Part 21
Our breeze from west-northwest has not been very strong for the past twenty-four hours, and in addition we made two degrees of easting, which is sad. This was the first morning for a month on which we were able to eat our breakfast without lamplight, and in another week we hope to dispense with it at supper also. The weather is by no means clear yet, though, and we are now crossing the famous Roaring Forties, that belt of fierce winds lying between the parallels of forty and fifty on both sides of the equator, and clear skies cannot be expected until we are north of 40° south at least.
I expect to suffocate with suppressed hilarity before long if Mr. Goggins continues to grow more absurd. Last night I went on deck about ten o’clock and found the mate silently pacing athwartships near the wheel-house. It was raining, and his costume itself was enough to generate mirth in an owl. He was wrapped as in a sable shroud, in some one’s long black oil-skin coat, which was so much too large for him as to touch the deck, and the sleeves hung down half-way to his knees like the arms of a walrus, while his head was covered with a very old, limp sou’wester, also black, which fitted him like a skull-cap; it possessed not even an indication of a brim, so that the drizzling rain trickled down along the musty creases of his face, glistening in the wake of the binnacle-lamp. His forsaken appearance was further enhanced by a couple of yards of ancient gray rattlin-stuff that girded up the folds of his coat and prevented his tramping on it.
Without a word he ranged up alongside, and dropping his voice to a rasping whisper, as is his wont whenever he is about to reveal a startling theory, he said, mysteriously and very suddenly,--
“The human race is on the decline, sir.”
I didn’t reply, and he continued, “Where are the strappin’ big fellows, five-foot ten, five-foot eleven, and five-foot twelve, you used to see? Where are they, I say? _Gone. Gone._ And wot do ye find now? The present generation is growin’ up small and feeble, sir. They’re weak and no good. And luk at the winds; they’re changin’ too. They hain’t wot they used to be in the Atlantic; nor in the Pacific; nor off Cape Horn. The Trades is changed. Everythink’s changed. I may be a hold fool, sir, but I knows a thing or two. There’s more in my ’ead than comes out with a fine-tooth comb.”
All this with the most intense earnestness and so much stifled emotion as to render him partially unintelligible, while he snapped and jerked his long sleeves about in the most uncomfortable manner.
Then he abruptly changed the thread of discourse and began, “You talk about seas comin’ aboard, but you ought to been with me once when I was mate o’ the ‘Commodore.’ ’Twas in the Santa Barbara Channel, and blowin’ a whole gale o’ wind. We were runnin’, but bime by the old man thought he’d heave her to. So we put the hellum down, and as she was comin’ up, be gar’s sakes, sir, she shipped a sea that I thought was goin’ to take the hatches off. ‘You’d better jump below and call the second mate,’ said the cap’n; so I slipped down the after-companion-way into the cabin, where the old man’s eight-year-hold son was jockeyin’ a sofy that had fetched away, and says he, ‘Dad’s a-givin’ of ’er ’ell, ain’t he?’ he says. Well, I called the second mate, and then the cap’n says to us, ‘Go down and cut the lashin’s o’ that ere water-cask by the after-hatch; she’ll wipe the houses off if she don’t free herself.’ ’Twas a funny thing to do, but he was cap’n; so we crawled down on the main-deck where the watch was knockin’ about and cut the barrel adrift. In less nor five seconds it went through the rail, and in a minute there warn’t a capful o’ water on deck. It cost about ten feet o’ the port bulwarks, but ’twas our only chance.”
Now that we are well up past the rigors of Cape Horn, it actually seems as though we were close to San Francisco, while five thousand miles of latitude remain and fully fifty degrees of longitude, as ships are forced well out into the Pacific by the northeast Trades. Latitude, 48° 30′ south; longitude, 88° 25′ west.
