Under the mizzen mast: A voyage round the world E-Book

Nehemiah Adams

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The writer, having been ill in the early part of 1869, was advised by physicians and friends to try the effect of foreign travel; but in what direction it was difficult to decide. With every suggestion of experienced friends there would arise some association of fatigue in sight-seeing, of monotony in resting long in one place. Pleasant as it would be to nestle in some quiet nook in Switzerland, or to take up an abode in one of the Channel Islands,—Alderney, for example, where there would be much to gratify curiosity, and where the distance from the centres of information would not be great,—the thought of being confined to one place or even district of country, or of being tempted to visit interesting scenes, and especially to make the acquaintance of interesting men, awakened such anticipations of labor as to forbid any hope of restoration from that source.

Leseprobe

THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

Under the Mizzen Mast;A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.

BY N. ADAMS, D. D.

1873

© 2022 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383835950

Preface to the First Edition.

A narrative of this voyage was prepared for the ‘Congregationalist’ at the request of the editors, and appeared in successive numbers of that paper. On application of the present publisher for leave to issue it in a volume, it has assumed the form in which it now appears, revised and enlarged. The manner in which it originated explains its miscellaneous and somewhat desultory character.

Preface to the Second Edition.

So much interest in this narrative has been expressed that the author has been led to insert in a new edition things which it would have contained in the first, had the design been to give more than a brief sketch of the voyage.

CONTENTS.

I.

Outward Bound,

9–80

II.

Cape Horn,

81–154

III.

California—The Sandwich Islands—Hong Kong,

155–195

IV.

Canton—Shanghai—Singapore—Macao,

196–259

V.

Manilla—Homeward Bound,

260–345

UNDER THE MIZZEN MAST.

I.

OUTWARD BOUND.

He travels, and I too; I tread his deck,

Ascend his topmast; through his peering eyes

Discover countries; with a kindred heart

Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes;

While Fancy, like the finger of a clock,

Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

Cowper.

There are so many running to and fro, and knowledge is thereby so increased, that I doubted, at first, if my friends did well to ask me to write for publication an account of my voyage. But I considered that impressions made on every new observer add something to the already large information of intelligent readers, besides reviving agreeable recollections. The thought that I may suggest to some friend in need of long rest one means of finding it, or encourage him to adopt it, leads me to give, as requested, the following narrative.

The writer, having been ill in the early part of 1869, was advised by physicians and friends to try the effect of foreign travel; but in what direction it was difficult to decide. With every suggestion of experienced friends there would arise some association of fatigue in sight-seeing, of monotony in resting long in one place. Pleasant as it would be to nestle in some quiet nook in Switzerland, or to take up an abode in one of the Channel Islands,—Alderney, for example, where there would be much to gratify curiosity, and where the distance from the centres of information would not be great,—the thought of being confined to one place or even district of country, or of being tempted to visit interesting scenes, and especially to make the acquaintance of interesting men, awakened such anticipations of labor as to forbid any hope of restoration from that source.

A son of the writer was compelled in youth, by ill-health, to leave his studies and go to sea. In the fall of 1869 he received command of a commodious ship, the “Golden Fleece,” which sailed in October of that year for San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Manila. By the kindness of Messrs. William F. Weld & Co., the writer and two members of his family accompanied him as passengers.

Many were the questions to which these passengers required answers previous to their embarkation on so long a voyage. The gale of September, 1869, which levelled our Boston Coliseum, and damaged so many steeples, and made such havoc among poplars and other trees whose roots run near the surface, led to the inquiry, What were the ordinary chances of such gales at sea? This question was answered by producing the log-book of a recent voyage from Mexico, in which it appeared that the weather, day after day, was so free from any cause for fear that the impression was allowed to gain strength that storms were an exception in sea-faring life. As to the gale just mentioned, it seemed safer to be at sea at such a time, with sea-room, than under roofs and chimneys, or in streets.

