The next point to be considered is, that all the “small stuffs” which are used on board a ship—such as spun yarn, marline, seizing stuff,42 etc.—are made on board. The owners of a vessel buy up incredible quantities of “old junk,” which the sailors unlay, after drawing out the yarns, knot them together, and roll them up in balls. These “rope yarns” are constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is manufactured into spun yarn. For this purpose every vessel is furnished with a “spun yarn winch”; which is very simple, consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard constantly going on deck in pleasant weather; and we had employment, during a great part of the time, for three hands in drawing and knotting yarns, and making them spun yarn.
Another method of employing the crew is, “setting up” rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and after the rigging is bowsed well taut,43 the seizings and coverings44 replaced; which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without altering another. You cannot stay a mast aft by the back stays, without slacking up the head stays, etc. If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and also remember this is all to be done in addition to watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask, “What can a sailor find to do at sea?”
If, after all this labor—after exposing their lives and limbs in storms, wet and cold,
“Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch;
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry;—”
the merchants and captain think that they have not earned their twelve dollars a month (out of which they clothe themselves), and their salt beef and hard bread, they keep them picking oakum45—ad infinitum. This is the usual resource upon a rainy day, for then it will not do to work upon rigging; and when it is pouring down in floods, instead of letting the sailors stand about in sheltered places, and talk, and keep themselves comfortable, they are separated to different parts of the ship and kept at work picking oakum. I have seen oakum stuff placed about in different parts of the ship, so that the sailors might not be idle in the snatches between the frequent squalls upon crossing the equator. Some officers have been so driven to find work for the crew in a ship ready for sea, that they have set them to pounding the anchors (often done) and scraping the chain cables. The “Philadelphia Catechism” is,
“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh—holystone the decks and scrape the cable.”
This kind of work, of course, is not kept up off Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, and in extreme north and south latitudes; but I have seen the decks washed down and scrubbed, when the water would have frozen if it had been fresh; and all hands kept at work upon the rigging, when we had on our pea jackets,46 and our hands so numb that we could hardly hold our marlinespikes.
I have here gone out of my narrative course in order that any who read this may form as correct an idea of a sailor’s life and duty as possible. I have done it in this place because, for some time, our life was nothing but the unvarying repetition of these duties, which can be better described together. Before leaving this description, however, I would state, in order to show landsmen how little they know of the nature of a ship, that a ship carpenter is kept in constant employ during good weather on board vessels which are in, what is called, perfect sea order.
IV
A rogue—Trouble on board—“Land ho!”—Pompero—Cape Horn.
After speaking the Carolina, on the 21st August, nothing occurred to break the monotony of our life until
Friday, September 5th, when we saw a sail on our weather (starboard) beam.47 She proved to be a brig under English colors, and passing under our stern, reported herself as forty-nine days from Buenos Aires, bound to Liverpool. Before she had passed us, “sail ho!” was cried again, and we made another sail, far on our weather bow, and steering athwart our hawse. She passed out of hail, but we made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, with Brazilian colors in her main rigging. By her course, she must have been bound from Brazil to the south of Europe, probably Portugal.
Sunday, Sept. 7th. Fell in with the northeast trade winds.48 This morning we caught our first dolphin, which I was very eager to see. I was disappointed in the colors of this fish when dying.49 They were certainly very beautiful, but not equal to what has been said of them. They are too indistinct. To do the fish justice, there is nothing more beautiful than the dolphin when swimming a few feet below the surface, on a bright day. It is the most elegantly formed, and also the quickest fish, in salt water; and the rays of the sun striking upon it, in its rapid and changing motions, reflected from the water, make it look like a stray beam from
