The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858

"'What!' says the captain,—have I come all the way up Channel without knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning three hundred miles.'"

"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my captains, Brandegee, you know, who had the 'China,' got caught, one November, just as he was coming on the coast, in a gale from the eastward. He knew he was somewhere near Provincetown, but how near he couldn't say. It was snowing, and blowing, and ice-making all over the decks and rigging, and an awful night generally. He did not dare to run before it, because it was blowing at a rate to take him halfway in Worcester County in the next twenty-four hours. He couldn't stand to the south'ard, because that would put the back of Cape Cod under his lee. He was afraid to stand to the north'ard, not knowing precisely where the coast of Maine might be. So he hove the ship to, under as little sail as he could, and let her drift. I've heard him say, he heard the breakers a hundred times that night," ('I'll bet he did,' ejaculated the captain.) "and it seemed like three nights in one before morning came. When it did come, wind and sea appeared to have gone down. The lookouts were half dead with cold and sleep and all; but they made out to hail land on the weather bow.

"'Good George!' said old Brandegee, 'how did land get on the weather bow? We must have got inside of Cape Cod, and that must be Sharkpainter Hill.'

"'Land on the lee quarter,' hailed the watch, again: and in a minute more, 'Land on the lee beam,—land on the lee bow.'

"Brandegee sung out to heave the lead and let go both anchors, and he said that, but for the gale having gone down so, he should have expected to strike the next minute. Just as the anchors came home and the ship headed to the wind, the second mate came aft, rubbing his eyes and looking very queer.

"'Captain Brandegee,' says he, 'if I was in Boston Harbor, I should say that there was Nix's Mate.'

"'Well, Mr. Jones,' says the old man, dropping out the words very slowly, 'if—that's—Nix's Mate,—Rainsford Island—ought—to—be—here away, and—as—I'm—a—living—man, there it is!'

"Half-frozen as they were, there was a cheer rung out from that crew that waked half the North-End out of their morning nap.

"'Just my plaguy luck!' said the old fellow to me, as he told it. 'If I'd held on to my anchors another half-hour, I might have come handsomely alongside of Long Wharf and been up to the custom-house before breakfast.'

"He had drifted broadside square into Boston Harbor, past Nahant, the Graves, Cohasset Rocks, and everything."

"I've heard of that," said the captain,—"and as it's my opinion it couldn't be done twice, I don't mean to try it."

"I hear the noise about thy keel,
I hear the bell struck in the night,
I see the cabin-window bright,
I see the sailor at the wheel,"—

repeated Fred –, in my ear. "Come below out of this wet and rain," added he.

We passed the door of the mate's state-room as we went below, and, seeing it ajar, and Mr. Pitman, the mate, sitting there, we looked in.

"Come in, gentlemen," said he; "my watch on deck is in half an hour, and I'm not sleepy to-night."

F– took up a carved whale's tooth, and asked if Mr. Pitman had ever been in the whaling business.

"Two voyages,—one before the mast, one boat-steerer;—both in the Pacific. But whaling didn't suit me. I've a Missus now, and a couple of as fine boys as ever you saw; and I rather be where I can come home oftener than once in three years."

"How did you like whaling?" said I.

"Well, I don't believe there's any man but what feels different alongside of a whale from what he does on the ship's deck. Some of those Nantucket and New Bedford men, who've been brought up to it, as you may say, take it naturally, and think of nothing but the whale. I've heard of one of them boat-steerers who got ketched in a whale's mouth and didn't come out of it quite as whole as he went in. When they asked him what he thought when the whale nabbed him, he said he 'thought she'd turn out about forty barrels.'

"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't? Where do the whales go to, now and then?—I sailed with one captain who used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, he knew that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say, myself; but this I can say,—they go ashore. You may look hard at that, but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon. We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their men,—singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'

"'Good-night, Capt. T–! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was the last words they said to us.

"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'

"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made up in the land,—across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.

"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale, and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's convenience. Now, then,'—as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of it,—'give way, strong as you please,—and we'll head her off, before she knows it.'

"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.

