The Alert, In Her Passage Out, Doubled The
Cape In The Month Of February, Which Is Midsummer; And We Came
Round In The Pilgrim In The Latter Part Of October, Which We
Thought Was Bad Enough.
There was only one of our crew who
had been off there in the winter, and that was in
A whaleship,
much lighter and higher than our ship; yet he said they had man-
killing weather for twenty days without intermission, and their
decks were swept twice, and they were all glad enough to see the
last of it. The Brandywine frigate, also, in her passage round,
had sixty days off the Cape, and lost several boats by the heavy
sea. All this was for our comfort; yet pass it we must; and all
hands agreed to make the best of it.
During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made and
mended everything for bad weather. Each of us had made for himself
a suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we got out, and gave
thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung upon the stays to dry.
Our stout boots, too, we covered over with a thick mixture
of melted grease and tar, and hung out to dry. Thus we took
advantage of the warm sun and fine weather of the Pacific to
prepare for its other face. In the forenoon watches below,
our forecastle looked like the workshop of what a sailor is, - a
Jack at all trades. Thick stockings and drawers were darned and
patched; mittens dragged from the bottom of the chest and mended;
comforters made for the neck and ears; old flannel shirts cut up
to line monkey jackets; south-westers lined with flannel, and a
pot of paint smuggled forward to give them a coat on the outside;
and everything turned to hand; so that, although two years had
left us but a scanty wardrobe, yet the economy and invention
which necessity teaches a sailor, soon put each of us in pretty
good trim for bad weather, even before we had seen the last of the
fine. Even the cobbler's art was not out of place. Several old
shoes were very decently repaired, and with waxed ends, an awl,
and the top of an old boot, I made me quite a respectable sheath
for my knife.
There was one difficulty, however, which nothing that we could do
would remedy; and that was the leaking of the forecastle, which made
it very uncomfortable in bad weather, and rendered half of the
berths tenantless. The tightest ships, in a long voyage, from the
constant strain which is upon the bowsprit, will leak, more or less,
round the heel of the bowsprit, and the bitts, which come down into
the forecastle; but, in addition to this, we had an unaccountable
leak on the starboard bow, near the cat-head, which drove us
from the forward berths on that side, and, indeed, when she was
on the starboard tack, from all the forward berths.
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