Tired as we all were, very little sleep came to us that night—we were barely seasoned yet to the exigencies of a whaler's life—but afterwards I believe nothing short of dismasting or running the ship ashore would wake us, once we got to sleep. In the morning we commenced operations in a howling gale of wind, which placed the lives of the officers on the "cutting in" stage in great danger. The wonderful seaworthy qualities of our old ship shone brilliantly now. When an ordinary modern-built sailing-ship would have been making such weather of it as not only to drown anybody about the deck, but making it impossible to keep your footing anywhere without holding on, we were enabled to cut in this whale. True, the work was terribly exhausting and decidedly dangerous, but it was not impossible, for it was done. By great care and constant attention, the whole work of cutting in and trying out was got through without a single accident; but had another whale turned up to continue the trying time, I am fully persuaded that some of us would have gone under from sheer fatigue. For there was no mercy shown. All that I have ever read of "putting the slaves through for all they were worth" on the plantations was fully realized here, and our worthy skipper must have been a lineal descendent of the doughty Simon Legree.
The men were afraid to go on to the sick-list. Nothing short of total inability to continue would have prevented them from working, such was the terror with which that man had inspired us all. It may be said that we were a pack of cowards, who, without the courage to demand better treatment, deserved all we got. While admitting that such a conclusion is quite a natural one at which to arrive, I must deny its truth. There were men in that forecastle as good citizens and as brave fellows as you would wish to meet—men who in their own sphere would have commanded and obtained respect. But under the painful and abnormal circumstances in which they found themselves—beaten and driven like dogs while in the throes of sea-sickness, half starved and hopeless, their spirit had been so broken, and they were so kept down to that sad level by the display of force, aided by deadly weapons aft, that no other condition could be expected for them but that of broken-hearted slaves. My own case was many degrees better than that of the other whites, as I have before noted; but I was perfectly well aware that the slightest attempt on my part to show that I resented our common treatment would meet with the most brutal repression, and, in addition, I might look for a dreadful time of it for the rest of the voyage.
The memory of that week of misery is so strong upon me even now that my hand trembles almost to preventing me from writing about it. Weak and feeble do the words seem as I look at them, making me wish for the fire and force of Carlyle or Macaulay to portray our unnecessary sufferings.
Like all other earthly ills, however, they came to an end, at least for a time, and I was delighted to note that we were getting to the northward again. In making the outward passage round the Cape, it is necessary to go well south, in order to avoid the great westerly set of the Agulhas current, which for ever sweeps steadily round the southern extremity of the African continent at an average rate of three or four miles an hour. To homeward-bound ships this is a great boon. No matter what the weather may be—a stark calm or a gale of wind right on end in your teeth—that vast, silent river in the sea steadily bears you on at the same rate in the direction of home. It is perfectly true that with a gale blowing across the set of this great current, one of the very ugliest combinations of broken waves is raised; but who cares for that, when he knows that, as long as the ship holds together, some seventy or eighty miles per day nearer home must be placed to her credit? In like manner, it is of the deepest comfort to know that, storm or calm, fair or foul, the current of time, unhasting, unresting, bears us on to the goal that we shall surely reach—the haven of unbroken rest.
Not the least of the minor troubles on board the CACHALOT was the uncertainty of our destination; we never knew where we were going. It may seem a small point, but it is really not so unimportant as a landsman might imagine. On an ordinary passage, certain well-known signs are as easily read by the seaman as if the ship's position were given out to him every day. Every alteration of the course signifies some point of the journey reached, some well-known track entered upon, and every landfall made becomes a new departure from whence to base one's calculations, which, rough as they are, rarely err more than a few days.
Say, for instance, you are bound for Calcutta. The first of the north-east trades will give a fair idea of your latitude being about the edge of the tropics somewhere, or say from 20deg. to 25deg. N., whether you have sighted any of the islands or not. Then away you go before the wind down towards the Equator, the approach to which is notified by the loss of the trade and the dirty, changeable weather of the "doldrums." That weary bit of work over, along come the south-east trades, making you brace "sharp up," and sometimes driving you uncomfortably near the Brazilian coast. Presently more "doldrums," with a good deal more wind in them than in the "wariables" of the line latitude. The brave "westerly" will come along by-and-by and release you, and, with a staggering press of sail carried to the reliable gale, away you go for the long stretch of a hundred degrees or so eastward. You will very likely sight Tristan d'Acunha or Gough Island; but, if not, the course will keep you fairly well informed of your longitude, since most ships make more or less of a great circle track. Instead of steering due East for the whole distance, they make for some southerly latitude by running along the arc of a great circle, THEN run due east for a thousand miles or so before gradually working north again. These alterations in the courses tell the foremast hand nearly all he wants to know, slight as they are. You will most probably sight Amsterdam Island or St. Paul's in about 77deg. E.; but whether you do or not, the big change made in the course, to say nothing of the difference in the weather and temperature, say loudly that your long easterly run is over, and you are bound to the northward again. Soon the south-east trades will take you gently in hand, and waft you pleasurably upward to the line again, unless you should be so unfortunate as to meet one of the devastating meteors known as "cyclones" in its gyration across the Indian Ocean. After losing the trade, which signals your approach to the line once more, your guides fluctuate muchly with the time of year. But it may be broadly put that the change of the monsoon in the Bay of Bengal is beastliness unadulterated, and the south-west monsoon itself, though a fair wind for getting to your destination, is worse, if possible. Still, having got that far, you are able to judge pretty nearly when, in the ordinary course of events, you will arrive at Saugor, and get a tug for the rest of the journey.