"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails reefed,—the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water comes pouring aft,—and Captain Cope calls out to reef topsails,—double-reef fore and mizzen,—one reef in the main. The mates are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips, to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,—"Haul away to leeward!"—repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the glorious thrill of the sea,—to look down the sloping deck into the black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It is but wood and iron and hemp and canvas that is doing all this, with some thirty poor, broken-down, dissipated wretches, who, being fit for nothing else, of course are fit for the fo'castle of a Liverpool Liner. Yet it is, for all that, something which haunts the memory long,—which comes back years after in inland vales and quiet farm-houses like brown-moss agates set in emerald meadows, in book-lined studios, and in close city streets. For it is part of the might and mystery of the sea, the secret influence that sets the blood on fire and the heart throbbing,—of any in whose veins runs some of the true salt-water sympathy. Men are born landsmen, and are born on land, but belong to the Ocean's family. Sooner or later, whatever their calling, they recognize the tie. They may struggle against it, and scotch it, but cannot kill it. They may not be seamen,—they may wear black coats and respectable white ties, and have large balances in the bank, but they are the Sea's men,—brothers by blood-relationship, if not by trade, of Ulysses and Vasco, of Columbus and Cabot, of Frobisher and Drake.

Other stories of the sea are floating through my memory as I write,—tales told with elbows leaning on cabin-tables, while the swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"—her who sailed with the "Bonita" and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn, he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,—her stately spars seemingly rising out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;—it seemed an age to him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had broken, and the foam-belt along the cliffs grew dimmer and dimmer, and the land fainter and fainter. And then," he said, "to hear the fo'castle-talk, you would have said that never was such a ship, such spars, such a captain, such seamanship, and such luck, since Father Jason cleared the 'Argo' from the Piræus, for Colchis and a market."

Or I might tell you how Dr. –, the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race,—and how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near that he could almost lay his hand upon it. How Fanshaw was on board the "Sea-King" when she was burned, off Point Linus,—and how he hung in the chains till he was taken off, and his hair was repeatedly set on fire by the women—emigrant-passengers—jumping over his head into the sea.

But not so near a-shaking hands with Death did any of them tell, as Ned Kennedy,—who, poor fellow, lies buried in some lone cañon of the Sierra Madre. Let us hear him give it in his wild, reckless way. Ned was sitting opposite us, his thick, black hair curling from under his plaid travelling-cap,—his thick eyebrows working, and his hands occupied in arranging little fragments of pilot-biscuit on the table. He broke in upon the last man who was talking, with a—

"Tell you what, boys,—I've a better idea of what all that means. I suppose you both know what the Mediterranean lines of steamers are, and what capital seamanship, and travelling comfort, and all that, you find there. The engineers, however, are Scotch, English, or American, always; because why? A French officer once told me the reason. 'You see, mon ami,' he said, 'this row of handles which are used to turn these different stops and cocks. Now, my countrymen will take them down and use them properly, each one, just as well as your countrymen; but they will put them back again in their places never.' So it is, and the engineers are all as I say.

"I left Naples for Genoa in the 'Ercolano,' of the Naples line. There were not many passengers on board,—no women,—and what there were were all priests or soldiers. Nobody went by the Neapolitan line except Italians, at that time,—the French company having larger, handsomer, and decidedly cleaner vessels. Of course, as a heretic and a civilian, I had nobody to talk to; so, finding that the engineer had a Saxon tongue in his head, I dove down into his den and made acquaintance. Being shut up there with Italians so much, he thawed out to me at once, and we were sworn brothers by the time we reached Civita Vecchia.

"The 'Ercolano' was as crazy an old tub as every floated: judging from the extensive colonies which tenanted her berths, she must have been launched about the same time as Fulton's 'Clermont,' or the old 'Ben Franklin,' Captain Bunker, once so well known off the end of Newport wharf. You know how those boats are managed,—stopping all day in port and running at night. We brought up at Leghorn in that way, and Marston, the engineer, proposed to me to have a run ashore. I had no visé for Tuscany then, and the Austrian police are very strict; but Marston proposed to pass me off for one of the steamer's officers. So he fished out an old uniform coat of his and made me put it on; and, sure enough, the bright buttons and shoulder-straps carried me through,—only I was dreadfully embarrassed." (Ned never was disturbed at anything.—if an elephant had walked into the cabin, he would have offered him a seat and cigar.) "by the sentries all presenting arms to my coat, which sat upon me as a shirt is supposed to on a bean-pole. I overheard one man attribute my attenuated frame to the effects of sea-sickness. We went into various shops, and finally into one where all sorts of sea-notions were kept, and Marston said, 'Here's what I've been in search of this month past. I began to think I should have to send to London for it. The 'Ercolano' is a perfect sieve, and may go down any night with all aboard; and here's a swimming-jacket to wear under your coat,—just the thing.' He fitted and bought one, and was turning to go, when a fancy popped into my head: 'Marston,' said I, 'is this coat of yours so very baggy on me?' 'H-e-em,' said he. 'I've known more waxy fits; a trifle of padding wouldn't hurt your looks.' 'I know it,' said I; 'every soldier we passed seemed to me to smoke me for an impostor, knowing the coat wasn't made for me. Here, let's put one of these things underneath.' I put it on, buttoned the coat over it, inflated it, and the effect was a marvel;—it made a portly gentleman of me at once. I couldn't bear to take it off. 'Just the thing for diligence-travelling in the South of France,' said I; 'keep your neighbor's elbows from your ribs.' I never thought that I must buy a coat to match it. I was so tickled at my own fancy that buy it I would, in spite of Marston's remonstrance. Then we went off and dined, and got very jolly together,—at least, I did,—so that, when we pulled off to the steamer, I thought nothing about my coat or the jacket under it.

