“The sea, the sea, the horrid sea.”
This individual, from a circumstance which I have before alluded to, had received the appellation of Kedge Anchor, or Cage Anchor, or it was sometimes abbreviated to Cage; and as he will figure repeatedly as I proceed, I may as well at the outset give him the cognomen by which he was known during his stay aboard with us. His sickness, and ludicrous exclamations of “I wish I was on the steam-wagon again” (he had formerly been brakeman on the New York and Erie Railroad), and pathetic entreaties to be allowed to die in peace, when desired to do anything, excited the mirth of all, no sympathy being tendered to him except in one instance, when one of the seamen offered him a pint of salt water, assuring him it was a cordial; a mouthful was sufficient to undeceive him, he spat out the nauseating draught, and the queer expression he wore on his phiz, and no less queer entreaty to take the darned thing away, were so humorous as to shock his auditors into merriment, and secured him against farther molestation.
The reason that so many green hands are shipped in vessels engaged in this trade, is, that they are to be engaged for a trifling proportion of the vessel’s earnings, and the great difficulty of procuring those who have before been to sea, to go before the mast a second time; no man whomsoever, if he can make any pretensions to mediocrity, being obliged a second time to go before the mast; he is always qualified for the post of boat-steerer, and can attain it without any trouble; and those who are not disgusted with their first voyage and have a particle of energy or ambition in their composition, invariably do so; and from boatsteerer gradually ascend to be captains. Whaling is, in fact, a progressive service, and although the probation comprises the best part of a man’s life, yet the pinnacle of their fame is an honorable one; and as the boys who are educated in New Bedford are brought up with the idea that to be a whaling skipper is the ne plus ultra of all stations in life, so they consider it as the acme of all their ambitious hopes.
At dusk the captain called the ship’s company aft, and addressed them to the effect, that we were all together bound on a long voyage, in all probability to last for years, and he considered it as necessary that we should at the outset fully understand each other. He then went on to say that all hands should receive a sufficient supply of such provision as was in the ship, so long as it was not wasted. He stated that none of the crew forward should be misused or imposed upon by the officers. He then told us, that if there were any rascals in the crew he should detect them; and concluded by stating that as long as we used him well, he should return the compliment, and vice versa. This was plane sailing, and all understood him. Immediately afterward the watches, chosen from the boatsteerers and crew by the chief mate and second mate, were set; the chief mate had the first choice; the second mate, who heads the captain’s watch, succeeded him: at the same time the boats’ crews were chosen by the officers, as before, the chief mate having the first choice, and so in succession according to rank, until the fourth mate had chosen. In many ships that carry four boats the captain heads his own; but most, like us, have a fourth mate, who supplies his place. But to return to setting the watches, which took place at seven o’clock, P.M.; the starboard, or captain’s watch, headed by the second, assisted by the fourth mate, comprising half the foremast hands and two boatsteerers, had the first turn in. On being ushered into the steerage or forecastle, those who had been in the habit of having soft beds and comfortable bedding provided for them by the hands of affectionate mothers, although somewhat prepared for a difference, were surprised at their sleeping accommodations—rude boxes, or rather berths, built to the sides of the ship, about five feet long, and two and a half in width, furnished with a pair of blankets, a quilt, and a bed, which, according to the amount of attention paid to the outfit of the occupant, varied from a hair mattress in one case, to the common corn husk or straw tick. However, this was no time to soliloquize over past comforts, so all bundled in without ceremony; and in a short time, from the unusual exercise of the day, to judge from the nasal organism floating through the air, profound slumber reigned throughout the between-decks of the ship. And now, that one half the ship’s company are enclosed in the embraces of Morpheus, we will glance round and take a peep at our vessel and crew. The vessel, as I before mentioned, is an old fashioned barque, built to ply as a packet between New York and Liverpool, which duty she performed with faithfulness and satisfaction to her owners; and in her palmiest days bore the reputation of being the fastest ship out of New York; but the improvements in ship-building necessitated her owners to dispose of an old and faithful servant, and replace her with a modern modelled craft—safer could not be. She was bought by a New Bedford merchant, who, after altering her for the purpose, put her into the whaling trade, where for years she maintained her reputation as a swift sailer, until clippers were introduced to compete with her, when, of course, she was obliged to succumb. From this port she made many successful voyages, enriching her owners and increasing her good name, until 1855, at which time she was fifty-three years old, and with the exception of being new topped and coppered, the latter at the completion of each voyage, she had undergone no repairs. Her great age attests to her staunchness and seaworthiness, and by all who had sailed in her the greatest confidence was ever expressed.
