PRENTICE MULFORD'S STORY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ROBERT ERNEST COWAN MULFORL - prentice Prentice Mulford's story. "Life by Land and Sea, ilew York: F. J.i\ieedharn, publisher, bt., 1889. iv, 52 ''H. 14th 299 pp. 12^. Published in the library, jx most but little known to California in ing for sixteen years, and his story is chiefly of this richly colored period. White Cross charming work, iaulford canae 1856, remain- THE WHITE CROSS LIBRARY. Prentice Mulford's Story Life by Land and Sea. PRENTICE MULFORD. NEW YORK: F. J. NEEDHAM, PUBLISHER, 52 West Fourteenth St. 1889. Copyright, 1889 By F. J. NEEDHAM. CT CONTENTS. CHAPTEai PAGE I. Shadows of Coming Events, .... 5 II. Going to Sea, 14 III. Getting My Sea Legs On, 20 IV. Much Water and Mutiny, 31 V. San Francisco in 1^50, 43 VI. As a Sea Cook, . . . . « . . .51 VII. Sights while Cooking, 61 VIII. Whaling in Marguerita Bay, 71 IX. Our Butter Fiends, 82 X. Guadalupe, 8G XI. At the Gold Mines, 90 XII. Swett's Bar, 9!) XIII. One Day's Digging, 105 XIV. The Miner's Rainy Day 114 XV. The Miner's Sunday, ....'.. 122 XVI. The Cow Fever 129 XVII. Red Mountain Bar, 135 XVIII. My California School, 145 XIX. "Jimtown," 157 XX. Romance of Ah Sam and Hi Sing, . . .168 XXI. On a Jury, 174 XXII. Some Culinary Reminiscences, .... 178 J^6U687 IV CHAPTER PAGE XXII I. The Copper Fever, 180 XXIV. Rise and Fall of Copperhead City, . . . 193 XXV. Prospecting, 199 XXVI. High Life, 20? XXVII. Leaving High Life, 217 XXVIII. The Last of High Life, 22;; XXIX. On the Rostrum, 237 XXX. Running for Office, 246 XXXI. An Early California Canvass, . . . 254 XXXII. Another Change, 262 XXXIII. Editing vs. Writing, 266 XXXIV. Opinions Journalistic 275 XXXV. Recent Antiquity, 279 XXXVI. Going Home, 287 PRENTICE MULFORD'S STORY CHAPTER I. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS. One June morning-, Avlien I was a boy, Caj)tain Eben Latham came to our house, and the first g-ossip he un- loaded was, that "them stories about finding- gold in Californy was all true." It was "wash da}^" and our folks and some of the neig-hbors were g-athered in the " wash house " while the colored help soused her fat black arms in the suds of the wash tub. That was the first report I heard from California. Old Eben had been a man of the sea; was once cap- tured by a pirate, and when he told the storj^, which he did once a week, he concluded by rolling- up his trousers and showing* the bullet-scars he had received. California then was but a blotch of yellow on the schoolboy's map of 184T. It was associated onl}^ with hides, tallow, and Dana's " Two Years Before the Mast." It was thoug-ht of principally in connection with long--horned savage cattle, lassoes, and Mexicans. Very near this in g-eneral vacancy and mystery was the entire reg-ion west of the Rocky Mountains. What was known as the Indian Territory covered an area now occupied by lialf a dozen prosperous States. 6 Texas was then the Mecca of adventurers and people wlio found it advisable to leave home suddenly. The phrase in those days, *' Gone to Texas/' had a meaning- almost equivalent to *' Gone to the ." Then Cali- fornia took its place. The report slumbered during- the summer in our vil- lag-e, but in the fall it commenced kiiidhng- and by winter it was ablaze. The companies commenced forming*. It was not entirely a strang-e land to some of our people. Ours Avas a whaling- villag-e. Two-thirds of the male population were bred to the sea. Ever}- bo\' kncAv the ropes of a ship as soon if not sooner than he did his multiplication table. Ours was a " trav-elled " community. They went nearer the North and South Poles than most people of their time and Behrin.g Straits, the Kamschatkan coast, the sea of Japan, Rio Janeiro, Valparaiso, the Sandwich Islands, the Azores and the names of many other remote localities were words in every one's mouth, and words, too, which we were familiar with from childhood. Many of our whalers had touched at San Francisco and Monterej^ There had recently been a g-reat break down in the whale fishery. Whale ships for sale were plentiful. Most of them were boug-ht to carry the " '49 " rush of iuerchandise and men to California. By November, 1848, California was the talk of the villag-e, as it was all that time of the whole countrj^ The g-reat g-old fever rag-ed all winter. All the old retired wiialin^ captains wanted to g-o, and most of them did g-o. All the spruce young* men of the place wanted to go. Companies were formed, and there was much serious draAving- uj) of constitu- tions and by-laws for their regulation. In most cases tlie avowed object of the companies, as set forth m these documents, Avas "Mining- and trading with the Indians." Great profit was expected to be gotten out of the California Indian. He was expected to give stores of gold and furs in exchange for gilt Avatches, brass chains, beads, and glass marbles. The companies bought safes, in which to keep their gold, and also strange and complex gold-washing machines, of which numerous patterns suddenly sprang up, invented by Yankees wlio never sa^v and never were to see a gold mine. Curious ideas were entertained relative to Cal- ifornia. The Sacramento River was reported as abounding in alligators. Colored prints represented the adventurer pursued by these reptiles. The gen- eral opinion was that it was a fearfully hot countr^^ and full of snakes. Of the companies formed in our vicinity, some had more standing and weight than others, and member- ship in them was eagerly sought for. An idea pre- vailed that when this moral weight and respectability was launched on the shores of California it would en- tail fortune on all belonging to the organization. People with the lightning glance and divination of golden anticipation, saw themselves already in the mines hauling over chunks of ore and returning home v/eighed down with them. Five years was the longest period any one expected to stay. Five years at most was to be given to rifling California of her treasures, and then that country was to be throws n aside like a used-up newspaper and the rich adventurers would spend the remainder of their da^'S in wealth, peace, and prosperity at their Eastern homes. No one talked 8 then of going* oat "to build up the glorious State of California/' No one then ever took any pride in the thoug-ht that he might be called a " Calif ornian/' So they went. People who could not go invested in men who could go, and paid half the expense of their passage and outfit on condition that they should remit back half the gold they dug. This description of Argonaut sel- dom paid any dividends. I doubt if one ever sent back a dollar. Eastern shareholders really got their money's worth in gilded hopes, which with them lasted for years. But people never put such brilliant antici- pations on the credit side of the account; and merely because that, at the last, they are not realized. As the winter of "'48" weaned the companies, one after another, set sail for the land of gold. The Sun- day preceding they listened to farewell sermons at church. I recollect seeing a score or two of the young Argonauts thus preached to. They were admonished frojn the pulpit to behave temperately^, virtuously, wisely", and piously. How seriously the}^ listened. How soberly were their narrow-brimmed, straight- up-and-down, little plug hats of that period piled one atop the other in front of them. How glistened their hair with the village barber's hair oil. How pro- nounced the creak of their tight boots as they marched up the aisle. How brilliant the hue of their neck-ties. How patientl^^ and resignedly they listened to the sad discourse of the minister, knowing it would be the last they would hear for many months. How eager the glances they cast up to the church choir, wliere sat the girls they were to marry on their return. How few returned. How few married the girl of that 9 period's choice. How little weighed the words of the minister a year afterward in the hurry-scurry of the San Francisco life of '49 and '50. What an innocent, unsophisticated, inexperienced lot were those forty odd young Argonauts who sat in those pews. Not one of them then could bake his own bread, turn a flapjack, re-seat his trousers, or wash his shirt. Not one of them had dug even a post-hole. All had a vague sort of impression that Califonna was a nutshell of a country and that they would see each other there frequently and eventually all return home at or about the same time. How^ little they realized that one was to go to the Northern and one to the Southern mines and one to remain in San Fran- cisco, and the three never to meet again! What glit- tering gold mines existed in their brains even during the preaching of that sermon! Holes where the gold was put out by the shovelful, from which an occa- sional boulder or pebble was picked out and flung away. The young Argonaut, church being dismissed, took his little stiff, shiny plug and went home to the last Sunday tea. And that Sunday night, on seeing her home from church for the last time, he was allowed to sit up with her almost as long as he pleased. The light glimmered long from the old homestead front parlor Avindow. The cold north wind without roared among the leafless sycamores and crashed the branches together. It was a sad, sad pleasure. The old sofa they sat upon would be sat upon by them no more for years. For years ? Forever in many cases. To-day, old and gray, gaunt and bent, somewhere in the gulches, "up North" somewhere, hidden away in 10 an obscure mining- camp of tlie Tuolumne, Stanislaus, or Mokelumnc, up in Cariboo or down in Arizona, still he recollects that nig-ht as a dream. And she ? Oh, she dried her eyes and married the stay-at-home five years after. A girl can't wait forever. And besides, bad reports after a time reached home about him. He drank. He gambled. He found fair friends among the seiioritas. And, Avorse than all, he made no fortune. By spring- most of the Argonauts had departed. With them went the flower of the village. Their absence made a big- social gap, and that for many a day. The girls they left behind tried for a time to live on hope, and afterward ^' took up " and made the most of the younger generation of boys. They re- membered that after all they were not widow^s. Wh^' should their mourning be permanent ? Twere selfish for the departed Argonaut to demand it. And who knew how these Args might console themselves on arriving in San Francisco ? After man}^ months came the first letters from San Francisco, and then specimens of gold dust and gold pieces. The gold dust came in quills or in vials, mixed with black sand. But this dust w^as not ahvays dug- by the moral Argonauts, from w^hom the most was expected. It was often the gathering- of some of the obscurer members of our community. Fortune was democratic in her favors. In the course of two years a few of the "boys" came straggling back. The first of these arrivals, I remember, walked up our main street, wearing* on his shoulders a brilliant-hued Mexican serape. It created a sensation. All the small boys of the village " tagged 11 on behind him/' a sort of impromptu guard of honor. The serape was about all he did bring- home. He talked a great deal of gold and brought specimens, but not in sufficient quantity to pay all outstanding bills. The next of the returned was a long, gaunt, yellow case of Chagres fever. He brought only gloom. Along in 1853-5-4 came a few of the more for- tunate who had made a ^^ raise." Two returned and paid up their creditors in full who had been by credi- tors given over. But few came to remain. They "staid around '^ home a few weeks, turned up their noses at the small prices asked for drinks, cigars, and stews, treated everybody, grew restless and were olT again. Relatives of the not returned beset them with inquiries which the}^ found it difficult to answer, be- cause there was an idea prevalent in the villag'e that a man in California ought to make mone}^, and wh}^ didn't he ? Up to 18G0 a "returned Californian" was an object of curiosity- and of some importance if he brought any money with him, or rather as long as the money he brought with him la sted. But " the w^ar " wiped them out in this respect. The California fortune of that time was a mere pimple compared with the fortunes made by the war. A generation now exists to whom the whole Argonaut exodus is but an indifferent stor3\ Sometimes on visiting my native village I stand' before one of those old-fashioned houses, from whose front door thirty-four years ago there w^ent forth for the last time the young Argonaut on his way to the ship. There is more than one such house in the vil- lage. The door is double, the knocker is still upon it. 12 the window panes are smal-l, the front gate is the same and up to the door the same stones lie upon the walk. But within all are stiTingers. The father and mother are past anxious inquiry of their son. The sisters are married and live or have died elseAvhere. A new g-eneration is all about. They never heard of him. The great event of that period, the sailing of that ship for California^ is sometimes recalled b}^ a few — a feAV rapidly diminishing. His name is all but forgotten. Some have a dim remembrance of him. In his time he was an im^Dortant 3^oung man in the village. He set the fashion in collars and the newest style of plugs. Oh, fame, how fleeting! What is a generation ? A puff. A few old maids recollect him. What a pity, what a shame tliat we do all fade as a leaf! What a sad place; what a living grave is this for him to return to! Where would he find the most familiar names ? In the cemetery. Who would he feel most like ? Like " Rip Van Winkle.^ Who are these bright and blooming lasses passing by ? They are her grown-up children — she with whom he sat up that last Sunday night in the old-fashioned front par- lor on the old-fashioned sofa. Where is she ? That is she, that stout, middle-aged woman across the street. Is she thinking of him? No; she is thinking whether there shall be cabbage or turnips for dinner. Who is that codger^^-looking man going up the street. That is the man she didn't wait for and married. Should the Argonaut I'eturn home if he could? No. Let him stay where he is and dream on of her as she was, bright, gay, lively, blooming, and possiblj^ romantic. 13 The dream is solid happiness compared witli the reaUt3^ The recollections treated in this chapter are to me as a commencement and an ending- of the shadows of a series of coming- events. 