We turned-in early, knowing that we might expect an early call; and sure enough, before the stars had quite faded, “All hands ahoy!” and we were turned-to, heaving out ballast. A regulation of the port forbids any ballast to be thrown overboard; accordingly, our long-boat was lined inside with rough boards and brought alongside the gangway, but where one tubful went into the boat twenty went overboard. This is done by every vessel, as it saves more than a week of labor, which would be spent in loading the boats, rowing them to the point, and unloading them. When any people from the presidio were on board, the boat was hauled up and the ballast thrown in; but when the coast was clear, she was dropped astern again, and the ballast fell overboard. This is one of those petty frauds which many vessels practise in ports of inferior foreign nations, and which are lost sight of among the deeds of greater weight which are hardly less common. Fortunately, a sailor, not being a free agent in work aboard ship, is not accountable; yet the fact of being constantly employed, without thought, in such things, begets an indifference to the rights of others.
Friday, and a part of Saturday, we were engaged in this work, until we had thrown out all but what we wanted under our cargo on the passage home; when, as the next day was Sunday, and a good day for smoking ship, we cleared everything out of the cabin and forecastle, made a slow fire of charcoal, birch bark, brimstone, and other matters, on the ballast in the bottom of the hold, calked up the hatches and every open seam, and pasted over the cracks of the windows, and the slides of the scuttles and companion-way. Wherever smoke was seen coming out, we calked and pasted and, so far as we could, made the ship smoke tight. The captain and officers slept under the awning which was spread over the quarter-deck; and we stowed ourselves away under an old studding-sail, which we drew over one side of the forecastle. The next day, from fear that something might happen in the way of fire, orders were given for no one to leave the ship, and, as the decks were lumbered up, we could not wash them down, so we had nothing to do all day long. Unfortunately, our books were where we could not get at them, and we were turning about for something to do, when one man recollected a book he had left in the galley. He went after it, and it proved to be Woodstock. This was a great windfall, and as all could not read it at once, I, being the scholar of the company, was appointed reader. I got a knot of six or eight about me, and no one could have had a more attentive audience. Some laughed at the “scholars,” and went over the other side of the forecastle to work and spin their yarns; but I carried the day, and had the cream of the crew for my hearers. Many of the reflections, and the political parts, I omitted, but all the narrative they were delighted with; especially the descriptions of the Puritans, and the sermons and harangues of the Round-head soldiers. The gallantry of Charles, Dr. Radcliffe’s plots, the knavery of “trusty Tompkins,”— in fact, every part seemed to chain their attention. Many things which, while I was reading, I had a misgiving about, thinking them above their tastes, I was surprised to find them enter into completely.
I read nearly all day, until sundown; when, as soon as supper was over, as I had nearly finished, they got a light from the galley; and, by skipping what was less interesting, I carried them through to the marriage of Everard, and the restoration of Charles the Second, before eight o’clock.
The next morning, we took the battens from the hatches, and opened the ship. A few stifled rats were found; and what bugs, cockroaches, fleas, and other vermin there might have been on board must have unrove their life-lines before the hatches were opened. The ship being now ready, we covered the bottom of the hold over, fore and aft, with dried brush for dunnage, and, having levelled everything away, we were ready to take in our cargo. All the hides that had been collected since the California left the coast (a little more than two years), amounting to about forty thousand, had been cured, dried, and stowed away in the house, waiting for our good ship to take them to Boston.
