You Hear Sailor's
Talk, Learn Their Ways, Their Peculiarities Of Feeling As Well As
Speaking And Acting; And Moreover Pick Up A Great Deal Of Curious
And Useful Information In Seamanship, Ship's Customs, Foreign Countries,
Etc., From Their Long Yarns And Equally Long Disputes.
No man can be
a sailor, or know what sailors are, unless he has lived in the forecastle
with them - turned in and out with them, eaten of their dish and drank
of their cup.
After I had been a week there, nothing would have tempted
me to go back to my old berth, and never afterwards, even in the worst
of weather, when in a close and leaking forecastle off Cape Horn,
did I for a moment wish myself in the steerage. Another thing which
you learn better in the forecastle than you can anywhere else, is,
to make and mend clothes, and this is indispensable to sailors.
A large part of their watches below they spend at this work, and here
I learned that art which stood me in so good stead afterwards.
But to return to the state of the crew. Upon our coming into the
forecastle, there was some difficulty about the uniting of the
allowances of bread, by which we thought we were to lose a few pounds.
This set us into a ferment. The captain would not condescend to explain,
and we went aft in a body, with a Swede, the oldest and best sailor of
the crew, for spokesman. The recollection of the scene that followed
always brings up a smile, especially the quarter-deck dignity and
eloquence of the captain. He was walking the weather side of the
quarter-deck, and seeing us coming aft, stopped short in his walk,
and, with a voice and look intended to annihilate us, called out,
"Well, what do you want now?" Whereupon we stated our grievances
as respectfully as we could, but he broke in upon us, saying that
we were getting fat and lazy, didn't have enough to do, and that made
us find fault. This provoked us, and we began to give word for word.
This would never answer. He clenched his fist, stamped and swore,
and sent us all forward, saying, with oaths enough interspersed to
send the words home, - "Away with you! go forward every one of you!
I'll haze you! I'll work you up! You don't have enough to do!
You've mistaken your man. I'm F - - - T - - -, all the way from
'down east.' I've been through the mill, ground, and bolted, and come
out a regular-built down-east johnny-cake, good when it's hot, but when
it's cold, sour and indigestible; - and you'll find me so!" The latter
part of the harangue I remember well, for it made a strong impression,
and the "down-east johnny-cake" became a by-word for the rest of the
voyage. So much for our petition for the redress of grievances.
The matter was however set right, for the mate, after allowing the
captain due time to cool off, explained it to him, and at night we
were all called aft to hear another harangue, in which, of course,
the whole blame of the misunderstanding was thrown upon us.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 324
Words from 21974 to 22514
of 170236