October 28, 1869, the ship Golden Fleece left Pier No. 12, East River, New York, in charge of a tug, and dropped anchor in the stream until the next morning. Members of our family circle went with us till we came to anchor, when they went over the side into the tug, where one of them took a sketch of us with her pencil, completing a sketch already taken of our cabin and staterooms for friends at home. We finally saw them reach the wharf, when we ceased waving our adieus and repaired to the cabin to put ourselves in sea trim.

The sailors were in good condition. The Shipping Master who brought them on board, had told them that the Golden Fleece was a religious ship; no swearing or fighting is allowed; a minister is among the passengers; the captain is kind and would treat them well. He had collected a good set of men; and when they stood on the lower deck and the shipping master called their names and checked them on the capstan, it seemed to me that I had never seen so many good faces among so many sailors. None came on board intoxicated, but this was not strange seeing it was but the third hour of the day.

We weighed anchor at six o’clock the next morning. The pilot had charge and took us down to Sandy Hook. We heard bells on shore at Staten Island and supposed that they were ringing for church.

We saw the pilot boat coming for the pilot at noon. It took him from us, and we began our voyage. The hills of Neversink alone remained to remind us for a short time of home and country. Twenty or thirty sail started with us, but our good ship took the lead and kept it.

After dinner the two mates gathered the men on the main deck to divide them into watches. They were unknown to the mates by name, but as each chose a man he pointed to him. Being divided, they repaired to their bunks and changed from one side of the forecastle to the other according as they found themselves in either watch. It was touching to see them, each with all his worldly goods in his arms passing each other to their respective berths.

In two days after leaving New York we were in the Gulf Stream. We sailed through leagues of herbage which was borne from the shores by the Stream, and like us was going to sea. The ship rolled; and soon the wind freshened and we were in a gale. We had our first sight of “mountain waves,” so called; but they needed some imagination and a little fear to make them mountainous. They were enough however to make us uncomfortable. The gale lasted two days. We took the impression that such was to be the ordinary experience in the voyage,—discomfort and tediousness. But we were happy to find that it was not so; for, during the whole voyage, there were very few such experiences,—so infrequent, indeed, as to excite surprise when they came. The morning after the gale the weather was fine. Going on deck, we found that we had exchanged the sharp air of the latter part of October in New England for the temperature of the early part of June.

Soon we were in the Tropic of Cancer. It seemed like a new world. Never before had we looked upon such a sky. There was no stratification in the clouds, and nothing of the cumulus formation; but the surface of the sky was composed of innumerable fleecy things moving in the gentlest manner, as though they feared to disturb slumber. The gentle motion was just the thing to induce sleep. As we thought of the turbulent state of the elements the day before, the sky now looked like an army which had been dismissed. It seemed as though there was not wind enough to form a large cloud. The hammock was made fast, one end of it to an iron belaying-pin in the saddle of the mizzen mast, in the shade of the spanker, and the other end to the rail. A hammock meets you at every point with the needed support. It brought strange sensations of rest to lie and listen to the plashing of the water against the sides of the ship. The measured roll of the vessel now was pleasurable. There was an easy swing to the hammock, as though a considerate hand were keeping it moving. How much better this rest and peace than travelling in Switzerland, or being pent up in the Azores, or wandering through Italy, if one needs rest and at the same time change of place! To an overworked brain here is seclusion indeed. There is here no post-office, with its delivery three times a day, so welcome on shore; no newspapers; no door bell; no agents soliciting attention to new works, and begging you to put your name down and accept a copy, as though you had subscribed; no succession of engagements;

“No cares to break the long repose;”

no crowd of passengers, nor daily calculation as to the day of arrival; nor jar of machinery, as in a steamboat, making you feel, day and night, that somebody is laboriously at work; and, to crown all, seemingly no end to your vacation.

But those clouds in the tropics! You had thought, perhaps, heretofore, that only at night the heavens declare the glory of God. Perhaps you find that the book which you brought on deck to read, but which you have no desire to open, may have in it a fly-leaf, on which, as you lie in the hammock, with one knee raised for a writing-table, you may indite these dreamy lines:—

THE CLOUDS IN THE TROPICS.