+August 1+
Oh, how divinely beautiful and grand the dark-blue floor of heaven is after four weeks of hard gales, leaden, lowering clouds, and gray, clammy mists! To-day for the first time the sun shone with dazzling splendor, and although the altitude at meridian was only 26° 51′, we agreed that never before in our lives had we known a day of equal magnificence. And, even making allowance for our enthusiasm, the weather was well-nigh perfect. Between sunrise and dusk not the smallest cloud blurred the blue sky, which was reflected in a sea of dazzling crests, whose valleys partook of that dark, superb, velvety blue which is seen only where the ocean-bed sinks to immense depths, and which Mark Twain says looks solid enough to walk upon. A sparkling breeze whistled out of the west as exhilarating as pure oxygen, giving us a speed for the twenty-four hours of nine knots. That blighting, killing chill has vanished and one’s ears no longer tingle on exposure; and at noon we enjoyed a temperature of 50°, a rise of twenty degrees from the lowest. What a change in six days from 60° south, 76° west, to 45° south, 88° west! Pretty good work that, in less than a week; it is so much better than the average that it seems incredible. We cannot believe that in so short a time we have been blown across what ought to have been the worst part of the entire voyage. It was all the work of the east wind.
Just now there is a long, deep roll coming in from the southwest, and I am earnestly looking for some of those immense waves for which the South Pacific is famous. According to sailors, they usually occur two or three days after new and full moon; and as we had a new moon last night, perhaps we will see some of these rollers. This reminds me, however, that scientists have determined, after protracted observations, that the moon’s phases have no influence at all on the weather. Sailors often say during a spell of bad weather, “Well, there’s a change in the moon to-night; we’ll have a fine day to-morrow”; and if chance supports their remark, heaven couldn’t shake their belief.
This heavy sea that is met with here is generally not at all ugly; only a deep heave-up from the southward, often without wind, and is said to be one of the most impressive of all oceanic phenomena. The South Atlantic as well as the Pacific is also visited periodically by immense seas during calm weather. At St. Helena and Ascension they are called “rollers,” while at Fernando de Noronha and on the West African coast they are known by the Portuguese name of “calemmas.” They seem to occur chiefly in January, and, strange to say, they invariably came from the northwest. The quotation that follows is from the pen of Captain S. P. Oliver, who visited St. Helena in 1881 in one of the Union steamers:
“These rollers set in from the northwest on Thursday, January 13, with unusual severity, but lulled somewhat on the following day, Friday, only to recur with abnormal force on Saturday, attaining their maximum strength on Saturday night, so that the spectacle on Sunday morning was grand and magnificent, while the weather was bright and calm. It was surprising to see the spray of these deep ocean waves hurled by sheer force, for there was no wind, like fountains over the huge cliffs of Goat Pound Ridge and Horse Pasture, which rise perpendicularly seven hundred feet sheer out of the sea. The force of these enormous billows was spent by Sunday night, and gradually subsided into the normal calm on Monday morning.”
At our present rate of sailing a fortnight would see us on the equator, but if we cross it in three weeks it will be fine work. What sort of luck are we going to have between these westerly winds and the southeast Trades? That is one of the crucial points of the voyage that remain, another being, how far south will the northeast Trades blow?
We had a little excitement to-day at dinner. Ever since our cabin fire has been going, it has been the custom of the steward to put a can of whatever vegetable we were to have that day for dinner upon the top of the stove to heat; the proper way, of course, is to place the can in a dish of water and that in turn upon the stove or what not. To-day it was a tin of string-beans, and the steward, fully an hour before dinner, put the can upon the stove, which was nearly red-hot. (The warmer the day the hotter the fire, here as elsewhere.) When the soup had been cleared away, the gentle, timid little Malay took the tin into the pantry and attacked it with a can-opener. But no sooner was the metal pierced than the whole pantry was filled with a suffocating steam that rushed hissing out of the vent with the most astonishing fury. We sat aghast. The old man cursed a little and the mate got up, but instantly thought better of it and sat down again. And still the steam came belching out of the can, which had fallen down and was shooting about the pantry like a demented steam-cylinder, while we could dimly perceive the slender form of the little steward through the pungent vapory clouds making courageous efforts to lay hold of the bewitched bean-can. For nearly a minute steam continued to escape with such force that it almost shrieked; and had the tin remained another five minutes on the stove it must certainly have exploded and scattered boiling water, beans, and jagged fragments of tin and lead about the room.
