Taking Tales: Instructive and Entertaining Reading

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I was thinking how sad it was for them when I heard a cry, and saw on a sudden the big ship lift up her bows out of the water. The people rushed forward; many were caught by the sea and swept away. It mattered little even for those who gained the forecastle,—down, down went the ship; and then I rubbed my eyes. The tops of her masts were seen above the waves; they too sunk, and for some minutes there was not a sign of her left. In those few short moments all the men and women and children who were on board had lost their lives, and were called to stand before God.

Here and there a spar, or a plank, or a hencoop, or grating floated up, but not one person could we see.

On we flew. We could have given no help; none was wanted.

“Many a tall ship has gone down in the same way when no one has been near to see it, many another will thus go down,” said Mr Alder, who was standing near me. “It should teach us sailors to be ready to go up to God at a moment’s call; ay, and landsmen too, for who knows who may next be called.”

I often after that thought of Mr Alder’s words.

The storm lasted six days. After that we got light winds, and soon crossed what sailors call the line. Not that there is any line or mark on the earth or sea; but as the world is round, and turns round and round the sun, as an orange with a stick through it might be made to turn round a candle, it is that part which is nearest the sun. The sun at noon, in that part, all round the world, is overhead, and so it is just the hottest part of the world. It was hot, indeed. The pitch bubbled out of the seams in the decks, one calm day, and we could have fried a beefsteak, if we had had one, on any iron plates on the deck. I was glad when, after running for a thousand miles or so, we got cooler weather, though the sun was still hot enough at noon. Our ship was very well found, the men said, and we had no lack of food—salt beef, and peas, and rice, and flour, and sometimes suet and raisins for puddings. They said we were much better off than many ship’s companies; we had enough of good food, and our officers were just, and did not overwork us.

I heard tales of what happens on board some ships, where the food is bad and scanty; the men are worked well-nigh to death, often struck by the master and the mates, and treated like dogs. I was thankful that I hadn’t gone to sea in one of those ships.

At last I found we were going round Cape Horn, which is the south point of America. We had a fair wind, and not much of it; but a gale had been blowing somewhere, for there was a swell, such as I had never thought to see. The water was just like smooth up-and-down chalk downs, only as regular as furrows in a field. The big ship just seemed nothing among them, as she now sunk down in the hollow, and then rose to the top of the smooth hill of water. To our right was seen Cape Horn itself; it is a high head of land, sticking out into the sea, all by itself. Very few people have ever been on shore there, and no one lives there, as there is no ground to grow anything, and the climate is cold and bleak. You know that the two ends of the earth, or poles, as they are called, the north and south, are very cold; ice and snow all the year round, and Cape Horn is near the south end.

After we passed it, for some time we steered north, and soon got into warm weather again. You see the hot part of the world is midway between the north and south pole, so sailing north from the south pole we find it hotter and hotter, and so we do sailing south from the north pole. We find our way over the sea, far away from land night or day, just as well as on shore. Besides the sun and stars to guide us, we have the compass. It is a wonderful thing, though it is so simple-looking; just a round card, resting on a spike in a brass basin. In the card is a long steel needle, and the point of it is rubbed with a stuff called loadstone, and it takes the card round and round, and always points to the north. The north, and all the other points, are marked on the card; so when we look at it we see what way the ship’s head is. The ship is guided by a rudder, and a compass is placed just before the man who steers, that is, turns the rudder—this way or that—so that he can look at it, and know which way to turn the rudder, and so to keep the ship on her course.

Then the shape of all parts of the world is mapped down on paper, and the distances, that is to say, an inch on the paper, maybe, stands for fifty miles, and so the captain knows where he is going, and how far he has to go, though he has never been there before. We have a log line, with marks on it, and by letting that run out astern we judge how fast the ship is going; then the compass tells us the course she is steering, that is, the way she is going, and that we call “dead reckoning.” But the captain has besides wonderful instruments of brass and glasses, and he looks through them at the sun, or stars, and moon, and then he makes sums on paper; and then he has some curious watches, which never go wrong, and with them and his sums he can tell just where the ship is, though we haven’t seen land for six or eight weeks, or more. It is curious to sail on day after day, and week after week, and not to see land, and yet to know that it is all right, and that we shall reach the very port we are bound for, unless we fall in with a storm, and lose our masts, and get cast away, or spring a leak and founder; but then when we come to think of the thousands of ships at sea, and that not one in a hundred gets lost, we needn’t count on that. So you understand, what with the “dead reckoning,” and the curious instruments I told you of—one of them is called a sextant—the captain can take his ship right across the pathless ocean, just as easily as a coachman does his coach along a high-road. You see sailors on shore, and they seem often harum-scarum, idle fellows, but at sea everything is done with the greatest order, and every man and boy has his proper duty, just as the servants in a large country-house. The crew are divided into watches, called the starboard and larboard, or port, watches; the chief mate commands one, the second mate the other. While one watch is on duty the other goes below to sleep, or take their meals, except when all hands are wanted on deck. Every hour a bell is struck to show how time goes. Every four hours the watch is changed, except in the evening, from four to eight o’clock, when there are two watches, called dog-watches, that is to say, from four to six, one; and from six to eight, another. The reason of this is that the people who are on watch at one time one night, may not be on watch the same time the next night, which they would be if there were six instead of seven watches, which you will find there are in the twenty-four hours. I used to be very glad when my first watch was over, and I was able to turn in from twelve to four, when I had to be up again to keep the morning watch. That was no idle time, for as soon as it was daylight we had to scrub and wash down decks, and to put everything in order for the day, just as housemaids put the house in order.