"There was a dirty-looking sky overhead, and a nasty cobbling sea getting up under foot as we ran out of Leghorn Harbor, and a little French screw which we left at her anchor was fizzing off steam from her waste-pipe,—evidently meaning to stay where she was. But our captain, having been paid in advance for all the dinners of the voyage, preferred being at sea before the cloth was laid. That made sure of at least twenty out of every twenty-five passengers as non-comedents, and lightened the cook's labors wonderfully. So we were soon jumping and bobbing about and throwing water in a lively way enough; and our black gowns and blue coats were lying about decks in every direction, with what had been padres and soldiers an hour before inside. I lit a cigar and picked out the driest place I could find, and hugged myself on my luck,—another man's coat getting wet on my back, while the air-tight jacket was keeping me dry as a bone.

"As night fell, it grew worse and worse; and the little Sicilian captain came on deck, looking rather wild. He called his pilots and mates into consultation, and from where I lay I could hear the words, 'Spezzia,' and 'Porto Venere,' several times; so I suppose they were debating whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes, then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is laboring heavily. You could hear it take, as it were, long breaths, and then stop for a second altogether. I slipped below into the engine-room, and found Marston looking very sober. 'Kennedy,' said he, 'the 'Ercolano' will be somebody's coffin before to-morrow morning, I'm afraid. I'm carrying more steam than is prudent or safe, and the padrone has just sent orders to put on more. We are not making a mile an hour, he says; and our only chance is to get under the lee of the land. Look at those eccentrics and that connecting-rod! I expect to see something go any minute; and then—there's no use saying what will come next.' He sat down on his bench and covered his face with his hands.

"It seems, the 'Spezzia' question was decided about that time on deck, and the 'Ercolano's' bow suffered to fall off in the direction of that bay. The effect was that the next sea caught us full on the weather-bow with a shock that pitched everything movable out of its place. There was a twist and a grind from the machinery, a snap and a crash, and then part after part gave way, as the strain fell upon it in turn. Marston, with an engineer's instinct, shut off the steam; but the mischief was done. We felt the 'Ercolano' give a wild sheer, and then a long, sickening roll, as if she were going down bodily,—and we sprang for the companion-ladder. Everything on deck was at sixes and sevens when we reached it 'Sangue di San Gennaro! siamo perduli!' howled the captain; and even the poor sea-sick passengers seemed to wake up a little. It was a bad look-out. We got pretty much of every wave that was going, so there was hardly any standing forward; and, having no steam on, the wind and the sea had their own way with us. The gallant little padrone seemed to keep up his pluck, and made out to show a little sail, so as to bring her by the wind; but that, in a long, sharp steamer, didn't mend matters much. To make things completely cheerful and comfortable, word was passed up that we were leaking badly. I confess I didn't see much hope for us; and having lugged up my valise from below, where there was already a foot of water over the cabin-floor, I picked out the little valuables I could stow about me and kicked the rest into a corner. Still we had our boats, and, as the gale seemed to be breaking a little, there was hope for us. At last they managed to get them into the water, and keep them riding clear under our lee. The priests were bundled in like so many wet bales of black cloth, and then the soldiers, and Marston and I tried to follow; but a 'No room for heretics here,' enforced by a bit of brown steel in a soldier's hands, kept us back. The chance wasn't worth fighting for, after all. I didn't believe the steamer would sink, any way. I was aboard the 'San Francisco' when she drifted for nine days. However, there wasn't much time left for us to speculate on that,—for a rush of firemen and crew and the like into the boats was the next thing, and then the fasts were cast off or cut, and the wind and sea did the rest. They shot away into the darkness. A couple of firemen, two of the priests, and a soldier were left on board. The firemen went to getting drunk,—the priests were too sick to move or care for anything,—the soldier sat quietly down on the cabin-skylight; Marston and I climbed on to the port paddle-box to look out for a sail.

