On Board the "Rocket"

by Robert C. Adams

"Yes," said Mr. Howard, "you're a good champion for the ladies. You'd do to present their cause before a meeting of shipowners."

"If it's such a good thing for a ship to carry women, why is it that shipowners are so down on it, and they so seldom allow captains to carry their wives?" asked the mate of the bark "Vulture."

"One reason," said Mr. Morrison, "is the extra expense; it costs something to feed them on a long voyage, and they must have more dainties. Another is that they sometimes cause detention to the ship or occasion a deviation from the voyage. There was a ship belonging to a Boston firm that I used to sail for, that was kept waiting in Calcutta for a week after she was loaded, on account of the captain becoming a happy father. When the news came home, one of the partners handed the letter over to the other, and said, 'What do you think of that?' 'Think,' said he; 'I think we won't make baby-houses of our ships any more.' They made the rule, and after that captains had the choice to leave their wives at home, or leave the employ."

"It's a hard place for a woman on board of a ship any way," croaked the "owl" again. "It isn't natural for them to be shut up for months with a crowd of rough 'barnacle backs,' without any of their sex to gossip with, and no chance to go a-shopping, except two or three times a year."

"A ship is a hard place for anyone," said I. "Going to sea is an unnatural life and a hardship to everybody. It's pretty clear from the Bible how its Maker regards it, for there it is frequently used as a symbol of evil. 'The wicked are like the troubled sea,' and 'raging waves of the sea;' 'he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea;' the beast of Revelation is represented as rising out of the sea, and we read in the description of the perfect state 'there was no more sea.' It is not good enough to be allowed in heaven. But in spite of all its trials and unpleasant features we all like to go to sea."

"Vast heaving there, my friend," said the mate of the "Example." "I don't like to go to sea, and I never saw a man yet that would own up to liking it."

"We must be judged by our actions, not by our words," said I. "Sea life gets people into such a way of 'growling' that they never know when to stop finding fault; and if you ask them about any of their circumstances they'll generally give an unfavorable account of them. But after you've been growling about sea life for a whole voyage, you'll get on shore, and in three weeks' time you'll be fretting to be afloat again, and if you don't find a ship pretty soon, you'll growl worse even than you did at sea. But I'll meet you half way and say we prefer to go to sea, in spite of its hardships. Against these we have the offset of seeing foreign countries, the excitement of constant change of place, and the great pleasure of arrivals at home. Now, although what was said about the women may have some truth in it, yet a woman, who loves her husband, may consider his company more than an equivalent for the privations of life on shipboard; and then, in foreign ports she's always made a good deal of, and gets a chance to see everything that's to be seen, and enjoy all the pleasures of foreign life, so that when you compare her life for a year's voyage, with the hum-drum existence she would lead by herself in a small country town; fretting about her good man every time the wind blew hard, being the only excitement she would have in the whole time he was away, and I tell you the seafaring woman has the best of it."

"Pretty well argued," said Mr. Morrison, "for a youngster that knows nothing about it."

After two months in port the ship was again ready for sea; and after a parting growl with Mr. Smashempotter, the captain came on board with orders to get under way. With a fresh southerly wind we sailed into the Bay, and the City of Genoa disappeared astern, just as the sun went down behind the Apennines.

Moderate breezes and pleasant weather brought the ship again in sight of Gibraltar ten days after leaving port, and then a calm took possession of the Straits, and the ship lay helpless at the entrance, slowly drifting back with the current.