14 CHAPTER 11. GOING TO SEA. Eight years later I shipped " before the mast " on the A 1 first-class clipper Wizard bound from New York to San Francisco. When I made up my mind to become a sailor, I had tried several of this world^s calling's and seemed to find none suitable. I had asked counsel of several elderly gentlemen in my native village as to the best wa3^ of securing- all things needful during m^^ sojourn in this world. The3^ said many wise and good things. They looked wise and good. But really the wordy help they offered was unsatisfactory. So I cut the knot myself and said I would be a sailor. I explained to my male and female friends that I felt myself des- tined for a maritime career. I needed more excitement than could be got out of a shore humdrum life. The sea was the place for enterprising youthful Americans. The American merchant marine needed American officers and sailors. All heard me and agreed. No doubt it was the best thing. And I talked on and they agreed with all my arguments. How people will agree with you when it's all one to them what you. do ! I was eighteen and in most respects a fool, including this — that I did not know it. The Wizard, on which I shipped with five other boys from my native town, was a first-class clipper. She was a fine thing to look at from a distance, either as 15 she lay at anchor, the tracery of her spars and rigging in reUef against the sky, or speeding along under stud- ding sails rigged out on both sides. But once on board and inside her symmetrical lines, things were not so beautiful. Those white, cloud-like sails tore men's fingers as, hard and heavy with ice or snow, the sailors tried to furl them. Those graceful tapering yards, supporting the studding sails, strained and half-crushed men's backs when lowered and toted about the deck. There were wooden belaying-pins, iron marline-spikes and other miscellaneous things to fling at men's heads b^^ those in authority. Those cobweb-like ropes had hard, thick ends lying coiled on deck to lasli men's bodies. We, the six bo3'S, were obliged to leave our native heaths because there wasn't room for us on them to earn our bread and clothes. We were not clearly aware of this at the time, though an unspoken senti- ment prevailed there, as it does in most of the older settled States, that the young man must move away to "seek his fortune." Ten years previous we should have entered the whaling service. But the whale fish- ery had utterly failed. Once it was the outlet for nearly all the brawn and muscle of our island. The Captain of the Wizard was from our native town. Therefore mj'self and the five other bo^^s had shipped under him, expecting special favors. A mis- take. Never sail under a Captain who knows j^our folks at home. You have no business to expect fav- oritism; he has no business to grant it. I was the last of the six young lubbers to leave the town for New York. On the morning of my departure the mothers, sisters, and other female relatives of the 16 five who had g-one before discovered man}' other things which they deemed necessary' for the urchins to carry on the vo^^ag-e. So the^^ bore down on me with them, and I bade most' of these good people an earthly fare- well, loaded down, in addition to my own traps, with an assorted cargo of cakes, sweetmeats, bed quilts, Bibles, tracts, and one cop^^ of "Young's Night Thoughts " for the boys. I ate my last dinner as a free man at a Broadway restaurant, and then I went to the wharf where the ship lay. Already the tug Avas alongside, preparatory to hauling her out in the stream. I went up the i^lank and over the side. A gentleman in authority asked me, as I stepped on deck, if I belonged to the ship. I said I did. " Take off those togs, then, put on 3^our working" duds and turn to, then,^^ he remarked. The togs went off. I put on m^^ canvas pants and flannel shirt, the garb of sea servitude. Hencefoi^th I was a slave. The ship just then was not a Sunda^'-school nor a Societ}' for Ethical Culture. It was a howling pandemonium of oaths and orders. Fully one-third of the able seamen had not recovered from their closing- out shore spree, and" had tumbled into their berths or were sprawled on deck drunk. Carg-o in cases, bales, boxes, and barrels was still rattled over the bulwarks and into the hold. Ever^^body seemed to be swearing — first, each one on his own, private account, and sec- ondly, all in one general chorus for mutual purposes. Many people seemed in command. I couldn't distin- g'uish the officers of the ship from the stevedores. Still officers continued to turn up everywhere, and each officer ordered me to some particular and sepa- rate duty. 17 The world looked pretty black to me then. I wished there was some way out of it. On shore the i^eriod between the foremast hand and the position of Cap- tain was only the duration of a thought. Here it was an eternity. Day dreams are short, real experience is long". But all this is often in youth a difficult matter to realize. There came along- a short, stout man with a deeper voice and more sonorous oath than anybody else. This was the fourth and last mate. It was a relief to find at last the end of the mates and to know the exact number of men legitimately entitled to swear at me. This gentleman for a season concentrated him- self entirely on me. He ordered me with a broom and scraper into the ship's pig-pen, which he argued needed cleaning. This was my first well-defined mai'i- time duty. It was a lower round of the ladder than I had anticipated. It seemed in its nature an occupa- tion more bucolic than nautical. I would have pre- ferred, also, that compliance with the order had not been exacted until the ship had left llie wliarf, because there were several shore visitors on board, and among them two of my intimate friends Avho had come to see me olf. There they stood, in all the bravery of silk hats and fashionably-cut attire, conversing on terms of equality Avith the first mate. They could talk with him on the weather or any subject. I, b^^ virtue of my inferior position, was not at liberty' to speak to this potentate at all. I jumped into the pig-pen. Thus destin}^ despite our inclinations, forces clown our throats these bitter pills. The fourth mate was not more than a year my senior. He stood over me during the entire process 18 and scolded, cursed, and commanded. My shore friends looked on from afar and grinned. Already they saw the g-reat social chasm which yawned be- tween me and them, and governed their actions ac- cordingly. Already did they involuntarily patronize me. It requires a wise man to detect the wickedness and deceit in his own nature. Probably I should have similarh' acted had our positions been reversed. The mate was very particular. He made me sweep and scrape every corner with an elaborate and painful ac- curacy. He sent me into the pig's house to further perfect the work. I was obliged to enter it in an almost recumbent position. The pig ran out dis- gusted. I scraped his floor in a similar mood. Thus commenced life on the ocean wave. But I g'ot even with the mate. Destiny' made me m^^ own involuntary avenger of the indignity' put upon me. By indignit^^ I don't mean the cleaning of the pig-pen. That was an honorable, though menial occupation — at least in theory. Cincinnatus on his farm may have done the same thing. But I do mean the scurrility and abuse the young officer bestowed on me, while I did m^^ best to execute his bidding. I hauled the young man overboard about three minutes afterward, but he never knew I did it, and I never allowed myself to think of the occurrence while on shipboard, for fear the powers of the air might ventilate the matter. It came about in this wa}' : A line was passed through a hawse-hole forward to the tug, which was puffing, fretting, fuming, and churning with her screw the mud-ooze and garbage floating in the slip into a closer fusion. My friend the mate stood on the fore-chains with the end of the heavy 19 rope in both hands, trymg- to pass it to those on the tug". This hne running- through the hawse-hole aft was lying near where I stood. Some one called out: "Haul in on that line!'' I supposed that the order referred to nie and the hawser l^'ing at niy side. So I hauled with all my might. I felt at first some resist- ance — something like a tug-ging at the other end. I hauled all the harder. Then something seemed to give way. It hauled easier. I heard, coincident with these sensations, a splash, loud cries, much swearing and the yell of "Man overboard! " I raised my liead over the bulwarks and there was my mate, floundering amid dock ooze, rotten oranges, and salt water. It was he who held the other end of the line, and my hauling had caused the centre of gravity in his short bod^' to shift beyond the base, and in accordance with a natural law he had gone overboard. He was the general cynosure of all eyes. They fished him out, wet and swearing. There was a vigorous demand for the mis- creant who had been hauling on the line. I was as far as possible from the spot and kept myself very busy. Bluster went below and changed his clothes. I was aveneed. 20 CHAPTER III. GETTING MY SEA LEGS ON. We were towed into the stream and anchored for the nig-ht. To look at New York City, with its many hg'hts and its thousands amusing- themselves in vari- ous Ava^'s, from the ship's deck, without the possibility of joining them, was to feel for the first tune the slav- ery of marine life. Emerging very early next morn- ing" from the " boys' house," I found everything in tlie bustle and confusion of g-etting- under way. A long- file of men were tramping aft Avith a very Avet haAvser. As I stood lools:ing at them m}^ ear was seized by our Dutch third mate, Avho accompanied tlie action Avith the remarl\, ^' Cooms, I puts you to Avork." He con- ducted me in this manner to the rope and bade me lay hold of it. I did so. I could have done so with a bet- ter heart and aa^II had it not been for the needless and degrading- manner in which he enforced his command. Most men do their Avork just as Avell for being treated Avith a certain courtesy of command due from the superior to the inferior. At noon the tug- cast off. The Highlands of Nave- sink sank to a cloud in tlie distance. The voyage had commenced. All hands Avere mustered aft. The Captain appeared and made them a short speech. He hoped Ave Avould all do our duty and that the A^oy- ag-e Avould be a pleasant one. It Avas not a pleasant one at all. HoAvever, that Avas all m the future. The 21 first and second mates then chose the men for their respective watches, commencing- with the able seamen, then picking" out the ordinary seamen, and finally de- scending- to the boys. Of course the best of all these g-rades were picked off first. I think I was among- the last of the bo^'S who were chosen. The first nig-ht out was fine. The Wizard slig-htl^^ bowed to the ocean, and the sails seemed g-reat black l^atches, waving* to and fro ag-ainst the sk}-. The six boys, so soon to be miserable, gathered in a cluster on deck. Jed Coles proposed that we "spin 3'^arns."' It was the nauticall^' correct way of passing- the time. So we " spun yarns,^' or at least Jed did. He had a batch ready for the occasion. He sat on a tub, put an enormous chew of tobacco in his mouth, hitched up his trousers and felt every inch a sailor. I noticed the second mate, that incarnation of evil and brutality, hovering- about us, dark as it was. I saw his fiendish g-rin and the g-lare of his g-reenish eye. A precious lot of 3'oung' fools we must have seemed to him. A little after our yarn spinning- was interrupted by shrieks and cries of distress proceeding- from the forward part of the ship. We had then our first exhibition of the manner of enforcing- American merchant-service dis- cipline. The second mate was beating- Cumming-s, a simple being-, who, having- sailed only in "fore-and- aft " coasting- vessels, had made the mistake of ship- ping* as an ordinary seaman on a scjuare-rig-g-ed craft, and was almost as nmcli at sea in his knowledge of the ropes as the "boys." This officer had sing-led out Cumnnngs for his awkwardness as the proper man to "haze." He was showering- upon hnn blows, thick and fast, with the end of one of the fore braces. It 22 was the first time I had ever seen a man beaten by one in autlioi'ity. The ci'iiig'ing- attitude, the cries, sobs, and supplications of a full-g-rown man, and the oatlis and terrible ferocit^^ of his castig-ator, were in- expressibly shocking- to me. The incident, which was often repeated during- the voyage, broke up our ama- teur yarning and made us very thoughtful. Jedediah Coles was not at all nautically loquacious the next night. Then the Gulf Stream gave us a touch of its tantrums. All during the afternoon the sky g-rew more and more threatening. By dark it was blowing hard. The lighter sails one by one were stowed. Then it blew harder. The mate swore the harder. The Captain came on deck and swore at everybod3\ One of the "boys" asked him if he thought it would be stormy. He considered himself privileged to ask the Captain that question. He was a native of the same village. His father and the Cap- tain were friends, and his mother and the Captain's wife visited each other. So he deemed it advisable to establish himself on a sociable footing with the Cap- tain at the commencement of the voyage. Poor bo}- ! Never again during the trip did he consult the Caj)- tain meteorologically. He learned speedil}^ the great gulf which yawus between the cabin and the fore- castle. It grew dark, the waves became bigger and bigger, and the ship seemed taxed to her utmost trying to clamber them one after another as the^^ presented themselves. The mates came out in their oilskins. The order was given to reef topsails. Gangs of men ran liither and tliitluT, pulling here, hanling there, and running straight over us wlu^never we got in their 23 way, and it seemed impossible to get out of their way. Everything- became unsettled and uncomfortable. The ship would not keep still. New complications of ropes and hauling-gear were developed. The capstan in the waist was manned, and round and round went the sailors, while the deck they trod v»'as inclined in all manner of uncomfortable angles. Tackle and great blocks were hooked to ringbolts, and a vast amount of what seemed to me fruitless hauling went on. Barrels of water swashed over the bulwarks, knocking us down and drenching us. Wet and shiver- ing we clung to belaying pins or anything within reach, of no earthly use to anybody, thinking of the cheerfully lit, well-warmed rooms and comfortable tea- tables even then set but so few miles away on the shores of Long Island. When the order came to reef, and I saw the men clambering up the fore and main rigging, I added myself to their number, though I felt I should never come down again— at least in one piece. It was my debut aloft olf soundings. Many a time had I clambered about the rigging of the old whalers as tliey lay at the village wharf, but they were not roaring, kicking, and plunging like this vessel. Heavy seamen's boots kicked me in the face as I followed their wearers up this awful ascent; other heavy boots trod on my fingers; they shook the ratlines, too, in a most uncomfortable manner. The mast strained and groaned fearfully. Somehow, after climbing over some awful chasms, I got on the yard with the men. I dared not go out far. The foot rope wobbled, jerked, and gave way under me at times with the weight and motion of the men upon it. The great sail seemed in irj humor to be furled. It hauled away from us, bel^ 24 lied, puffed, and kept up