William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.
No. 11

W. H. Macy

Flag of our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 35 (Aug 29, 1868)
p. 558.

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.

No. 11.

PROMOTION. — "COOPER'S NOVELS." — THE MATE MORALIZES. — CAPE HORN.

      The vacancy occasioned by the death of Mr. Johnson was filled by the promotion of Bunker to be third mate; and the next matter for consideration was the selection of a boatsteerer for the larboard boat. The two Nantucket boys were not, as yet, old enough or stout enough for this duty. Old Jeff and the two Portuguese, from their experience, were eligible candidates; but it seems Father Grafton had determined, so far as he was concerned, to promote his bowman to that office. Captain Upton, as I afterwards learned, was disposed to leave the choice in the mate's hands, merely reminding him of the necessity of due consideration in a matter so important. "You know," said he, "we can't afford to have whales missed. However, 'Blacksmith' seems a likely young man about the ship, and as for his conduct in a boat you are better qualified to judge than I am, as he has been at your bow oar. So, if you think he will do his work, try him. Let him have one chance, at any rate; we must run a risk with somebody."

      The weather had moderated at this time so that the ship was running under whole topsails; and a new boat had already been taken from overhead, and was in process of fitting for service to take her place on the starboard cranes.

      The word was passed for "Blacksmith" to appear on the quarter deck. The old man and Father Grafton were in consultation as I came aft and stood under their lee, respectfully waiting for orders.

      "Blacksmith," asked the captain, turning suddenly upon me, "can you strike a whale?"

      "I think I could, sir, if I was within reach of him," I answered.

      "Do you want to try yourself?" he asked.

      "Yes, sir," said I quietly, and yet confidently, too.

      "Remember," said the old man, "if you fail once, with a good chance, you must give it up and let somebody else come in. We can't affort to have any 'foopaws.'^* Mr. Grafton thinks you will do it well, and has said a good word for you."

      I bowed my acknowledgments to the mate for his good opinion, and said something I cannot tell what, to the effect that I would endeavor to justify it. Had I been previously notified, I might have had a "neat and appropriate speech" prepared for the occasion.

      "I want you to remember," resumed the old man, "when you go alongside of a whale, that the voyage is depending upon you. Get a good scote, and grit the ends of your front teeth right off! If you do your work, I'll see that you are paid the lay. You may take charge of the larboard boat's craft, and rig the irons to suit your own hand. Bring your traps aft to-night, and take up your quarters in the cabin; and understand, if you live aft, I expect to find you aft, except when your duty calls you forward."

      "Thank you, sir," I answered, "I'll do the best I can."

      "That's all I want," said the captain, with a wink of intelligence to his mate, as if to say, "he'll do."

      The change was soon made. I transferred myself and my effects to the region of forks and dishes, and became, at short notice, a petty officer, and member of the House of Lords, after only three months' actual service at sea. My companions in the "bull-room" were more select and less numerous than in the forecastle, consisting of young Fisher, the boatsteerer, the veracious cooper, and the Portuguese steward and cabin-boy. I had now the full benefit of the cooper's yarns, and he did not fail to entertain me with some choice specimens of Munchausenism during the first watch below that evening.

      "Well, Blacksmith," said he, "you've seen a little of the other side of the picture, and you are satisfied that all whales are not taken so easily as that first one off the Western Islands. Not that I think this last one was a bad whale at all, but any whale is liable to get an unlucky clip at a boat when he feels the iron. Then you see, it was rugged weather, and the boat was going to leeward under good headway, so it was awkward work to keep clear of him."

      "'Twas all an accident," said Fisher, who had come down to light his pipe, "as it always is, I think. Of course, if you throw an iron into a whale, he'll kick and struggle just as you or I would; and if a boat happens to be right in his way, why, the hardest fends off. And that's the way all boats are stove, I believe. I never saw a whale that I thought meant to stave a boat."

      "Didn't you?" inquired the cooper. "Well, hold on, Fisher, perhaps you'll go another voyage and still not see a regular fighting whale. I hope so, at any rate. But it's no use for you to tell me there aint any, because I know better. I could tell you about a scrape we had in the Deucalion, only I don't want to scare you young fellows."

