ashes on the forecastle floor. " Well, boys," he said, looking out craftily from under his ragged red eye-brows and lifting an awkward forefinger in a jerky gesture, as if to say, " Keep your weather eye open ; she s com ing!" "Well, boys; you know how them sogerin Moslems hates pork, an pork-grease, an any sort o grease. Worse n Sheenies, ain t they ? " Well, the old man, he comes it on em mighty ship-shape. He d clap a lump o butter in the palm o his flipper just fore he come up on deck in the morin ; an pretty soon a brown Ay-rab would sail up to him to talk tradin an that like ; an when them two spliced hands it was worse n whales an killers. " Then, by the bloody wars, they was a tornado ! That Moslem would be brought up all standin , an he d jump back an pull his sheath- knife out o his belt and strike a figger like a villian in a play, an sing out, If you wa n t my friend, I d kill you in a minute ! You ought to see it, lads. " Then the old man would sing out for the cabin-boy to turn to an fetch a basin o water an a clean towel, an when the Ay-rab had swabbed his flipper he d feel chummy again and then them 186 THE GAM. two would love each other just like no thin oncommon d happened." An appreciative grin spread over the faces of the listeners. "Just wait till we put in at Johanna/ said one ; " we ll butter them natives ; we ll make buttered rolls of the whole crew of em ; flowed if we wont." Then Bilge resumed. " That ain t the only thing the old man done at Johanna, bless his old soul. One day he goes on shore an cruises round with a Moslem merchant intendin to go to the brown man s house. All on a sudden a bell rings out from a big white mosque, an down drops the brown man on his knees like he was shot down killick ! an he clapped his head three times on the ground an had over a long pious chanty in Ay-rab lingo, an then up he got ag in an looked round for the old man. But the old man, bless his soul, he d forged ahead while the brown man was. hove down, an so he come up to the house first. Ha, ha ! "Now you know how shy them Johanna women be." " Guess I do," broke in the Man Who Had Been There Himself. " You bet I do ! You can gamble on that, night an day, b gosh ! You cruise THE GAM. 187 around them crooked streets, looking an looking an looking but b gosh you don t raise a gal 1 Them women gits from house to house by goin aloft an sneaking along them flat roofs, b gosh ! An a chap don t see his Nancy till they re spliced in the mosque by some sky-pilot or Holy Joe or other, or whatever them Ay-rabs calls him ! " " Aye-aye, messmate, we all know you ve been there, but Bilge Dennett is holding the yarn. You ain t. Go on, Bilgy ! What did the old man do when he dropped his mud-hook in the Ay-rab s shanty ? " The speaker was one of the visiting watch. The Man Who Had Been There Himself subsided. " Well," Bilgy resumed, relieved at being no longer interrupted, " taint so much what he done inside as what he never done at all when he first cume up to the door. They s a kind o harbor law to Johanna it says you must give three loud raps on the door an a good waitin spell tween the raps so s to let the women folks know a man s a-comin an put for shelter. That s the rule o the road an there s the devil to pay if you don t sail by it. "Well, the old man, bless his jolly toplights, he just give the door one good thump an then in he forged all ataunto. 188 THE GAM. " There in the cabin I mean, there in the parlor, was the Ay-rab s wife and daughter, with not more n half their standin riggin on, naked from their waists up ! Heavens, wa n t they gallied ! They jumped for safety like a brace o jack-rabbits. " Then that Ay-rab begun cussin worse n forty pirates on a raft ! Thunder an lightnin , but didn t he give it to the old man ! but the old man just keeps a talkin business so many fathom o cotton cloth for so many live hogs, so many pounds o gunpowder for so many cords o wood, an so on an so on till at last the brown man cools off as cool as a cask o sperm oil all fit to be coopered. " An Men s an fellow cit zens, as they say in town-meetin back in old Vermont, that s how I have the honor (a-hem) to be sailin under the only live Yankee that ever saw a woman in Johanna." There was an evident demand for Johanna stories. The Clara Bell s men liked to hear the captain s prowess enlarged upon. The strangers liked to learn all they could about Johanna so as not to be altogether green when they came into port, and every Jack Tar of them was vowing in his innermost heart of hearts and swearing by all THE GAM. 189 that s ship-shape that he d make those Arabs dance a break-down and teach them just a few new steps into the bargain. " Come, Bilgy, my jolly sea-dog, tell em about the coffee. That ll start their stanchions ! " " Yes, Bilgy, tell em how the steward hazed them Ay-rab waisters ! " " Aye-aye, Bilgy, clew up your jawin tackle, an you ll make these here jolly strangers grin like so many right whales ! " " Come, tumble up, my lively hearty, out with the twister ! " " On one condition an one only/ said Bilge Dennett, " an that condition is this, mess-mates : I ll spin the yarn, but only after that there man- o -war s-man s sung us another rare old chanty. So, Four-decker, give us a broadside ! Can t you bellow the Commodore , or have you clean forgot it, so long since you was a blue-jacket ? " " The Commodore give us the Commo dore, " the sailors shouted, "give us the Commo dore , or we ll scuttle your old hulk and send you plumb to Jimmy Squarefoot." The blue-jacket or, as some would say, the jolly was proud of his former service in the navy, so proud, in fact, that he thought he had stepped down a ratline or two in reducing himself 190 THE GAM. to a mere mercenary blubber-hunter. He had been waiting all the evening for somebody to call for a line-of-battle-ship yarn, but this invitation to sing was the nearest approach to such solicitation. He therefore jumped at the chance. He assumed for the moment an air of aggrieved timidity, but when the crowd insisted, he reluctantly, but firmly, submitted. Four-decker was a stout, deep-chested, beef- laden seaman with a cavernous mouth and a ponderous bass voice. He sang with the gusto of a music-hall soloist and an occasional tragic gesture enlivened the ballad : " It was on a dark and stormy night, The wind nor west did blow; And from the ship s high, lofty bows, That were pitching to and fro, Could be heard loud, rattling peals of thunder, And fierce, wild lightnings fly. Hail, rain and sleet and thunders meet, And dismal was the sky. " Twas early on next morning Our brave commander said Whoever has the lookout, go up to the mast-head, And keep a good lookout, my boy, And try what you can see ! And he soon cried out from the mast-head, * Two large ships under our lee ! " Now one was off our quarter, The other off our cat-head. We cleared away for action, As our brave commander said. 191 THE GAM. The job being done, it counted one, And lasted from twelve till four, And what was fearful to relate, We sank the French Commodore ! 1 Now five sailors we picked up were Frenchmen, And six were from haughty Spain. We picked them up from off the wreck, That had floated from the main. Soon we ll send them to proud France, Where they had been before, To tell the proud French admiral We sank his Commodore." The singer wound up his song with a lusty cadenza that made the forecastle fairly shiver with its vibrant, tragic resonance. It was easy to see that Four-decker considered himself entirely responsible for the sinking of the Commodore. You would have thought it his habit, had you heard him sing, to engage a foreign corvette or sloop-of-war every ten or fifteen minutes. There was a hearty round of applause, much kicking of heels against sea-chests and a prodi gious clapping of hardened hands, but no verbal suggestion of an encore. A whaleman never dips his colors to man-of-war service. It was a trying moment, but Four-decker was quick to see the dignified way of escape out of his embarrassment. "Now, Bilge," he said, with an assumption of fervent enthusiasm, "it s your trick at the wheel!" 