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 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,
though they held it inferior to their own, each party granted was
better than that of the other.
Having filled the ship up, in this way, to within four feet of
her beams, the process of steeving commenced, by which an hundred
hides are got into a place where one could not 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 the course of
the day, and, after breakfast, went down into the hold, where we
remained at work until night. The whole 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 put
into one another, like the leaves of a book. An opening was then
made between two hides in the pile, and the back of the outside
hide of the book inserted. 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 tackles 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 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, an hundred or an hundred and fifty were often
driven in 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 taught 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 sailor's 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 can't pull in time,
or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing
goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like "Heave,
to the girls!" "Nancy oh!" "Jack Cross-tree," etc., has put life
and strength into every arm. We often found a great difference in
the effect of the different 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!" and
the like, might do for common pulls, but in 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," 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 105 of 167
Words from 106442 to 107447
of 170236
