CHAPTER XXX
BEGINNING THE LONG RETURN VOYAGE - A SCARE
At eight o'clock all hands were called aft, and the watches set for
the voyage.
Some changes were made; but I was glad to find myself
still in the larboard watch. Our crew was somewhat diminished;
for a man and a boy had gone in the Pilgrim; another was second
mate of the Ayacucho; and a third, the oldest man of the crew,
had broken down under the hard work and constant exposure on the
coast, and, having had a stroke of the palsy, was left behind at
the hide-house under the charge of Captain Arthur. The poor fellow
wished very much to come home in the ship; and he ought to have
been brought home in her. But a live dog is better than a dead
lion, and a sick sailor belongs to nobody's mess; so he was sent
ashore with the rest of the lumber, which was only in the way.
By these diminutions, we were short-handed for a voyage round
Cape Horn in the dead of winter. Besides S - - - and myself,
there were only five in the forecastle; who, together with four
boys in the steerage, the sailmaker, carpenter, etc., composed the
whole crew. In addition to this, we were only three or four days
out, when the sailmaker, who was the oldest and best seaman on
board, was taken with the palsy, and was useless for the rest of the
voyage. The constant wading in the water, in all weathers, to take
off hides, together with the other labors, is too much for old men,
and for any who have not good constitutions. Beside these two men
of ours, the second officer of the California and the carpenter of
the Pilgrim broke down under the work, and the latter died at Santa
Barbara. The young man, too, who came out with us from Boston in
the Pilgrim, had to be taken from his berth before the mast and
made clerk, on account of a fit of rheumatism which attacked him
soon after he came upon the coast. By the loss of the sailmaker,
our watch was reduced to five, of whom two were boys, who never
steered but in fine weather, so that the other two and myself had
to stand at the wheel four hours apiece out of every twenty-four;
and the other watch had only four helmsmen. "Never mind - we're
homeward bound!" was the answer to everything; and we should not
have minded this, were it not for the thought that we should be
off Cape Horn in the very dead of winter. It was now the first
part of May; and two months would bring us off the cape in July,
which is the worst month in the year there; when the sun rises at
nine and sets at three, giving eighteen hours night, and there is
snow and rain, gales and high seas, in abundance.
The prospect of meeting this in a ship half manned, and loaded
so deep that every heavy sea must wash her fore and aft, was by
no means pleasant.
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