We sung the missionary hymn—“From Greenland’s icy mountain”—a hymn for which sailors have the greatest partiality. The splendid imagery of this hymn, and the rich melody of the music, always take hold of the sailor. It has something of the same effect on him, which the impassioned eloquence of Peter the Hermit must have had, when he poured the population of Europe, in tumultuous crusades, on the bosom of Asia. If sailors could win their way to heaven with weapons of war, there is no act of hardship or daring from which they would shrink. But when you throw them back upon their own hearts, and confine them to the enemy found there, they are too apt to make a truce; still, so far are they from being unsusceptible of religious impression, that could I at all times select my auditory and place of worship, I would take a ship of the line with her thousand sailors on her spar-deck: and, if I failed of making an impression there, I should despair of making it anywhere.
Monday, Dec. 8th. The watch in the main-top discovered this morning, at break of day, a sail just peering up over the swelling sweep of the sea. She was hull down; indeed, the little canvas that loomed to the eye might easily have been mistaken for one of those small sheets of vapor which seem blent with the spray of a wave. But sail after sail emerged into vision till her hull broke with its dark mass the bright line of the horizon. She came down to us before the wind, with her royals and studding-sails set, and with the American ensign flying from her mizen-peak.
She proved to be the whale-ship Jason, of New London; twelve days from St. Helena; bound home. She had been out on her whaling expedition seventeen months, and had secured in that time twenty-eight thousand gallons of oil, and forty-six thousand pounds of whalebone. The second mate, a noble tough tar, who came on board, told us that his portion of the spoil would be eight hundred dollars. He wanted some powder and shot to keep off the Mexicans. We told him there was no war with Mexico; still he should be welcome to some ammunition, certainly enough to fire a salute as he wound into the harbor of New London.
All pens were now put in motion to dispatch letters home. Go where you would, fore or aft, nothing was to be heard but the scratch of these pens. What surprised me most was the number of sailors who were driving the quill. How they can carry paper in their clothes-bags unrumpled, where every thing else is mussed up, is more than I can explain. But of all beings the sailor is most fertile in expedients. He stows away every thing in his clothes-bag, from a mirror to a marlin-spike, from a cable to a cambric needle, and has plenty of room remaining.
The captain of the Jason kindly offered to take any officer to the United States whom the commander-in-chief might wish to dispatch. Our commodore fixed on Mr. Morris, his secretary, who was very desirous of going; and having given him an outfit, in the shape of provisions and funds, equal to all emergencies, instructed him to get the President’s message, the proceedings of Congress, all the news of the day, with letters for the officers of the ship, take the first packet to Chagres, cross over to Panama, and join him at the nearest point practicable. The letters now being bagged, a boat was called away, Mr. Morris took leave of us, and was soon on the deck of the Jason. The sturdy whaler squared round before the wind, we filled away, and when the sun went down were once more alone on the ocean.
Each seemed lost in thoughts of the surprise and pleasure which the letters he had thus unexpectedly been able to send back would awaken. One of our best young sailors told me his mother would weep for joy over his letter, and sleep for a month with it under her pillow. No eloquence that ever flowed from human lips affected me half so much as the simple remark of this dutiful sailor. There was a tenderness, a truthfulness, a moral beauty in it, which made me forget the rough exterior of the being from whom it came. He seemed as a brother whom I could take to my heart, and whose hard lot I could most cheerfully share. That man who can forget his mother, who can forget the sorrows and solicitudes which she has endured for him, and the lessons of piety which she instilled into his young mind, has sundered the last tie that binds him to virtue and a reasonable hope of heaven.
Tuesday, Dec. 9. Our painters commenced to-day painting our gun-carriages black. They had a coat of white paint when we left port, but it soon became dingy and defaced by the rough-and-tumble of sea usage. Black paint can easily be restored; a few coats of varnish will make it shine like a Congo under his native sun. The objects to be aimed at in the use of paint on board a man-of-war are neatness, preservation, economy in money and time. There is nothing fantastic, but all is substantial and enduring. It is in harmony with the solid oak out of which the storm-defying fabric is itself constructed.
I have been attached to ships where the belaying-pins, the midship-stanchions, and even crowbars, were bright work. The amount of labor bestowed upon them during a three years’ cruise, might, if properly directed, have almost constructed another ship equal to that of which these are mere blacksmith appendages. Were sailors merely unthinking machines, it might do to keep them employed on such work; but as it is, the idea will often force itself upon them that their labor is a frivolous waste of time. This renders them impatient and remiss, and this impatience and remissness soon extends to their other duties. Keep sailors employed, but let them feel that their employment is working out some adequate ends. No man will continue to roll an empty wheelbarrow, however liberally paid for his services.
Wednesday, Dec. 10. This morning, with our royals set to a steady southeaster, we dashed across the equator at longitude thirty. That great circle, cutting the continents, mountains, oceans, and islands of the globe asunder, now threw its steep plane between us and the thousand objects to which memory clings with affection and pride. The sunset clouds on which we had gazed, the towering crags where morn first broke, and the brilliant constellations which faith had peopled with the spirits of the pure and meek, all went down in dying pomp over the dim horizon. What now to us Niagara’s thunder, or the rush of the Alpine avalanche! Even the polar star, that has poured its steady light for ages on the ruins of pyramids, the wrecks of temples, and the graves of empires, has left its watch-tower in darkness,—all are lost in the shoreless ocean of night.
Old Neptune formerly saluted every ship that crossed the line. He appeared in the shape of some tall sturdy tar, in ox-hide mail, with a long beard of yarn falling far below his chin, and locks of the same flowing in drenched ringlets down his shoulders. His trident was a huge harpoon, his pipe the coiled hose of the fire-engine; thus accoutred, he hailed the ship over her bows, and mounting a gun-carriage, was drawn aft to the quarter-deck. Here he summoned the green horns to his presence, and after lathering them from a tub of grease and tar, shaved them with a ship’s scraper. Having thus introduced the novice into his service, he returned in triumph to his watery realm. This ceremony was found such an infraction of discipline, that it has been discontinued on board our national ships. Our sailors were allowed to splice the main-brace as a substitute.