The ship had carried sand-ballast on a former voyage and the "limbers" not having been properly cleaned out, whenever the ship rolled heavily, the sand washed to the pumps. As they were old-fashioned wooden affairs they had not power enough to raise it, and it settled on the lower boxes and choked the pumps. The vessel leaked a good deal and we spent considerable time drawing the boxes with the pump hook, which sometimes it was difficult to work through a foot or more of sand. Then we had to hoist the pump on deck and ram out the box with an iron rod. The captain prided himself on his skill in hooking the pump box, and whenever he heard the warning sounds, he invariably came on deck, mounted the fife-rail and took charge of operations. His patience would soon be exhausted if not successful, and then his profanity was really awful. Every conceivable phrase of bad language was summoned to express his petulance, and once, when baffled for a long time by the sanded box, he rattled off a string of twenty-three words which haunt my memory as the worst utterance I have ever heard.
In the fine weather of the trades the old suit of sails was bent, as the captain said, "She must have on her old clothes to tar down in."
The mainsail was bent one afternoon, and in the inevitable inspection and criticism which followed, the captain informed Mr. Morrison that the bunt-lines were clinched into the foot of the sail the wrong way.
"How so, sir?" said the mate.
"Why, they ought to be rove from forward aft," said he.
"I don't think so, sir," answered the mate; "they ought to be rove from aft forward."
"But look at the philosophy of the thing," said the captain; "don't you see there'd be more chafe on the sail your way?"
"No sir, I don't," said the mate; "the philosophy is all the other way. They've been bent after your fashion before, and the sail we've just taken down is about chafed through in the wake of the clinches."
"I've heard the thing argued by intelligent men and they all agreed with me," said the captain.