This Was A Rare Treat, And I,
Being The Last At The Galley, Had It Put In My Charge To Carry Down
For The Mess.
I got along very well as far as the hatchway, and was
just getting down the steps, when a
Heavy sea, lifting the stern out
of water, and passing forward, dropping it down again, threw the steps
from their place, and I came down into the steerage a little faster
than I meant to, with the kid on top of me, and the whole precious
mess scattered over the floor. Whatever your feelings may be,
you must make a joke of everything at sea; and if you were to fall
from aloft and be caught in the belly of a sail, and thus saved
from instant death, it would not do to look at all disturbed,
or to make a serious matter of it.
Friday, Nov. 14th. We were now well to the westward of the Cape
and were changing our course to the northward as much as we dared,
since the strong south-west winds, which prevailed then, carried us
in toward Patagonia. At two, P.M., we saw a sail on our larboard beam,
and at four we made it out to be a large ship, steering our course,
under single-reefed topsails. We at that time had shaken the reefs
out of our topsails, as the wind was lighter, and set the main
top-gallant sail. As soon as our captain saw what sail she was under,
he set the fore top-gallant sail and flying jib; and the old whaler -
for such, his boats and short sail showed him to be - felt a little
ashamed, and shook the reefs out of his topsails, but could do no more,
for he had sent down his top-gallant masts off the Cape. He ran down
for us, and answered our hail as the whale-ship, New England,
of Poughkeepsie, one hundred and twenty days from New York.
Our captain gave our name, and added, ninety-two days from Boston.
They then had a little conversation about longitude, in which they
found that they could not agree. The ship fell astern, and continued
in sight during the night. Toward morning, the wind having become
light, we crossed our royal and skysail yards, and at daylight we
were seen under a cloud of sail, having royal and skysails fore
and aft. The "spouter," as the sailors call a whaleman, had sent
up his main top-gallant mast and set the sail, and made signal for
us to heave to. About half-past seven their whale-boat came alongside,
and Captain Job Terry sprang on board, a man known in every port and
by every vessel in the Pacific ocean. "Don't you know Job Terry?
I thought everybody knew Job Terry," said a green-hand, who came in
the boat, to me, when I asked him about his captain. He was indeed
a singular man. He was six feet high, wore thick, cowhide boots,
and brown coat and trowsers, and, except a sun-burnt complexion,
had not the slightest appearance of a sailor; yet he had been forty
years in the whale trade, and, as he said himself, had owned ships,
built ships, and sailed ships.
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