a g-ig-antic series of thunder- ing- flaps. Laying over on the yard the men wouUl gather in as much of the hard, wet, wire-Uke canvas as possible and then tog-ether haul back on it. This I objected to. It was risky enough to laj^ out on an enormous stick sixty feet in the air, while the wind tore our voices from us and seemed to hurl the words far away ere the^^ had well got out of our mouths, and the white-topped waves, dimh^ seen be- low, seemed leaping up and snatching at us. But at that heiglit, and amid all that motion, to balance one's body on the stomach, grasp with outstretched arms a hard roll of struggling, v\^et canvas, while the legs were as far extended the other wsiy and the feet rest- ing only ag-ainst a rope Avorking and wobbling- and g-ivin^ way here and tliere from the weight of fifteen hundred pounds of men unequally distributed over it, was a task and seeming risk too g-reat for my courage. I dared do nothing- but hold on. The conduct of the maintopsail was desperate and outrageous. It seemed straining every nerve — supposing, for the sake of forc- ible expression, that it had nerves — to pull us off the yard and " into the great deep." I found myself be- tween two old sailors, who lost no time in convincing me of my complete and utter worthlessness aloft. I concurred. They bade me clear out and get down on deck. I was glad to do so. Reefing topsails in reality was very different from reefing them in l>ooks or in imagination. On reaching the deck I concluded to lie down. All throucrh the evening I had experienced an uneasy sensation in the stomach. I argued with my- self it was not seasickness — something did not agree with me. But wlien I lay down in the scuppers I ad- luitted being- seasick. Then I onh^ cared to lie there. Life was too miserable even to hope in. The tumult Avent on as ever. The sailors trampled over me. Be- ing- in the way, they drag'g-ed me aside. I cared not . Finally some one bawled in my ear, " Sick! g-o below." I went. The five other bo3^s, all similarly affected, all caring- naug'ht for life or living-, lay in their bunks. The boys' house was about the size of a respectable pig- pen — a single pig- pen. There was room in it for two boys to turn at once, providing- they turned slowly and carefully. On g'oing- on l)oard we had b(^- stowed such of our outfit as coidd be broug-ht into this pen in tlie manner in which boys of sixteen bestow thing's g-eneralU^ on first commencing- to "keep house."' Everything- was arrang-€^d on a terra finna basis. We made no calculation for the ship's deviating- from an even keel. When she did commence to pitch every- thing- fell down. Clothing- fell on the floor; plates, knives, forks, cups and bottles rolled from shelf and bunk; bread, meat, and the molasses kegs fell; plum and si)ong'e cake, pic and sweetmeats fell; for each boy had a space in liis sea-chest filled with these arti- cles, placed there b^' kind, dear relatives at home. It was intended that we should not refer to tliem until the ship was far advanced on her voyage. But we never had such larg-e supplies of cake and sweetmeats at hand before; so we went for these thing's immedi- ately. The liouse abounded with tliem the first nig'ht out. The roof leaked. We left our sliding-door care- lessly open, and a few barrels of the ocean slopped over the bulwarks into the apartment. At nud night our combined clothing, plates, nuigs, knives, forks, bottles, water-keg's, combs, hair-brushes, hats, pants, 26 coats, meat, bread, pie, cake, sweetmeats, molasses, salt water, and an occasional seasick and despairing- boy, united to form a wet, sodden mass on the floor two feet in depth. Above the storm howled and swept throug-h the rig-ging, with little sail to interrupt it. Six sick and wretched boys in their berths la}^ "heads and pints," as the}" pack herring; that is, the toe of one rested on the pillow of the other, for it was not possible to lie otherwise in those narrow receptacles for the living. But the horrors of that second night are not to be related. No solicitous stewards with basins and tenders of broth and champagne attended us. We were not cabin passengers on an ocean steamer. Barely had the next morning's dawn appeared when our door was flung open. In it stood that dreadful second mate of the greenish eyes, hard, brick-red complexion, horny fists and raspy voice — a hard, rough, rude, unfeeling man, who cried : " Come out of that ! Oh, you're young" bears — your troubles ain't commenced 3'et!" Then his long, bony arm gripped us one after the other and tore us from our bunks. How unlike getting up at home on a cold winter's morning", as, snuggling in our warm feather beds, we heard our mothers call time after time at the foot of the stairs: "Come now, g-et up! Breakfast is ready!" And with the delay prone to over-indulged youth, we still la}" abed until the aroma of buckwheat cakes and coffee stealing" to our bedrooms developed an appetite and induced us to rise. Out, this dreadful morning, we tumbled, in the wet clothes wherein we had lain all night, weak, sick, stagg-ering, g'icldy. A long iron hook was put in my hand and I was desired to ^o forward and assist \h hauling" along length after length of the cable prepar- atory to stowing it away. Sky and sea were all of iliill, monotonous gray; the ship was still clambering one great wave after an another with tiresome and l:'J)oi"ious monotony. All the canvas of the preceding day had disappeared, save a much-diminislied foretop- s-.iil and storm staysail. The mates on duty were alert and swearing. The men, not all fully recovered from their last shore debauch, were grumbling and swearing also. The cook, a dark-hued tropical mon- grel, with glittering eyes, was swearing at something amiss in his department. It was a miserable time. But a cure was quickly effected. In thirty-six hours all seasickness had departed. AVith the delicate pet- ting process in vogue with wealthy- cabin-passengers it would have required a week. But we had no time in which to be seasick. Life for us on board this ship was commenced on a new basis. We were obliged to learn "manners." Manners among modern youth have become almost obsolete. The etiquette and formality required from the younger to the elder, and common to the time of I)erukes and knee-breeches, has now little place save on shipboard, where such traditions and customs lin- ger. We were surprised to find it our dut}- to say " Sir " to an officer, and also to find it imperative to recognize every order addressed us by the remark; "Aye, aye, sir! " The sullen, shambling fashion of re- ceiving words addressed us in silence, so that the speaker was left in doubt as to whether he was heard or not, had no place off soundings. In short, we vv^ere obliged to practice what is not common now to many boys on shore—that is, an outward show of respect for 28 superiors. If business called us to the " West End '* of a ship, the quarter-deck, our place was to walk on the lee side of that deck and leave the weather side the moment the duty was done. If sent for any article hy an officer, it was our business to find it Avithout further recourse to him. Petted boys have little patience for hunting' for thing's. At home two minutes is about the limit of time spent in looking- for a mislaid poker, and then "Ma!" " Pa ! " or "Aunt ! " is called on to turn to and do this disag-reeable work. The second mate once ordered me to find a certain iron hook, wherewith to draw the pump boxes, and when, after a short search, I returned and asked him where it mig-ht be I was horrified by the expression of astonished indig-nation spreading- over his face as he yelled : " Great Scott, he expects me to help him find it ! " I saw the point and all it involved, and never so wounded an officer's dig-nity ag-ain. It is a sailor's, and especiallj^ a bo3^'s business on sliipboard, to find whatever he is ordered to. It must be produced — no matter whether it's in the ship or not. At all events that's the sentiment reg-arding- the matter. But it is good discipline for boys over- nursed at home and onl}^ physically weaned. The " cold, cold world " would not, in some cases, be so cold to the newly-fledg-ed 3'outh first trying- his feeble wing-s outside the famil3^ nest, did parents judiciously establish a little of this maritime usage at home. We soon learned on the Wizard how well we had \ived at home. Our sea fare of hard tack and salt junk taught us how to appreciate at their true value the broiled streaks, hot cakes, and buttered toast of home tables. The quart of very common molasses 29 served out to us weekly soon became a luxury, and when the steward occasionally broug-ht us "Benav- lins" (the nautical term for the broken fragments from the cabin table), we regarded it as very luxuri- ous living', though a month previous we should have deemed such food fit only for the swill-tub. In about two weeks we had settled down into the routine of life at sea. Sailors are apt to term theirs a "dog-'s life." I never did. It was a peculiar life, and in some respects an unpleasant one — like many others on land. But it was not a " dog-'s life." There was plenty to eat, and we relished our " lobscouse," hard tack, salt junk, beans, codfish, potatoes and Sun- day's and Thursday's diilF. The hours for labor were not exhausting-. It was "watch and watch, four hours off and four hours on." Many a New York re- tail grocer's clerk, who turns to at 5 in the morning and never leaves off imtil 11 at night, would revel on such regulation of time and labor. So would manj^ a sewing-girl. We had plenty of time for sleep. If called up at 4 every alternate morning, and obliged to stand watch until 8 a.m., we could "turn in" at that hour after breakfast and sleep till noon. Apart from the alternate watches the work or "jobs" occupied about six hours per day. True, there was at times some heavy work, but it was only occasional. Sailoi'- work is not heavy as compared with the incessant fagging, wearing, never-ending character of some oc- cupations on shore. Skill, agilit}', and quickness are in greater demand than mere brute strength. Lobscouse is a preparation of hard bread, first soaked and then stewed with shredded salt beef. It looks somewhat like rations for a delicate bear when 30 served out by the panful. But it is very good. Salt beef is wonderfully improved by streaks of fat through it. These serve the foremast hands in place of but- ter. I know of no better relish than good pilot bread and sliced salt junk, with plenty of clean white fat. On shore that quart of boiling hot liquid, sweetened with molasses and called tea, would have been pitched into the gutter. At sea, after an afternoon's work, it was good. With similar content and resignation, not to say happiness, we drank in the morning the hot quart of black fluid similarly sweetened and called coffee. It was not real coffee. I don't know what it was. I cared not to know. Of course w^e grumbled at it. But Ave drank it. It was " filling,'' and Avas far better than the cold, brackish Avater, impregnated thickly with iron rust, a gallon of Avhich Avas serA^ed out daily. For the fresh water Avas kept below in an iron tank, and, as the deck leaked, a small portion of the Atlantic had somehoAv gained admission to it and slightly salted it. It resembled chocolate to the eye, but not to the palate. '61 CHAPTER lY. MUCH WATER AND MUTINY. On the fourth day out the Wizard was found to have four feet of water in her hold. The sliip was pumped dry in about four hours, wh(Mi slie proceeded to fdl up aij;ain. ^ The Captain seemed a man of many minds for the next two or tliree days. First the ship was put hack for New York. This course was altered and her bows pointed for Africa. Then the foremast hands became worried, and going- aft one morning- in a body, asked Captain S what he meant to do and where he meant to go, because they had shipped for San Francisco and they did not intend g-oing any- Avhere else. The Captain answered that his own safety and that of the vessel were as dear to him as their lives were to them, and that he intended doing- the best for the general g-ood. This answer was not very satisfactory to the crew, who went g-rumbling- back to their quarters. Ultimately it turned out that we were to take the leak with us to San Francisco. At the rate the water was running- in it was judg-ed that the bone, muscle, and sinews of the crew could manage to keep it down. So we pumped all the way round Cape Horn. We pumped during our respective watches every two hours. In good weather and on an even keel it took half an hour to "suck the pumps." If the vessel was heeled to larboard or starboard, it took much longer. In very rough weather we pumped 32 all the time that could be spared from other duties. There were two pumps at the foot of tlie mainmast worked by levers, and these were furnished with ^' bell ropes " to pull on. Half the watch worked at each lever, and these were located exactly where on stormy nights the wild waves were in the habit of flinging- over tlie bulwarks a hogshead or two of Avater to drench us and wash us off our feet. The Wizard was a very " wet ship." She loved giv- ing us moist surprises. Sometimes on a fine da^^ she would g-racefuUy, but suddenly, poke- her nose under, and come up and out of the Atlantic or Pacific ocean with fifteen or twenty tons of pea-green sea water foaming over tlie t'galUmt forecastle, cascading- thence on the spar deck and washing everything movable slam bang up and sometimes into the cabin. This took place once on a washda^^ Sailors' washday is often regulated by the supply of water caug-ht from the clouds. On this particular occasion the fore deck was full of old salts up to their bared elbows in suds, vigorously discoursing washtub and washboard. Then the flood came, and in a moment the deck was filled with a great surge bearing on its crest all these old salts strug-gling among their tubs, their washboards, their soap and i)artly-washed garments. The cabin bulkhead i)artly stopped some, but the door being open others were borne partly inside, and their woollen shirts were afterward found stranded on the carpeted cabin floor. One ^^^dufT day ''we had gathered about our extra repast in the bo\^s' house. The duff and IS'ew Orleans molasses had just commenced to disap- I)ear. Then a shining, greenish, translucent cataract filled the doorway from top to bottom. It struck boys, 33 beef, bread, diitT, and dishes. It scattered them. It tumbled tliem in various lieaps. It was a brief season of terror, spitting-, and sputtering- salt water, and a scrambling- for life, as we thought. It washed under bunks and in remote corners dulf, bread, beef, plates, knives, forks, cups, spoons and molasses-bottles. The dinner was lost. Going- on deck we found a couple of feet of water swashing- from bulwark to bidwark with every roll, bearing' with it, heavy blocks and everything- movable which had been loosened by the shock, to the g-reat i-isk of leg-s and bodies. But these were trifles. At least we call them trifles when they are over. I have noticed, however, that a man may swear as hard at a jammed fing-er as a broken leg-, and the most effi- cacious means in the world to quickly develop a furious temper is to lose one's dinner when hung-ry, get wet throug:h, then abused b3^ a Dutch mate for not stirring" around quicker, and finally work all the afternoon set ting- thingrs to rigrhts on an empty stomach, robbed and disappointed of its dutt'. This is no trifle. Learning the ropes isn't all a boy's first lessons at sea. He must learn also to wash and mend his own clothes. At least he must try to learn and go through the forms. I never could wash a flannel shirt, and how the extraneous matter called dirt, which the washing process is intended to disperse, is gotten rid of b}^ soap and muscle at an equal average over the entire surface of the garment is for me to- day one of earth's mysteries. I could wash a shirt in spots. When I tried to convince myself that I had finished it I could still see where I had washed clean and where I had not. There is a certain system in the proper manipulation of a garment in a washtub 34 which to me is incomprehensible. An old sailor is usually a good washer. It's part of his trade. Those on the Wizcu'd w^ould reprove the bo^^s for their slip- shod work. " Such a slovenly washed shirt as that/* said Conner, an old man-of- Avar's man, "hung- in the rigging is a disgrace to the shiiD.'