On board of her was every article for the maintenance of men whose principal resources for forty months lay in her cargo. There was, in the iron implement line, everything that is used at sea, from a needle to an anchor; clothing of all kinds and sizes; provisions, muskets, ammunition; tawdry articles to trade with the semi-civilized natives of the East India and Madagascar Isles; tin ware, soap, shoes, tobacco, and saddles for the inhabitants of Australia; also sails, rigging, spare boats, and all other necessaries to equip and enable her to sustain herself for three years. Whalers, unless some serious accident befalls, do not usually enter ports where their necessities can be supplied at other than exorbitant prices, except the last one, where they always calculate to dispose of surplus provisions, boats, and rigging: being in a hurry to get home, they make some port of note so as to be detained as short a time as possible in getting rid of them. The reason for touching at obscure places, is the great danger of losing men by desertion, which always occurs in commercial ports.
Besides all these she carried outboard four boats pendant from davits, resting on cranes; one on the starboard quarter, which gives it its name; one on the port quarter, called the larboard boat, is the chief mate’s; directly forward of it, on the larboard side, are the waist and bow boats—the former headed by the second, the latter by the third mate; the starboard boat is headed by the Captain or fourth mate, as the case may be. Each boat has a crew of four men, beside the boatsteerer and officer, and carries two tubs of line, harpoons, lances, boat spade, hatchet, knives, keg with water, keg containing lantern, matches, candles, tobacco, pipes, bread, and a drug. Having now pretty closely analyzed our vessel and her cargo, we will glance over the inmates. The Captain, a large, powerful man, with a face apparently expressive of frankness and good nature. The chief mate, J. B. H., a young man of twenty-six, rather below the medium height, with an eye like a hawk, quick to think and quick to act—a first-rate officer. D. E., the second mate, a corpulent man, below the average height, with an excellent mind and noble heart. The third mate, J. D., formerly boatsteerer in this ship on her preceding voyage, and the fourth mate, C. A., both powerful, hearty fellows, energetic and pushing, putting their shoulders to the wheel on all occasions where strong hands and brave hearts are wanted; these, with the steward, inhabited the cabin or after part of the between decks of the ship. All were Massachusetts men; none of them had ever learned trades, or been employed in business ashore, but had pursued their perilous profession from boyhood up, in every ocean and in every clime, from the frozen north to the frozen south, and, hitherto, had always been successful.
The boatsteerers were four in number, two of whom had before steered boats and made voyages in that position; the remaining two had each sailed one voyage before the mast—one of them in this same good old barque, to the frozen realms of the Ice king, in the Arctic Ocean, whence the vessel returned, in the course of thirty months, with four thousand five hundred barrels of oil; these four, with the cooper, occupied the steerage, an apartment directly forward of the cabin.