192 THE GAM. " Yes, Bilge/ shouted the Social Pump, " tell em about that much-good coffee." " Well, boys," Bilge Dennet resumed, " we get bully good coffee aboard o this here barkie, an you can bet your spare yards on that. An when them Ay-rabs come on board to trade, the steward, bless his soul, he d lure the whole school of em into the cabin an treat em to hot coffee all round. An that jolly flunky knows how to mix the drink so it ll lift your hair like a flaw o wind. It s the real thing none o your water-bewitched, I tell you ! " " Kind o lives up to the rule they have in Ryo Janeero, I reckon," added the Experienced Man, parenthetically. "Jolly good rule, too, b gosh!" " What s that ? " queried Bilge Dennett. " Why, them yellow-belly Portugees say, Cof fee, to be Al, must be black as night, strong as death, an hot as hell! that s the rule, b gosh, an you can bet your rudder them Dagoes lives up to it ! " " Ay aye," said Bilge. " that s the chart our flunky sails by, bless his tarry soul, an he never let s the doctor touch the mixture when he wants to come out extra man-o -war-fashion. An as I was sayin , mess-mates, them turban Ay-rabs took to it like whales take to water. THE GAM. 193 " Much good, much good ! they d say an* hold out their cups for more. " Well, this sort o thing made the steward mighty popular, / tell you ; he could a been king o the island any time he d say the word ; but that everlastin coffee cookin got to be a, pesky nuisance, an at last the flunky hit on a trick to chop it off square. " So one day he hailed them traders an* says to em, Come down in the cabin, gents, an splice the main-brace with a cup of Al coffee ! " So down they climbs, every brown Alladin s son of em, an that cabin was as full of Ay-rabs as the hold was full of casks. An then the flunky serves out that coffee, made a-purpose, bless his spankin soul, black an hot an strong till it lifted their turbans for em boys, an made em wiggle in their chairs. Much good, much good, much good ! they yelled, an the flunkey kep a-pourin an a-pourin till he d emptied the whole blessed pot. " Well, gents , he says, did you ever s waller such coffee, in all your heathen born days ? Come, gents, did you ? an them Ay-rabs says, 4 No, most honorable, we never done it. " An then, boys, what do you think ? That flunky runs a fork down in the coffee pot, and 194 THE GAM. claws round in them black grounds, an fishes out a long bit o salt pork rind, an holds it up front o their crazy top-lights. " Then you ought to seen the hurricane. That shiny pork knocked them Ay rabs alow an aloft. They was hit with the horrors. Their head-lights stuck out so you could hang your hat on em. They turned from brown to white. " An afore you could sing the first line of * Jack Robinson the whole school of em tumbled up like the watch below when all hands is called. Out them Ay-rabs bounced oh, boys, it was worth a bottle o close-reef to see em! They scudded for the ship s side like a dozen white yachts in a gale, and there they tickled their hot- copper gullets with their finger-ends so as to git clear o that < much good coffee ! An mateys, that ended the coffee nuisance for good an all, / tell you." No sooner was the story finished than there was a prodigious banging on the forecastle scuttle, followed by a sharp call of command. The stranger crew were summoned on deck to return to their ship, and the gam was over. I have ever since pitied the Moslems of Johanna for the treatment they must have got from the whalemen who were so elaborately coached, that night, in the Clara Bell s forecastle. jH NEW BEDFORD \\IIAHF OK TO-DAY. AUGUSTINE BAY. NOT a story this time. Instead, a string of stories. For things come about at sea, as upon land, without much reference to literary values. They simply occur. Sometimes they are dramatic ; oftener not. Sometimes they steer towards a climax; oftener they don t. So this is a plain account of what happened an account of what happened to me and my crew and my ship when the lot of us called at Augus tine Bay. The Clara Bell had been leaking. It was a trifle, said I at first ; but now it got worse. The pumps were at it all the while, not working hard, but working. Clearly, it was time to worry. Searching the damp, dark hold, we made out at last the treacherous spot. There, against the stern-post, about two feet below the water-line, we found the sea-brine oozing in. I should have called it tough luck, this wretched obstacle to our voyage, had we not been every man Jack of us ready to welcome such inter ruption. For our cruise was up. Port was the place for us, so we put away. Out of the sea rose the green, luxuriantly wooded Madagascan coast, within the coast a 196 AUGUSTINE BAY. lovely harbor, the harbor of Augustine Bay. Entering there, we dropped our mudhook off Tent Rock. Very well named, I call that rock, for it is shaped like a tent and as white as new canvas. It is just a mile from the shore. I can t say how it is now, but in those old days whoever bethought him to land at Augustine Bay must first make terms with the savages. I knew that the fuzzy fellows would soon come off to treat with us. Accordingly I cleared for action. For savages are thieves, the whole world over, and whatever may be said in favor of valor, dis cretion is the better part of holding your own. Every dispensable article went below rope, spare belay ing-pins, buckets, craft lest those rogues should make off with them. Now I confess to a weakness for dogs, particu larly for big Newfoundland dogs, and most particularly for my beloved black Rover. I was bound that no sooty Madagascan should capture that faithful friend. I therefore shut Rover up. I tucked him into my room off the cabin and left him there for safe keeping. And in that I builded better than I knew. Hardly had I got upon deck again when the canoes, deeply laden with their savage freight, came splashing for us. Then there was a wild AUGUSTINE BAY. 197 / scramble up the ship s side. The natives climbed up over the bulwarks like ants out of a broken hill. They were terrible fellows. They had grass mats around their loins. Some had arrayed them selves in dirty flannel shirts. Their women wore nondescript garments of cotton cloth, and had their hair done up in little knots like nutmegs and covered with grease. We set to business directly. The chief and his cabinet "big men," they say followed me down into the cabin, where the pow-wow began. I wanted to land and to recruit the Clara Bell with wood and water. I wanted to buy that privilege cheap. They, on their part, wanted cotton cloth. They wanted all they could get of it. And that s where we disagreed. Whatever those fuzzies thought of my seaman ship, they evidently held a very low estimate of my diplomacy ; but in that they were mistaken. For we had gammed with a ship from that very port and I knew the ropes like any old sea-dog. I knew just how much I ought to give, and just where I ought to draw the line. The regulation tariff was thirty yards to the chief and five fathoms to each of his advisers. That I offered and there I stuck. But time was precious and I knew that, too. T^rr T ha.fl twn trihps t,n flpnl wit,h_ 198 AUGUSTINE BAY. at Tent Rock could not give me leave to get water at the head of the river. Another tribe from that quarter would come along directly and I must get rid of present company before that. But how the rascals hung on ! They haggled over prices hour after hour. They were like a batch of Soloman Levis. Indeed, I believe they were descended from the long-lost tribes of Israel. I was pretty well driven to destraction, when suddenly Rover burst the bonds of his imprison ment. Out he bounded into the cabin and then oh, lands and seas, how those chumps did scoot ! They had never seen a dog before ! They jumped out of that cabin like electrified jack-rabbits. Rover followed hard and the whole tribe, save only the chief, made off over the ship s bows, each one taking the cloth he had held at the moment of Rover s appearance some content with only a fathom, others counting themselves lucky with a strip three yards long. As for the chief, his knees were knocking together and his eyes were starting from their sockets. He made terms in a hurry. But when the up-river folk came off, I had to be generous. I wanted to tow our raft of casks a long way up their river to get fresh water, and I AUGUSTINE BAY. 199 was aware that we should have to wait over night before we could bring them back to the ship. We must make fast friends with the natives or they would steal the hoops off our casks and then, so far as practical purposes went, there wouldn t be any casks. We made ourselves " solid " with both chiefs, and according to agreement they left a native detective on board to make sure we were not