^ He alluded to one of mine. The failure was not from any lack of labor put on it. The trouble lay in that I didn't know Avhere to put the labor on. It was easier to tie a shirt to a line, fling it overboard and let it tow\ This will wash clothes — Avash all the warp out of them in time. The practice Avas at last forbidden the bo3'S on the Wizcu^d, It's a lazy bo^^'s Avash. The adage " It's ncA^er too late to mend " is not applicable on ship- board. It should there read " It's never too early to mend." Of course a boy of sixteen, Avhose mother has ahvays stitched for him, Avill alloAV his clothes to go until they fall off his body before using his needle. As I did. And I scAved myself up only to rip asunder immediately. I Avent about decks a thing of flaps, rips, rags, and abortiA^e patches, until they called me the ship's scarecroAv. And so Avould many another spruce young man under similar discipline. It's good once in one's life to be brought thus Ioav. It was particularly disagreeable at midnight as Ave assembled at the bell ropes to giA^e her the last "shake-up," and more asleep than aAvake pulled Avear- ily Avith monotonous clank. Sometimes at that hour, Avhen our labors Avere half through, the valves Avould get out of order. It Avas then necessary to call the carpenter and haA^e them repaired. This Avould keep us on deck half an hour or more, for by mutual com- pact each Avatch Avas obliged to "suck its OAvn pumps." OO Such delays made the men very angry. They stopped singing- at their work — always a bad sig-n— and be- came silent, morose, and sullen. For the first six weeks all the " shanti songs '*' known on the sea had been sung. Regularly at each pumping exercise we had "Santy Anna," "Bully in the Alley," "Miranda Lee," "Storm Along, John," and other operatic maritime gems, some of which might have a place in our modern operas of The Pinafore school. There's a good deal of rough melody when these airs are rolled out by twenty or thirty strong lungs to the accom- paniment of a windlass' clank and the wild, shrill sweep of the winds in the rigging above. But the men would no longer sing. The fact was reported to the Captain. He put on his spectacles, walked out on the quarter-deck and gazed at them mournfully and reprovingly. The mates tried to incite them to re- newed melody. But the shipping articles did not com- pel them to sing unless they felt like it. The pumps clanked g-loomily without any enlivening chorus. The Captain went sadly back to his cabin and renewed his novel. One night the pumps broke down five minutes be- fore 12 o'clock. Our watch was at work on them. The carpenter was called as usual, and after the usual bungling and fishing in the well for the broken valves, they were put in order again. It was then nearly 1 A.M. Meanwhile all the able seamen in our w^atch had at eight bells walked below. The watch newly come on deck refused to pump the ship clear, alleging it was the business of the others. The watch below were bidden to come on deck and perform their neglected duty. They refused. This was mutiny. The four 36 mates g-ot their pistols, entered the forecastle and stormed, ordered, and threatened. It was of no avail. The fifteen able seamen who refused constituted the main strength and effectiveness of that watch. They were threatened with being* put in irons. They pre- ferred irons to pumping out of their turn. They were put in irons, fifteen stout men, by the four mates, who then returned and reported proceedings to the Cap- tain. The men remained shackled until the next morn- ing. It was then discovered that it was impossible to Avork the ship without their aid. Of course they couldn't handle the vessel in irons. In reality double the number of able men were needed in both watches. The Wizard rated over 3,000 tons, and many a frigate of her size would have been deemed poorly off with less than one hundred men for handling the ship alone. We rarely secured the lower sails properly in heavy weather, from the mere lack of physical strength to handle them. So Captain S pored sadl}^ at his breakfast through his gold-bowed spectacles, and when the meal Avas over issued orders for the release of the fifteen men in irons. In this little affair the bo3\s and ordinary seamen belonging to the mutinous watch took no part. The^^ were strictl3^ neutral and waited to see which side would win. I felt rather un- pleasant and alarmed. Though not a full-fledged mutiny and a conversion of a peaceful merchantman mto a pirate, it did look at one time as if t'he initiatory steps to such end were being taken. One of the great aims of existence at sea is that of keeping- the decks clean. The scrubbing-, swishing, and swashing is performed by each watch on alternate mornings, and commences at daylight. It was the 37 one ordeal which I reg-arded with horror and con- t euipt. You are called up at four in the morning', when the sleep of a g-rowinir 3^outh is soundest. The mani- acal wretch of the other watch, who does the call- Hig-, does it with the glee and screech of a fiend. He will not stop his "All Ha-a-a-nds!" until he hears some responsive echo from the sleepers. He is noisy i\nd joyous because it is so near the time he can turn in. And these four hours of sleep at sea are such luxuries as may rarelv be realized on shore. But the mate's watch is calling us, screeching, howling, thumping on the forecastle door, and making himself extremely pleasant. The old sailors being called grad- ually rise to sitting postures in their berths with yawns, oaths, and grumblings. If the hideous caller is seen, a boot or other missile may be shied in that direction. Otherwise the prejudice and disgust for his clamor on the part of those called expresses itself in irritable sarcasms such as, "Oh, why don't you make a little more noise?" "Think yourself smart, don't you?" "Say, don't you s'pose we can hear?" To-morrow morning at 12 or 4 these personalities and conditions of mind will be reversed. The awakened irritable grumbler will be the joyous caller, and the joyous caller of this early morn will be searching about his bunk for some offensive implement to hurl at the biped who thus performs the matutinal office of the early village cock. We are called and on deck, and stumbling about, maj'be with one boot half on, and more asleep than awake and more dead than alive. We ava in the warm, enervating latitude of the tropics, Avith ever}' sinew relaxed from the steaming heat. Perhaps there 260687 38 is a lig-ht wind aft. We are carrying" stuclding--sails. Studding'-sails are beautiful to look at from a dis- tance. But when once you have sailed in a ship carrying- them from the royals down and know some- thing of the labor of rigging them out all on one side, fore, main, and mizzen-masts, and then, if the breeze alters a couple of points, taking the starboard sails all down and rigging out the larboard, or perhaps on both sides — and this on a Sunday afternoon, when there are no jobs and you've been exj^ecting plent}^ of leisure to eat your duff and molasses; or if you have exor helped carry those heavy yards about the deck when the ship was rolling violently in a heavy ground swell, and ever}^ time she brought up, sails, blocks, and everything movable was bringing up also with a series of pistol-like reports; or if you have ever laid out on a ro^^al 3^ard tr\ing to pass a heav^^ rope through the "jewel block," at the extreme end thereof, while the mast and yard Avere oscillating to and fro with you through the air in a rapidly recurring series of gigan- tic arcs caused by the lazy swell, in the trough of which your ship is rolling — and at the end of each roll you find yourself holding on for dear life, lest at the termination of each oscillation you be shot like an arrow into the sea from your insecure perch — wh^^ in all these cases the beauty and picturesqueness of a ship under studding-sails will be tempered by some sober realities. It is 5:30 or G o'clock. The morning light has come. The cry of "Turn to! " is heard. That is, "turn to" to wash down decks, an operation which will tax the already exhausted resources of an emi:)ty stomach until breakfnst time at 8 o'clock. The mates liaA^e 39 their fragrant " cabin coffee '' and biscuit served them on the brass capstan aft; we can smell its aroma, but nothing- warm can get into our stomachs for over two long hours of work. The basic idea in this regular washing down decks at sea seems to be that of keep- ing men bus\' for the sake of keeping them busy. The top of every deck plank must be scrubbed with a care and scrutiny befitting the labors of a diamond pol- isher on his gems, while the under side may be dripping with foulness, as it sometimes is. I had the post of honor in scrubbing- the quarter-deck. That was the drawing of water in a canvas bucket from the mizzen chains to wash over that deck. The remaining five boys would pusli wearily about with their brooms, hand-brushes, squabs, and squilgees, superintended by our extraordinary fourth mate (always to me an ob- ject of interest, froxn the fact of the secret carefully hoarded in \\\\ breast that I had pulled him into the New York dock), who, with a microscopic oyQ in- spected each crack and seam after the boys' labors, in search of atomic particles of dirt, and called them back with all the dignity of command, and a small amount of commanding personality behind it, whenever he deemed he had discovered any. When this labor was finished I was generally so exhausted as to hav^e no appetite for breakfast. But a sailor's stomach is not presumed to be at all sensitive under any conditions. And above all a " boy " — a boy belonging to a squad of boys who about once a day were encouraged and enthused to exertion and maritime ambition by the assurance conveyed them by one of the mates that they weren't "worth tlieir salt" — what business had a l)oy's stomach to put on airs at sea? Most landsmen 40 if called up at 4 o'clock on a niug-gy morning and worked like mules for a couple of hours on a digestive vacuum, would probably at the breakfast hour feel more the need of food than the appetite to partake of it. Though I followed the sea nearly two 3^ears, I am no sailor. The net result of my maritime experience is a capacity for tying' a bow-line or a square knot and a positive knowledge and conviction concerning which end of the ship goes first. I also know enough not throw hot ashes to windward. But on a yard I could never do much else but hold on. The foolhardy men about me would lie out flat on their stomachs amid the darkness and storm, and ex- pose themselves to the risk of pitching headlong into the sea in the most reckless manner while tr3nng to "spill the wind "out of a t'gallant sail. But I never emulated them. I never lived up to the maritime maxim of "one hand for yourself and the other for the owners." I kept both hands for myself, and that kept me from going overboard. What would the owners have cared had I gone overboard? Nothing. Such an occurrence twenty-five odd years ago would, weeks afterward, have been reported in the marine ji(;ws this way : " Common sailor, ver^- common sailor, fell from t/gallant 3^ard off Cape Horn and lost." The owner would have secretly rejoiced, as he bought his Christmas toys for his children, that the t'gallant yard had not gone with the sailor. No; on a yard in a storm I believed and lived up to the maxim: " Hold fast to that which is good." The yard was good. Yet I was ambitious when a boy before the mast on the clipper which brought me to California. I was quick 41 to get into the ri«r.2:ing- when there was an^' thing to do aloft. But once in the rig-ging- 1 was of httle utihty. The first time I went up at night to loose one of the royals, I thought I should never stop climbing. The deck soon vanished in the darkness of a very black tropical night, the mastheads were likewise lost in a Cimmerian obscurity — whatever that is. At last I found the yard. I wasn't quite sure whether it was the right one or not. I didn't knoAV exactly what to do. I knew I had to untie something somewhere. But where ? Meantime the savage Scotch second mate was bellowing, as it then seemed, a mile below me. I knew the bellow was for me. I had to do something and I commenced doing. I did know, or rather guessed, enough to cast oil the lee and weather gaskets, or lines which bind the sail when furled to the yard, and then I made them up into a most slovenly knot. But the bunt-gasket (the line binding the middle and most bulky portion of the sail), bothered me. I couldn't untie it. I picked away at it desperately, tore my nails and skinning ray knuckles. The bellowing from below continued as fiercely as ever, which, though not intelligible as to words, was certainly exhorting me, and me only, to vigilance. Then the watch got tired waiting for me. Thinking the sail loosed, they began hoisting. They hoisted the yard to its proper place and me with it. I clung on and went up higher. That, by the way, always comes of holding fast to that which is good. Then a man's head came bobbing up out of the darkness. It was that of a good-natured Nantucket boy, whose name of course was Coffin. Ha asked me the trouble. I went into a lengthy explana- tion about the unmananeable knot. "Oh the 42 knot!^' said he. "Cut it!'