Fifteen minutes after a boat came alongside, which is technically known as the shark’s boat. In it were the proprietors and agents of all the outfitting firms of the city, black and white, Portuguese, Germans, Irish, French, &c., each intent on getting a customer from amongst our vessel’s crew. They jumped aboard, and endeavored by passing the bottle around (with which they always go provided, knowing that the sailor is much more easily gulled when half seas over), to get as many to go with them to their places of business as possible; at the same time they readily give their aid in packing and lashing their customer’s chests, assiduously waiting upon him, and not allowing him to get out of their sight for a moment—fearful of losing him. After some little chaffering our chests and selves were all aboard the boat and were rapidly approaching the city. A large concourse of spectators had assembled on the wharves, comprising the runners of all the most miserable and nefarious houses of the town. The captain of the boat, anxious to disappoint them, ran to another wharf, to which these harpies speedily conveyed themselves. As soon as we had landed, each man went with his outfitter, or rather infitter, in order to be thoroughly renovated in appearance and pocket. Although we landed on Sunday, we had no difficulty in obtaining clothing, these outfitters being provided for all such contingencies. After enjoying a thorough wash, and getting into an entire suit of long togs, or landsmen’s wearing garments, but little was left of the semblance of sailors to us, except the rolling gait and embrowned countenances. Our next trip was to the barber’s, where all superfluous hair was removed from heads and faces, and a thorough scrubbing operation gone through with; which, on viewing ourselves in the glass, gave us a pretty good opinion of our personal qualifications, and we started for a walk. The first things, of course, that attracted our attention, were the hoops in female dresses; we had heard marvellous stories of the rotundity of a fashionably dressed lady, but had never seen one. One of my informants having told me six months before, whilst we were cruising off the Island of Madagascar, that it was not unusual for a lady to wear hoops thirty feet in circumference. In the occupation of mind attendant upon getting ashore, I had totally forgotten the existence of hoops, but was astonished at the corpulence of every woman I met, and I thought, no, I won’t tell you what I thought; but you must imagine yourself in the same position, and then what would you think? As yet I had not passed close to a lady with hoops, but in turning the corner of a street I came in contact with one, and in my endeavors to escape from my embarrassing position, I made no allowance for the rolling motion acquired aboard ship, and only made matters worse. In a few minutes, however, I managed to get clear, though not without getting into the lady’s arms, or she in mine, I do not now remember which; during said contact I was convinced that the large size of the ladies was a work of art and not of nature. This called my wandering memory back to the descriptions of hoops that I had heard, and henceforth the solution of the mystery was easy.
Having made such a poor attempt on my first promenade, I returned to the house, situated on Union Street (I preferred a private house to a hotel), where also were several other of my shipmates; and in talking of old times we whiled away the hours, nor thought them irksome. When evening came and we sat down to supper at the well-spread board, enlivened by the genial and handsome face of our worthy landlady, we began to realize what comforts and pleasures we had been deprived of by our three years’ jaunt; instead of sitting down on a rude chest, with tin pan and pot before one, and a sheath-knife to carve out the salt junk that formed the greater part of our repast, here were the various viands arranged in a clean and neat manner, inviting the hungry and the gourmand to partake of them. After supper we smoked our cigars, and, tired with the exercise of the day, retired early, and enjoyed a night of refreshing slumber, uninterrupted by the hoarse cry of “Starbowlines, ahoy!” “Eight Bells!” or the still less welcome one of “All hands turn out and take in sail.” Then, again, each was comfortably ensconced between clean sheets, on feather beds, totally distinctive in all their relations from our own straw mattresses, packed down by three years use, and well-worn, dusky-looking blankets. All was comfort, and we appreciated it as only men can who for years have been deprived of the many little et ceteras that make life bearable.
The succeeding morning I proceeded to the telegraph office and telegraphed home, receiving an answer that satisfied my fullest longings. All my immediate family were alive and well; but such was not the case with some of my less fortunate shipmates—several had lost fathers, one a mother, others a sister or brother; in fact, there were few but had to weep for a near and dear one gone, whom in the fullness of their wishes they had hoped would have been the first to welcome them home.