Now began the operation of taking in our cargo, which kept us hard at work, from the gray of the morning till starlight, for six weeks, with the exception of Sundays, and of just time to swallow our meals. To carry the work on quicker, a division of labor was made. Two men threw the hides down from the piles in the house, two more picked them up and put them on a long horizontal pole, raised a few feet from the ground, where they were beaten by two more with flails, somewhat like those used in threshing wheat. When beaten, they were taken from this pole by two more, and placed upon a platform of boards; and ten or a dozen men, with their trousers rolled up, and hides upon their heads, were constantly going back and forth from the platform to the boat, which was kept off where she would just float. The throwing the hides upon the pole was the most difficult work, and required a sleight of hand which was only to be got by long practice. As I was known for a hide-curer, this post was assigned to me, and I continued at it for six or eight days, tossing, in that time, from eight to ten thousand hides, until my wrists became so lame that I gave in, and was transferred to the gang that was employed in filling the boats, where I remained for the rest of the time. As we were obliged to carry the hides on our heads from fear of their getting wet, we each had a piece of sheepskin sewed into the inside of our hats, with the wool next our heads, and thus were able to bear the weight, day after day, which might otherwise have worn off our hair, and borne hard upon our skulls. Upon the whole ours was the best berth, for though the water was nipping cold, early in the morning and late at night, and being so continually wet was rather an exposure, yet we got rid of the constant dust and dirt from the beating of the hides, and, being all of us young and hearty, did not mind the exposure. The older men of the crew, whom it would have been imprudent to keep in the water, remained on board with the mate, to stow the hides away, as fast as they were brought off by the boats.
We continued at work in this manner until the lower hold was filled to within four feet of the beams, when all hands were called aboard to begin steeving. As this is a peculiar operation, it will require a minute description.
Before stowing the hides, as I have said, the ballast is levelled off, just above the keelson, and then loose dunnage is placed upon it, on which the hides rest. The greatest care is used in stowing, to make the ship hold as many hides as possible. It is no mean art, and a man skilled in it is an important character in California. Many a dispute have I heard raging high between professed “beach-combers,” as to whether the hides should be stowed “shingling,” or “back-to-back and flipper-to-flipper”; upon which point there was an entire and bitter division of sentiment among the savans. We adopted each method at different periods of the stowing, and parties ran high in the forecastle, some siding with “old Bill” in favor of the former, and others scouting him and relying upon “English Bob” of the Ayacucho, who had been eight years in California, and was willing to risk his life and limb for the latter method. At length a compromise was effected, and a middle course of shifting the ends and backs at every lay was adopted, which worked well, and which each party granted was better than that of the other, though inferior to its own.
Having filled the ship up, in this way, to within four feet of her beams, the process of steeving began, by which a hundred hides are got into a place where scarce one could be forced by hand, and which presses the hides to the utmost, sometimes starting the beams of the ship — resembling in its effects the jack-screws which are used in stowing cotton. Each morning we went ashore, and beat and brought off as many hides as we could steeve in a day, and, after breakfast, went down into the hold, where we remained at work until night, except a short spell for dinner. The length of the hold, from stem to stern, was floored off level; and we began with raising a pile in the after part, hard against the bulkhead of the run, and filling it up to the beams, crowding in as many as we could by hand and pushing in with oars, when a large “book” was made of from twenty-five to fifty hides, doubled at the backs, and placed one within another, so as to leave but one outside hide for the book. An opening was then made between two hides in the pile, and the back of the outside hide of the book inserted. Above and below this book were placed smooth strips of wood, well greased, called “ways,” to facilitate the sliding in of the book. Two long, heavy spars, called steeves, made of the strongest wood, and sharpened off like a wedge at one end, were placed with their wedge ends into the inside of the hide which was the centre of the book, and to the other end of each straps were fitted, into which large tackles1 were hooked, composed each of two huge purchase blocks, one hooked to the strap on the end of the steeve, and the other into a dog, fastened into one of the beams, as far aft as it could be got. When this was arranged, and the ways greased upon which the book was to slide, the falls of the tackles were stretched forward, and all hands tallied on, and bowsed away upon them until the book was well entered, when these tackles were nippered, straps and toggles clapped upon the falls, and two more luff tackles hooked on, with dogs, in the same manner; and thus, by luff upon luff, the power was multiplied, until into a pile in which one hide more could not be crowded by hand a hundred or a hundred and fifty were often driven by this complication of purchases. When the last luff was hooked on, all hands were called to the rope — cook, steward, and all — and ranging ourselves at the falls, one behind the other, sitting down on the hides, with our heads just even with the beams, we set taut upon the tackles, and striking up a song, and all lying back at the chorus, we bowsed the tackles home, and drove the large books chock in out of sight.