      "O, fire away!" said Fisher. "You wont frighten me nor Blacksmith. What was it, that same whale that was so long you had to sling stages over the stern to cut his head off?"

      "No, indeed," replied the cooper, "that was in the Bajazet. No, this was only a forty-barrel bull, and the worst of it was, we didn't cut him in at all. He stove all four boats for us, and chawed them up into splinters. We got out the last boat we had from overhead, and picked up the men, and the whale chased us all the way to the ship. We pulled all we knew, and got alongside, hooked on, and had the boat raised out of the water, when the old fellow shoved his jaw out and grabbed her right out of the tackles! Such a crashing and splintering of cedar boards you never saw or heard as when he shut down upon her. The two men that were hooking on grabbed the tackles and shinned for dear life. But he wasn't satisfied with that mouthful, for he undertook to chaw the ship. But old Captain Harper hadn't forgotten the Essex story, and we made all sail to get out of his way; for, mind ye, if he had started a leak in the old ship, we hadn't a boat left to save ourselves in. He chased us about four hours, but he was somewhat weakened from loss of blood, for he had seven irons and four lances sticking in him. We were in hopes he would turn up in the ship's wake, but he seemed to find out at last that a stern chase was a long one, and gave it up. The last we saw of him he was going to windward, spouting clear. About a fortnight afterwards, we spoke the Termagant, and they gave us our craft. They had picked him up, dead, and when we came to compare reckonings, we found it was about three hundred and fifty miles from where we lost sight of him!"

      "How long was it before they found him?" asked Fisher.

      "The second day after we struck him," replied the cooper, not seeing the drift of the question.

      "Well, he must have picked up his strength amazingly after he started to windward. You say he couldn't go fast enough to leeward to overtake the ship, and yet he went three hundred and fifty miles to windward in a matter of thirty-six hours: that's about ten knots an hour."

      "I don't care if it is; he couldn't keep up with the old Deucalion when we put her off with the wind on her quarter."

      "Why, how fast would she go?"

      "Seventeen knot, easy," answered the cooper with the utmost gravity.

      "There, that'll do," said Fisher. "It's time I went on deck. Whenever I can believe that old wagon of a ship went seventeen knots, then I shall be ready to believe in these eating whales. But you haven't got tobacco enough to make me hoist in either."

      "It's no use for him to talk," said the cooper after Fisher was gone. "If he goes whaling as long as I have been, perhaps he'll see an eating whale. I reckon it's breezing on by the sound on deck. Yes, down goes the coil of the maintopsail halyards, and here they come stamping aft. I think the wind will haul ahead before morning, and then we may as well make out our log for three or four weeks, beating and banging to get round the horn. Well, it's all in the course of a voyage. I was seventy days off the Cape in the Bajazet, and it never lulled enough to get the fore and mizzen topsails on her."

      "Must have been pleasant," I muttered, half asleep.

      "Pleasant! yes. Plenty to eat, and nothing to do but wear round now and then. The worst of it was, the ship was so crank we had to travel on our ankles altogether, and when it did moderate, we'd lost the power of using our feet like human — "

      I was by this time fast locked, and I presume that my snoring reminded the inveterate yarn-spinner that he might as well follow suit as to waste his breath.

      His predictions proved more reliable that his narratives; for when our watch turned out, the ship was under double reefs with the wind at south-west, and squally. There was nothing to do, however, unless it "breezed on" harder. So, after seeing that the watch were all within call and the lookout set, we made ourselves comfortable under the hurricane house for the new ship boasted that appendage among her modern improvements.

      "When I first went to sea," said Father Grafton, "we would have laughed at the notion of building such a covering as this, as we would at many other things which are now quite common, and which, a few years hence, will be looked upon as necessary. There's the patent windlass: it's the first one that I have been shipmate with, but I suppose after I have been this voyage, I should hardly know how to go to sea again with an old-fashioned back-breaker. Why, on my first voyage, we didn't even have purchase bars at the windlass ends; nothing but the handspikes, and it was heave, Dick, and heave, Tom, for I hove last."