^ and he cut it. I would never have cut it. In m^^ then and even present nau- tical ig-norance I should have expected the mast or yard to have fallen from cutting- anything- aloft. Only a few days previous I had seen the Captain on the quarter-deck jumping up and down in his tracks with rage because a common seamen liad, by mistake, cut a mizzen brace, and the second mate, as usual, had jumped up and down on the seaman when he reached the deck. I feared to set a similar jumping process in operation. Coming on deck after my length}^ and blundering sojourn loosing a royal, I expected to be mauled to a pulp for 1113^ stupidity. But both watch and bellowing mate had g-one below and I heard no more of it. 43 CHAPTER V. SAN FRANCISCO IN 185G. The Wizard sailed through a g-rcat bank of fog one August morning and all at once the headlands of the Golden Gate came in sight. It was the first land we had seen for four months. We sailed into the harbor, anchored, and the San Francisco of 1856 lay before us. The ship was tied up to the wharf. All but the offi- cers and "boys" left her. She seemed deserted, almost dead. We missed the ocean life of the set sails, the ship bowing to the waves and all the stir of tlie elements in the open ocean. The captain called me one day into the cabin, paid me my scanty wages and told me he did not think I " was cut out for a sailor," I was not handy enough about decks. Considering that for two months I had been crijv pled by a felon on the middle finger of my right hand, which on healing had left that finger curved inward, with no power to straighten it, I thought the charg-e of awkwardness somewhat unjust. However, I accepted the Captain's opinion regard- ing my maritime capacities, as well as the hint that I was a superfluity on board. I left the Wizard — left her for sixteen 3^ears of vai-ied life in California. 44 I had no plans, nor aims, nor purpose, save to exist from day to day and take what the day might g-ive me. Let me say here never accept anj^ person's opinion of your quahfications or capacities for any caUing-. If you feel that 3'ou are " cut out " for any calling or tliat you desire to follow it, abide by that feeling, and trust to it. It will carr^^ you through in time. I believe that thousands on thousands of lives have been blasted and crippled through the discourage- ment thrown on them by relatiou, friend, parent, or employer's saying continually (or if not saying it verbally, thinking it) ''You are a dunce. You are stupid. You can't do this or that. It's ridiculous for 3^ou to think of becoming this or that." The boy or girl goes off with this thought thrown on them by others. It remains with them, becomes a part of them and chokes off aspiration and effort. Years afterward, I determined to find out for m^^- self whether I was "cut out for a sailor" or not. As a result I made myself master of a small craft in all winds and weathers and proved to m^^self that if occasion required, I could manage a bigger one. San Francisco seemed to me then mostly fog in the morning, dust and wind in the afternoon, and Vigilance Committee the remainder of the time. San Francisco was then in the throes of the great " Vigilant eeism " of 185G. Companies of armed men were drilling in the streets at night. In the city's commercial centre stood "Fort Gunnybags" — the strong hold of the Vigilantes — made, as its name im- plied, of sand-filled gunn^^- sacks. Carronades pro- truded from its port holes, sentinels paced the ram- 45 parts. There was a constant surging of men in and onb of the building behind the fort, — tlie headquarters and barracks of the Vigilantes. From its windows a few days before our arrival they had hung Casey for the killing of James King — one of the editors of the Bulletin. I saw two others hung there on tlie sixth of August. Vigilanteeism was then the business and talk of the town. The jail had just been captured from the "Law and Order" men, w ho w^ere not " orderly " at all, but w ho had captured the citj^'s entire governmental and legal machinery and ran it to suit their own purposes. The local Munchausens of that era were busy; one day the U. S. ship of war, St. Martfs, was to open fire on Fort Gunnybags; the next, Governor Johnson, backed by twenty thousand stahvart men, w^as to fall upon the city and crush out the insurrection. The up-country counties were arming or thought of arming to put down this "rebellion." The "Re- bellion" was conducted b^^ the respectability and solidity of San Francisco, which had for a few years been so busily engaged in money making as to allow their city government to drift into rather irresponsible hands; man^^ of the streets were unbridged, many not lighted at night. Cause — lack of money to bridge and liglit. The money in the hands of the city officials had gone more for private pleasure than public good. I speak of the streets being unbridged because at that time a large portion of the streets w^ere virtually bridges. One-fourth of the cit^^ at least, w^as built over the w^ater. You could row^ a boat far under the town, and for miles in some directions. This am- phibious part of the city " bilged " like a ship's hold. 4G and white paint put on one day Avoiild be lead colored the next, from the action on it of the g-ases let loose from the ooze at low tide. There Avere frequent holes in these bridges into which men frequently tumbled, and occasional!}" a team and wag-on. They Avere large enough for either, and their only use AA^as to shoAv Avhat the city officials had not done Avith the city^s money. Then Commercial street betAA^een LeidesdorfT and Batter}^ Avas full of Cheap John auction stores, Avith all their clamor and attendant croAvds at night. Then the old Railroad Restaurant Avas in its priaie, and the St. Nichokis, on Sansome, Avas the crack hotel. Then, one saAv sand-hills at the further end of Montgomery street. To go to Long Bridge Avas a Avear^^, body-ex- hausting tramp. The Mission Avas reached by omni- bus. Rows of old hulks Avere moored off Market street Avharf, maritime relics of " ^49."' That Avas " Rotten RoAv.^^ One by one the}^ fell A^ctims to Hare. Hare purchased them, set Chinamen to picking their bones, broke them up, put the shattered timbers in one pile, the iron bolts in another, the copper in another, the cordage in another, and so in a short all time that re- mained of these bluff-boAved, old-fashioned ships and brigs, that had so often doubled the stormy corner of Cape Horn or smoked their try-pots in the Arctic ocean Avas so maA^ ghastly heaps of marine debris. I had seen the Niantic, noAv entombed just beloAv ClaA" street, leave my natiA^e seaport, bound for the South Pacific to cruise for whale, years ere the bars and gulches of California AA^ere turned up by pick and shovel. The Cadmus, the A^essel Avhich brought Lafayette OA^er in 18:?4, Avas another of our "blubber hunters," and afterward made her last voy- ag-e with the rest to San Francisco. Manners and customs still retained much of the old "'49" flavor. Women were still scarce. Every river boat brought a shoal of miners in gray shirts from " up country." " Steamer Day," twice a month, was an event. A g-reat crowd assembled on the wharf to wit- ness the departure of those "going- East" and a Uvely orang:e bombardment from wharf to boat and vice versa was an inevitable feature of these occasions. The Plaza was a bare, barren, unfenced spot. They fired salutes there on Independence Day, and occasion- ally Chief Burke exhibited on its area g'ang-s of sneak thieves, tied two and two by their wrists to a rope- like a string- of onions. There was a long- low g-arrt-t in my Commercial street lodg-ing^s. It was filled with dust-covered sea- chests, trunks, valises, boxes, packages, and bundles, many of which had been there unclaimed for years and whose owners were quite forgotten. They were the belong:ing"s of lost and strayed Long- Islanders, ex-whaling- captains, mates and others. For the "Market" was tlie chief rendezvous. Every Long- Islander coming- from the " States " made first for the "Market." Storage then was very expensive. It would soon " eat a trunk's head off." So on the score of old acquaintance all this baggage accumulated in the Market loft and the owners wandered off to the mines, to Oregon, to Arizona, to Nevada— to all parts of the great territory lying east, north and south, both in and out of Cahfornia, and many never came back and some were never heard of more. This bag- gage had been accumulating for years. 48 I used occasionally to g-o and wander about that garret alone. It was like gToping- around your family vault. The shades of the forg-otten dead came there in the evening* twilight and sat each one on his chest, his trunk, his valise, his roll of blankets. In those dusty packagTs were some of the closest ties, binding- them to earth, Bibles, mother's g^ifts, tiny baby shoes, bits of blue ribbon, which years b^^-g-one fluttered in the tresses of some Long' Island g-irl. It was a sad, yet not a g-loom^^ place. I could feel that the presence of one, whose soul in sad memory met theirs, one who then and there recalled familiar scenes, events and faces, one who ag-ain in memory lived over their busy preparations for departure, their last adieux and their brig-ht anticipations of fortune, I could feel that even my presence in that lone, seldom- visited g-arret, was for them a solace, a comfort. Imag-ination? Yes, if you Avill. Even imag-ination, dreamy, unprofitable imag-ination, may be a tang-ible and valuable something- to those who dwell in a world of thoug-ht. One nig-ht — or, rather, one morning- — I came home very late — or, rather, very early. The doors of the Long Island House were locked. I wanted rest. One of the window-panes in front, and a larg-e window-pane at that, was broken out. All the belated Long- Island- ers stopping- at the place, when locked out at nig-ht, used to craAvl throug-h that window-pane. So, I crawled through it. Now, the sentinel on the ram- parts of Fort Gunm'bags, having nothing better to do, had been watching me, and putting me up as a suspicious midnight loiterer. And so, as he looked, he saw me by degrees lose m^^ physical identity, and 49 vanish into the front of that building-; first, head, then shoulders, then chest, then diaphragm, then leg's, until nau<^ht but a pair of boot-soles Avere for a moment upturned to his g'aze, and they vanished, and darkness reigned supreme. The sentinel deemed that the time for action had come. I had just got into bed, congrat- ulating myself on having thus entered that house without disturbing the inmates, when there came loud and peremptory rappings at the lower door. Luther and John, the proprietors, put their heads out of the chamber windows. There was a squad of armed Vigi- lantes on the sidewalk below; and, cried out one of them, " Tliere's a man just entered your house! " Now I heard this, and said to myself, " Thou art the man! " but it was so annoying to have to announce myself as the cause of all this disturbance, that I concluded to wait and see how things would turn out. John and Luther jumped from their beds, lit each a candle and seized each a pistol; down-stairs they went and let the Vigilantes in. All the Long Island captains, mates, coopers, cooks, and stewards then resident in the house also turned out, lit each his candle, seized each a pistol or a butcher-knife, of which there were l)lenty on the meat-blocks below. John came rushing into my room where I lay, pretending to be asleep. He shook me and exclaimed, " Get up! get up! there's a robber in the house secreted somewhere ! " Then I arose, lit a candle, seized a butcher-knife, and so all the Vigilantes with muskets, and all the Long Island butchers, captains, mates, cooks, coopers, and stewards went poking around, without any trousers on, and thrusting their candles and knives and pistols into dark corners, and under beds and behind beef barrels, 50 after the robber. So did I; for the disturbance had now assumed such immense iDroportions that I would not have revealed myself for a hundred dollars. I never hunted for m^^self so long- before, and I did wish the^^ would give up the search. I saw no use in it; and besides, the night air felt raw and chill in our slim attire. They kept it up for two hours. Fort Gunnybags was on Sacramento Street; I slept directly opposite under the deserted baggage referred to. The block between us and the fort was vacant. About every fourth night a report would be circulated through that house that an attack on Fort Gunnybags would be made by the Law and Order men. Now, the guns of Fort Gunn^'bags bore directly on us, and as they Avere loaded with hard iron balls, and as these balls, notwithstanding' whatever human Law and Order impediments the^^ might meet with while cross- ing the vacant block in front, were ultimately certain to smash into our house, as well as into whatever stray Long Island captains, mat(»s, boat-steerers, cooks, and coopers mig-ht be hing in then^ path, these reports re- sulted in great uneasiness to us, and both watches used frequently to remain up all night, playing seven-up and drinking i^um and gum in Jo. Holland's saloon below. I became tired at last of assisting" in this hunt for my- self. I g-ave mj^self up. I said, " I am the man, T am the bogus burglar, I did it." Then the crowd put up their knives and pistols, blew out their candles, drew their tongues and fired reproaches at me. I felt that I de- served them ; I replied to none of their taunts,conducted m^^self like a Christian, and went to bed weighted down with their reproof and invective. The sentinel went back to his post and possibly slept. So did I. 51 CHAPTER VI. AS A SEA COOK. I DRIFTED around San Francisco for several months and finally shipped as cook and steward of the schooner Henry, bound from San Francisco for a whaling-, seal- ins", abalone curing-, and general " pick up " voyage along- the Lower Californian coast. My acceptance as cook was based on the production of an Irish stew vvhicli I cooked for the captain and mate while the Henry was ''hove down" on the beach at North point and undergoing the process of cleaning her bottom of barnacles. I can't recollect at this lapse of time where I learned to cook an Irish stew. I will add that it was all I could cook — positively all, and with this astound- ing- capital of culinary ignorance I ventured down upon the great deep to do the maritime housework for twenty men. When we were fairly afloat and the Farall ones were out of sight m^^ fearful mcapacity for the duties of the position became apparent. Besides, I was dreadfully seasick, and so remained for two weeks. Yet I cooked. It Avas purgatory, not only for myself but all hands. There was a general howl of execration forw^ard and aft at my bread, my lobscouse, my tea, my coffee, my beef, my beans, my cake, my pies. Why the captain continued me in the position, why they didn't throw me overboard, why I was not beaten to a jelly for my 52 continued culinary failures, is for me to this day one of the gTeat m^^steries of my existence. We were away nearly ten months. I was three months learn- ing- my trade. The sufferings of the crew during those three months were fearful. They had to eat my fail- ures or starve. Several times it was intimated to me by the under officers that I had better resign and go " for'ard " as one of the crew. I would not. I per- severed at the expense of many a pound of good flour. I conquered