[408] These duties were too frequently overlooked, and the accommodation for seamen when at sea, or in harbour abroad, is still far from being as comfortable as the ordinary run of cheap lodging-houses on shore, although it has been greatly improved of late years, more especially since the Merchant Shipping Act came into operation. Previously it was generally of a wretched description, and as the Author has the most vivid recollection of the forecastle of the ship in which he served his apprenticeship, a description of it may serve to illustrate an ordinary specimen of the sea homes of sailors forty years ago.
The vessel in which he served was about four hundred and twenty tons register, and of North American build. She was ship-rigged, and had a flush deck, that is, there were no erections upon the deck except the galley or cook-house, which stood before the long-boat; on each side of both were lashed, to ring-bolts in the deck, the spare spars, and to these were again lashed a row of puncheons or butts filled with fresh water. This vessel was employed in the trade between Great Britain and Demerara, making occasionally a voyage to the Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia) for lumber, a description of boards used for the heading of rum and molasses casks and sugar hogsheads. Her crew (she had more than the usual complement) consisted of twenty-one persons all told, comprising the master, or “captain,” first and second mates, and steward, all of whom lived in the cabin. Besides these there were the carpenter, cooper, and cook—who with the steward were expected to assist in seaman’s duties—ten seamen, and four apprentices. One of the latter lived with the carpenter and cooper in a place called the “steerage,” that is, a small space temporarily separated by some rough stauncheons and boards from the cargo in the square of the after-hatch. Here their tools, with various rope and sail stores, were also kept. The cook, ten seamen, and three apprentices had their abode in the forecastle. This place, which was in the “’tween decks” at the extremity of the bow, may have been about twenty-one feet in width at the after or widest part, tapering gradually away to a narrow point at the stern. The length in midships was somewhere about twenty feet, but much less as the sides of the vessel were approached. The height was five feet from deck to beam, or about five feet nine inches from deck to deck at the greatest elevation between the beams; the only approach to it being through a scuttle or hole in the main deck, about two and a half feet square. Beyond this hole there were no means of obtaining either light or ventilation, and in bad weather, when the sea washed over the deck, the crew had to do as best they could without either, or receive the air mixed with spray, and sometimes accompanied by the almost unbroken crest of a wave, which, in defiance of all the tarpaulin guards, too frequently found its way through the scuttle. Here fourteen persons slept in hammocks suspended from the beams, and had their daily food. There was no room for tables, chairs, or stools, so that the tops of their sea-chests in which they kept their clothes and all their possessions, were substituted for those useful and necessary household articles. In fact so closely were these chests packed that it was difficult to sit astride them, the mode which the sailors found most convenient for taking their meals, especially in rough weather. But the whole of this limited space was not appropriated to the use of the crew, for it contained a rough deal locker, in which the beef and soup-kids and other utensils were kept, while the stout staunchions or knight-heads which supported the windlass on the upper deck came through the forecastle, and were bolted to the lower beams; and too frequently, when the ship was very full of cargo, a row of water-casks and provisions were stowed along the after-bulkhead, which was a temporary erection; while on the top of these, cables, coils of rope, and numerous other articles were piled. At all times it was a foulsome and suffocating abode, and in bad weather the water and filth which washed about the deck and among the chests and casks created the most intolerable and loathsome stench. Here, however, these fourteen sailors and apprentices slept, washed, dressed, and had their food, except in fine weather, when they took their meals on deck, their food consisting almost entirely of inferior salted pork, beef, which was sometimes nearly as hard and unpalatable as the kids in which it was served, and brown biscuits, too often mouldy and full of maggots. To make matters worse, the forecastle of the ship to which the Author refers was full of rats, and he has the most vivid recollection of one of these animals on more than one occasion finding its way into the hammock where he slept. In the West Indies the place was so suffocatingly hot that the sailors invariably slept wherever they could find a clear place upon deck or in the tops; and in winter, when approaching the English Channel, or when on an intermediate voyage to the Bay of Fundy, it was as bitterly cold, no stoves or fires of any kind being allowed on board except in the galley and in the cabin. No Siberian slaves ever suffered so much from the intensity of the cold as did those of the sailors and apprentices of that ship, who had not deserted, during two months of a winter when she lay at anchor in one of the roadsteads of the Bay. The bow ports were then obliged to be open to receive the cargo, and could only be covered with matting during the night. One of these ports opened upon the forecastle, so that its occupants might almost as well have slept upon deck, their damp clothes as they lay upon the chests or hung suspended from the beams being frequently frozen to such an extent that the ice had to be beaten from them before they could be again used.
[409] “Wearing” is the reverse of tacking. The head of the vessel in this operation is put away from the wind and turned twenty points of the compass, instead of twelve, and without strain is brought up on the opposite tack. Lords St. Vincent, Exmouth, and other distinguished naval officers preferred “wearing” when possible, as less damaging to the sails and spars than tacking; but in merchant vessels, where progress is an object, tacking, when practicable, is invariably adopted.
[410] Dana’s ‘Seaman’s Friend.’
[411] “Serving,” or service-rope, is spun yarn wound round a rope by means of a serving board or mallet (Adm. W. H. Smyth, p. 608).
[412] The Dutch government do not compel the owners of merchant vessels to take any fixed number of seamen, as was required in British ships under the Navigation Act, but the Dutch Commercial Society, a very large trading company, appears to have made a regulation in the year 1843, that every Dutch ship which went out to Batavia should take on board one ass for every hundred tons! Evidence of Mr. William von Houten before a Committee of the House of Commons, 1843.
[413] Evidence given before a Committee of the House of Commons, 1843.
[414] Nautical terms for raising and stowing the anchor.
[415] The “earrings” are small ropes to fasten the upper corners of the sail to the yard. The “courses” are the sails hanging from the lower yards of a ship, viz, the mainsail, foresail, and mizen. A ship is said to be “under her courses” when no other sails are set (Admiral W. H. Smyth, pp. 270 and 218).
[416] In a man-of-war there is always a lieutenant of the watch on the weather side of the quarter-deck, but it is not so in the merchant service. When the ordinary day’s work is going forward the mates must be about the decks or aloft, like the petty officers of a ship of war; and it is only while the work is going forward, or in bad weather, on Sundays, or at night, that the officer of the watch, if the master is not there, keeps the quarter-deck.