Did we not think o’er ocean’s restless plain

To see embattled hosts, and feel the affray?

But lo! a truce is here, and gala-day;

Nor lines of march, nor rank and file remain.

The fleecy clouds move o’er the tranquil plain,

And fling their trade-wind signals to the breeze,

To Capricorn from Cancer, realm of peace!

They seek no martial order to regain,

But take some fancied likeness, one by one,

Or shape themselves in wizard groups of things;

No haste, nor deep designs, no jostling crowds.

The hosts are going home, their service done.

What sense of power the wide-spread quiet brings!

In calms or storms “His strength is in the clouds.”

The meteorology in the latter part of the Book of Job stood in no need of modern science to captivate the hearts of the worshippers of the true God. “Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge?”

The charm of sea-life in a sailing-vessel I found to be constant occupation of the mind without wearying it. At first it seemed a duty to read the periodicals which we brought with us, the new books reserved for the voyage, the choice articles in the quarterlies which had been commended to us. But for these we found no time. What charm could there be in Dante when a school of porpoises was in sight, each of them leaping out of water just for the pleasure of the dive back? If the mate called down the companion-way, “A sail on the lee-bow!” the paper-folder must keep the place in the uncut volume till you know all about her. It would be tedious waiting at a corner of a street ten minutes for a horse-car; but it was pleasant to wait an hour and forty minutes to come up with the stranger ahead, gaining upon her all the time, meanwhile watching the flying-fish which the ship started on the wing, or going forward into the bows and looking over to see the ship dash through the waves, with “a bone in her mouth,” till suddenly the main topgallant-sail splits, and so fulfills the expectation expressed for the last five days that it could not long survive; and now, as it is the change of watch, and all hands are on deck, what could be more interesting than to see twenty-eight of them take in the old sail and bend the new one, then line the side of the ship with their curious faces to inspect the bark which we have now overtaken. She is the “Doon of Ayr,” one hundred and six days from Japan for New York, and as she was tacking we came so near that one might throw a biscuit on board. The captains of the bark and the ship had time for a few words of inquiry and information; then the two wanderers on the deep parted company, and watched each other for half an hour, and sighted each other, no doubt, occasionally, for an hour and a half, till each became to the other a speck. You have long ago forgotten your book, your journal, and magazine. This event, and its many interludes, are more interesting to you than a battle in Lord Derby’s Homer; it is practical life; you begin to feel that everything which you enjoy will be without the intrusion of periodical engagements, and you feel surprised that no such engagements now demand your thoughts.

Among the incidents at sea which give a charm to life, one is, Speaking a vessel. This is a metaphorical expression, retained from the former days before signals were used in conversation, and when vessels had to come near enough to each other for the speaking to act its part. We had been out five or six days, when a sail was descried on the starboard bow. It proved to be a bark; and we were as glad to see her as though we had met an old friend in a foreign land. The bark soon hoisted her ensign, which was the same as raising your hat in passing. We hoisted ours, which was a signal of recognition. The bark ran up four flags, which we recognized by the spyglass as 6 9 5 7, showing her number in the book to be 6957. Turning to it, we read “Sachem.” We ran up 4 5 9 1, our number in the book. The bark displayed 5 6 2 8, which we found to be “Salem.” We showed 4 7 8 2,—“New York.” The bark gave 6 8 7 4,—“Zanzibar.” We returned 2 1 8 0,—“California.” The bark showed 6,—“six days out.” We did the same. The bark showed numeral pendant,—this meaning “longitude,” and with it 54 38. We replied with 54 30,—our calculation. The bark then dipped her ensign, hauling it down half way, then raising it again. This was done three times. We did the same, which was equivalent to “good-bye” on either side, and lifting the hat; we added 6 3 8 9, meaning, “Wish you a pleasant voyage.” The answer was, 5 7 8 3, “Many thanks.”

These courtesies at sea are pleasant. Coming up with the vessel, or she and you drawing near in passing, reading the numbers by the spyglass, and arranging all the signals, is an agreeable occupation for the larger part of two hours, including the departure of the vessels from each other, as though friends were parting, leaving the ocean more a solitude than before.

