Something of the same kind befell me a few days after. The cook had just made for us a mess of hot “scouse”—that is, biscuit pounded fine, salt beef cut into small pieces, and a few potatoes, boiled up together and seasoned with pepper. This was a rare treat, and I, being the last at the galley, had it put in my charge to carry down for the mess. I got along very well as far as the hatchway, and was just getting down the steps, when a heavy sea, lifting the stern out of water, and passing forward, dropping it down again, threw the steps from their place, and I came down into the steerage a little faster than I meant to, with the kid on top of me, and the whole precious mess scattered over the floor. Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of everything at sea; and if you were to fall from aloft and be caught in the belly of a sail, and thus saved from instant death, it would not do to look at all disturbed, or to make a serious matter of it.
Friday, Nov. 14th. We were now well to the westward of the Cape and were changing our course to the northward as much as we dared, since the strong southwest winds, which prevailed then, carried us in toward Patagonia. At two p.m., we saw a sail on our larboard beam, and at four we made it out to be a large ship, steering our course, under single-reefed topsails. We at that time had shaken the reefs out of our topsails, as the wind was lighter, and set the main topgallant sail. As soon as our captain saw what sail she was under, he set the fore topgallant sail and flying jib; and the old whaler—for such, his boats and short sail showed him to be—felt a little ashamed, and shook the reefs out of his topsails, but could do no more, for he had sent down his topgallant masts off the Cape. He ran down for us, and answered our hail as the whaleship, New England, of Poughkeepsie, one hundred and twenty days from New York. Our captain gave our name, and added, ninety-two days from Boston. They then had a little conversation about longitude, in which they found that they could not agree. The ship fell astern, and continued in sight during the night. Toward morning, the wind having become light, we crossed our royal and skysail yards, and at daylight we were seen under a cloud of sail, having royal and skysails fore and aft. The “spouter,” as the sailors call a whaleman, had sent up his main topgallant mast and set the sail, and made signal for us to heave to. About half-past seven their whaleboat came alongside, and Captain Job Terry sprang on board, a man known in every port and by every vessel in the Pacific ocean. “Don’t you know Job Terry? I thought everybody knew Job Terry,” said a green hand, who came in the boat, to me, when I asked him about his captain. He was indeed a singular man. He was six feet high, wore thick, cowhide boots, and brown coat and trousers, and, except a sunburnt complexion, had not the slightest appearance of a sailor; yet he had been forty years in the whale trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships, built ships, and sailed ships. His boat’s crew were a pretty raw set, just out of the bush, and as the sailor’s phrase is, “hadn’t got the hayseed out of their hair.” Captain Terry convinced our captain that our reckoning was a little out, and, having spent the day on board, put off in his boat at sunset for his ship, which was now six or eight miles astern. He began a “yarn” when he came on board, which lasted, with but little intermission, for four hours. It was all about himself, and the Peruvian government, and the Dublin frigate, and Lord James Townshend, and President Jackson, and the ship Ann McKim of Baltimore. It would probably never have come to an end, had not a good breeze sprung up, which sent him off to his own vessel. One of the lads who came in his boat, a thoroughly countrified-looking fellow, seemed to care very little about the vessel, rigging, or anything else, but went round looking
