Under the mizzen mast: A voyage round the world

by Nehemiah Adams

DISCOMFORTS AT SEA.

While it is true that as much was combined as could be wished for to render this voyage agreeable, those who have been at sea will not believe that we were free from the ordinary discomforts or annoyances of sea-life. For the satisfaction of those who have suffered in sailing vessels it will be well for me to show our dark side of sea-life in some of its principal annoyances; doing this, however, for the sake of the truth, that the voyage may not appear to have been out of the ordinary experience of those who go down to the sea.

One of the first things which we all suffer at sea is revealed in the inspired account of sea-faring experience, which we are presented with in the contrasted experience of being on shore: “Then are they glad because they be quiet.” There are times at sea when stability seems to be the most enviable state. In weariness the invalid passenger, tossed and not comforted, feels constrained to quote one of the earliest verses of inspiration: “Let the dry land appear.” Yet there is so much that provokes mirth in the midst of discomfort that it is not easy to say on which side the balance lies, whether of discomfort or amusement. Behold three men, two of them at least used to the sea, setting out from different parts of the main cabin to make their way to the table in the forward cabin. The ship rolls over on her port side, and the cabin-floor is at once an inclined plane at a grade very much removed from horizontal. They have a steep hill to ascend; and a seven-pound weight on either foot, ashore, would not be more cumbrous than that which seems now to be holding them to the floor. The sensation in trying to move cannot be unlike that which would be felt in an exhausted receiver. If the weight of the atmosphere on the human body, fifteen pounds to the square inch, instead of being equally diffused could be concentrated on the feet, the sensation probably would not be unlike that which one feels in trying to get across a ship’s deck when she is thrown over to the side opposite to that whither you are going. So these three gentlemen stand immovably fixed in the middle of the floor, their feet discreetly wide apart to preserve the upright position of the body. Then the ship rolls over on the other side, and the three travellers to the dinner table go involuntarily fast to the side of the cabin and hold on by a door, while the ship rolls once more, and comes back, it may be, with mitigated severity. At last a favorable opportunity is seized and the three slide into their seats in postures more necessary than graceful. Then begins a series of mishaps at table. No careful adjustment of the dishes, nor even the security provided for them by the racks can guard against the accidents which befall cups and saucers indiscreetly filled, or plates of soup not well provided with suitable dunnage of slices of bread underneath the lee side. A barrel of apples falls against the door of a locker and empties itself over the floor; and a canister of lamp-oil, whose cork had not been made tight, follows after the apples, and they are no longer eatable. Oh to be quiet! What seems more desirable than a good foundation?

One day when the ship was rolling heavily it was difficult to keep your seat on the settee, and impossible to lie reclined. Every thing which was not lashed to some fixture about the room, or to staples driven into the floor, was sure to adopt a nomadic state and go from side to side. Among other things a “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which had been left on a table, fell from it and went sliding to and fro, exciting lively sensations in me at the thought that Mr. Ready-to-Halt and his friend, Mr. Despondency, were moving at a pace ill suited to the crutches of the old gentleman; for the book went like a shuttle back and forth on the floor.

The little stove in the cabin felt the changeable wind, and did not draw well. This required the frequent attention of the steward. He was a Portuguese man, with a dark skin. He sat on the canvas carpet whittling, to make lightwood, to start the fire. The ship went down on one side, and the steward with it, whittling all the while, then sliding back in his upright position, maintained with becoming gravity, till the passengers, no longer able to contain themselves, were made merry at the sight. This made him show his white teeth, silently, without anything so undignified as a laugh; at which the passengers were increasingly merry.

What shall I say of the cockroaches, red ants, tarantulas, and mice? One thing can be said in favor of all of them,—they were not musquitoes. This was a nightly consolation; but it was the only good thing which could be said of them all. The ants would cover every vessel in which they could find any thing to drink; fresh water seemed to be their chief delight; if a wet sponge were hung up to dry, on taking it down the little creatures would be there in legions. The white ant is the bane of the Indian climate; their depredations, however, are chiefly on shore. I was going up the front stairs of a gentleman’s dwelling in China, when his foot went through a stair. “Ah,” said he, “the ants have been at work here!” But at sea we found the cockroaches most destructive. It is not pleasant to find several of them on your pillow when you go into your stateroom at night. They are harmless to the person, but the covers of books, and everything which has been pasted or glued, all lacker work, and paper generally, suffer from them. Yet there are housekeepers on shore who can inveigh against vermin, as well as people at sea.

There are some people who cannot bear any noise overhead at night. If the gale does not wake them and keep them awake, twenty or thirty sailors hoisting or lowering the spanker, their boots making a noise not so gentle as that of prunello dancing-pumps will do it. If the stillness of the night and the passenger’s sleep are broken by the mate pacing the deck to keep himself awake, the heels of his boots will be chiefly answerable; for these make the principal disturbance; he cannot always comfortably wear India rubbers during his watch; he is to be pitied if he has a nervous passenger, and thanked if he is able to forego his walks on the house for the invalid’s sake.

It would seem as though there should be a special punishment for those who practise fraud in ships’ stores. Your appetite is delicate; you have no source of supply but your locker; that is furnished with bottles and jars which profess to hold, for instance, jellies, made and provided expressly for sea-faring appetites. Your hopes of a comfortable supper are vested in a jar of jelly which the steward has placed on table, hoping to provoke an appetite. On opening it, instead of the fruit jelly which the label assures you is within, you find only gelatine, flavored with an extract resembling the fruit. There is nothing on the table for which you feel any desire but the promised jelly; you find yourself secretly invoking a sea-faring experience like this upon the man who has so deceived you, till at last your suffering is so great under your disappointment, which grows intense as the tasteless supper proceeds, that in stern disapprobation of this annoying ship-chandler trick, you feel resolved to make it known, promising him that if you ever go to sea again you will pay special attention and see if his name is on the labels of the jellies. He who writes this and they who read it will not fail to remember that invalids are apt to be unreasonable. So small a matter as a jar of preserves disappointing the expectation of a nervous patient, especially at sea, where there are no means of alleviation, may be more than a match for the philosophy and the resolution of the best of men and women.

When I have said these things, very few discomforts or annoyances remain which are not incident to almost any situation on shore. Many things there we are freed from at sea; the noise of cats at night, the barking of dogs, the scream of locomotives, the painfully regular puffing of stationary engines, the roar of wheels, the annoyances of mischievous boys, these you escape at sea; all of them in sailing-vessels, for in steamers you have some of them. If one should fairly add up the comparative discomforts of ship and shore, would life at sea prove to have the most of them? I came to the conclusion that a good sailing-ship, with agreeable company, is as near a perfect state of rest and peace as ever falls to our lot.