Last evening at supper a bottle of Apollinaris burst in my hand with a loud report as I was opening it, scaring the valiant Goggins into upsetting a full cup of tea upon a clean cloth, for which the old man fixed him with his eye and held him thus for quite half a minute during an awful silence.
If only for the sake of the sailors we are anxious to get into warm weather again as soon as possible. Now that they have removed the mufflers, etc., from their necks and heads, we can see how pale and washed out most of them are. There are only two among them who do not bear ocular proof of the hardships of a month in the Southern Ocean in July. Paddy is perhaps the worst looking of the whole crew, though he cannot be thirty years of age. This is due probably to his never, under any circumstances, shirking his work, and to his exerting himself more than any one else in the ship. Indeed, he was so full of nerve and energy in the worst weather, that the captain surprised us once by saying, pointing to Paddy on a yard-arm in a heavy squall, “There’s what I call a brave man; he doesn’t know what fear is.” The skipper didn’t mean to insinuate that Paddy was courageous for going out on the yard at that moment; he was thinking about his general conduct.
Poor Paddy’s arms from wrist to elbow are perfect mountain-chains of sea-boils, and he looks as ghastly and pallid as a corpse, with pointed nose and staring eyes; his entire appearance has changed. It may be interesting to add that the majority of foremast hands do not live to be forty-three years old.
I forgot to say that for the first time in five weeks the mate shaved for dinner to-day, and so sleek and blue and shiny and naked did it make him look, that it was almost a shock when he sat down opposite us. Latitude, 45° 2′ south; longitude, 87° 40′ west.
+August 2+
This day was even finer than yesterday, except that since ten this forenoon we haven’t had much wind. But the weather is warmer, 48° at 8 +A.M.+, and the sea is as placid and still and clear as under the line. All the ground-swell has disappeared, and the great, level expanse of the mighty South Pacific stretches on all sides in tiny crinkles, frosted here and there by a crisp sparkle of froth; and the sea-rim bounds the view in a circle as sharp and black as ink. It was a day of almost tropic beauty, save that the air lacked the ineffable balm characteristic of a day at sea between Cancer and Capricorn. We rejoice at seeing the sky-sails once more expanded to the breeze, for to-day the three yards were crossed, giving to the ship a fine-weather look. Juan Fernandez will soon be abeam, and then only a few degrees more to the Trades, for we made three and a half degrees of latitude yesterday and hardly any easting. How pleasant it is to think of the approach of warm weather again, when we can lie in deck-chairs in the shadow of the wheel-house with a good book, or pass away the hours with a backgammon- or cribbage-board!
We are very much pleased to find how free this ship is from roaches that usually abound in sailing vessels; the only member of that objectionable family that we have yet perceived was a small red one; of the large, black cockroaches we have not seen one, though on the “Mandalore” we were told that they were numerous on all wooden ships. Neither have we discovered any of the more villanous creatures, which cannot be said of many transatlantic mail steamers.
A fact worthy of note, as deplorable as it was unexpected, is that since passing the meridian of Cape Horn we have not seen a single albatross. Indeed, during the whole passage we haven’t seen more than a dozen of them, they having been most numerous between the river Plate and Staten Land. In truth, the albatross seems to be disappearing, which is not astonishing when it is considered that many ship-masters either use them as rifle-targets or catch them by the half-dozen with hook and line, and take the quills and down home to sweethearts and wives. Is it not odd, by the way, that there are more benedicts among sea-captains than are to be found among the men of any other profession? Yet long-voyage skippers, who are invariably married men, see their wives only once a year.
Perhaps the albatross has been driven away into regions even more solitary than Cape Horn, but it is my belief that they are gradually vanishing, which is to be much lamented. They are of no apparent use to mankind, but neither is the tiger; yet if that royal beast were upon the eve of extermination, as our bison is, there would be a great wailing heard in the land. The albatross, be it said, has all the regal dignity of the bison; and no one who has not seen it can imagine the imperial flight of a full-grown wanderer. Latitude, 41° 35′ south; longitude, 86° 56′ west.