The foremast hands, eighteen in number, of whom but four had ever been to sea before, were a youthful, reckless, merry set, from all over the Union. We had but two foreigners, Germans, in the ship—the cook, and one of the crew. Many of the youngsters were New Bedford boys, performing this voyage as apprentices. With the exception of the Captain and old Jack Miller, as hardy an old tar as ever stepped a ratline, and who could spin a yarn to order that would put Baron Munchausen to the blush, there was not a married man, or one who was over twenty-six years of age aboard the ship. To attempt, with the exception of the Massachusetts men, to assign a reason for any of our shipmates’ choosing whaling as a profession, would be mere conjecture. Any one could see at a glance they were neither poverty-stricken nor indolent; but on examining their features, a roving unsettled expression might be detected by a close observer, on the lineaments of each—a certain love of change, so all-absorbing with most young men; nor were they on the whole ignorant, as I found by conversation—all being thoroughly conversant with the leading topics of the day, and each, like every true American, had his individual opinion of the merits of newspaper notorieties, politics, and other matters that engross the American mind; but we left them fast asleep, and as I, in the interim, have spun a long yarn, it is time to conclude, as the helmsman sings out “Eight bells.” A hoarse call is now heard at the forecastle of “Starbowlines, ahoy!” and as the breeze has freshened and the vessel is gently pitching, we will step into the forecastle and criticise the appearance of our green hands. Part of them are out of their bunks indulging in the most lachrymose expressions, scarce able to dress, for fear the vessel’s motion will destroy their equilibrium—and “I wish I was at home,” is the general cry; some cannot muster resolution enough to get out of their berths, others have thus far succeeded, but only to resume a recumbent position on their chests, whilst a few with set teeth and praiseworthy resolution, manage to get upon deck, and grasp the rigging on the fife rail enclosing the foremast; there they stand, incapable of altering their position, hanging on with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, staring in stupid vacancy at all around them, and when receiving an officer’s order, acknowledging it by a sickly, unmeaning grin, to express their willingness, but inability to perform. Officers are required to exercise the utmost patience and forbearance in the management of such a crew; instead of an active, able ship’s company, such as they have been accustomed to sail with, here they have an assortment of men, ignorant of a single rope in the ship, who are just as much acquainted with the rigging as with Greek and Hebrew, knowing as much about the cook’s leg as the cook’s nose, and more about the boy than the buoy, and as like as not when ordered to heave the buoy overboard to heave the boy. I have seen many laughable mistakes occur amongst our boys when first out; do not think I take a sailor’s privilege and draw a long bow, as I am at the same time included with these worthies—I being, at the time of leaving home, as verdant as any of the rest. I have seen them when ordered to haul down the flying jib, grasp the spanker halyards, and spend any quantity of pulling and hauling upon it, wondering at the same time why the darned thing did not come down; their only mistake in this case was hoisting the aftermost sail in the ship instead of lowering the foremost. With our officers, as a general thing, these errors passed off good humoredly; but, as I said before, they were required to use all their forbearance to repress their anger at our lubberly mistakes; nor would it have been surprising, all things taken into consideration, had they let out at us occasionally, and I doubt much if Job, who, by the Book of books, is spoken of as the most patient man of antiquity, were he afloat with a green crew, who misunderstood all he said to them, and who in the multiplicity of their ideas would attempt to haul up the mainsail with the spanker vang, or clew down a topsail with the slab line—I say, I doubt whether even he, the said Job, would not find his stock of patience, noted as he was for that virtue, oozing out at his fingers ends, and be tempted to anathematize their lubberly eyes in a heartfelt and seamanlike manner. In a short time, however, things began to wear a totally different aspect; improvement was the order of the day—each tried to excel the other. This spirit of emulation was productive of the most beneficial results to everybody, and in a short time we had an efficient crew, perfectly competent to battle with the combined forces of Boreas and Neptune.
When three days out, we spoke the ship Monmouth, of Bath; she was a fine-looking ship, running free, with the wind on her quarter, and everything alow and aloft drawing, presenting a beautiful sight.
On the fourth day out, whilst crossing the Gulf Stream, we were struck by a squall, prevalent in that latitude. All hands were called, and as this was our first trip aloft, we ascended the rigging with fear and trembling—holding on to the shrouds as if it was our intention to squeeze all the tar out of the rigging. When on the yards we were of little use, carrying out the landlubbers’ motto to the letter, of both hands for yourself and the rest for the owners. We all hung on like good fellows, and if it had depended upon us to reef the sail it would not have been done till now.