One Night,
After One Of These Shifts Of The Wind, And When All Hands Had Been
Up A Great Part
Of the time, our watch was left on deck, with the
mainsail hanging in the buntlines, ready to be set
If necessary.
It came on to blow worse and worse, with hail and snow beating
like so many furies upon the ship, it being as dark and thick as
night could make it. The mainsail was blowing and slatting with
a noise like thunder, when the captain came on deck, and ordered
it to be furled. The mate was about to call all hands, when the
captain stopped him, and said that the men would be beaten out if
they were called up so often; that as our watch must stay on deck,
it might as well be doing that as anything else.
Accordingly, we went upon the yard; and never shall I forget
that piece of work. Our watch had been so reduced by sickness,
and by some having been left in California, that, with one man
at the wheel, we had only the third mate and three beside myself,
to go aloft; so that at most, we could only attempt to furl one
yard-arm at a time. We manned the weather yard-arm, and set to
work to make a furl of it. Our lower masts being short, and our
yards very square, the sail had a head of nearly fifty feet,
and a short leach, made still shorter by the deep reef which
was in it, which brought the clew away out on the quarters of
the yard, and made a bunt nearly as square as the mizen royal-
yard. Beside this difficulty, the yard over which we lay was
cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot and leach of
the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of suction-hose, and the
sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets
of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate
blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with
bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for if he
slipped, he was a gone man. All the boats were hoisted in on
deck, and there was nothing to be lowered for him. We had need
of every finger God had given us. Several times we got the sail
upon the yard, but it blew away again before we could secure it.
It required men to lie over the yard to pass each turn of the
gaskets, and when they were passed, it was almost impossible to
knot them so that they would hold. Frequently we were obliged to
leave off altogether and take to beating our hands upon the sail,
to keep them from freezing.
After some time, - which seemed forever, - we got the weather side
stowed after a fashion, and went over to leeward for another trial.
This was still worse, for the body of the sail had been blown over
to leeward, and as the yard was a-cock-bill by the lying over of
the vessel, we had to light it all up to windward.
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