troubled with thieving. Little good came of that, however, for the detective was the worst thief of the lot. That, please observe, is saying a great deal. The gift for misappropriation is nowhere more superbly developed than in Madagascar. And their impudence, combined with their thiev ing pity the mariner who must restrain himself from bloodshed under such torment ! No sort of sanctity is proof against their ravages. One day a Yankee clipper came to anchor in the harbor with the stars and stripes at her peak. While the captain and his officers were at sup per, the fuzzies hauled down Old Glory and made off with it. The Tent Rock chief, so I have heard, had it made up into a suit of clothes, and was seen by a British crew, a few weeks later, strutting about in it like a coal-tar Yankee Doodle. But all that happened after we had left. 200 AUGUSTINE BAY. Often, while we lay in port, the up-river chief and his dusky queen and their suite came off to visit us. We counted that no serious affliction, for in Madagascar you can entertain royalty on a very slender outlay. We would put a huge wash-tub on the quarter deck, pour two or three pails of water into it, sweeten the water with a quart of molasses, and add ten or a dozen pounds of ship s biscuit. The royal cortege would squat round the tub a guzzling, grinning, jabbering ring of boobies thinking themselves lavishly entertained. Big fun we called that. But that was not our only sport at Augustine Bay. In fact it was as nothing beside our mischievous practice of medicine. One day a native came aboard clutching his aching belly, and groaning in misery. I knew what he wanted, and gave him a nip of New England rum. Instantaneous cure ! Next day, however, Mr. Fuzzy came back for further treatment. His case was serious. He said he had been ill for a year. One dose was not enough to eradicate a chronic disorder. Of course not, who ever said it was ? I therefore turned my patient over to the mate, who saw a chance to make something out of the AUGUSTINE BAY. 201 Fuzzy s weakness. The two hit on a capital agreement the Fuzzy to bring a bucket of beans on board every day, the mate to "cure" the Fuzzy. Now that mate of mine had ideas of his own, and this is the series of doses he gave that poor heathen : First day, half-glass of rum and four table- spoonfuls castor oil. Second day, hot-drops, sugar and water. Third-day, vinegar and pepper-sauce. Fourth day, molasses and mustard. Fifth day, glass of brandy with red pepper. Sixth day, cayenne pepper and cheese. Seventh day onions, mustard and Chili sauce. Eighth day, rum and castor oil, same as first day. Ninth day arnica, paregoric and mustard, equal parts. Tenth day, straight whiskey. With what result? The very best, the very best result in the world. The black beggar stuck it out bravely, patient to the bitter end. He would take his medicine with utter resignation. He would twist his coarse face into hideous grimaces. He would go away feeling as if he had swallowed a bonfire. But when the time expired 202 AUGUSTINE BAY. he was thoroughly cured. As is commonly the ease, he got well in spite of his medicine ! Of course we had the usual port routine to follow up. Beside water and wood, we laid in a supply of beans much like Lima beans, and a lot of beef and mutton. The live beef was a sight. The bullocks were large and fat, w r ith humps on their fore-shoulders. Splendid fellows they were, sleek as silk, the finest I ever saw ! And the prices ! you could buy them for an old flint lock musket and a few brass-headed tacks. (Why the tacks ? you ask. For ornament. The savages pound them into the wooden parts of their guns.) We would purchase those bullocks on the shore and then we would swim them off to the ship and hoist them in by their long horns. Then, too, there was the matter of the leak. That had to be attended to immediately. We took the cargo out of the after part of the ship to lighten her, and then we found the cause of the trouble. There are no accidents in the world never were never will be. Everything has its cause, and that particular thing, the leak, had this cause the copper bottom had not been securely soldered about the stern-post. Through the tiny water-course thus left exposed, the worms had got AUGUSTINE BAY. 203 in puny creatures, so small you could hardly see them with the naked eye, yet they had bored those solid white-oak planks into a sieve like a honey-comb. A blow from a hammer on the worm-eaten parts would crush the wood in like an egg shell. There was a weak spot, easily repaired, that might have sent us to Davy Jones. Before we left Augustine Bay, a fine clipper swept up the harbor and anchored near us, the French tri-color at her peak. According to the best accounts, she had come into port to procure a cargo of laborers. Innocent word enough, laborers ! Ah, but she would take them to the island of Bourbon. There they would be paid twelve dollars a month for seven years service. And what of that ? Just this : they would never be able to buy their way out of bondage. The seven years up, they would all be in debt and would have to remain as slaves, powerless even to return home. It was slavery in disguise. Out of the remote interior of the island came that sombre procession. A slave trader had them in leash. He herded them all the way to the shore, and he himself brought them, load after load, aboard the French ship. Once on deck the poor creatures were examined by a sort of veteri nary, who punched their breasts, pinched their 204 AUGUSTINE BAT. limbs and eyed their teeth as if he were apprais ing so much horseflesh. Oh, it was a horrid sight ! And I saw it done. In the midst of the operation a man-of-war, cruising for slavers, entered the harbor. A boat sped swiftly across the water, and the officers boarded the Frenchman. But nothing could be contrived to save the poor wretches. The French man s papers were flawless. Dastardly though the fact, it was cloaked in a legal fiction. No one had a right to interfere. The process of examination went steadily forward. The young and strong were taken. The old and decrepit were rejected. Lucky, indeed, were the physically unfit. When our repairs were done and all supplies got in and stowed down, we took our mudhook and put to sea, beating out of Augustine Bay in the early afternoon. Down into the southern sea sank those pleasant shores, slowly and almost reluctantly, but bold against the far horizon we could still see the ugly form of the slaver, swift upon her way toward Bourbon. THE ALBATROSS. " God save thee, Ancient Mariner, From the fiends that plague thee thus ! Why looks thou so ? With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross." Coleridge. " Cap n Robbins, I beg you, don t ! " "Don t?" "Don t kill the albatross." " And, pray, why shouldn t I ? " " Because," said the mate of the Thomas Pope y " it s well known, sir, that terrible consequences follow the murder of one of those white birds. I say murder for I can tell you, sir, it s nothing less. Haven t you heard that the souls of dead bo s ns and sailors go soaring about in these latitudes in the form of albatrosses ? " " Why, no, I answered, " You see I never lived in the fo c s le, Mr. Russell. My first voyage I shipped as cabin-boy, and my second voyage I went as third mate in the old Balaena. So, you see, I never got much acquainted with the fo c s le superstitions." "What!" Russell exclaimed, "has no one ever told you how dangerous it is to kill an albatross ? " 206 THE ALBATROSS. Preparations for albatross-catching were already going bravely forward in the waist. The sailors were busy rigging a long, stout fish-line with a big cod-hook at the end. They were getting a liberal slice of salt-pork to bait the hook. That never fails. " Well," said my mate, " I notice that my opinions don t weigh any too heavy with you; but tell me, sir, have you ever killed an albatross before?" " Lots of them. Last time I was rounding the Cape of Good Hope I killed half-a-dozen. Why, if I m not mistaken, it was only a few searmiles from where we are just now." "And no unpleasant consequence followed ? " " Oh, well, to be frank with you, I did come near losing rny ship within a few days after that." " See," said Russell, " see how that bird hovers over the main-mast truck ! The creature must measure at least ten feet across those wings! And think of it, sir, the albatross has followed us for three days now or is it four ? But pardon the interruption what was that about all but losing your ship ? " " Why, it was on one of my voyages homeward from the Indian Ocean. We were lying to in a gale. And all of a sudden the wind changed and THE ALBATROSS. 