This Course Soon Restored His
Appetite And Strength; And In Ten Days After We Spoke The Solon,
So Rapid Was His Recovery, That, From Lying Helpless And Almost
Hopeless In His Berth, He Was At The Mast-Head, Furling A Royal.
With a fine south-west wind, we passed inside of the Bermudas;
and notwithstanding the old couplet, which was quoted again and
again by those who thought we should have one more touch of a
storm before our voyage was up, -
"If the Bermudas let you pass,
You must beware of Hatteras - "
we were to the northward of Hatteras, with good weather, and beginning
to count, not the days, but the hours, to the time when we should be
at anchor in Boston harbor.
Our ship was in fine order, all hands having been hard at work
upon her from daylight to dark, every day but Sunday, from the
time we got into warm weather on this side the Cape.
It is a common notion with landsmen that a ship is in her finest
condition when she leaves port to enter upon her voyage; and that
she comes home, after a long absence,
"With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails;
Lean, rent and beggared by the strumpet wind."
But so far from that, unless a ship meets with some accident, or
comes upon the coast in the dead of winter, when work cannot be
done upon the rigging, she is in her finest order at the end of
the voyage. When she sails from port, her rigging is generally
slack; the masts need staying; the decks and sides are black and
dirty from taking in cargo; riggers' seizings and overhand knots
in place of nice seamanlike work; and everything, to a sailor's
eye, adrift.
But on the passage home, the fine weather between the tropics is
spent in putting the ship into the neatest order. No merchant vessel
looks better than an Indiaman, or a Cape Horn-er, after a long voyage;
and many captains and mates will stake their reputation for seamanship
upon the appearance of their ship when she hauls into the dock.
All our standing rigging, fore and aft, was set up and tarred;
the masts stayed; the lower and top-mast rigging rattled down,
(or up, as the fashion now is;) and so careful were our officers
to keep the rattlins taught and straight, that we were obliged
to go aloft upon the ropes and shearpoles with which the rigging
was swifted in; and these were used as jury rattlins until we got
close upon the coast. After this, the ship was scraped, inside and
out, decks, masts, booms and all; a stage being rigged outside,
upon which we scraped her down to the water-line; pounding the
rust off the chains, bolts and fastenings. Then, taking two days
of calm under the line, we painted her on the outside, giving her
open ports in her streak, and finishing off the nice work upon the
stern, where sat Neptune in his car, holding his trident, drawn
by sea-horses; and re-touched the gilding and coloring of the
cornucopia which ornamented her billet-head. The inside was then
painted, from the skysail truck to the waterways - the yards black;
mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow;
bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead color, etc.,
etc. The anchors and ring-bolts, and other iron work, were blackened
with coal-tar; and the steward kept at work, polishing the brass
of the wheel, bell, capstan, etc. The cabin, too, was scraped,
varnished, and painted; and the forecastle scraped and scrubbed;
there being no need of paint and varnish for Jack's quarters.
The decks were then scraped and varnished, and everything useless
thrown overboard; among which the empty tar barrels were set on
fire and thrown overboard, on a dark night, and left blazing
astern, lighting up the ocean for miles. Add to all this labor,
the neat work upon the rigging; - the knots, flemish-eyes, splices,
seizings, coverings, pointings, and graftings, which show a ship in
crack order. The last preparation, and which looked still more
like coming into port, was getting the anchors over the bows,
bending the cables, rowsing the hawsers up from between decks,
and overhauling the deep-sea-lead-line.
Thursday, September 15th. This morning the temperature and
peculiar appearance of the water, the quantities of gulf-weed
floating about, and a bank of clouds lying directly before
us, showed that we were on the border of the Gulf Stream.
This remarkable current, running north-east, nearly across
the ocean, is almost constantly shrouded in clouds, and is the
region of storms and heavy seas. Vessels often run from a clear
sky and light wind, with all sail, at once into a heavy sea and
cloudy sky, with double-reefed topsails. A sailor told me that
on a passage from Gibraltar to Boston, his vessel neared the
Gulf Stream with a light breeze, clear sky, and studding-sails
out, alow and aloft; while, before it, was a long line of heavy,
black clouds, lying like a bank upon the water, and a vessel coming
out of it, under double-reefed topsails, and with royal yards sent
down. As they drew near, they began to take in sail after sail,
until they were reduced to the same condition; and, after twelve
or fourteen hours of rolling and pitching in a heavy sea, before a
smart gale, they ran out of the bank on the other side, and were in
fine weather again, and under their royals and skysails. As we drew
into it, the sky became cloudy, the sea high, and everything had the
appearance of the going off, or the coming on, of a storm. It was
blowing no more than a stiff breeze; yet the wind, being north-east,
which is directly against the course of the current, made an ugly,
chopping sea, which heaved and pitched the vessel about, so that
we were obliged to send down the royal yards, and to take in our
light sails.
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