and returned a second-class sea cook. The Henry was a small vessel — the deck was a clutter of Avhaling gear. Where m^^ galley or sea- kitchen should have been, stood tlie tiy-works for boil- ing blubber. They shoved me around an^^where. Some- times I was moved to the starboard side, sometimes to the larboard, sometimes when cutting in a whale way astern. I expected eventually to be hoisted into one of the tops and cook aloft. An^^ well regulated galley is placed amidships, where there is the least motion. This is an important consideration for a sea cook. At best he is often obliged to make his soup like an acrobat, half on his head and half on his heels and with the roof of his unstead^^ kitchen trying to become the floor. My stove was not a marine stove. It had no rail around the edges to guard the pots and kettles from falling off during extra lurches. The Henry was a most uneasy craft, and always getting up extra lurclies or else trying to stand on her head or stern. Therefore, as she flew up high astern Avlien I was located in that quarter, she has in more than one instance flung me bodily, man unguarded moment, out of that galley door and over that quarter-deck while a host of kettles, covers, and other culinary uten- 63 sils, rushed with clang' and clatter out after me and with me as their commander at their head. We all eventually terminated in the scuppers. I will not, as usual, say "lee scuppers." Any scupper was a lee scupper on that infernal vessel. I endeavored to rem- edy the lack of a rail about this stove 63^ a system of wires at jaching" both pots and lids to the galley ceil- ing-. I "g-uyed " my chief culinary utensils. Still dur- ing' furious oscillations of the boat the pots would roll otf their holes, and thoug-h prevented from falling', some of them as suspended by these wires would swing' like so many pendulums, around and to and fro over the area of that stove. That was the busiest y?ar of my life. I was the first one up in the morning:, and the last save the watch to turn in at nig'ht. In this dry-g-oods box of a kitchen I had daily to prepare a breakfast for seven men in the cabin, and another for eleven in the forecastle; a dinner for the cabin and another for the forecastle; likewise supper for the same. It was m^^ business to set the aristocratic cabin table, clear it off and wash the dislies three times daily. I had to serve out the tea and coffee to the eleven men forward. The cabin expected hot biscuit for breakfast, and frequentlj^ pie and pudding for dinner. Above all men must the sea cook not only have a place for everything* and every- thing' in its place, but he must have everything- chocked and wedged in its place. You must wash up your tea thing's, sometimes holding" on to the deck with your toes, and the washtub with one hand, and wedging' each plate, so soon as wiped, intro a corner, so that it slide not away and smash. And even then the entire dish-washing apparatus, yourself included, slides gen- 64 tly across the deck to leeward. You can't leave a fork, or a stove-cover, or lid-lifter lyiiii;' about indifter- entl}^ but what it slides and sneaks away with the roll of the vessel to some secret crevice, and is long- lost. When your best dinner is cooked in rough weather, it is a time of trial, terror, and tribulation to bestow it safely on the cabin table. You must harbor 3^our kindling" and matches as sacredl^^ as the ancients kept their household gods, for if not, on stormy morn- ings, with the drift flying over the deck and ever}' thing wet and clammy with the Avater-surcharged air of the sea, your breakfast will be hours late through inabil- ity to kindle a fire, whereat the cook catches it from that potentate of the sea, " the old man," and all the mates raise their voices and cry with empty stom- achs, "Let him be accursed.'' One great trial with me lay in the difficulty of dis- tinguishing fresh water from salt — I mean by the eye. We sea cooks use salt water to boil beef and potatoes in; or rather to boil beef and pork and steam the potatoes. So I usually had a pail of salt water and one of fresh standing- b^^ the g'alle}^ door. Sometimes these got mixed up. I alwa^^s found this out after making salt-water coffee, but then it was too late. They were particular, especially in the cabin, and did not like salt-water coffee. On any strictly disciplined vessel the cook for such an offence would have been compelled to drink a quart or so of his own coffee, but some merciful cherub aloft alwaA^s interfered and got me out of bad scrapes. Another annoyance was the loss of spoons and forks thrown accidentally overboard as I flung away my soup and grease-clouded dish- water. It was indeed bitter when, as occupied in these 55 daily washings I allowed my mind to drift to other and brig-liter scenes, to see the g'litter of a spoon or fork in the air or sinking- in the deep blue sea, and then to re- flect that already there were not enough spoons to g-o around, or forks either. Our storeroom was the cabin. Among- other articles there was a keg- of molasses. One evening- after draining- a quantity I neg-lected to close the faucet tightly. Molasses therefore oozed over the cabin floor all night. The cabin was a freshet of molasses. Very early in the morning- the captain, getting- out of his bunk, jumped both stockinged feet into the saccharine deluge. Some men will swear as vigoroush' in a foot-bath of molasses as they would in one of coal-tar. He did. It was a very black day for me, and life generally seemed joyless and uninviting; but I cooked on. The Henry was full of mice. These little creatures would obtrude themselves in my dough wet up for fresh bread over night, become bemired and die there- in. Once a mouse thus dead was unconsciously rolled up in a biscuit, baked with it, and served smoking hot for the morning's meal aft. It was as it were an in- voluntary meat-pie. Of course the cabin grumbled; but they would grumble at anything. They were as particular about their food as an habitue of Delmon- ico's. I wish now at times I had saved that biscuit to add to my collection of odds-and-endibles. Still even the biscuit proved but an episode in my career. I cooked on, and those I served stood aghast, not know- ing what would come next. After five months of self-training I graduated on pies. I studied and wrought out the making of pies unassisted and untaught. Mine were sea mince pies; 50 material, salt-beef soaked to freshness and boiled ten- der, dried apples and molasses. The cabin pronounced them *;'ood. This was one of the few featliers in mj^ culinary cap. Of course, their goodness was relative. On shore such a pie would be scorned. But on a long- sea- voyag-e almost an^^ combination of flour, dried fruit and sugar will pass. Indeed, the appetite, rendered more vigorous and perhaps appreciative by long- de- privation from luxuries, will take not kindly to dried apples alone. Tlie changes in the weekly hill of fare at sea run something thus: Sundays and Thursdays are "duff da3^s"; Tuesday, bean day; Frida\^, codfish and potato da3^; some vessels have one or two special daj^s for pork; salt beef, hardtack, tea and coffee are fluids and solids to fall back on every day. I dreaded the making of duffs, or flour puddings, to the end of the voj^age. Rarely did I attain success with them. A duff is a quantit^^ of flour and yeast, or yeast-pow- der, mixed, tied up in a bag and boiled until it is light. Plum-dutt' argues the insertion of a quantity of raisins. Plain duff is duff without raisins. But the proper cooking of a duff is rather a delicate matter. If it boils too long the flour settles into a hard, putt^^-like mass Avhereunto there is neither sponginess, lig-htncss, nor that porousness which delights tlie heart of a cook when he takes his duff' from the seething caldron. If the duff does not boil long enough, the interior is still a iDaste. If a duff stops boiling* for ever so few min- utes, great damage results. And sometimes dviff* won't do i)roperl3', an3^wa3^ Mine were generally of the hard- ened species, and the plums evinced atendenc^^to hold mass meetings at the bottom. Twice the hands for- ward rebelled at my duffs, and their Committee on 57 Culinary Grievances bore them aft to the door of the cabin and deposited them tliere unbroken and uneaten for the " GUI Man's " inspection. Which pubhc demon- stration I witnessed from m^^ g'alley door, and when the duff deputation had retired, I emerged and swiftly and silently bore that dulf away before the Old Man had finished his dinner below. It is a hard ordeal thus to feel one's self the subject of such an outbreak of popular indignation. But my sympathies now are all with the sailors. A spoiled duff is a g-reat misfortune in the forecastle of a whak^r, where neither pi«' nor cake nor any other delicacy, save boiled flour and mo- lasses sauce, come from month's end to month's end. In St. Bartholomew's or Turtle bay, as the Avhalers call it, where for five months we lay, taking- and cur- ing- abalones, our food was chiefly turtle. This httle harbor swarmed with them. After a few hours' hunt one of our wlialeboats would rctui^n with Ave or six of these imwieldy creat ures in tlie bottom, some so larg-e and heavy as to require hoisting- over the side. Often tlie green fat under the callipee, or under shell, lay three inches in thickness. I served up turtle fried, turtle stewed, quarters of turtle roasted and stuffed like loins of veal, turtle plain boiled and turtles' flip- pers, boiled to a jelly and pickled. A turtle is a vari- ously flavored being-. Almost every portion has a distinct and individual taste. After all, old Jake, our black boatsteerer, showed us the most delicate part of the turtle, and one previously thrown away. This was the tripe, cleansed of a thin inner skin. When the cabin table had once feasted on stewed turtle tripe they called for it continuously. After many trials and much advice and sugg-estion, I learned to cook accept- 58 ably the abalone. The eatable part of this shell-fish when fresh is as larg-e as a small tea saucer. There are two varieties, the white and black. The white is the best. Cut up in pieces and stewed, as I attempted at first, the abalone turned out stewed bits of g-utta percha; fried, it was fried g'utta percha. Then a man from another vessel came on board, Avho taught me to inclose a single abalone in a small canvas bag* and then pound it to a jelh^ with a wooden mallet. This process g-ot the honey out of the abalone. The re- mains of four or five abalones thus pounded to a pulp, and then allowed to simmer for a couple of hours, would make a big- tureen of the most delicious soup man ever tasted, every drop of which, on cooling-, hard- ened to the consistency of calves^-foot jell^^ When my cabin boarders had once become infected with aba- lone soup they wanted me to keep bring-ing- it along-. The Americans do not Ivuow or use all the food in the sea which is g'ood. I was an experimental cook, and once or twice, while cutting'-in whale, tried them with whale meat. The flesh lying- under the blubber somewhat resembles beef in color, and is so tender as easily to be torn apart by the hands. But Avhale meat is not docile under culi- nar^^ treatment. Gastronomically, it has an individu- ality of its own, which will keep on assei-ting- itself, no matter how much spice and pepper is put upon it. It is a wild, untamed steed. I propounded it to my g-uests in the g"uise of sausag-es, but wlien the meal was over the sausag-es were there still. It can't be done Shark can. Shark's is a sweet meat, uiuch resembling- that of the swordfish, but uo man will ever eat a whale, at least an old one. The calves miirht conduct themselves 59 better in the fr^ing'-paii. We had many about us whose mothers we had killed, but we never thought of frying- them. When a whaler is trying out oil, she is blackened with the greasy soot arising from the burn- ing blubber scraps from stem to stern. It falls like a storm of black snow-flakes. They sift into the tiniest crevice. Of all this my cookery got its full share. It tinged my bread and even my pies Avith a funereal tinge of blackness. The deck at such times was covered with " horse pieces '' up to the top of the bulwarks. " Horse picees " are chunks of blubber a foot or so in length, that being one stage of their reduction to the size necessary for the try pots. I have introduced them here for the purpose of remarking that on my passage to and fro, fi'om galle^^ to cabin, while engaged in laying the cloth and arranging our services of gold plate and Sevres ware, I liad to clamber, wade, climb, and sometimes, in m^^ white necktie and swallow-tail coat, actually crawl over the greasy mass with the sil- ver tureen full of "consomme "or "soup Julien," while I held the gilt-edged aiul enanu'lled menu between my teeth. Those were trying-out times for a maritime head butler. The cook socially does not raidv high at sea. He staiuls very near the bottom round of the ladder. He is the subject of many jests and low comparisons. This should not be. The cook should rank next or near to the captain. It is the cook who prepares the material wliich shall put mental and phj'sical strength into human bodies. He is, in fact, a chemist, who car- ries on the last external processes with meat, flour, and vegetables necessar^^ to prepare them for their in- visii)le and still more wonderful treatment in the labo- 60 ratory which every man and woman possesses — the stomach — whei'eh^^ these raw materials are converted not only into blood, bone, nerve, sinew, and muscle, but Into thoug'hts. A good cook may help materially to make g-ood poetry, ^n indigestible beefsteak, fried in grease to leather, may, in the stomach of a General, lose a battle on which shall depend the fate of nations. A good cook might have won the battle. Of course, he would receive no credit therefor, save the conviction in his own culinary soul, that his beefsteak properl^^ and quickly broiled was thus enabled to digest itself properly in the stomach of the General, and thereby transmit to and through the General's organism that amount of nerve force and vigor, which, acting upon the brain, caused all his intelligence and talent to at- tain its maximum, and thereby conquer his adversary. That's what a cook may do. This would be a far bet- ter and happier w^orld were there more really good cooks on land and sea. And when all cooks are Blots or So^^ers, then will we have a societ^^ to be proud of. 61- CHAPTER VII. SIGHTS WHILE COOKING. St. Bartholomew or Turtle Ba^- is a small, almost circular, sheet of water and suri'ounded by some of the dreariest territory in the world. The mountains which stand about it seem the cooled and liardened deposit of a volcano. Vegetation there is none, save cactus and other spined, horned, and sting'ing- growths. Of fresh water, whether in springs, rividets, or brooks, there is none. Close b}^ our boat-landing- was tlie g-rave of a mother and child, ];nid(Hl a few years pre- vious from a wreck, who had perished of thirst. Co- 3'otes, hares, and