My shipmates, I said before, looked different from what they did aboard ship; but some of them were exceptions to this rule. Several had nothing coming to them, and could get neither clothing nor money; pretty hard, was it not, after over three years hard work at sea for one employer, to land without the wherewithal to purchase a meal’s victuals.
There is a dark side to the whaling service, and I shall endeavor to place it before the community in its true character, and I hope that it may discourage those young men from embarking in it who think that money can be saved on a whaling voyage, because there is so little opportunity to spend it.
In the first place, when a green hand engages to perform a voyage, he knows nothing at all about what clothing he requires. The shark, perhaps, tells him that the ship, being bound to the Indian Ocean, there is no necessity for him providing woolen clothing, and palms off upon him an assortment of blue dungaree raiment, precisely like the summer suits of the population our city supports at the Blockley almshouse. One of these suits will last him about a week; but as he gets into high southern latitudes he finds that he requires woolen clothing, and goes to the slop-chest, imagining that he can get what he wants at a reasonable price. If he inquires how much such an article is valued at, the captain will tell him that he does not know; but, nevertheless, he must have the clothes, and therefore takes them, and thus his account goes on increasing during the voyage. Just before the ship returns home, his bill is handed to him by the captain, and what is his dismay to discover that he is indebted to the owners of the slop-chest, one hundred dollars, or more, independent of the outfitter’s bill. He finds a woolen shirt is charged to him at the extortionate price of three dollars and a half; pumps, worth fifty cents a pair, at a dollar and a half; the commonest kind of rawhide boots, five dollars a pair; a frieze jacket, seven dollars; thread, six cents a skein; and suspenders, such as could be bought anywhere else for five cents a pair, aboard ship are sold for half a dollar. These prices are not exaggerated, I copy them from my ship’s bill.
Beside these extortions an additional twenty-five per cent. is charged on all money advanced in foreign ports by the captain to the crew; six per cent. interest per annum is our legal rate, and I for one should not grumble at paying for cash advanced at that rate; but some of our money we only received seven months previous to our arrival home, and I cannot but think that a charge of twenty-five per cent. for the use of money a trifle over six months, is exorbitant and dishonest. Still there are Shylocks in the world who would absorb the last dollar of earnings from the sailor, after years of exposure to wind and weather have rightfully earned for him his scanty wages.
I have not yet finished with the specifications of these overcharges. The ship is not at home yet, and we only know what the bill aboard ship amounts to; the recipient of it, although he is astounded at its amount, adds it and the amount of his outfitter’s bill together, and consoles himself with the thought that he has forty or fifty dollars still due him; and thus persuaded, on the arrival of the ship he goes ashore, confident of being able to pay his board for a week or two, and have enough remaining to secure him a passage home, he goes up to the owners and asks for a small sum of money for present wants. They refuse him, saying that nothing is coming to him. He demands a settlement. On obtaining it, in the first place he finds that twenty-five per cent. interest has been charged on his outfitting bill, next he finds a charge varying from ten to fifteen dollars for loading and discharging the ship. In many cases, three per cent. for insurance is packed on, and with these additional items the poor fellow is brought in debt and knows not what to do. Then the agent claps him on the shoulder and tells him to cheer up, as another ship will be ready to sail in a few days, and, if he will sign his name upon her articles, money and clothing will be advanced to him. Destitute and hopeless, down goes his name, and a few weeks afterward he is at sea again, bound on another three or four years’ voyage.
The average number of barrels of oil taken by sperm whalers, during a four years’ voyage, is twelve hundred; if the ship carries four boats, a green hand’s lay is the two hundredth part; this will give him six barrels of oil, worth about forty-five dollars a barrel, amounting to two hundred and seventy dollars. The ship’s and outfitter’s bills will amount to at least two hundred and twenty dollars, leaving a residue of fifty dollars or about a dollar a month over and above personal expenses.
Even if the ship should get full of oil and return home in two years, which, by the way, would be a miracle now-a-days, one of her crew cannot, at the most, make more than half as much as the day-laborer ashore.