207 brought us into the trough of the sea, so that we were forced to wear ship to keep our decks from being swept of everything and losing our boats. Meet her when she shakes/ the mate shouted, 6 full for stays ! But when the wheel was put up, and the ship had gathered headway, a great, rolling swell caught her bodily, and turned her over on her beam-ends. There we lay, apparently undecided which way to go, trucks up or keel up. I lived twenty years in twenty seconds ! Then the awful moments of suspense went by. The ship righted herself angrily mad as a whale in his flurry and we came round breasting the sea!" " A marvellous escape ! " Russell observed, with the air of a mathematician about to say Q. E. D. " Yes, a marvellous escape ! Many a good stanch hooker has gone to Davy Jones just that way. I was lucky to have a long-legged ship. If she had been one of those round-ribbed, flat- bottomed butter-boxes they build by the mile down in Maine and saw off any length you order, we should surely have turned turtle and never been heard from again ! " " Aha ! " said Russell, with a twinkle of triumph in his little black eyes, " Seems to me your own experience confirms the truth of my convictions ! " 208 THE ALBATROSS. "0, not at all ! " I answered. "If my logic serves me well, all it proves is that when you get into a mighty bad scrape you get out of it unhurt. If killing albatrosses has anything to do with that, why, where s the harm of killing them ? It strikes me, Mr. Russell, we d better take special pains to kill a few birds, you and I, (or murder, them, if you prefer), as a precautionary measure ! At any rate, we ll have that big bird yonder, I reckon, the very next swoop he makes. These bo s ns ghosts of yours don t show any very dainty taste in the bait they snap at eh, Mr. Russell?" Russell was about to venture a reply, when suddenly, just as I had predicted, the albatross swooped down upon that irresistible bait of salt pork. The hook took a cruel hold in the big fowl s throat. The line was stretched taut. You would have thought the bird would break his long swan-neck, he struggled so madly to be free. Four men held the line ; they hauled it in ; they grappled with the albatross and they killed him. The mate stood horrified. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his blue round about; they twitched nervously. His mouth tightened at the corners and made deep wrinkles in his yellow checks. He turned to me with a THE ALBATROSS. 209 look of outraged anxiety and spoke tremulously, " Cap n Bobbins," he said, " we shall all be very sorry for this very, very sorry, and that not many days from now ! " " As for the truth of that cheerful prophecy," I answered, " it s more a matter of fact than of opinion. Let us wait and see ! " pleasantly enough I smiled as I spoke, but Russell s frown grew only the gloomier. The albatross found his way in time into the cook s coppers and thence at dinner-hour, albeit a trifle tardy, into the cabin. He was served in a delicious sea-pie, though my wife, who was then upon her first voyage, and by no means the tall- water epicure she afterward became, pronounced him decidedly strong and fishy. I watched the mate closely, not a little curious to see how he would behave. He was ashamed not to take his portion of that double-decker pie upon his plate, but I noticed that he contented himself with nibbling the potatoes and onions that went with the meat, while of the meat itself he never tasted the tiniest morsel. His objections, forsooth, were conscientious. He was not going to incur the guilt of cannibalism. " Russell," I said, " we were speaking of the possible consequences of killing an albatross, you 210 THE ALBATROSS. remember, and I told you this morning that I had only one experience to judge by. That is hardly true. There was another occasion I ought to have mentioned." "And that was? " " A most extraordinary occurence, Mr. Russell. I was coming home from one of my merchant voyages. The ship was nearing the Gulf Stream on her course from Pernambuco. A heavy sou - west gale was blowing, and the old girl was running under close-reefed main - top - sail and fore-sail. "We entered the Gulf Stream about midnight. The wind died out to a calm. Heavy, oily, black clouds piled up in the nor -east and covered the sky till it was dark as the ship s run. I thought the wind would come from that direction and strike the ship aback, so I called all hands to take in main-top-s l and fore-s l. You know merchant ships go with such stingy crews it leaves you short-handed at a time like that. Consequently I had to take the wheel. " The men had got hold of the clew-lines and buntxlines, and were about to start the sheets, when there was a sudden flash in the sou -west and a ball of blazing fire as big as a man s head leaped out of the clouds. It dashed across the THE ALBATROSS. 211 sky. It made for our ship. It started at an angle of forty-five degrees, and it modified its course into a curving line like part of an ellipse. A trail of fire followed it. It struck the main-top- m st just above the cap on the head of the main-m st and exploded with a report like that of a rifle. The sparks flew into the belly of the main-top-s l. The light blinded my eyes. " As soon as I could see again, I looked for my men. They had all tumbled out of sight. I locked the wheel and went for ard. There I found the crew lying on the deck in the ship s waist senseless every man Jack of them. After a few minutes they all came to but one. He was a young Portuguese. We carried him down into the cabin and rubbed him and dosed him and put smelling-salts under his nose, and at last he opened his eyes and said, Bono Dio, Cap, I don t want see all-same- that again ! u In the morning I examined the mast with the utmost care, but I could find nowhere any mark left by that flying ball of flame. The thing was evidently a sort of St. Elmo s Fire ; but you may imagine my horror when I found my crew all unconscious. Heavens ! I thought for a moment that I was the only live man left aboard that ship ! " 212 THE ALBATEOSS. " Yes/ said Russell, " I have read of such things, and I knew a man once who had seen one. He called it a corposant or compresent, some say ; but what puzzles me, Cap n Robbins, is to see what sort of connection there is between a ball of electric fire in the Gulf Stream and the killing of an albatross. I never heard of albatrosses in those latitudes, did you, sir ? " "No, hardly," I answered, "but since you ve begun to enlighten me, I am inclined to attribute that occurrence to an albatross I had murdered * three years before ! " Russell munched his onions and potatoes in silence. I hope he enjoyed them. The conversa tion lapsed ; the meal was nearly done before it revived again. The next day, according to my log-book it was the twentieth of November, back in fifty- nine, we were struck by a furious gale, the first real storm since the voyage began. Our little bark scudded under close-reefed main-top sail and fore-sail before a fierce sou west wind. Albatross or no albatross, it was blowing great guns. The ship labored frightfully. The green hand at the helm would let her come to a little now and then, and every time he did it, she would take a sea in the waist with a noise like THE ALBATROSS. 