A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2

by James Cook

I am well informed, that an officer distinguishes himself in nothing more than in preserving his men from wet and the other injuries of the weather. These were most essential points with this humane commander. In the torrid zone he shaded his people from the scorching sun by an awning over his deck, and in his course under the antarctic circle he had a coat provided for each man, of a substantial woollen stuff, with the addition of a hood for covering their heads. This garb (which the sailors called their Magellan jacket) they occasionally wore, and found it more comfortable for working in rain and snow, and among the broken ice in the high latitudes of the South.

Let us proceed to another article, one of the most material, the care to guard against putrefaction, by keeping clean the persons, the cloaths, bedding, and berths of the sailors. The Captain acquainted me, that regularly, one morning in the week, he passed his ship's company in review, and saw that every man had changed his linen, and was in other points as clean and neat as circumstances would permit. It is well known how much cleanliness is conducive to health, but it is not so obvious how much it also tends to good order and other virtues. That diligent officer was persuaded (nor was perhaps the observation new) that such men as he could induce to be more cleanly than they were disposed to be of themselves, became at the same time more sober, more orderly, and more attentive to their duty. It must be acknowledged that a seaman has but indifferent means to keep himself clean, had he the greatest inclination to do it; for I have not heard that commanders of ships have yet availed themselves of the still for providing fresh water for washing; and it is well known that sea-water doth not mix with soap, and that linen wet with brine never thoroughly dries. But for Captain Cook, the frequent opportunities he had of taking in water among the islands of the South-Sea, enabled him in that tract to dispense to his ship's company some fresh water for every use; and when he navigated in the high latitudes of the Southern Oceans, he still more abundantly provided them with it, as you will find by the sequel of this discourse.

Of the hammocks and bedding I need say little, as all officers are now sensible, how much it concerns the health of their people to have this part of a ship's furniture kept dry and well-aired; since by the perspiration of so many men, every thing below, even in the space of twenty-four hours, is apt to contract an offensive moisture. But Captain Cook was not satisfied with ordering upon deck the hammocks and bedding every day that was fair (the common method) but took care that every bundle should be unlashed, and so spread out, that every part of it might be exposed to the air.

His next concern was to see to the purity of the ship itself, without which attention all the rest would have profited little. I shall not however detain you with the orders about washing and scraping the decks, as I do not understand that in this kind of cleansing he excelled others; but since our author has laid so great a stress upon Fire, as a purifier, I shall endeavour to explain the way of using it, more fully than he has done in his Paper. Some wood, and that not sparingly, being put into a proper stove or grate, is lighted, and carried successively to every part below deck. Wherever fire is, the air nearest to it being heated becomes specifically lighter, and by being lighter rises, and passes through the hatchways into the atmosphere. The vacant space is filled with the cold air around, and that being heated in its turn, in like manner ascends, and is replaced by other air as before. Thus, by continuing the fire for some time, in any of the lower apartments, the foul air is in a good measure driven out, and the fresh admitted. This is not all: I apprehend that the acid steams of the wood, in burning, act here as an antiseptic and correct the corrupted air that remains.

An officer of distinguished rank, another of Captain Cook's experienced friends, mentioned to me a common and just observation in the fleet, which was, that all the old twenty-gun ships were remarkably less sickly than those of the same size of a modern construction. This, he said, was a circumstance he could not otherwise account for, than, by the former having their galley* in the fore-part of the orlop**, the chimney vented so ill, that it was sure to fill every part with smoke whenever the wind was a-stern. This was a nuisance for the time, but, as he thought, abundantly compensated by the extraordinary good health of the several crews. Possibly those fire-places were also beneficial, by drying and ventilating the lower decks, more when they were below, than they can do now that they are placed under the fore-castle upon the upper deck.

[* Their fire-place or kitchen.]

[** The deck immediately above the hold.]

But the most obvious use of the portable fires was their drying up the moisture, and especially in those places where there was the least circulation of air. This humidity, composed of the perspirable matter of a multitude of men, and often of animals (kept for a live-flock) and of the steams of the bilge water from the well, where the corruption is the greatest; this putrid moisture, I say, being one of the main sources of the scurvy, was therefore more particularly attended to, in order to its removal. The fires were the powerful instrument for that purpose, and whilst they burned, some men were employed in rubbing hard, with canvass or oakum, every part of the inside of the ship that was damp and accessible. But the advantage of fire appears no where so manifest as in cleansing the well; for this being in the lowest part of the hold, the whole leakage runs into it, whether of the ship itself, or of the casks of spoilt meats or corrupted water. The mephitic vapours, from this sink alone, have often been the cause of instantaneous death to those who have unwarily approached to clean it; and not to one only, but to several successively, when they have gone down to succour their unfortunate companions: yet this very place has not only been rendered safe but sweet, by means of an iron pot filled with fire and let down to burn in it.

When, from the circumstances of the weather, this salutary operation could not take place, the ship was fumigated with gun-powder, as described in the Paper; though that smoke could have no effect in drying, but only in remedying the corruption of the air, by means of the acid spirits from the sulphur and nitre, aided perhaps by some species of an aerial fluid, then disengaged from the fuel, to counteract putrefaction. But as these purifications by gun-powder, as well as by burning tar and other resinous substances, are sufficiently known, I shall not insist longer on them here.

Among the several means of sweetening or renewing the air, we should expect to hear of Dr. Hales's Ventilator. I must confess it was my expectation, and therefore, persuaded as I was of the excellence of the invention, it was not without much regret that I saw so good an opportunity lost, of giving the same favourable impression of it to the Public. If a degree of success, exceeding our most sanguine hopes, is not sufficient for justifying the omission of a measure, deemed one of the most essential for attaining an end, I would plead in favour of our worthy brother, that by a humiliating fatality, so often accompanying the most useful discoveries, the credit of this ventilator is yet far from being firmly established in the navy. What wonder then, if Captain Cook being so much otherwise taken up, should not have had time to examine it, and therefore avoided the encumbering his ship with an apparatus, he had possibly never seen used, and of which he had at best received but a doubtful character? Nor was he altogether unprovided with a machine for ventilation. He had the Wind-Sails, though he hath not mentioned them in his Paper, and he told me that he had found them at times very serviceable, and particularly between the Tropics. They have the merit of taking up little room, they require no labour in working, and the contrivance is so simple that they can sail in no hands. But their powers are small in comparison with those of the ventilator; they cannot be put up in hard gales of wind, and they are of no efficacy in dead calms, when a refreshment of the air is most wanted. Should there be any objection to the employing both?