Beside The Length Of The Voyage, And The Hard And Exposed Life,
We Were At The Ends Of The Earth;
On a coast almost solitary; in a
country where there is neither law nor gospel, and where sailors are
at
Their captain's mercy, there being no American consul, or any
one to whom a complaint could be made. We lost all interest in
the voyage; cared nothing about the cargo, which we were only
collecting for others; began to patch our clothes; and felt as
though we were fixed beyond all hope of change.
In addition to, and perhaps partly as a consequence of, this state
of things, there was trouble brewing on board the vessel. Our mate
(as the first mate is always called, par excellence) was a worthy
man; - a more honest, upright, and kind-hearted man I never saw;
but he was too good for the mate of a merchantman. He was not the
man to call a sailor a "son of a b - -h," and knock him down with a
handspike. He wanted the energy and spirit for such a voyage as ours,
and for such a captain. Captain T - - - was a vigorous, energetic
fellow. As sailors say, "he hadn't a lazy bone in him." He was
made of steel and whalebone. He was a man to "toe the mark,"
and to make every one else step up to it. During all the time that
I was with him, I never saw him sit down on deck. He was always
active and driving; severe in his discipline, and expected the same
of his officers. The mate not being enough of a driver for him, and
being perhaps too easy with the crew, he was dissatisfied with him,
became suspicious that discipline was getting relaxed, and began
to interfere in everything. He drew the reins taughter; and as,
in all quarrels between officers, the sailors side with the one who
treats them best, he became suspicious of the crew. He saw that
everything went wrong - that nothing was done "with a will;" and in
his attempt to remedy the difficulty by severity, he made everything
worse. We were in every respect unfortunately situated. Captain,
officers, and crew, entirely unfitted for one another; and every
circumstance and event was like a two-edged sword, and cut both
ways. The length of the voyage, which made us dissatisfied, made
the captain, at the same time, feel the necessity of order and strict
discipline; and the nature of the country, which caused us to feel that
we had nowhere to go for redress, but were entirely at the mercy of
a hard master, made the captain feel, on the other hand, that he
must depend entirely upon his own resources. Severity created
discontent, and signs of discontent provoked severity. Then, too,
ill-treatment and dissatisfaction are no "linimenta laborum;" and many
a time have I heard the sailors say that they should not mind the
length of the voyage, and the hardships, if they were only kindly
treated, and if they could feel that something was done to make
things lighter and easier. We felt as though our situation was
a call upon our superiors to give us occasional relaxations,
and to make our yoke easier. But the contrary policy was pursued.
We were kept at work all day when in port; which, together with a
watch at night, made us glad to turn-in as soon as we got below.
Thus we got no time for reading, or - which was of more importance
to us - for washing and mending our clothes. And then, when we
were at sea, sailing from port to port, instead of giving us
"watch and watch," as was the custom on board every other vessel
on the coast, we were all kept on deck and at work, rain or
shine, making spun-yarn and rope, and at other work in good
weather, and picking oakum, when it was too wet for anything
else. All hands were called to "come up and see it rain," and kept
on deck hour after hour in a drenching rain, standing round the
deck so far apart as to prevent our talking with one another, with
our tarpaulins and oil-cloth jackets on, picking old rope to pieces,
or laying up gaskets and robands. This was often done, too, when
we were lying in port with two anchors down, and no necessity for
more than one man on deck as a look-out. This is what is called
"hazing" a crew, and "working their old iron up."
While lying at Santa Barbara, we encountered another south-easter;
and, like the first, it came on in the night; the great black
clouds coming round from the southward, covering the mountain,
and hanging down over the town, appearing almost to rest upon
the roofs of the houses. We made sail, slipped our cable, cleared
the point, and beat about, for four days, in the offing, under close
sail, with continual rain and high seas and winds. No wonder,
thought we, they have no rain in the other seasons, for enough
seemed to have fallen in those four days to last through a common
summer. On the fifth day it cleared up, after a few hours, as is
usual, of rain coming down like a four hours' shower-bath, and
we found ourselves drifted nearly ten leagues from the anchorage;
and having light head winds, we did not return until the sixth
day. Having recovered our anchor, we made preparations for getting
under weigh to go down to leeward. We had hoped to go directly
to San Diego, and thus fall in with the California before she sailed
for Boston; but our orders were to stop at an intermediate port
called San Pedro, and as we were to lie there a week or two, and
the California was to sail in a few days, we lost the opportunity.
Just before sailing, the captain took on board a short, red-haired,
round-shouldered, vulgar-looking fellow, who had lost one eye,
and squinted with the other, and introducing him as Mr. Russell,
told us that he was an officer on board.
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