Twenty years at sea: Leaves from my old log-books

by Frederic Stanhope Hill

The Bombay came to Mobile in ballast, so there was no cargo to discharge, very much to our satisfaction, as everything had to be loaded into large lighters, which made hard work for the crew.

Captain Gay, as was the custom, went up to the city as soon as the ship was safely anchored, to superintend the work of the brokers in obtaining freight, and to forward the cotton to the ship with all possible expedition. The chief mate remained on board in charge of the ship.

Of all the dismal holes I had ever seen, the lower bay of Mobile was the worst. The low shores are either alluvial mud or clear sand; there were no trees, no inhabitants but a very few ignorant fishermen, and absolutely nothing to relieve the monotony of life on shipboard, divested even of the excitement that is found when at sea in the changes of wind and weather, and the making and taking in sail that follows calm or storm.

We were supposed to be in port, and Jack dearly loves his “Sunday liberty,” with its attendant run ashore; but here no one cared to go on shore on Sundays or any other day, merely to wander about in the sand, half devoured by mosquitoes, and without a living soul to exchange a word with. Then, to make it even more disagreeable, as the bay is unprotected, and it was in the winter season, we were compelled to stand anchor watches at night, and keep our sails bent in readiness to slip our anchors and work off shore if a norther should strike us.

I have since lain at anchor off some very inhospitable and uninteresting shores, but I do not remember anything more detestable than life in Mobile Bay in 1844, unless, indeed, it was my blockading experience outside of that same bay in 1862, of which you will hear before you finish this volume.

Our only relaxation was crabbing. For this sport we took old iron hoops and wove upon them coarse nets of heavy twine, the meshes being very open. In these nets we fastened three or four pounds of the most ancient and malodorous salt beef we could find in the harness casks,—and these pieces could be scented the length of the ship. At night, the nets, heavily weighted, were thrown overboard with a stout line attached to them, and allowed to sink to the bottom.

The next morning we hauled the nets in, and rarely failed to find from one to half a dozen enormous hard-shelled crabs entangled in the meshes of each net and viciously fighting with each other. The result of these contests was frequently seen in an unfortunate crab minus half of his legs.

But the pleasure of crab-fishing soon palled upon us, and not even a hardened sailor’s stomach could endure a steady diet of these crustaceans. So, after the first week the crab nets were neglected, and we were forced into spending our few hours of leisure in sleep, an unfailing resource for a sailor.

However, the first lighter laden with cotton soon came down from Mobile, and with it a gang of stevedores who were to stow this precious cargo. At that time freights to Liverpool were quoted at “three half-pence a pound,” which represented the very considerable sum of fifteen dollars a bale. So it was very much to the interest of our owners to get every pound or bale squeezed into the ship that was possible.

The cotton had already been subjected to a very great compression at the steam cotton presses in Mobile, which reduced the size of the bales as they had come from the plantations fully one half. It was now to be forced into the ship, in the process of stowing by the stevedores, with very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men, one of them the “shantier,” as he was called, from the French word chanteur, a vocalist. This man’s sole duty was to lead in the rude songs, largely improvised, to the music of which his companions screwed the bales into their places. The pressure exerted in this process was often sufficient to lift the planking of the deck, and the beams of ships were at times actually sprung.