The sailors’ songs for capstans and falls are of a peculiar kind, having a chorus at the end of each line. The burden is usually sung by one alone, and, at the chorus, all hands join in — and, the louder the noise, the better. With us, the chorus seemed almost to raise the decks of the ship, and might be heard at a great distance ashore. A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier. They must pull together as soldiers must step in time, and they can’t pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-hoing, a lively song, like “Heave, to the girls!” “Nancy O!” “Jack Crosstree,” “Cheerly, men,” &c., has put life and strength into every arm. We found a great difference in the effect of the various songs in driving in the hides. Two or three songs would be tried, one after the other, with no effect — not an inch could be got upon the tackles; when a new song, struck up, seemed to hit the humor of the moment, and drove the tackles “two blocks” at once. “Heave round hearty!” “Captain gone ashore!” “Dandy ship and a dandy crew,” and the like, might do for common pulls, but on an emergency, when we wanted a heavy, “raise-the-dead pull,” which should start the beams of the ship, there was nothing like “Time for us to go!” “Round the corner,” “Tally high ho! you know,” or “Hurrah! hurrah! my hearty bullies!”
This was the most lively part of our work. A little boating and beach work in the morning; then twenty or thirty men down in a close hold, where we were obliged to sit down and slide about, passing hides, and rowsing about the great steeves, tackles, and dogs, singing out at the falls, and seeing the ship filling up every day. The work was as hard as it could well be. There was not a moment’s cessation from Monday morning till Saturday night, when we were generally beaten out, and glad to have a full night’s rest, a wash and shift of clothes, and a quiet Sunday. During all this time — which would have startled Dr. Graham — we lived upon almost nothing but fresh beef; fried beefsteaks, three times a day — morning, noon, and night. At morning and night we had a quart of tea to each man, and an allowance of about a pound of hard bread a day; but our chief article of food was beef. A mess, consisting of six men, had a large wooden kid piled up with beefsteaks, cut thick, and fried in fat, with the grease poured over them. Round this we sat, attacking it with our jack-knives and teeth, and with the appetite of young lions, and sent back an empty kid to the galley. This was done three times a day. How many pounds each man ate in a day I will not attempt to compute. A whole bullock (we ate liver and all) lasted us but four days. Such devouring of flesh, I will venture to say, is not often seen. What one man ate in a day, over a hearty man’s allowance, would make an English peasant’s heart leap into his mouth. Indeed, during all the time we were upon the coast, our principal food was fresh beef, and every man had perfect health; but this was a time of especial devouring, and what we should have done without meat I cannot tell. Once or twice, when our bullocks failed, and we were obliged to make a meal upon dry bread and water, it seemed like feeding upon shavings. Light and dry, feeling unsatisfied, and, at the same time, full, we were glad to see four quarters of a bullock, just killed, swinging from the fore-top. Whatever theories may be started by sedentary men, certainly no men could have gone through more hard work and exposure for sixteen months in more perfect health, and without ailings and failings, than our ship’s crew, let them have lived upon Hygeia’s own baking and dressing.
Friday, April 15th. Arrived, brig Pilgrim, from the windward. It was a sad sight for her crew to see us getting ready to go off the coast, while they, who had been longer on the coast than the Alert, were condemned to another year’s hard service. I spent an evening on board, and found them making the best of the matter, and determined to rough it out as they might. But Stimson, after considerable negotiating and working, had succeeded in persuading my English friend, Tom Harris — my companion in the anchor watch — for thirty dollars, some clothes, and an intimation from Captain Faucon that he should want a second mate before the voyage was over, to take his place in the brig as soon as she was ready to go up to windward.