"The clouds had broken with the dying of the gale, and the moon shone out, lighting up the foaming sea far and wide, and showing our water-logged or sinking craft. Every wave that swept over us found its way below, and we settled deeper and deeper. Still, if we could only hold on till morning, those seas are alive with small craft, and we stood a good chance of being picked off. I was saying as much to Marston when the 'Ercolano' gave a lurch and then dove bows first into the sea. A great wave seemed to curl over us, and then to thrust us by the shoulders down into the depths, and all was darkness and water. I went down, down, and still I was dragged lower still, though the pressure from above ceased, and I was struggling to rise. I struck out with hands and feet;—I was held fast. I felt behind me and found a hand grasping my coat-tails. Marston had seized me, and with the other hand was clinging to the iron rail on the top of the paddle-box,—clinging with the death-grip of a drowning man, if you know what that is. I tried to unclasp the fingers,—to drive him from his hold on the rail. Of course I couldn't; it was Death's hand, not his, that was holding there, and my own strength was going, when a thought flashed into my mind. I tore open my coat, and it slipped from me like a grape-skin from the grape, and I went up like an arrow.

"Never shall I forget the blessed light of heaven, and the sweet air in my lungs once more. Bad off as I was, it was better than being anchored to a sinking wreck by a dead man's grasp. I heard a voice near me that night repeating the Latin prayers of the Romish Church for the departing soul, but I couldn't see the speaker. The moon had gone under a cloud again, but there was light enough for me to catch a glimpse of some floating wreck on the crest of a wave above me; and then it came down right on top of me,—a lot of rigging and a spar or two,—our topmast and yard, which had gone over the side just before we foundered. I climbed on to it, and found my prospects hugely improving,—especially as clinging to the other end was the soldier left on board. As soon as I could persuade him I was no spook or mermaid, he was almost as pleased as I was, especially when he found I was the 'eretico.' He was a Swiss, it seemed, of King Ferdinand's regiments, going home on furlough, and a Protestant, which was why he was left on board.

"Between us both we managed to get the spars into some sort of a raft-shape, so that they would float us more comfortably; and there we watched for the morning. When that came, the sea had smoothed itself, and the wind died away considerably,—as it does in the Mediterranean at short notice. We looked every way for the white lateen-sails of the coasting and fishing craft, but in vain. It grew hotter and hotter as the sun got higher, and hope and strength began to give out. I lay down on the raft and slept,—how long I don't know, for my first consciousness was my friend's cry of "A ship!" I looked up, and there, sure enough, in the northeast, was a large ship, running before the wind, right in our direction. I suspect poor Fritzeli must have been asleep also, that he hadn't seen her before,—for she was barely a couple of miles off. She was apparently from Genoa or Spezzia; but the main thing was, that she was travelling our road, and that with a will. I tore off my shirt-sleeve at the shoulder, and waved it, while Fritzeli held up his red sash. But it was an anxious time. On she came,—a big frigate. We could see a commodore's pendant flying at the main, and almost hear the steady rush of water under her black bows. Did they see us, or not? There was no telling; a man-of-war walks the sea's roads without taking hats off to everybody that comes along. A quiet report goes up to the officer of the deck, a long look with a glass, and the whole affair would be settled without troubling us to come into council. On she came, till we could see the guns in her bow ports, and almost count the meshes in her hammock netting. The shadow of her lofty sails was already fallen upon us before she gave a sign of recognition. Then her bow gave a wide sheer, and her whole broadside came into view, as she glided by the spars where we were crouching. An officer appeared at her quarter and waved his gold-banded cap to us, as the frigate rounded to, to the leeward of us,—and the glorious stripes and stars blew out clear against the hot sky. A light dingey was in the water before the main yard had been well swung aback, and a midshipman was urging the men, who needed no urging, to give way strong. I didn't know how weak I had got, till they were lifting me aboard the boat. An hour after, when I had had something to eat and was a little restored and had told my story, the officer of the deck was relieved and came below to see me.

"'I fancy, Sir, we've just passed something of your steamer,' he said,—'a yawlboat, bottom up, with a name on the stern which we couldn't well make out: Erco something, it looked like. Hadn't been long in the water, I should say.'

"And that was the last of the steamer. Fritzeli and I were the sole survivors."

THE JOLLY MARINER:

A BALLAD

It was a jolly mariner
As ever hove a log;
He wore his trousers wide and free,
And always ate his prog,
And blessed his eyes, in sailor-wise,
And never shirked his grog.

Up spoke this jolly mariner,
Whilst walking up and down:—
"The briny sea has pickled me,
And done me very brown;
But here I goes, in these here clo'es,
A-cruising in the town!"