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.
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