213 thunder. I had to watch him as you watch a madman. At seven bells that morning, the steward had got the racks on the table, and was putting our breakfast in readiness. I was below at the moment. The ship was pitching and heaving till I thought she would jump the sticks out of her. Suddenly she brought a tremendous roll to star board. I shouted to the cabin-boy, " Look out for the table ! " but the words were no more than spoken when everything slid off on to the floor with forty different kinds of jingles and crashes all at once. My wife shrieked with terror ; she thought we were wrecked ; she rushed from the state-room in her night-gown, and just at that moment a monstrous wave pooped the Thomas Pope, and burst over the ship s port quarter. Tons of salt water came pounding through the sky-light into the after-cabin, and Mrs. Bobbins arrived upon the scene at the one happy moment when she would get the full benefit of it. That sea-going wife of mine has no taste for immer sion ; but on that memorable morning she could not choose but submit. As I said at the time, that big, cold billow baptized her for the Indian Ocean. I was glad, a few days later, that it had done so, for after so tremendous an initiation she never 214 THE ALBATROSS. again suffered any fear. I think she regarded herself as one who had endured the worst there was to endure, and resolved not to be annoyed by trifles thereafter. We rounded the Cape, and then the weather became more pleasant. We steered for the Mozambique Channel, keeping the watch on deck busy preparing craft and cutting-gear for whaling. We might see whales at any time now. Since that roaring gale off the Cape, the chief mate had never mentioned the albatross. But I could, nevertheless, see that his mind was not at rest. He thought albatross, dreamed albatross, and, as I thought, even looked albatross. When the weather moderated and came off warm and pleasant with favorable winds, I watched him with a curious interest. A last I broached the matter myself. " Mr. Russell," I said, " it strikes me we re going to come off alive after all, spite of that cannibal pot-pie ! " " I tell you what, Cap n Bobbins," he answered, unmistakably nettled, " we re not home yet ! No, sir, not by a long sea mile ! " No sooner had he spoken those ominous words than I observed a huge rolling swell, miles in extent, and straight as the spanker-boom, coming THE ALBATROSS. 215 down upon us from the north ard. The wind had died out to a flat calm. There was not a ripple of white water under the ship s fore-foot. There was not a streak of foam nor so much as a bubble in her wake. It was an Irishman s tempest, straight up and down ! The air was hazy, sultry, and almost unbearably hot. There could then be but one meaning in the powerful swell that bore down upon the Thomas Pope. To the northward, just beyond that peaceful horizon, a hurricane was raging. The roller had been sent out by it. A ripple rushes out from a stone dropped in a mill-pond. That roller was the ripple magnified to sublime proportions. Another roller another ! Then, quicker than the first three, still another ! And as yet no faintest flaw of wind! We were trapped. The albatross would be avenged, and Russell vindicated. We were then about in the middle of Mozam bique Channel. Madagascar was some three hundred miles to the eastward, and the coast of Africa about the same distance off in the opposite direction. For a day and a night the flat calm continued. Then a light breeze sprang up from the sou east. 216 THE ALBATROSS. All the afternoon the wind increased, first grad ually, then rapidly, so rapidly that at sundown we had the Pope under storm canvas close-reefed top-sails and reefed foresail. The wind kept fresh ening. It veered steadily toward the east. It raged with increasing fury, a fresh hand at the bellows. The ship was talking loudly pitching and pounding bobbing at it with a will. At ten o clock it was blowing a furious gale. We had got in all sail, save close-reef main-top-sail and reefed fore-sail. At midnight matters grew worse. We got the Pope under main-spencer and fore- top-mast-stay-saiL The wind was blowing with maddened frenzy. The ship was over on her beam ends, with larboard rails and three boats under water. I called all hands to batten down the hatches. We stretched the tarpaulins tight across them and we nailed the battens fast to the coamings and head-ledges. By two o clock in the morning the spencers and fore-top-mast stay-sails had blown away. The sails on the yards w T ere working loose from under the gaskets. I sent men into the rigging to secure them, but they could not get aloft. When they were about ten feet up, the wind pinned them tight against the ratlines. They were like THE ALBATROSS. 217 dead men. I shouted to them to come back, but the wind carried the sound away. You could not have made them hear with a trumpet. I waved my arms at them and they struggled down on deck and made their way aft with ducked heads, coming hand over hand, clinging to the belaying pins along the starboard bulwarks. The storm had its way. The sails blew out from under the gaskets. They were nearly new canvas, but they were blown into strips like ribbons. The ship shook with a frightful tremor. The wind was blowing with such force that the sea could not rise. Instead, it was rolling over with a white foam; and the foam, as it dashed against the weather side of the ship, would send a spray over us like fine, drifting snow. It was full moon, and that heightened the terror. It made the dangers visible and invisible by turns, for clouds rushed over our heads with frightful rapidity. They were very low so low it seemed as if we could reach them. They were like frightened spirits fleeing from the wrath of the storm-god ! The cargo was secured with billets of wood, so I had no fears on that score. There was no danger of its shifting. The real peril was the chance of being blown ashore on the coast of 218 THE ALBATROSS. Africa, and losing our lives in the surf ; but the wind kept veering and that held us off. The hurricane increased in fury until the ship was pressed bodily down into the water and held there. Resolving to make sacrifices to save our lives, I ordered the top-mast back-stays cut away, and when that was done the masts went crashing over the ship s sides, carrying everything aloft with them. They lay thumping against the vessel till I thought they would stave her side in. To prevent this, I ordered all the lee rigging cut away. The men started from the hurricane-house. Six had knives and axes, and each of them had a rope round his waist. Six others had hold of the ropes, and clung to any stable thing they could reach some grasping the weather lash-rail, some seizing hold of the sky light, and one taking a turn round the stump of the mizzen-mast while the men with the axes and boarding-knives went down the sloping deck ; and, standing in water up to their waists, hacked at the rigging. The wind blew so powerfully that it was next to impossible to swing an axe. Most of the work was done with knives. Even the sacrifice of all three masts seemed to have no effect toward easing the ship. No sooner THE ALBATROSS. 219 had my men crawled back under the hurricane- house than a tremendous breaching sea boarded us over the weather side the whole length of the vessel, staving bulwarks and clearing everything off deck lee boats, craft, oars, everything but our try-works, weather boat and cook s galley. The hurricane continued with unabated fury until eight o clock the next morning. Then it steadily died out, and at noon it was nearly calm. But as the wind went down the sea came up. The waves rose to a dizzy height. Despite the difficulty in keeping our footing for the ship tossed and rolled helplessly with not a stitch of canvas to steady her all hands were busy clearing away the wreck, for a tangle of rigging still remained, and there were several spars alongside, though fortunately none of them end-on. There was a calm for the space of four hours, and during that calm the ship was covered with birds, which had been blown off from the land gulls, hawks, boobies, parrots, cockatoos, cranes and pheasants bright-colored waifs, wearied with the storm and so eager for a place to rest that they forgot their natural fears of one another and of human kind. They perched on the tops of the broken masts ; they sat upon the dismantled 220 THE ALBATROSS. stanchions; they crowded the rail where any rail remained ; they swarmed in a many-tinted flock upon the shattered skylight ; they lit upon our heads and shoulders. It was calm because we were then in the centre of a revolving storm. The birds had sought its centre by instinct. At half-past four the wind began blowing again with terrific force from the west. The starboard rail and the one boat left on the cranes went under water. When the ship began to rise it took the boat off. We had the full power of the hurricane until noon the next day, and all that while we were entirely helpless and lay at the mercy of the winds and waves, all hands aft under the house for safety. Now, ever since the storm began, my wife and children had been lying below in her stateroom in utter darkness. It was impossible to keep a light burning ; and when the mizzen-mast went over the side, it smashed the skylight and we had to batten it down as you do the hatches. Every little while I would go below to the cabin and ask Mrs. Bobbins if she wanted me to stay with her, but she insisted I must remain on deck. " We are safe in God s hands," she said, " and He will care for us and do what is best for us all." THE ALBATROSS. 