birds must have relieved thirst some- where, possibly from the dews, which are very copious. Our decks and rig-g-ing" in the morning" looked as thoug-li soaked by a heavy shower. Reg-ularly at night the co^'otes came down and howled over that lone g-rave, and the bass to their fiend-like yelping- were furnished by the l)oom of the Pacific snrg-es on the reef outside. To these gloomy sounds in the nig-ht stillness and blackness, there used for a time to be added the in- cessant g-roaning- of a wretched Sandwich Islander, who, dying- of consumption, would drag- himself at nig-ht on deck to avoid disturbing- the sleep of the crowded forecastle. Small hope for help is there for any thus afflicted on a whaler. There is no physician but the Captain, and his practice dares not go mucli '63 beyond a dose of salts or castor-oil. The poor fellow was at last found dead, eai'ly one evening-, in his bunk, while his countrymen were singing, talking, laughing, and smoking about him. It was a relief to all, for his case was hopeless, and such miser^^, so impossible to relieve, is terrible to witness on a mere fishing-schooner so ci'owded as ours. The dead man was buried at sea without any service, much to the disgust of one of our coopers, who, although not a " professor," believed that such affairs should be conducted in an orthodox, ship-shape fashion. Some one, after the corpse had slid overboard, remarked, " Well, he's dead and buried," whereat the cooper muttered, *' He's dead, but he ain't Avhat I call buried." I don't think the Captain omitted the bui'ial service through any indifference, but rather from a sensitiveness to officiate in any such semi-cleri- cal fashion. Some rocks not far from our anchorage were seen covered at early dawn eveiy morning with thousands of large black sea-birds. They were thickly crowded together and all silent and immovable, until apparently they had finished some Quaker form of morning devo- tion, when they commenced flying off, not all at once, but in series of long straggling flocks. In simdar si- lence and order they would return at night from some far-off locality. Never during all the months of our stay did we hear a sound from them. Morning after morning with the earliest lig-ht this raven-colored host were ever on their chosen rocks, brooding as it were ere their flight OA^er some solemnity peculiar to their existence. The silent birds gone, there came regularly before sunrise a wonderful mirage. Far away and low down 63 in the distant seaward horizon there seemed vag-iiely shadowed forth lon^ hnes one above and behind the other of towers, walls, battlements, spires and the ir- regular outline of some weird ancient city. These shapes, seemingly motionless, in reality changed from minute to minute, yet the movement was not percep- tible. Now it was a long level wall with an occasional watch-tower. Then the walls grew higher and higher, and there towered a lofty, round, cone shaped struc- ture, with a suggestion of a flight of circular steps on the outside, as in the old-fashioned Suiulay-school books was seen pictured the tower of Babel. It would reveal itself in var^nng degrees of distinctness. But when the eye, attracted by some other feature of the specta- cle, turned again in its direction it was gone. A haze of purple covered as with a gauzy veil these beautiful morning panoramas. Gazed at steadily" it seemed as a dream realized in one's waking moments. It was sometimes for me a sight fraught with dangerous fas- cination, and often as I looked upon it, forgetting all else for the moment, have I been recalled disagreeably to m3" mundane sphere of slops, soot, smoke and dish- rags, as I heard the ominous sizzle and splutter of the coffee boiling over, or scented on tlie morning air that peculiar odor, full of alarm to the culinary soul, the odor of burning bread in the oven. 'Tis ever thus that the fondest illusions of life are rudely broken in upon by the vulgar necessities and accidents of eartlily existence. There were ten Sandwich Islanders in the forecastle of the Henry, one big Jamaica negro, who acted as a sort of leader for them, and no white men. These Kanakas were docile, well-beliaved, could read in their 64 own lang-uag-e, had in tlicir possession many books printed in their own tongue, and all seemed to invest their spare cash in clothes. They hked fish, very shg-htly salted, which they would eat without further cooking", plenty of bread, and, above all things, mo- lasses. Molasses would tempt any of these Islanders from the path of rectitude. When not at woi'k they were either talking or singing. Singl}^ or in groups of two or three they would sit about the deck at night performing a monotonous chant of a few notes. This they would keep up for hours. That chant got mto my head thirtN^-three years ago and it has never got out since. Change of scene, of life, of association, in- crease of weight, more morality, more I'egular habits, marriage, all have made no difTereiice. That Kanaka chant, so many thousand times lieard on the Southern Californian coast, will sometimes strike up of its own accord, until it tires me out with its imagined cease- less repetition. It^s there, a permanent fixture. Rec- ollection will wake it up. So unceasing was the gabble of these Kanakas that one day I asked Jake, the negro boat-steerer, who understood their language, Avhat they found to talk so much about. "Oh, dey tnlk about anyting," said he; " dey talk a whole day 'bout a pin." Whereat I re- tired to 1113-^ maritime scrubbery and kitchen and varied my usual occupation midst my pots, pans, and unde- veloped plum dufl's with wondering if the simpler, or, as we term them, the infei'ior races of men are not more inclined to express their thoughts audibl}^ than the superior. I do not think an idea could present it- self to a Kanaka without his talking it out to some- body. Co But some of these simple children of the Pacific isles used to pilfer hot biscuits from my g-alley when I was absent. In vain I set hot stove covers in front of the door for them to step on and burn their bare feet. I burned myself on the iron I had prepared for my re- centl}' civilized, if not converted, heathen brother. Both the superior and inferior races often went bare- footed on the Henry while in the lower latitudes. At times, leaving" a portion of the crew at the St. Bartholomew's bay station to collect and cure abalone, the schooner cruised about the coast for sea-elephant. Not far from the bay are the islands of Cedros (or Cedars), Natividad and some others. The lirst we saw of Cedros was her tree-covered mountain-tops floating*, as it were, in the air above us on a sea of fog\ This lifting-, we were boarded by a boat containing- two men. They proved to be two Robinson Crusoes, by name Miller and Whitney, who had been alone on the island nearly six months. They, with others, had fitted out in San Francisco a joint-stock vessel and were left with a supply of i)i'ovisions on Cedros to seal. Their vessel was long- ovei-due, their provisions down to the last pound of biscuits, and they were living- larg-ely on fish and venison, for thoug-h Cedros is many miles from the main land, deer have g-ot there somehow, as well as rattlesnakes. Their vessel never did return, for their Captain ran away with her and sold her in some South American port. Miller and Whitney joined our crew and made the remainder of the voyag-e with us. They brought on board all their worldly g-oods in two small trunks; also, a kettleful of boiled venison, a treat which they were very g-lad to exchang-e for some long--coveted salt pork. The\- reported that a " stinker " 6(j was lying" among the rocks ashore. A " stinker " in whaleman's parlance is a dead whale. In giving things names a whaleman is largely influenced by their most prominent traits or qualities, and the odorous activity of a dead whale can be felt for miles. They told us, also, that they had nineteen barrels of seal oil stored on the island of Natividad. Natividad is but a bleached-topped, guano-covered rock. We sailed thither but found no oil. The Captain who had stolen their vessel also included the oil. Miller and Whitney proved ver}^ useful men. Whitney was a powerful talker. Miller never spoke unless under compulsion. Whether in their six months of Cedros isolation such a pair had been well mated is a matter on which there ma^^ be variance of opinion. Perhaps from a collo- quial standpoint some if not man}^ long-married men can best tell. Miller was a Vermonter, and had spent seventeen years of his life roaming about among sel- dom-visited South Sea islands. Could his tongue have been permanentlj^ loosened and his brain stimulated to conversational activity, his might have been a most interesting story. Once in a great while there came from him a slight shower of sentences and facts which fell gratefull3^ on our parched ears, but as a rule the verbal drought was chronic. He had an irritating fashion also of intonating the first portions of his sen- tences in an audible key and then dying awa^^ almost to a whisper. This, when the tale was interesting, proved maddening to his hearers. He spoke once of living on an island whose natives were almost white, and the women well formed and finer looking than any of the Polynesian race he had ever seen. Polygamy was not practised; they were devoted to one wife; b< and their life, cleanliness and manners, as he described them, made, with the addition of a little of one's own imag-ination, a pleasing- picture. Miller's g-reatest use to mankind la\' in his hands, in which all his brain- power concentrated instead of his tongue. From splicing" a cable to skinning- a seal, he was an ultra proficient. Others might tell how and tell well, but Miller did it. Talking- seemed to fatig-ue him. Every sentence ere completed fell in a sort of a swoon. In St. Bartholomew's, alias Turtle, Bay, we la^^ four months, taking- abalones. All hands were called every morning- at four o'clock. Breakfast was quickly dis- patched, their noon lunch prepared, and everybody save myself was away from the vessel by five. That 'was the last I saw of them until sunset, and I was very g-lad to be rid of the whole g'ang- and be left alone with ni}^ own thoug-hts, pots, pans, and kettles. The aba- lone cling-s to the surf-washed rocks by suction. It has but one outer shell. San Francisco is ver^- fami- liar with their prismatic hues inside, and the same out- side when g-round and pohshed. Heaps of those shells, three feet in heig-ht and bleached to a dead white by the sun, lay on the beaches about us. Of unbleached and lively -hued shells we took on board several tons. They were sent to Europe, and there used for inlaid work. The live abalone must be pried off the rock with stout iron chisels or wedg-es. It was roug-h work collecting- them from the rocky ledg-es in a heavy surf. Carried to the curing- depot on shore, the entrails were cut away and the round, solid chunk of meat left was first boiled and then dried in the sun. An inferior pearl is often found within the body of the abalone. Our one Chinaman, Ah Sam, was chef of the abalone-curing GS kitchen on shore. He was shipped for that purpose. One live abalone will cling- to the back of another too tig"htly to be pulled off easil}^ by hand, and you may in this way pile them on top of one another, and thus erect a column of abalone as jnany feet in heig'ht as you choose to build. These fish were intended for the Chinese market, and the projectors of the voyag-e ex- pected to g-et forty cents per pound for them in San Francisco. When some forty tons had been cured we heard from a passing- steamer that the English had instituted another of their Christian wars with China, for which reason abalones m San Francisco broug-ht only ten cents per pound. Then we stopped cooking- abalones, hauled up our anchor and hunted the sea- lion and the whale. But while in St. Bartholomew's Bay I was left alone on the vessel all da}' Avith no companions save the g-ulls in the air and the sharks in the water. Both were plentiful. The gulls made themselves especially sociable. They would come boldly on board and feast on the quarters of turtle-meat hung up in the rigging. Once I found one in the cabin pecking away at the crumbs on the table. His gulhble mind got into a terrible state on seeing me. I whacked him to my heart's content with the table-cloth. He experienced great trouble in flying up the cabin stairway. In fact, he couldn't steer himself straight up stands. His ami on starting himself was correct enough, like that of many a young man or Avoman in commencing life; but instead of going the straight and narrow path up the companionway he would bring up against a deck beam. There is no limit to the feeding capacity of those Pacific-coast gulls. The Avonder is where it all goes 69 to. I have experimentally cut up and thrown in small pieces to a g'uU as much fat pork as would make a meal for two men, and the g-ull has promptly swal- lowed it all, waited for more, and visibly g-ot no big-g-er. They never gf^t fat. Sometimes I tied two bits of meat to either end of a long string and flung* it overboard. Barely had it touched the water when the meat at either end was swallowed by two of these bottomless scavengers, and they would fly away, each pulling hard at the latest received contents of the other's stomach. The picture reminded me of some married lives. They pulled together, but they didn't pull the right way. At low tide the shore would be lined with these birds vainly trying to All themselves with shellfish and such cai^rion as the waters had left. It couldn't be called feeding; a Pacific-coast g-ull does not feed, it seeks simply to fill up the vast, unfathomable space within. Eternity is, of course, without end, but the nearest ap- proach to eternity must be the inside of a gull; I would say stomach, but a stomach implies metes and bounds, and there is no proof that there are any metes and bounds inside of a gull. It was g-ood entertain- ment to see the coyotes come down and manoeuvre to catch the g-ulls. There was a plain hard beach, per- haps a quarter of a mile wide, between coyote and gull. Of course coyote couldn't walk across this and eat gull up. So he went to work to create an impres- sion in gull's mind that he was thereon other business, and was quite indilferent, if not ol)livious, to all gulls. He would commence making long straight laps of half a mile on the beach. At the end of each lap he would turn and run back a few feet nearer gull; back an- other lap, another turn, and so on. But he wasn't look- 70 ing" for a gull. He didn't know there was a gull in the world. He had some business straight ahead of him which banished all the gulls in the world from his mind. He kept forg-etting" something and had to run hack for it. And the gull on the water's edge, trying to fill its void where men imagined a stomach to be, liad no fears of that coyote. It realized the momen- tous and all-absorbing character of coyote's business. There was no danger. So coyote, getting a little nearer and a