But on this strange voyage I was quite as much in the dark concerning our approximate position as any of the chaps who had never seen salt water before they viewed it from the bad eminence of the CACHALOT's deck. Of course, it was evident that we were bound eastward, but whether to the Indian seas or to the South Pacific, none knew but the skipper, and perhaps the mate. I say "perhaps" advisedly. In any well-regulated merchant ship there is an invariable routine of observations performed by both captain and chief officer, except in very big vessels, where the second mate is appointed navigating officer. The two men work out their reckoning independently of each other, and compare the result, so that an excellent check upon the accuracy of the positions found is thereby afforded. Here, however, there might not have been, as far as appearances went, a navigator in the ship except the captain, if it be not a misuse of terms to call him a navigator. If the test be ability to take a ship round the world, poking into every undescribed, out-of-the-way corner you can think of, and return home again without damage to the ship of any kind except by the unavoidable perils of the sea, then doubtless he WAS a navigator, and a ripe, good one. But anything cruder than the "rule-of-thumb" way in which he found his positions, or more out of date than his "hog-yoke," or quadrant, I have never seen. I suppose we carried a chronometer, though I never saw it or heard the cry of "stop," which usually accompanies a.m. or p.m. "sights" taken for longitude. He used sometimes to make a deliberate sort of haste below after taking a sight, when he may have been looking at a chronometer perhaps. What I do know about his procedure is, that he always used a very rough method of equal altitudes, which would make a mathematician stare and gasp; that his nautical almanac was a ten-cent one published by some speculative optician is New York; that he never worked up a "dead reckoning;" and that the extreme limit of time that he took to work out his observations was ten minutes. In fact, all our operations in seamanship or navigation were run on the same happy-go-lucky principle. If it was required to "tack" ship, there was no formal parade and preparation for the manoeuvre, not even as much as would be made in a Goole billy-boy. Without any previous intimation, the helm would be put down, and round she would come, the yards being trimmed by whoever happened to be nearest to the braces. The old tub seemed to like it that way, for she never missed stays or exhibited any of that unwillingness to do what she was required that is such a frequent characteristic of merchantmen. Even getting under way or coming to an anchor was unattended by any of the fuss and bother from which those important evolutions ordinarily appear inseparable.
To my great relief we saw no more whales of the kind we were after during our passage round the Cape. The weather we were having was splendid for making a passage, but to be dodging about among those immense rollers, or towed athwart them by a wounded whale in so small a craft as one of our whale-boats, did not have any attractions for me. There was little doubt in any of our minds that, if whales were seen, off we must go while daylight lasted, let the weather be what it might. So when one morning I went to the wheel, to find the course N.N.E. instead of E. by N., it may be taken for granted that the change was a considerable relief to me. It was now manifest that we were bound up into the Indian Ocean, although of course I knew nothing of the position of the districts where whales were to be looked for. Gradually we crept northward, the weather improving every day as we left the "roaring forties" astern. While thus making northing we had several fine catches of porpoises, and saw many rorquals, but sperm whales appeared to have left the locality. However, the "old man" evidently knew what he was about, as we were not now cruising, but making a direct passage for some definite place.
At last we sighted land, which, from the course which we had been steering, might have been somewhere on the east coast of Africa, but for the fact that it was right ahead, while we were pointing at the time about N.N.W. By-and-by I came to the conclusion that it must be the southern extremity of Madagascar, Cape St. Mary, and, by dint of the closest, attention to every word I heard uttered while at the wheel by the officers, found that my surmise was correct. We skirted this point pretty closely, heading to the westward, and, when well clear of it, bore up to the northward, again for the Mozambique Channel. Another surprise. The very idea of WHALING in the Mozambique Channel seemed too ridiculous to mention; yet here we were, guided by a commander who, whatever his faults, was certainly most keen in his attention to business, and the unlikeliest man imaginable to take the ship anywhere unless he anticipated a profitable return for his visit.