Meeting vessels, or passing them at a distance, exchanging signals, making out their numbers, bring remote parts of the earth suddenly to mind. Thus new trains of thought succeed each other entirely disconnected. I always enjoyed exercise on horseback for one principal reason,—that on horseback you cannot long pursue one train of thought. Your conjunctions are disjunctive. If you purpose to make out your evening lecture on horseback, your attention is so frequently taken by something in the road, or by the action of the horse, that you probably come home without any connected plan. So at sea. The occasional sight of a sail is an illustration of the charm of sea-life as having complete possession of your thoughts without leaving you long at liberty to pore over a subject. If you meet a Norwegian bark, and the captain tells you he is twenty-four days from Buenos Ayres, there is Norway and Buenos Ayres for your meditation, and perhaps for your statistical or geographical inquiry. If the “Queen of the Pacific,” eighty-seven days from Macao for London, comes in sight, there is another chapter in the world’s great miscellany. That sail yonder proves to be the “Hungarian,” from Saguenay, twenty-one days out, bound to Melbourne, with lumber. You have another illustration of commerce binding together the ends of the earth. You soon excuse those friends of yours at home who commiserated you on the prospect of a long, monotonous sea-voyage. Where is the monotony? Not in the ship’s clock, which enumerates every hour and half-hour by a system of horology altogether different from shore time-pieces; not in the boatswain’s “Pumpship” at evening, when twelve or fifteen men entertain you with a song. Every tune at the pumps must have a chorus. The sentiment in the song is the least important feature of it; the celebration of some portion of the earth or seas, other than here and now: “I wish I was in Mobile Bay,” “I’m bound for the Rio Grande,” with the astounding chorus from twenty-eight men, part of whom the fine moonlight and the song tempt from their bunks, is an antidote to monotony.

The sailors were a merry set. Though only half of the crew—that is, one watch—were required each night at the pumps, all hands at first generally turned out because it was the time for a song. It was a nightly pleasure to be on the poop deck when the pumps were manned, and to hear twenty men sing. When making sail after a gale, the crew are ready for the loudest singing, unless it be at the pumps. For example, when hauling on the topsail halyards, they may have this song, the shanty man, as they call him, solo singer, beginning with a wailing strain:

Solo: O poor Reuben Ranzo! (twice)

Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!

Solo: Ranzo was no sailor! (twice)

Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!

Solo: He shipped on board a whaler! (twice)

Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!

Solo: The captain was a bad man! (twice)

Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!

Solo: He put him in the rigging! (twice)

Chorus: Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!

Solo: He gave him six-and-thirty— (twice)

by which time the topsail is mast-headed, and the mate cries, “Belay!”

When the mainsail is to be set, and they are hauling down the main tack, this, perhaps, is the song:—

Solo: “’Way! haul away! haul away! my ro-sey;

Chorus: ’Way! haul away! haul away! Joe!”

the long pull, the strong pull, the pull altogether being given at the word “Joe;” then no more pulling till the same word recurs.

When hauling on the main sheet, this is often the song, sung responsively:

Shanty man: “Haul the bowline; Kitty is my darling.

Crew: Haul the bowline, the bowline haul!”

That no one may think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me, let me say that I find, on inquiry, that the “main tack” is the line which hauls down that corner of the main sail which is toward the wind; called, therefore, the “weather clew.” The “main sheet” hauls the other corner of the main sail; called, therefore, “the lee clew.” Why a rope should be called a sheet is a piece of nautical metonymy which it would be difficult to explain. “Larboard” and “starboard” were formerly used to designate respectively the left and the right side of the ship, standing aft and looking forward; but the two words, so much alike, were not always readily apprehended, and so were changed to “port and starboard.” Why the word “port” is used, does not appear; nor can any one tell why “Reuben Ranzo” is associated with one of the long pulls; if there be any philosophy in it, or historic association, it is as deep as the sea, or hopelessly lost.