221 Her courage was magnificent. She seemed to have no anxiety for herself. All her fears were for the poor sailors on deck. She urged that I must be there " to save them from being washed overboard. One of the children, tired and restless from lack of sleep, piped up, " Papa, why doesn t God make the wind stop blowing ? " Once, when the wind was raging its worst, the second mate came up to me and said, " Cap n, I must go below I ve taken a terrible tumble and almost broken my back ! " I knew the man was lying ; but as he was too frightened to be of any use on deck, and as he might possibly be some company for my wife, I sent him below. There the fellow dropped on his knees upon the cabin floor and began to pray for his " dear wife at home!" That was too much for Mrs. Bobbins, and she giggled outright. " Mr. Simpkins," she cried, " it seems to me you d show more sense to pray for the folks in peril for their lives aboard this wreck, instead of praying for a dear lady seven thousand miles away on dry land ! " After that the officer prayed in silence or not at all. Ever since the hurricane began, and it had now been raffing for forty-eight hours, I had fed my 222 THE ALBATROSS. men on canned provisions I had brought for the cabin table. Lucky dogs they were to get a mouthful ! Cooking was out of the question. But now, as the weather moderated, Mrs. Robbins came to our relief. With the aid of her little alcohol lamp she made coffee for those sorry toilers of the sea the strongest coffee and the best, said one and all that had ever been boiled aboard a wrecked blubber-hunter ! When, at last, the wind hauled to the south and died away and the tempest was over, we began to take account of stock. As O Hoolihan has it, we stood off and looked at ourselves. We counted our bruises. Merciless Neptune, what a finding ! Jib-boom gone at the cap on the bow-sprit ; fore-mast broken away at the eyes of the rigging, turning the fore-top over till the cross-trees pointed to the zenith ; main-mast snapped off at the head ; mizzen-mast gone, save a wretched stump about seven feet tall; bulwarks and rails shattered; and five of our six boats missing ! What a frightful change had come over that poor, storm-stricken ship ! A handsome, well- found barky she had been only two days before taut and in perfect trim, " man-o -war fashion," as sailors say but now she was a pitiable, "LADDER HILL" AT ST. HELENA. THE ALBATKOSS. 223 dismantled wreck, though, thanks to the faith fulness of her builders, her stanch live-oak hull was sound and tight. That cabin of ours was a sight to behold. It was a week before we could make it a decent place to live in, for everything was drenched with salt water ; and the two harness-casks, containing salted beef and pork and pickles, had worked out of their lashings and emptied their savory con tents down the sky-light into the cabin. Mrs. Robbins thought it was "much nicer to keep house on land." But we were safe and sound, every one of us. Even the " injured " second mate, who was obliged to go below on account of the " terrible tumble he had taken, had now recovered the use of his spine. Furthermore, we were well provisioned. We had food enough and water enough to last us till we could reach some civilized port and refit the Pope. It might be a tedious passage, but we had nothing in particular to be afraid of considering. So we made the best of a bad matter. We rigged up jury-masts, and in a week s time we were able to set top-sails and courses, jib and spanker. I was puzzled at first to know what port to make for. If we kept on our course to the 224 THE ALBATROSS. northward, we should have favorable winds ; but I could think of no port in that direction where we could be sure of getting spars and whale-boats and rigging. In fact, the only port really to be considered was Mauritius. So thither we turned, keeping the ship headed to the southward, and beat around the south of Madagascar. Forty days after the hurricane we sighted the Mauritian harbor of Port Louis. Considering that the Pope was a wrecked ship under frail jury-masts, and considering also that we had to contend against rugged weather nearly all the way, I thought that I had done my duty faithfully and succeeded triumphantly. As we were limping into port, Russell came up to me with an insinuating look in his sly little eyes. " Cap n Bobbins," he said, "if you will pardon me, I have something unpleasant to say to you. I think it only just to myself to insist that if you had taken my advice we should not now be putting into Port Louis for repairs ! " " What advice, pray ? " " Why, don t you remember ? I mean my advice about the albatross, of course the poor, white murdered albatross. Have you forgotten that when you insisted upon having that bird killed I said, Cap n Bobbins, we shall all be very sorry for this ? " THE ALBATROSS. 225 " Russell ! " I shouted, forgetting in my amuse- ment to give my mate his " Mister," " what on earth do you mean by thrusting a lubberly fc s le superstition into the face of the master of a ship ? Whaling cap ns don t know poor, grass-combing waisters ! But before the mast oh, that s the place to look for erudition ! Oh, yes ! That s the place to find the true navigator! That s the place, and not the quarter-deck ! " Russell turned a paler shade of yellow than usual he was thoroughly scared. " But, Cap n, in justice to myself, I must insist that the fact about the albatross rests upon surer ground than any mere fo c s le gossip. I have it, sir, upon the authority of Coleridge ! " " Coleridge ! " I bellowed, in a voice that would have quelled a mutiny. " Yes, Coleridge." " What Coleridge ? " " Why, Coleridge the writer." " Writer on navigation ? " " No, no, no, of course not. I mean the writer of poetry." " Not Samuel Taylor Coleridge ? Thunder and lightning, what a first mate! Samuel Taylor Coleridge ? And you have the lordly impudence to thrust Samuel Taylor Coleridge into the face 226 THE ALBATROSS. of the master of a New Bedford whaler ! By George, you deserve to be ! " But I turned on my heel and trod the quarter deck in silence. Already a tug-boat was coming out to meet us. She came alongside, haggled as usual, closed the bargain, and took our line. As soon as we were well under way again, I approached Russell once more. I tried to acquire an insinuating, Russell-like look in my own eyes. " Mr. Russell," I began, " if you will pardon me, I have something unpleasant to say to you. I think it only just to myself to insist that, if you take my advice, you ll save wear and tear on your nervous constitution by bidding a fond adieu to this nonsense. Come ! You re an officer now r . Just shake yourself free of the fo c s le. And I tell you, too, Mr. Russell, that it rests on better authority than Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It rests on the authority of a good seaman ! " (Laughing in my sleeve.) Poor, humiliated Russell ! He wriggled in his roundabout and grew yellower than before. He looked like a bilious Cape Codder. " Why, Charles ! " called a gentle voice from the cabin doorway, "you re not going to dis charge Mr. Russell because he believes in the Ancient Mariner ! " THE ALBATROSS. 227 It was my wife. She had been down below, preparing our " long togs " to go ashore, and now she had come on deck just in time to overhear my remarks to Kussell. " Hannah, my dear," said I, " Mr. Russell is by no means discharged. I beg you, don t worry ! Mr. Russell is the best mate I ever had in all my sea-faring days, only he s capable of improve ment yet. And as for the albatross his poor, 4 murdered albatross seems to me you ve got those wings somewhere, haven t you ? Well, we ll make some kind of a feather ornament of them, and hang it up in the cabin, my dear, for a mascot. For if there s any meaning at all in a murdered albatross (which same I gravely doubt) it means that when you ve been wrecked in a hurricane out on the Mozambique channel, you get into Port Louis with all hands alive and unhurt! Eh, Russell?" THE CAPTAIN. THE Captain does not always talk in the jargon of the fo c s le. In fact it might be said he uses it merely when he " spins a yarn " in order to be more realistic. He talks with his family, his friends at home and his townspeople like any well-educated man whose school-days are far behind him, but who has learned more of men and things from cruising about the world than any books could teach. So this last chapter shall be told in the every-day language he commonly uses when in port among his fellow-men. There are several anecdotes of himself that the Captain has forgotten to relate. Perhaps he did not think them of sufficient importance, but I do, and so will you when I have told them as they were told to me. The Captain, like many another old salt, loves dearly his country s flag, though he does not say much about it. But he has carried it into too many strange countries and welcomed the sight of it like a friend from home in too many foreign ports not to be fond of it. Though he never went to war he had an oppor tunity to defend the flag when it was insulted in an alien country. THE CAPTAIN. 