Chapter Three. Tells of the Sea, and some of the Mysteries Connected Therewith.
For many days and nights the good ship Foam sailed the wide ocean without encountering anything more than the ordinary vicissitudes and experiences of sea-life. Dolphins were seen and captured, sharks were fished for and caught, stiff breezes and calms succeeded each other, constellations in the far north began to disappear and new constellations arose in the southern skies. In fact, during many weeks the voyage was prosperous, and young Will Osten began to experience those peculiar feelings with which all travellers are more or less acquainted—he felt that the ship was “home”; that his cabin with its furniture, which had appeared so small and confined at first, was quite a large and roomy place; that all the things about him were positive realities, and that the home of his childhood was a shadow of the past—a sort of dream.
During all this time the young doctor led a busy life. He was one of those active, intelligent, inquiring spirits which cannot rest. To acquire information was with him not a duty, but a pleasure. Before he had been many days at sea he knew the name and use of every rope, sail, block, tackle, and spar in the ship, and made himself quite a favourite with the men by the earnestness with which he questioned them in regard to nautical matters and their own personal experiences. George Goff, the sail-maker, said he “was a fust-rate feller;” and Larry O’Hale, the cook, declared, “he was a trump intirely, an’ ought to have been born an Irishman.” Moreover, the affections of long Mr Cupples (as the first mate was styled by the men) were quite won by the way in which he laboured to understand the use of the sextant, and other matters connected with the mysteries of navigation; and stout Jonathan Dall, the captain, was overjoyed when he discovered that he was a good player on the violin, of which instrument he was passionately fond. In short, Will Osten became a general favourite on board the Foam, and the regard of all, from the cabin-boy to the captain, deepened into respect when they found that, although only an advanced student and, “not quite a doctor,” he treated their few ailments with success, and acted his part with much self-possession, gentleness, and precision.
Larry O’Hale was particularly eloquent in his praises of him ever after the drawing of a tooth which had been the source of much annoyance to the worthy cook. “Why, messmates,” he was wont to say, “it bait everything the way he tuk it out. ‘Open yer mouth,’ says he, an’ sure I opened it, an’ before I cud wink, off wint my head—so I thought—but faix it wor only my tuth—a real grinder wi’ three fangs no less—och! he’s a cliver lad intirely.”
But Will did not confine his inquiries to the objects contained within his wooden home. The various phases and phenomena of the weather, the aspects of the sky, and the wonders of the deep, claimed his earnest attention. To know the reason of everything was with him a species of mania, and in pursuit of this knowledge he stuck at nothing. “Never venture never win,” became with him as favourite a motto as it had been with his father, and he acted on it more vigorously than his father had ever done.
One calm evening, as he was leaning over the side of the ship near the bow, gazing contemplatively down into the unfathomable sea, he overheard a conversation between the cook and one of the sailors named Muggins. They were smoking their pipes seated on the heel of the bowsprit.
“Larry,” said Muggins, “I think we have got into the doldrums.”
“Ye’re out there, boy,” said Larry, “for I heerd the capting say we wos past ’em a long way.”
The men relapsed into silence for a time.
Then Muggins removed his pipe and said—
“Wot ever caused the doldrums?”
“That’s more nor I can tell,” said Larry; “all I know about them is, that it’s aisy to git into them, but uncommon hard to git out again. If my ould grandmother was here, she’d be able to tell us, I make no doubt, but she’s in Erin, poor thing, ’mong the pigs and the taties.”
“Wot could she tell about the doldrums?” said Muggins, with a look of contempt.
“More nor ye think, boy; sure there isn’t nothin’ in the univarse but she can spaik about, just like a book, an’ though she niver was in the doldrums as far as I knows, she’s been in the dumps often enough; maybe it’s cousins they are. Anyhow she’s not here, an’ so we must be contint with spekilation.”
“What’s that you say, Larry?” inquired the captain, who walked towards the bow at the moment.
The cook explained his difficulty.
“Why, there’s no mystery about the doldrums,” said Captain Dall. “I’ve read a book by an officer in the United States navy which explains it all, and the Gulf Stream, and the currents, an’ everything. Come, I’ll spin you a yarn about it.”
