Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale

by John Sherburne Sleeper

Such was the character of our food and drink on our passage to the United States. It initiated me, even at the beginning of my sea-going career, into the most repulsive mysteries of a seaman's life. And whenever, in subsequent voyages, I have been put upon poor diet, I mentally contrasted it with the wretched fare during my second voyage to sea, smacked my lips, and called it luxury.

Steering to the northward we passed near the Island of Sombrero, glided from the Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, and wended our way towards the Carolinas.

Sombrero is an uninhabited island, a few miles only in circumference. It offers to the dashing waves on every side a steep, craggy cliff, from thirty to fifty feet high. Its surface is flat, and entirely destitute of vegetation; and at a distance, a fanciful imagination can trace, in the outline of the island, a faint resemblance to the broad Spanish hat, called a "sombrero," from which it takes its name.

This island, as well as all the other uninhabited islands in that part of the world, has ever been a favorite resort for birds, as gulls of several varieties, noddies, man-of-war birds, pelicans, and others. It has recently been ascertained that Sombrero is entitled to the proud appellation of "a guano island," and a company has been organized, consisting of persons belonging to New England, for the purpose of carrying off its rich deposits, which are of a peculiarly valuable character, being found beneath a bed of coral limestone several feet in thickness, and must consequently possess all the advantages which antiquity can confer.

It was on this island, many years ago, that an English brig struck in a dark night, while "running down the trades." The officers and crew, frightened at the dashing of the breakers and the gloomy aspect of the rocks which frowned upon them from above, made their escape on shore in "double quick time," some of them marvellously thinly clad, even for a warm climate. As soon as they had safely landed on the cliffs, and congratulated each other on their good fortune, the brig, by a heave of the sea, became disengaged from the rocks, and floating off, drifted to leeward, to the great mortification of the crew, and was fallen in with a day or two afterwards, safe and sound, near Anegada Reef, and carried into St. Thomas. The poor fellows, who manifested such alacrity in quitting "a sinking ship," suffered greatly from hunger and exposure. They erected a sort of flagstaff, on which they displayed a jacket as a signal of distress, and in the course of a few days were taken off by an American vessel bound to Santa Cruz.

The feeling which prompts a person, in the event of a sudden danger at sea, to quit his own vessel and look abroad for safety, appears to be instinctive. In cases of collision, portions of the crews are sometimes suddenly exchanged; and a man will find himself, unconscious of, an effort, on board a strange vessel, then arouse himself, as if from an unquiet sleep, and return to his ship as rapidly as he left her.

It sometimes happens that vessels, which have run into each other in the night time, separate under circumstances causing awkward results. The ship Pactolus, of Boston, bound from Hamburg through the English channel, while running one night in a thick fog near the Goodwin Sands, fell in with several Dutch galliots, lying to, waiting for daylight, and while attempting to steer clear of one, ran foul of another, giving the Dutchman a terrible shaking and carrying away one of the masts. The captain, a young man, was below, asleep in his berth, dreaming, it may be, of happy scenes in which a young and smiling "jung frow" formed a prominent object. He rushed from his berth, believing his last hour was come, sprang upon deck, and seeing a ship alongside, made one leap into the chainwales of the strange vessel, and another one over the rail to the deck. A moment afterwards the vessels separated; the galliot was lost sight of in the fog, and Mynheer was astonished to find himself, while clad in the airy costume of a shirt and drawers, safely and suddenly transferred from his comfortable little vessel to the deck of an American ship bound across the Atlantic.

The poor fellow jabbered away, in his uncouth native language, until his new shipmates feared his jaws would split asunder. They furnished him with garments, entertained him hospitably, and on the following day landed him on the pier at Dover.

We met with no extraordinary occurrences on our passage to the United States until we reached the Gulf Stream, noted for heavy squalls, thunder storms, and a turbulent sea, owing to the effect on the atmosphere produced by the difference of temperatures between the water in the current and the water on each side.

The night on which we entered the Gulf Stream, off the coast of the Carolinas, the weather was exceedingly suspicious. Dark, double-headed clouds hung around the horizon, and although the wind was light, a hurricane would not have taken us by surprise at any moment; and as the clouds rose slowly with a threatening aspect, no calculation could be made on which side the tempest would come. The lightnings illumined the heavens, serving to render the gloom more conspicuous, and the deep-toned rumblings of the thunder were heard in the distance.