229 The Captain used to tell us this story. He said: " I was seated one day beneath the shade of some great trees in front of an hotel in St. Helena with two other American captains. " It was very hot and the streets were almost deserted. Nobody seemed to be about. We sat there quietly enjoying ourselves, when we saw three burly-looking sailors coming up the street. " They belonged on a large English ship that had just anchored in the harbor. They were rough-looking, and evidently meant to make trouble for somebody if they could. The United States consul s office was exactly opposite us, and of course our flag was flying from a tall staff in front. " When the sailors came up to it, they began to call out in derision, insulting the stars and stripes. Then they cast off the halyards and hauled it down, cursing in the vilest language the 6 bloody Yankee flag/ as they called it, and wrapping it about themselves, trailing it in the dust. " We could stand it no longer, said the Captain. We felt it was time we took a hand. So when they began to pitch into the consul s clerk, who came out to try to rescue the flag, we, too laid hold of them and a general fight ensued. 230 THE CAPTAIN. " < We did not intend to hurt the men, but we did mean to hold them until the police came. " I had my man down and was holding him with both hands when he reached up and grabbed my long whiskers. He had me then completely at his mercy. I could not release myself. " The clerk ran out of the office to relieve me, and in trying to strike down the hands of the man beneath me he gave me a severe blow over my eye with an ebony ruler. It was so sore I had to stay in my room for several days. " The sailors were arrested and fined three pounds each. Their captain paid their fine and the police put them on board their ship. " We found out afterwards that they came on shore with the intention of making a row and getting shut up, hoping their captain would go without them ; but you see their plan did not succeed/ It was during the war of 1863 that the Captain was at St. Helena, and he was one day on shore dining at the hotel. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen in the party. Several of the latter were captains of American ships that lay in port. The Captain said : " A large English ship had just anchored in the harbor, and her Captain came ashore to take dinner. THE CAPTAIN. 231 " He evidently had left his good manners aboard ship, for he entered the room in a blustering manner, ignoring the ladies present, and seated himself near the head of the table and began to talk to an English officer who was one of the guests, about our Civil War, asking questions in a most offensive manner. " We were all feeling very much pleased over the news of victory we had received and some one began to tell the captain of Sherman s march to the sea. " The English captain, whom we afterwards learned was one of England s naval reserves, spoke up in a loud and boasting tone, saying, ( Well, sir, we will go over and heip the South erners whip the Yankees when we get back to England/ " Captain Kelley, an American and a man of small statue, was sitting near me, and I noticed his temper was rising. He could not sit still in his chair. As the English captain went on with his boisterous and blustering talk, he jumped to his feet, pushed up his coat-sleeves, looked the Englishman full in the face, and said, It is not necessary for you to wait to whip Yankees. Come out into the street and I will give you a chance, for I m a Yankee. 232 THE CAPTAIN. " Kelley was about one-half the size of the Englishman, who looked thoroughly ashamed. He made a lame sort of an apology and left the house. He got his supplies on board that very afternoon and sailed that night, so we never saw him again." "How did I happen to be in St. Helena?" said the Captain. "It happened this way. We lay in the harbor of Mauritius two months repairing damages, and getting new masts, rigging and sails; but we couldn t get a whaling boat. " My crew were deserting and good men were hard to obtain in that quarter, so as soon as my sails were ready, I put to sea and finished rigging her. If any whales had come in sight we couldn t have taken them, as we had only one boat. "After being a month at sea> we spoke the Plover, another whaler, and got one old boat from her. So, having now two boats, we suc ceeded in capturing two whales. " At the end of six months we put into Port Louis and found four new whale-boats had been sent us. But we were in as bad a condition as before, for now we had plenty of boats and no crew to man them. " We went to the Seychelle Islands and there I shipped nine men. We cruised in the Indian THE CAPTAIN. 233 Ocean for two years, with poor success, so I decided to head the bark homeward. We had fine weather round the Cape of Good Hope and steered straight for the Island of St. Helena, where we stayed two weeks, so I had a chance to see all there was in that noted place." St. Helena lies in the track of all vessels bound from Cape of Good Hope to the United States. " You know, perhaps, that the island is twenty- eight miles in circumference, and is in latitude 15 55" South, longitude 5 42" West. It rises up out of the sea like a great tower on the horizon. You can see it forty miles away, a great blur in the distance, on a clear day. As the vessel approaches it, Dana s peak, 2,700 feet high, is first seen above the clouds. " The island has good anchorage on the north side abreast of Jamestown. "I took my family on shore and we visited many parts of the island and all the places that are of world-wide interest on account of their connection with the great Napoleon. The Briars, where he lived while Longwood Old House was being prepared for him, was occupied by my esteemed friend, George Moss, Esq. It is situ ated on a plateau at the foot of the hills and has a fine garden. It is surrounded by wild and 234 THE CAPTAIN. rocky scenery. The Briars has always been kept as it was when Napoleon lived there. In one of the rooms it is said that he gave the dictation to Las Casas. " Longwood Old House was originally a farm house, but verandas were added and the place otherwise improved. After Napoleon s death the house fell into a state of dilapidation. " Longwood New House was built for Napoleon, but he never lived in it. It is a one-storied build ing, and has fifty-six rooms of various sizes. " It is pleasantly situated in the Eastean part of the island, 1,760 feet above the sea. "Another interesting building is St. Paul s church, in whose graveyard are buried many strangers who have died on the island. " Jamestown is in a valley between two lofty hills and is a picturesque spot, with roads winding up the hills on each side. " Ladder Hill is 600 feet high, and is crowned with a strong fort with barracks for a regiment of soldiers. " If one wishes to ascend it he may go by the road which winds up the sides of the hill, or, curiously enough, by a long ladder with 365 steps, which reaches from the town at the bottom to the fortress at the top." THE CAPTAIN. 