Saying this, the captain filled and lighted his pipe, and seating himself on the shank of the anchor, said—
“You know the cause of ocean currents, I dare say?”
“Niver a taste,” said Larry. “It’s meself is as innocent about ’em as the babe unborn; an’ as for Muggins there, he don’t know more about ’em than my ould shoes—”
“Or your old grandmother,” growled Muggins.
“Don’t be irriverent, ye spalpeen,” said Larry.
“I ax her reverence’s pardon, but I didn’t know she wos a priest,” said Muggins.—“Go on, Cap’n Dall.”
“Well,” continued the captain, “you know, at all events, that there’s salt in the sea, and I may tell you that there is lime also, besides other things. At the equator, the heat bein’ great, water is evaporated faster than anywhere else, so that there the sea is salter and has more lime in it than elsewhere. Besides that it is hotter. Of course, that being the case, its weight is different from the waters of the cold polar seas, so it is bound to move away an’ get itself freshened and cooled. In like manner, the cold water round the poles feels obliged to flow to the equator to get itself salted and warmed. This state of things, as a natural consequence, causes commotion in the sea. The commotion is moreover increased by the millions of shell-fish that dwell there. These creatures, not satisfied with their natural skins, must needs have shells on their backs, and they extract lime from the sea-water for the purpose of makin’ these shells. This process is called secretin’ the lime; coral insects do the same, and, as many of the islands of the south seas are made by coral insects, you may guess that a considerable lot of lime is made away with. The commotion or disturbance thus created produces two great currents—from the equator to the poles and from the poles to the equator. But there are many little odds and ends about the world that affect and modify these currents, such as depth, and local heat and cold, and rivers and icebergs, but the chief modifiers are continents. The currents flowin’ north from the Indian Ocean and southern seas rush up between Africa and America. The space bein’ narrow—comparatively—they form one strong current, on doublin’ the Cape of Good Hope, which flies right across to the Gulf of Mexico. Here it is turned aside and flows in a nor’-easterly direction, across the Atlantic towards England and Norway, under the name of the Gulf Stream, but the Gulf of Mexico has no more to do with it than the man in the moon, ’xcept in the way of turnin’ it out of its nat’ral course. This Gulf Stream is a river of warm water flowing through the cold waters of the Atlantic; it keeps separate, and wherever it flows the climate is softened. It embraces Ireland, and makes the climate there so mild that there is, as you know, scarcely any frost all the year round—”
“Blissin’s on it,” broke in Larry, “sure that accounts for the purty green face of Erin, which bates all other lands in the world. Good luck to the Gulf Stream, say I!”
“You’re right, Larry, and England, Scotland, and Norway have reason to bless it too, for the same latitudes with these places in America have a rigorous winter extendin’ over more than half the year. But what I was comin’ to was this—there are, as you know, eddies and stagnant places in ornary rivers, where sticks, leaves, and other odds and ends collect and remain fixed. So, in this great ocean river, there are eddies where seaweed collects and stagnates, and where the air above also stagnates (for the air currents are very much like those of the sea). These eddies or stagnant parts are called sargasso seas. There are several of them, of various sizes, all over the ocean, but there is one big one in the Atlantic, which is known by the name of the ‘Doldrums.’ It has bothered navigators in all ages. Columbus got into it on his way to America, and hundreds of ships have been becalmed for weeks in it since the days of that great discoverer. It is not very long since it was found out that, by keeping well out of their way, and sailing round ’em, navigators could escape the Doldrums altogether.”
The captain paused at this point, and Larry O’Hale took the opportunity to break in.
“D’ye know, sir,” said he, “that same Gulf Strame has rose a lot o’ pecooliar spekilations in my mind, which, if I may make so bowld, I’ll—”
Here the mate’s voice interrupted him gruffly with—
“Shake out a reef in that top-gall’n s’l; look alive, lads!”
Larry and his comrades sprang to obey. When they returned to their former place in the bow, the captain had left it, so that the cook’s “pecooliar spekilations” were not at that time made known.