little nearer at each turn, suddenly shot out of his lap at a tangent, and another gull was for- ever relieved of the impossible task of trying to fill it- self. 71 CHAPTER VIII. WHALING IX MARGUERITA BAY. Marguerita Bay lies on the Mexican coast about 200 miles north of Cape St. Lucas. On arriving- the schooner was " kedg-ed " up the lag-oons running- parallel with the coast fully one hundred miles. This took two weeks. We passed, as it were, through a succession of mill-ponds, filled with low, g-reen islands, whose dense shubbery extended to the water's edg'e. The trunks of a small umbrella-shaped tree were washed by the tides to the height of several feet, and thickly incrusted with small oysters. When we wanted oysters we went on shore and chopped down a boat- load of trees. Is it necessary to remark that the trees did not g-row the oysters. The 03^sters g-rew on the trees, and they were as palatable as so many copper cents, whose taste they resembled. When cooked, the coppery taste departed. The channel throug-h these lagoons was very crooked. It was necessary to stake out a portion at low water, when it ran a mere creek throug-h an expanse of hard sand, sometimes a mile from either shore. At hig-h water all this would be covered to a depth of six or seven feet. The Henry grounded at each ebb, and often keeled over at an angle of forty-five. From our bulwarks it was often possi- ble to jump on dry ground. Thiskeeling-over process, 72 twice repeated every twenty-four hours, was particu- larly hard on the cook, for the inconvenience resulting- from such a forty-five-deg-ree an^le of inclination extended to all thing's within his province. My stove worked hadl^^ at the ang-le of forty -five. The kettle could he hut half-filled, and only hoiled where the water was shallowest inside. The cahin tahle could only he set at an ang-le of forty -five. So that while the g-uests on the upper side had great difficulty in preventing" themselves from slipping" olT their seats on and over that tahle, those on the lower side had equal difficulty in keeping" themselves up to a con- venient feeding" distance. Captain Reynolds, at the head of the hoard, had a hard lot in the endeavor to maintain his dig"nity and sitting- perpendicuhirly at the same time on the then permanent and not popular ang-le of fort^^-five. But I, steward, hutler, cook, and cahin hoy, hore the hardest tribulation of all in carry- ing" m}^ dishes across the deck, down the cahin stairs, and arrang-ing" them on a table at an ang-le of fort^^- five. Of course, at this time the rack used in roug"h weather to prevent plates and platters from slipping" off was broug"ht into permanent use. Transit from g"al- ley to cahin w^as accomplished by crawling" on two leg"s and one arm, thus making" of myself a peripatetic human triang"le, while the unoccupied hand with diffi- cult^' hore aloft the soup-tureen. It was then I ap- preciated the g"reat advantag"es afforded in certain cir- cumstances by the prehensile caudal termination of our possible remote ancestors. With such a properly equipped appendag"e, the steward might hav^e taken a close hitch round an ej^ebolt, and let all the rest of himself and his dishes safely down into the little 73 cabin. It is questionable whether man's condition has been physically improved by the process of evolution. He may have lost more than he has gained. A monkey can well afford to scorn the relatively clumsy evolutions of the most skilful human brother acrobat. Mar^^uerita Bay was the nursery of the female whales, or in whaler's parlance, "cows." The long-, quiet lagoons, fringed with green, their waters warmed by the sun to a most agreeable temperature, were the resort during the spring montiis of the mother whales to bring forth and nurse their young. The bulls gen- erally remained outside. The cows Avere killed with tolerable ease in the shoal waters of the bay. Outside they have, on l)eing struck, the reputation of running out all the line a boat can spare and then demanding more. Grant could never have fought it out on one line with a "California Gray." In the lagoons, so long as the calf was uninjured, the mother would slow her own pace, so as to remain by her 3^oung. Thus she became an easy sacrifice. If the calf was wounded, woe to the boat's crew. The cow seemed to smell the blood the moment it was drawn from its offspring. The first time this happened^the boat-steerer acci- dentally slipping his lance into the calf — the cow turned and chased tlie boat ashore. The tables were turned. The miserable pigmies, who dared strike Leviathan's child, were saved because their boat could float where Mrs. Whale couldn't. She drew at least seven feet of water. A whale is one of the few things read of that is bigger than it looks. The pigmies hauled the boat upon the beach, while the whale for full half an hour swam to and fro where her soundings were safe, 74 and embarg-oecl them. It was, with her, " Come off if you dare." But they didn't care to dare, and finally she went awa^^ unkilled. She managed at the start to give the boat one crack, enough to fill it with water. But whaleboats are made to be broken. A few hours' work and the insertion of a few bits of wood in the light clinker-built sides will restore a whaleboat which, to an inexperienced eye, looks fit only for kindling- wood. A whale is much more of an animal than people generally imagine. There's a great deal of affection somewhere in that big carcass. I have seen them close aboard from the schooner's deck play with their young* and roll and thrash about in mammoth gambols. They knew the doors to these lagoons lead- ing out into the ocean as well as men know the doors to their houses. When strucK, though miles distant, they made straight for that door, and if not killed be- fore reaching it they escaped, for no boat, when fast, could be towed through the huge Pacific breakers. Pigmy man in such case sullenly cut his line and sul- kily rowed back to his crowded little schooner to growl at the cook. We filled up in six weeks. Our luck was the envy of the eleven other vessels in Marguerita Bay. This luck was mainly due to " Black Jake," a huge Jamaica negro, with the face of a Caliban, the arm of a Her- cules and a stomach greater than an ostrich's for rum. When we left San Francisco he had a tier of t\venty- five bottles, full, stored under his bunk, and not a soul was ever the wiser for it until all were emptied. He kept his OAvn head level, his own counsel, and lying in his berth in tlie early evening hours of his watch be- low, would roll over, turn his back to the noisy, chat- teriui;' Kanaka audience of the forecastle, and put the bottle, but not to his neig'hbors' hps. He was king* of the forecastle, king" of the Kanaka crew, and king of the whaleboat when after a " muscle-digger." He could throw a harpoon twice as far as an ordinary man, and it was to this force of muscle, added to a certain knack of his own in working up to the " grayback,'' before striking", and managing' the boat after, that we owed our successful voyage. Great was his fame as a whale- killer in Margiu'rita Bay. Many were the ofTers made by masters of other vessels to bribe him from us. He remained true to us. Hard were the knocks the cows g-ave their boats and sometimes their crews. One well-appointed schooner lying near us had her boats stove twenty-six times during our stay. Twelve men out of the fleet were more or less injured. "Dese yere whale," Jake would remark to his audiences in the night yarns when one or two other boats' crews from other vessels came on board, "dey aint' like oder whales. Dar ways are 'culiar, and j^e got to mind sharp how j^e get onto 'em." But nobody ever solved Jake's " 'culiar way o' getting onto 'em." A harpoon was not a toasting-fork to throw in the days when men oftener threw the iron by muscle in- stead of ])owder. It is a shod, with a heavy wooden pole five or six feet in length fastened into the socket of the iron l)ar1). This, with the line attached, makes a weiglit requiring for 1 Ik^ cast the use of both arms, and strong arms at that. A inan would not care to carry a harpoon more than a mile in a hot day. Its own weight, as much as the impelling force, is depended on to bury itself in the floating mound of seemingl^^ pol- ished India-rubber which constitutes a whale above 76 wafcer. And when it first buries itself, there is for a few seconds some vicious splashing' and ugly flirting* of fluke or fin. A whale's tail is an instrument of olTence of about one hundred horse power, and well adapted to cutting" through a boat as a table knife g'oes through an egg- shell. The two fins suggest members between paddles and rudimentary arms. It is also a member very capable of striking out from tlie right or left shoulder, and striking very hard. When a half-dozen men are within six feet of these weapons, controlled by an enormous black sunken mass, eighty or one hundred feet long, they are apt to look a trifle wild and their eyes have a tendency to bulge. There are stories among whalemen of boat-steerers who have had all the g'rit permanently taken out of them by the perils and catastrophes of that moment. A New Londoner once had the cap swept from his head by the sweep of the whale's tail over it, and he was too nervous for boat service ever afterward. It is no skulking fight, like shooting lions and tigers from the shelter of trees or rocks. It's a fair stand- up combat between half a dozen men in an egg-sliell of a boat on the open sea, and sometimes on heavy ocean billows, and 500 tons of flesh, bone, and muscles, which, if only animated by a few more grains of sense, could ram the whaleship herself as efl'ectually as an ironclad. As a murderous spectacle the capture and killing" of a whale, as seen even by a sea-cook from the galley window, is something ultra-exciting. It makes one's hair stand upon both ends. There is the whaleboat, the men sitting motionless in their seats, the long oars apeak, shooting through the water, towed by the whale unseen underneath the surface. Sometimes two or three boats liitoli on, for the more tlie wliale has to drag- the sooner he becomes exhausted. Now the}- haul in on him and carefully coil the wet line in the tubs. Closer and closer they near him, the passag-e of the great mass under water being" marked by swirls and eddies on the surface. Our herculean king, " Black Jake," is at the bow, the round, razor-edged, long-handled lance lying b^^ him, his back to the crew, his eye on tlie eddies, his great bare black arms, now the right, now the left — moving first in one direction, then another, as thus he signals to the steersman the direction in which to keep the boat's head; for although we are being towed as a tug would tow a skill, we must be kept as near as possible in a line with the submerged motive power, and then, with a swash and snort, out of the water six feet ahead comes twenty, may be forty feet of that great black mass! It is astonishing how much there is of him. And he is down and under, with his great gulp of air, in less time than it takes to write or even speak these last twenty words, but not before the lance is out of Jake's hands, driven tliree feet into his side, and hauled aboard again by the light, strong line attached. Suddenly the whale line slacks. The boat ceases its rush through the water. The eddy and swirl ahead cease. Now look out for squalls. This is one of Mrg. Grayback's peculiar tricks. She is ambushed somewhere below. She designs coming up under the boat's bottom, and constituting herself into a subma- rine island of flesh, bobbing up like a released cork. She is resolving herself into a submarine earthquake, and proposes to send that boat and crew ten feet into the air, or capsizing them off her India-rubber back. 78 One hundred or five hundred tons of wicked intelhgvnce is thus g-roping- about in tlie unseen depths for the pur- pose of attaining- the proper position, and, as it were, exploding herself like an animated torpedo. Every seat in the boat is an anxious seat. There is no talk- ing, but a great deal of unpleasant anticipation. Those who have seen the thing done before, await in dread suspense the shock and upset. It's ver^^ much like being over a powder-magazine about to explode. To keep up the interest; let us leave his particular boat and situation in statu quo. Your imagination may complete the catastrophe or not, as you choose. Final consummations are not desirable in a thrilling tale, and this tale is meant to be thrilling-. Therefore, if you've got a thrill in you, please thrill. From the schooner's deck, a mile and a half awa^^. Captain, cook, and cooper — the head, tail, and midriff of the ship's company — Ave perceive that the white puff of spra}^ from the whale's blowholes has changed to a darker color. "Spouting blood," we remark. The boat is l^^ing quite near b^^ At intervals of a few minutes a circular streak of Whitewater is seen break- ing the smooth surface of the lagoon. He's in his "flurr3^" He is d^^ing. It is a might}^ death, a won- derful escape of vitality and jiower, affection, and in- telligence, too, and all from the mere pin's pi-ick of an implement in the hands of yon meddlesome, cruel, au- dacious, greed3^, unfeeling- pigmies. Spouting blood, bleeding its huge life away, shivering in great convul- sions, means only for us forty barrels more of grease, and a couple of hundred pounds of bone to manufac- ture death-dealing, rib-compressing, liver-squeezing corsets from. And all the while the calf lingers by the 79 dying- mother's side, wondering- what it is all about. Dead and with laborious stroke towed to the vessel, the calf swims in its Avake. Made fast along-side, its beautifully symmetrical bulk tapering- from head to tail in lines which man copies in the mould of his finest yachts, the body remains all nig-ht, and in the still hours of the "anchor watch'' we can hear the feeble " blow " of the poor calf, as it swims to and fro. In the morning- the mass wiiich last nig-ht was but a couple of feet out of water, has swollen and risen almost to the level of the low bulwark's top, while the g-as g-enerated b}' the decomposition within escapes from each lance puncture with a faint sizzle. With the earliest hg-ht the crew are at work. Skin and fat are torn off in g-reat strips and hoisted on board. Round and round the carcass is slowly turned, with each turn another coil of blubber is unwound and cut off. The sharks are bus}^ too. Monsters (I use the term "monsters" merely for the sake of euphony, not liking- to repeat the word "shai-k" so often) fifteen and eig-hteen feet long- rush up to the carcass, tear off great pieces of the beefy-looking- flesh and then quar- rel with each other for its possession, flirting- the water with nose and fin, and getting- occasionally- a gash from a sharp whale-spade which would take a man's head off. Amid all this, men shouting, swearing, sing- ing, the windlass clanking, fires under the try-pots blazing, black smoke whirling off in clouds, sharks grabbing and fighting and being fought, the moth