235 Tell us some of your adventures while there, Captain. "Yes, I think I have given you geography and history enough. But it is pleasant for me to remember I have been in the very rooms where the great Napoleon planned and thought and regretted his life away. " Our adventures ? Well, here s one. The very first day we went ashore we had dinner in Smith s hotel. While we were eating, down came the walls over our heads covering us with plaster. " No, it wasn t an earthquake, but the work of the white ant which eats up the woodwork of the houses and down they fall when least expected. I tell you, it is dangerous. So some of the dwellings are made of teak wood and the ware houses of iron, both indestructible by this pest. " We had many drives about the island, visiting Napoleon s grave and drinking from the spring near Longwood, where he walked every day as long as he was able. It is a pleasant spot, cool and shady from the overhanging willow trees. " Pleasant as was our stay in St. Helena, after our long ocean voyage, we were glad to point the bow of our vessel homeward. " Yet we were troubled greatly by rumors we had heard of the Confederate cruisers, always 236 THE CAPTAIN. ready to pick up vessels belonging to the North, and we kept a good watch out, I assure you, for such cruisers. " North of the Bermudas we saw traces of the foe in the shape of an abandoned hull, her masts gone, and bearing the marks of fire. We ran near enough to hail her, but no one was on board. " At last we, too, ran into danger. When only fifty miles south of Nantucket Shoals, our lookout sighted a steamer two points off our lee bow. I went aloft, fearing the worst. My fears were confirmed when I made her out to be a long, rakish, bark-rigged steamer, standing across our bows and heading towards the north. " I was sure we were lost. But we had suffered all kinds of perils and were to be spared this. For a large ship had been in sight of us all day about eight miles to the windward, steering in the same direction that we were. " She was a richer prize than we would be, and we saw through our glasses the steamer overhaul her and send a boat to board her. " It was about sunset when this happened. So we clapped on all sail, put out our lights and sailed away, fearing lest the steamer should take us ; but the next day it was thick and foggy, and we saw the steamer no more. THE CAPTAIK. 237 " About thirty miles south of No Man s Land we fell in with a fleet of fishing vessels and gave them a great fright, for they thought we were the enemy. " "When we lowered a boat to go alongside of them, we could see them pulling in their lines to try to escape us. " But we soon convinced them we were all right, and exchanged some of our salt pork for a fine mess of fresh mackerel. They told us how the land bore, and the next morning, June 25, at five o clock, we came to anchor off Butler s flat in the lower harbor, New Bedford. " We had left St. Helena on the first of May, and it was just three years and eleven months since we had sailed from home on what proved a long, disastrous and unfortunate voyage. "We had suffered from a severe hurricane, losing our boats, which were not replaced for nearly a year. " Our officers and crew had deserted us, which completely spoiled our plans. " Yet our ship was new and well-provisioned, and we were so far from home we could not return. " We had seen whales enough to overload us with oil, but we could not capture them because we had not men enough to do it. 238 THE CAPTAIN. " Yet, when we got home, oil was so high that what we had brought a good price, so our voyage was a paying one, after all. " Oh, I must tell you that we found out after we got ashore the vessel that we saw captured was the Isaac "Webb of New York, and that after catching her, the steamer tried to find us, but thanks to the fog and our good fortune, she was? unsuccessful." A TYPICAL WHALEMAN. Captain Charles Bobbins, who passed over the other day at the age of 81, was an American down to the feet Lemuel Bobbins his father, and Rachel Bobbins his mother. The former died when Charles was nine years old, and the boy parted with school at the age of twelve, for there were nine sisters and two brothers to be supported. At that age the boy sought an opportunity to ship, but he was declared by the agents to be too young, and he worked at the lever of the old hand press in The Mercury office and carried papers for three years. When he was fifteen, however, he shipped on the ship Swift, without his mother s knowledge, although she subsequently gave her consent. The ship was to sail February 1, but the vessel was frozen in at the dock. Fearing desertions, the captain ordered the men to saw a channel through the ice, and for ten days she was frozen in off Clarks Point with the lonesomest boy in the world on board. At length the ship sailed away in February, 1837, and thereafter Bobbins lived more stories than all the writers could invent. He visited isles of the Pacific which civili zation had never touched. In proof of the claim that he encountered the heathen in his utter blindness, the captain used to affirm that not only were they cannibals, but that they had no knowledge of any kind of intoxicating liquor. It was August, 1841, after an absence of fifty-four months, before the boy came back. He went away a stripling, weighing ninety-six, and when he came home he weighed one hundred and sixty, and had to be introduced to his sisters. 240 A TYPICAL WHALEMAN. He received one hundred dollars and a suit of clothes for four and a half years work and in a few weeks he sailed again, this time as boatsteerer on the Balaena. He was gone nearly four years, adding to the store of novel experiences which filled his life. While cruising down the line one day, his vessel picked up a canoe containing eight persons, Kanakas, who turned out to be the royal family of Ascension. There had been a revolution and the king and queen and princes had been cast adrift lit erally as well as practically. The Kanakas did these things a century ago, more humanely than the enlightened nations of the earth, exampli gratia, Servia now rid them selves of their rulers. One of the princes had a wound in his shoulder where a shark had seized him when he jumped overboard to capture it for food. The ship took eighteen hundred barrels of sperm this voyage, and when the captain reached home he married. Two months later he was at sea again as mate of the Balaena. On the Peru grounds small pox broke out on board the ship, and several of the crew died. Bobbins had a light attack of the disease, and finally left the ship at Payta and reached home after a year and a half to greet his wife and sail again in a few weeks as mate of the bark Hope. To the Indian Ocean he sailed this time and was gone two years and a half. Arriving home in May, 1850, he sailed four or five months later as master of the same vessel. He was gone thirty months on this voyage. His next voyage as master of the bark Elisha Dunbar, was a broken one, and he returned ill, but sailed again in the Clara Bell and added thirty months more to his life on the ocean wave. In 1859 Captain Bobbins sailed in command of the bark Thomas Pope on a four years voyage, and this time he A TYPICAL WHALEMAN. 241 took his wife and children with him. The vessel was struck by a hurricane in the Mozambique channel, her masts were torn out, the mizzen mast tearing out the sky light so that the water rushed into the cabin. The ves sel lay on her beam ends, and the captain s wife and htt. children clung to the weather side. An officer fell on his knees and prayed for the safety of his wife who was at home. Since his wife was safe and sound ashore, Mrs. Bobbins suggested it would be more to the purpose to pray for those about him who were in extremity. When the storm abated, jury masts were rigged and the cripple ship drifted into Mauritius. All the whaleboats were lost and none could be procured nearer than New Bedford So the ship waited nine months for the boats. A child was born to Captain Bobbins on this voyage. So t story runs. Once his ship was struck by a meteor. At another time he was for months in a leaking ship, day a bomb gun exploded and tore the mate s hand, to "the shifts, Captain Bobbins amputated it and subs quently was complimented by a professional surgeon upoi doing a skillful job. We but touch upon the continued hazards, here an there, to remind this generation of the men who i a historv which thrills the world. And what manner of man was Captain Bobbins, whom we bring to mind as a type of the New Bedford whaleman? That he was a courageous, valorous man, a man of hardy daring we need not say, but withal, he was a gentle, kindly, conscientious Godfearing man, excelling in char acter It is the combination of these qualities wine makes it our especial pride to cherish the example < veterans of the sea. 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