The first opportunity I could get to speak to Captain Faucon, I asked him to step up to the oven and look at Hope, whom he knew well, having had him on board his vessel. He went to see him at once, and said that he was doing pretty well, but there was so little medicine on board the brig, and she would be so long on the coast, that he could spare none for him, but that Captain Arthur would take care of him when he came down in the California, which would be in a week or more. I had been to see Hope the first night after we got into San Diego this last time, and had frequently since spent the early part of a night in the oven. I hardly expected, when I left him to go to windward, to find him alive upon my return. He was certainly as low as he could well be when I left him, and what would be the effect of the medicines that I gave him I hardly then dared to conjecture. Yet I knew that he must die without them. I was not a little rejoiced, therefore, and relieved, upon our return, to see him decidedly better. The medicines were strong, and took hold and gave a check to the disorder which was destroying him; and, more than that, they had begun the work of exterminating it. I shall never forget the gratitude that he expressed. All the Kanakas attributed his escape solely to my knowledge, and would not be persuaded that I had not all the secrets of the physical system open to me and under my control. My medicines, however, were gone, and no more could be got from the ship, so that his life was left to hang upon the arrival of the California.
Sunday, April 24th. We had now been nearly seven weeks in San Diego, and had taken in the greater part of our cargo, and were looking out every day for the arrival of the California, which had our agent on board; when, this afternoon, some Kanakas, who had been over the hill for rabbits and to fight rattlesnakes, came running down the path, singing out “Kail ho!” with all their might. Mr. Hatch, our third mate, was ashore, and, asking them particularly about the size of the sail, &c., and learning that it was “Moku — Nui Moku,” hailed our ship, and said that the California was on the other side of the point. Instantly, all hands were turned up, the bow guns run out and loaded, the ensign and broad pennant set, the yards squared by lifts and braces, and everything got ready to make a fair appearance. The instant she showed her nose round the point we began our salute. She came in under top-gallant-sails, clewed up and furled her sails in good order, and came-to within swinging distance of us. It being Sunday, and nothing to do, all hands were on the forecastle, criticising the new comer. She was a good, substantial ship, not quite so long as the Alert, wall-sided and kettle-bottomed, after the latest fashion of south-shore cotton and sugar wagons; strong, too, and tight, and a good average sailer, but with no pretensions to beauty, and nothing in the style of a “crack ship.” Upon the whole, we were perfectly satisfied that the Alert might hold up her head with a ship twice as smart as she.
At night some of us got a boat and went on board, and found a large, roomy forecastle (for she was squarer forward than the Alert), and a crew of a dozen or fifteen men and boys sitting around on their chests, smoking and talking, and ready to give a welcome to any of our ship’s company. It was just seven months since they left Boston, which seemed but yesterday to us. Accordingly, we had much to ask; for though we had seen the newspapers which she had brought, yet these were the very men who had been in Boston, and seen everything with their own eyes. One of the green hands was a Boston boy, from one of the public schools, and, of course, knew many things which we wished to ask about, and, on inquiring the names of our two Boston boys, found that they had been school-mates of his. Our men had hundreds of questions to ask about Ann Street, the boarding-houses, the ships in port, the rate of wages, and other matters.
Among her crew were two English man-of-war’s-men, so that, of course, we soon had music. They sang in the true sailor’s style, and the rest of the crew, which was a remarkably musical one, joined in the choruses. They had many of the latest sailor songs, which had not yet got about among our merchantmen, and which they were very choice of. They began soon after we came on board, and kept it up until after two bells, when the second mate came forward and called “the Alerts away!” Battle-songs, drinking-songs, boat-songs, love-songs, and everything else, they seemed to have a complete assortment of, and I was glad to find that “All in the Downs,” “Poor Tom Bowline,” “The Bay of Biscay,” “List, ye Landsmen!” and other classical songs of the sea, still held their places. In addition to these, they had picked up at the theatres and other places a few songs of a little more genteel cast, which they were very proud of; and I shall never forget hearing an old salt, who had broken his voice by hard drinking on shore, and bellowing from the mast-head in a hundred northwesters, singing — with all manner of ungovernable trills and quavers, in the high notes breaking into a rough falsetto, and in the low ones growling along like the dying away of the boatswain’s “All hands ahoy!” down the hatchway — “O no, we never mention him.”
