In the course of the ensuing week, the cocoa-nuts, tamarinds, and bananas were proportionately distributed amongst the crew, fore and aft, and these, with fowl additions to our usual sea fare, enabled us to live high for some time; and our monkeys affording a source of amusement, time passed speedily and pleasantly. These little creatures soon became expert in running about the rigging; a suit of sailor’s clothes was made for them, and their antics in this attire were most ludicrous. They became much attached to one of the boatsteerers, and followed him, in fine weather, to the masthead. One day he observed them run in company to the extreme end of the maintopgallant yard-arm, when one, with a mischievous grin, pushed the other off; but though the poor fellow fell on deck, he escaped with slight injury.
With a fine breeze, we steered a southerly course, along the West coast of New Holland, until we arrived on our old cruising-ground. The weather here, although a few weeks previously we had found it uncomfortably warm, after our visit to so much lower latitudes, felt quite chilly, and woolen shirts, stockings, and underclothes—articles of apparel to which we had long been strangers—were hunted up from out of the way nooks and corners of chests, and donned. We here saw the ship Stephania, of New Bedford, making a passage for Angiers, whence her course went homeward. She was leaking badly, and her crew grumbled at the oppressive labor of pumping in the existing hot weather. She had considerable right whale oil, taken off the Island of Desolation, which island was described by her crew as a miserable place for cruising—cold weather, with heavy gales, prevailing there almost all the time. A few days previous to our meeting her, they had been fast to a large sperm whale, which crushed a boat in its huge jaws, seriously injuring the captain’s hand at the time.
CHAPTER VI.
Finding, after a short stay, that the ground was deserted both by ships and whales, we pursued our course to the southward, intending to double Cape Leuwin, thence to the eastward, and cruise in the Great Australian Bight. Anticipating heavy weather in those latitudes, our foretopgallant mast was sent down, and the mizzen topmast housed; and no sooner were we thus far prepared than we caught a heavy gale that exceeded in violence anything of the kind we had experienced during the preceding part of the voyage. It lasted eight or nine days, and as there was an ugly sea running, the ship was almost continually drenched the whole extent of her decks. One night whilst lying-to in the gale, when its violence was at its height, a heavy sea broke over the vessel, carrying away part of the starboard bulwarks, and filling the bow boat on the larboard side. The davits of the boat were crushed by the weight of the water, and the boat broke down amidships. The decks were deluged, and it was necessary to knock out a part of the lee bulwarks to allow the water to escape. The third officer, who headed the watch, called the first mate, who, on coming on deck, hurriedly ran over the members of the watch, when missing one, whose look-out he heard it was, and supposing him to have been on the forecastle at the time the sea was shipped, he gave him up for lost. To ascertain, he cried aloud his name at the top of his voice, but the gale prevented it from being heard a short distance from the speaker. He then despatched a person into each top, who sang out for him without result. After all had decided that he was overboard, without hope of relief, he was found snugly ensconced in the starboard boat, totally unaware of the apprehensions entertained for his safety.
On the 6th and 7th of August we fell in with the barques Aladdin and Lady Emma, and the brig Jane, all of Hobartown, carrying the English flag. These were the first whalers we had seen carrying other than our own glorious banner. We gammoned them, and found them but indifferent craft—their rigging poor, and scarce any discipline existing aboard of them; their slouching arrangements contrasting unfavorably with our own neat and tidy appearance. Their crews are composed principally of convicts who have served out their terms of sentence, and ticket-of-relief men: with such material it is scarcely possible to form a good crew. Their officers and captains were, in many cases, from the same class of society; and on board one of the barques the master was so ignorant as to be compelled to carry a navigator, who directed all the movements of the ship, except when they were whaling. A few Yankees were amongst them—in every case deserters from American whalers. The residue of their crews contained representatives from all parts of the world—black, yellow and brown; Portuguese, New Zealanders, Kanackas from all of the South Sea Islands, and Negroes. Aboard some of these ships the forecastle is partitioned into two apartments, in one of which the blacks, and in the other the whites reside—neither party encroaching on the other. These ships usually fit out for fifteen months, but generally return within the year; their forecastles look desolate, from the fact that none of the crew bring chests to sea with them; their stock of clothes consisting, in many instances, only of the suit they wear upon their backs. Their bedding, too, from lack of attention to their outfit, is very scant, and is therefore insufficient in such cool weather as prevails in the Bight at this season of the year. They were disposed to grumble, and exceeded the usual modicum of growling accorded to the sailor. They envied us our positions, and were very desirous of effecting an exchange; some went so far as to ask to be concealed when their boat left our ship. They represented that their ships were leaky, and the officers ignorant; and inveighed in unmeasured terms against their rations, describing them as scant and unwholesome. These must not be considered as fair specimens of the Hobartown shipping, as afterward we saw vessels in which, although their management could not compare with ours, their crews were at least contented, and their vessels and rigging presented a much better appearance to a seaman’s eye.
On board these ships grog is allowed; by some, daily; others, semi-and tri-weekly; and when we informed them that we sailed on the total abstinence principle, they expressed much astonishment at the fact, and wondered how we got along without liquor.
Several New Zealanders in the respective crews of these vessels attracted my attention, from the tattooing on their bodies. The figures on the face and breast were not near so disgusting, as from previous description I had imagined them to be.
Quite a pleasant incident occurred on board our vessel, during this evening. One of the crew of the brig Jane came into our forecastle, and inquired whether there were any natives of Patterson, New Jersey, present. Two of our crew, belonging to that city, presented themselves; and, after some inquiries, one of them proved to be the play- and school-mate of the stranger. They had not met since their childhood, and their meeting now caused much feeling on each side. Both had followed the sea for years, and been self-exiled as it were from their native land. When a stripling, the one aboard of us had joined the volunteers in General Scott’s army, then in Mexico. After participating in the struggle until peace was declared, he returned to the United States, spent his pay, and then shipped aboard a whaler bound to the Arctic ocean. Having been forty months at sea, he came back, and again spent his earnings just as foolishly as he had done before; and, being compelled by necessity to return to the ocean for support, he shipped aboard a merchant vessel bound for Liverpool. He next made various voyages to different parts of Europe and the West Indies, experiencing perilous vicissitudes; when, finally, he embarked on board our old craft. His schoolmate had joined a New Bedford whaler; which, after being a year from home, touched at a port on the eastern coast of New Zealand, where he deserted, and engaged for a time in the lumber trade; in which, he told me, he would have done well, if he had left liquor alone. From this he proceeded to trade with the natives, and was finally adopted by them; but their mode of life being distasteful to him, he engaged in the coasting-trade, was cast away, and carried into Hobartown, where he at length joined the brig Jane. Both these men possessed talents above mediocrity. They were good seamen, and their qualifications would have rendered them good citizens also, had not a roving, restless spirit of adventure led them to throw away their time rambling over the world.
These ships pursue the blackfish with almost as much eagerness as they do the whale, and their manœuverings for this small game often deceived us. The crews receive a large proportion of the vessels’ earnings; but they get only forty pounds sterling per ton for their oil, no matter what price it brings in the market; so that, although the lays are shorter, the actual remuneration is about equal to ours. The only advantage they possess over us is in the shortness of the voyage: during the whole continuance of it, however, they allow no liberty, and only touch at insignificant ports for vegetables.
On the 22d we sighted sperm whales. Lowering away the waist boat, we went on to the fish—the boatsteerer darted; but the irons struck the head, and did not penetrate. The whales started to the windward, and we saw no more of them—getting nothing but fisherman’s luck for our pains.