+August 3+
Pleasant northerly breezes, a smooth sea, and brilliant sunshine gladdened our hearts this morning, and at noon we found ourselves well north of 40°. The wind hauled to the northward somewhat during the night, though, so that, with the variation, we did not make good a better course than northeast by north, and are now heading for Juan Fernandez in 34° south.
We have made a disagreeable discovery about Timothy Powers in the port-watch. I don’t remember whether it was mentioned before or not, but Tim was said to have fallen off the forward house two weeks ago and sprained his right arm. From the first the captain never could discover anything wrong with it, but as the fellow insisted that he suffered terrible pains in that member, there was naught to do for a while but to believe him. At last the skipper grew tired of Tim’s loafing, and, going out on the main-deck this morning, he gave the Irishman a very sulphurous dressing down and compelled him to turn to. He was sent forward to clean out the pig-pen, and he went to work with a woful countenance to lift off two planks that served as an apology for a roof to the sty. He couldn’t move them with one hand, so he stopped, looked carefully about to see whether or not he was observed by the mates or any of his friends, deliberately took his arm out of the sling in which he still insisted on carrying it, lifted the heavy planks down with ease, put his arm back in the sling, resumed his pitiful look, turned to reach for a broom, and found the eyes of the second mate fixed steadily upon him. Mr. Rarx had been concealed and had witnessed the whole affair. That settled it. Tim almost fainted from shock, and from now till the end of the voyage his will not be a bed of roses. Think how this creature has been imposing not only on the captain and officers, but on his fellow-shipmates as well! For two entire weeks his most arduous duty consisted in keeping the lookout on the forward house in the daytime, perfectly well, with all night below, while his friends, ill and drenched to the skin, had to dive around the main-deck day and night with chattering teeth, two hands short in the worst weather,--two hands, because old Neilsen has been laid up in his bunk with general debility, too weak to even put his foot on the main-deck. Tim is the sort of animal who contributes much to the misery and suffering of sailors. A captain, for instance, catches a man in such a deceit, never forgets it and refuses to believe the next man, who actually has hurt himself, so that the real sufferer has to bear the penalty of the other’s fraud. It is not a criminal offence, but a low, contemptible trick; though just such a one as a man with a face like Tim’s would be guilty of. The mate’s powers of divination are not particularly acute, for he observed one day off the river Plate, looking at Tim, “There goes a feller that _I_ call a good, faithful man.”
At dinner to-day I chanced to remark that, as we had had such benefits from the easterly wind, we ought to accept our three points of easting now without grumbling. Mr. Goggins, however, is a fearful kicker, even for a sailor; so, thinking to please the old man, he instantly replied, “We ain’t had forty-eight hours o’ good luck on the hull passage.” This was so remarkable a statement that my wife was provoked into saying, gently but positively, “The man who talks like that doesn’t deserve to reach port for six months more.” “Well, we ain’t,” quoth Goggins, doggedly. Then I took a hand (it is usually best not to argue with him and the skipper), and asked as sarcastically as I could, “I suppose that three days’ easterly gale doesn’t count? And how about the first sixteen days of the voyage? You’re enough of a sailor, I suppose, though, to have forgotten all that.” I thought that he was floored; but he was possessed of more vitality than one would have supposed, for he came back at me with, “Well, the yards was ag’in the backstays all the time in the North Atlantic.”
This was such a novel stand to take that we let him alone, so that he got up and tramped out of the cabin much inflated. What possible difference it could make whether or not the yards touched the backstays as long as the ship lay her course and went through the water was beyond my powers of reasoning.