After singing at the pumps in good weather when there was not much work, the men would have some amusement. Sometimes it was “Hunt the Slipper.” Then, again, two men sat down opposite each other, their hands and feet tied, and a capstan bar was run through each of the two men’s arms, behind him. The two would push each other with their feet till one would lose his balance, and fall over; then, being helpless, he was at the mercy of his comrade’s feet till he begged for quarter. These games were interspersed with declamations. We had some of Macauley’s “Lays of Ancient Rome,” “Spartacus,” “My name is Norval.” The merry laugh and the clapping of hands at the declaimers, and, now and then, the youthful voice of a boy reciting his piece from Henry Clay, or a story from the “Reader,” beguiled many an evening in the tropics.

On crossing the line, one evening when we were on the poop deck, we were startled by a voice on the lower deck, “What ship’s that?” The captain replied. The voice answered, “I shall call upon you to-morrow; I have an engagement this evening.” At 3, P. M., the next day, being Saturday, we were summoned on deck by one of the sailors, who announced that Neptune was coming on board. All at once we saw a grotesque figure swinging in the air over the water, half-way up to the main yard, two of the sailors pulling him in. He came on board, wet from his waist; and there came also over the sides a female figure and a young man. They came to the front cabin door, and saluted the captain, who stood ready to receive them. Neptune had on spectacles made of a tin can, epaulets of the same, buskins made of duck, long hair of rope-yarns, a duck tunic, and a girdle of twisted ropes. Mrs. Neptune had on a long duck mantle, her face blackened with burnt cork, and a large fan made of wood, and covered with sail-cloth; she used it gracefully. The son bore his father’s trident, which was a four pronged iron, called “the grains,” used for spearing sharks. He, also, was fantastically dressed. They made obeisance to the captain, who welcomed them on board in a short speech. They then repaired to a booth fitted up as a sort of marquee, flung up the sides, and called a young man from the crew. They asked him if he ever crossed the line before; then set him in a barrel, with his feet out, inquired his name, where from and whither bound, and as he opened his mouth to answer, they inserted the paint brush filled with soap and lime, with which the son was lathering him, who then produced an old saw fixed in a piece of wood for a sheath and handle and shaved him. Neptune then ordered him to be washed; when four men took him and dipped him into a barrel of water. This they did to three young men. They then came up to our deck and saluted us. The captain informed them that we were all liege subjects of Neptune and needed not to be sworn. They then wished us a pleasant voyage,—Mrs. N. taking her husband’s arm, fanning herself gracefully,—and they withdrew. While it was a successful masquerade, well sustained in all the parts,—the boys consenting to be hazed conscious that they were contributing something to the dramatic poetry of sea-life,—it was easy to see that it was capable of abuse. The officers saw that they should be careful how they allowed this liberty. To an invalid at sea these things are medicine; and, as I am writing in the interest of some who may betake themselves for the first time to sea in a sailing-ship for health, I would say that they must wait till they are in circumstances to find how “dulce est desipere in loco,” how pleasant it is at sea to be even gamesome upon occasions.

One day as I lay in the hammock I found myself in a revery; my eye being fixed on a bright, new rope which appeared among the running rigging. I mention it as an illustration of the frames of mind which steal upon an invalid passenger, especially in a sailing-ship, because undisturbed there by a crowd, or by the noise of steam and its machinery. Would any one think that a single halyard among five or six others could bring to mind Burke’s treatise on the “Sublime and Beautiful”? But it was even so. I found my eye going up the new rope in admiration at the perfect regularity in the twist of the strands. An artist cannot always combine the hempen yarns with the exactness which the ropemaker’s wheel gives them. My eye went from the new rope to the old ones; all had the same perfect twist throughout the ship. The ropes, from belaying-pin to truck, the signal halyard and the hawser, seemed instinct with “the beauty of fitness,” to borrow a term from the above-mentioned writer,—a common window-sash, with its parallelograms of panes, serving that great genius for an illustration.

“Thus pleasure is spread through the earth

In stray gifts, to be claimed by whoever shall find.

Thus a rich loving-kindness, redundantly kind,

Moves all nature to gladness and mirth.”