“Perhaps, like me, he struggles with
Each feeling of regret;
But if he’s loved as I have loved,
He never can forget!”
The last line he roared out at the top of his voice, breaking each word into half a dozen syllables. This was very popular, and Jack was called upon every night to give them his “sentimental song.” No one called for it more loudly than I, for the complete absurdity of the execution, and the sailors’ perfect satisfaction in it, were ludicrous beyond measure.
The next day the California began unloading her cargo; and her boats’ crews, in coming and going, sang their boat-songs, keeping time with their oars. This they did all day long for several days, until their hides were all discharged, when a gang of them were sent on board the Alert to help us steeve our hides. This was a windfall for us, for they had a set of new songs for the capstan and fall, and ours had got nearly worn out by six weeks’ constant use. I have no doubt that this timely reenforcement of songs hastened our work several days.
Our cargo was now nearly all taken in, and my old friend, the Pilgrim, having completed her discharge, unmoored, to set sail the next morning on another long trip to windward. I was just thinking of her hard lot, and congratulating myself upon my escape from her, when I received a summons into the cabin. I went aft, and there found, seated round the cabin table, my own captain, Captain Faucon of the Pilgrim, and Mr. Robinson, the agent. Captain Thompson turned to me and asked abruptly —
“Dana, do you want to go home in the ship?”
“Certainly, sir,” said I; “I expect to go home in the ship.”
“Then,” said he, “you must get some one to go in your place on board the Pilgrim.”
I was so completely “taken aback” by this sudden intimation that for a moment I could make no reply. I thought it would be hopeless to attempt to prevail upon any of the ship’s crew to take twelve months more upon California in the brig. I knew, too, that Captain Thompson had received orders to bring me home in the Alert, and he had told me, when I was at the hide-house, that I was to go home in her; and even if this had not been so, it was cruel to give me no notice of the step they were going to take, until a few hours before the brig would sail. As soon as I had got my wits about me, I put on a bold front, and told him plainly that I had a letter in my chest informing me that he had been written to by the owners in Boston to bring me home in the ship; and, moreover, that he had told me that he had such instructions, and that I was to return in the ship.
To have this told him, and to be opposed in such a manner, was more than my lord paramount had been used to. He turned fiercely upon me, and tried to look me down, and face me out of my statement; but finding that that wouldn’t do, and that I was entering upon my defence in such a way as would show to the other two that he was in the wrong, he changed his ground, and pointed to the shipping-papers of the Pilgrim, from which my name had never been erased, and said that there was my name — that I belonged to her — that he had an absolute discretionary power — and, in short, that I must be on board the Pilgrim by the next morning with my chest and hammock, or have some one ready to go in my place, and that he would not hear another word from me. No court of star chamber could proceed more summarily with a poor devil than this trio was about to do with me; condemning me to a punishment worse than a Botany Bay exile, and to a fate which might alter the whole current of my future life; for two years more in California might have made me a sailor for the rest of my days. I felt all this, and saw the necessity of being determined. I repeated what I had said, and insisted upon my right to return in the ship.
“I raised my arm, and tauld my crack,
Before them a’.”
But it would have all availed me nothing had I been “some poor body” before this absolute, domineering tribunal. But they saw that I would not go, unless “vi et armis,” and they knew that I had friends and interest enough at home to make them suffer for any injustice they might do me. I............