We are now followed by an immense number of Cape pigeons. What merry, blithesome little fellows they are, apparently all good-nature and love for one another as they circle around the ship, almost brushing the standing-gear in their mad, tumbling flight, now skimming just above the sea, now soaring over the mast-heads, and sweeping down again for very joy that they are made! But let a bucket of table refuse be thrown over the side, and then away with good-fellowship and fraternal affection. It’s a true case of every one for himself and the devil take the hindmost. No sooner does the refuse touch the water than two or three catch sight of it, and in an instant fifty pigeons are involved in furious battle. They fairly scream in their excitement, and beat each other with their powerful wings, and snap viciously right and left with sharp, curved bills. Then one lucky one will perchance seize a choice morsel. Instantly he is set upon by a dozen of his companions, who mercilessly bear down upon him before he can rise from the surface with his prize, and actually beat him down under water in their fierce efforts to get at the tempting mouthful; but so plucky are they, that we have never seen one relinquish anything when his bill has once closed upon it.
While the pigeons are engaged in this deadly strife a great molly-hawk sometimes looms up astern, having sighted the combat from afar, and dashing into the centre of the squabbling flock, which scatters before his huge wings and wide, formidable beak, like crows before a vulture, he snaps up the bone of contention and soars away to enjoy it at his leisure. After the rapacious monster has departed from out their midst, the dejected little creatures return, and hover over any particle of food that may remain, ever and anon diving far below the surface for a crumb that they perceive deep down in the placid depths, rising again with such amazing buoyancy and energy as to lift themselves clear out of the water, like an inflated bladder suddenly released. They afford us much amusement; but another six hundred miles farther north will, no doubt, see the last of our merry little companions. Latitude, 39° 35′ south; longitude, 85° west.
+August 4+
Although the lovely clear skies have for a while disappeared, being obscured by the most clearly defined stratus clouds that I ever saw, the weather is bracing and dry, with a sea so smooth that it never would be supposed that we were hundreds of miles from any land larger than Juan Fernandez or its neighbor, Mas-á-Fuera. Each day sees a rise of two or three degrees in the air and sea, and we are moving well up into the heart of the thirties. We will, no doubt, soon fall in with vessels from Chilean ports bound around the Horn; but those from San Francisco have been driven so far to the westward by the Trades that in this latitude they are away over in 125°. The wind is still to the northward of west, and we continue to make more easting than is desirable; because, if we have to steer much farther in towards the land, our course when we take the Trades will have to be northwest in order to cross the line in the right place, which, of course, would be dead before the wind, an undesirable position in a square-rigger, as in that event only the after-sails draw.
Captain Scruggs was quite a treat at the mid-day meal, for he appeared in one of his majestic phases, when no one can tell him anything that he doesn’t already know. My wife unhappily mentioned that this would be fine yachting weather. Now, the mere mention of a yacht nearly always upsets him; and we, therefore, had to listen while he disputed vigorously with himself for some minutes; and he finally concluded with the assertion that he could take the “Volunteer” and sail right round the “Defender”; he knew the old one was better, anyhow, than that there new brass boat, or whatever she was made of. On suggesting that he might find some little difficulty in consummating such an undertaking, he replied, “Well, I’ve got that confidence in myself; I used to sail small boats when I was a boy, and I ain’t forgot how.”
He concluded his remarks, always delivered in explosions as though challenging you to deny them, with a disquisition on jams. He believes in the theory that all kinds of preserves are boiled down together, and that different labels are then stuck on the tins. “Look at that, now,” he growled, pointing to one on the table. “What d’ye call that?” I showed him the device of a fig on the wrapper, with the name beneath it. “Lemme taste it,” said he, plunging a knife deep into the preserves. “There, what’d I tell you? ’Taint fig jam, it’s currants; they hain’t got the right libel onto it,” he explained.
When dinner was over we repaired, as usual, to the after-cabin, while the old man strode heavily back into the dining-room, called the mate, and abruptly demanded, “Have you got that spigotti out yet?”
“What’s that, sir?” asked the mate.
“Spigotti, spigotti; like macaroni. Don’t you know by this time what spigotti is?” said the skipper, very angrily, for he knew that he didn’t have the name right and that we could hear him.