      "And yet you used to get large whales and cut them in," said Mr. Bunker.

      "Yes, that's true. Some people will tell you that they did it as quickly and as easily then as we do nowadays; but I can't confirm that. We used to manage it, after a fashion. It is true enough, there's no knowing what men can do till they are put to it. There is a great deal of nonsense talked by some old-school sailors about the good old fashions and good old days when we made short voyages, and got full ships in almost every instance; and they pretend to say that there were better whalemen in those days than now. But that's all moonshine. There were more whales to be seen, and they were easier struck than now. If we struck one and lost him, why, ten to one, we saw another next day and got him; and so the lost one was forgotten. But now we see them so seldom we can't so well afford to lose one, and, with our improved gear and increased knowledge, it is unreasonable to suppose that we lose as many as our fathers did. I think, if the statistics of voyages could be collected and compared, we should prove that we are better whalemen than they were; that is to say, that we get much more oil in proportion to the opportunities we meet with. I know that such has been the fact in my own experience of twenty-five years."

      "You would find it rather hard to make some of the old retired shipmasters believe that," said Mr. Bunker.

      "I know it. Some of them have an idea even now, that they could come out with a ship, and turn them up on Peru and Chili just as fast as they used to. And every now and then some heroic old gentleman takes a start, and comes out here to show us how it's done, and goes home again with half a cargo of oil, and a flea in his ear. More than one instance occurs to me at this moment. Whales are not so plenty now that we can practice the game that Cooper tells us about on his first voyage."

      "What was that, sir?" I inquired.

      "Cooper tells that they used to throw bricks at them to see whether they would kick, before they went on to strike them. By the way, he was spinning you a tough yarn to-night. My room door was open and I could hear most of it. What do you think about that eating whale, Blacksmith?"

      "I hardly know how much of it to believe," said I. "Are there really any such whales as he tells of, sir?"

      "Why, yes, now and then one; though I think the cases are very rare where whales make a deliberate attack. I have never yet seen one myself, but I have sailed with others who have. Captain Upton tells me he has seen two or three in his life, and I don't think he can be mistaken. We have all heard of the Essex affair to which the cooper alluded, and the dreadful sufferings of the crew. I remember it well, for I was cruising on Chili at that time in the Plutarch, and from the statements of the survivors, it is plain enough that that whale went to work deliberately and with malice prepense, as the lawyers would say, to destroy the ship. The cooper's yarn is, doubtless, partly true; but you know by this time, that a story loses nothing in his telling. He has, very likely, seen two or even three boats stoven by one whale, so that his romance is, like many others, 'founded on facts.'"

      "Do you think he believes his own stories, sir?" I asked.

      "I really can't say. It is a phenomenon that has puzzled me for many years. I don't mean in his particular case, for he is only one of a class, and I myself have sailed with two or three others who could equal him in drawing the long bow. Sensible men they were, too, in other respects, and, even remarkably free from some other vices to which seamen are addicted; but lying seemed to be constitutional with them, or else they had cultivated the habit till they had lost all control of themselves. And they seemed impervious to shame in this one particular only. You have read Peter Simple, I suppose?"

      "Yes, sir," I answered. "You are thinking of Captain Kearney, sir?"

      "Yes. When I first read it, I thought Marryatt had sketched a very extravagant character in Captain Kearney, but I have since become more reconciled to it, and don't think it much caricatured after all. I think that a man may contract an absorbing passion for lying as well as for strong drink, and be ready to go all lengths to gratify it. We see every day instances of men, with a thousand noble qualities, who are slaves to liquor, and seem to have lost all self-control in that one respect. Now the cooper is a steady, sober man and a capital fellow, aside from this singular propensity; but I firmly believe that, like Captain Kearney, he will die with a lie in his throat. How do you head, Kelly?"

      "South-east, sir."

      "Knocking off, eh? Well — stand by to wear ship!"

      The conversation was broken off, and was not resumed again for this watch.

      The next morning, it being more moderate, spouts were seen to leeward, and the ship kept off for them. The new boat was pronounced ready for action at short notice, and all was excitement and expectation for a few minutes; but the cry of "forked spout!" put a damper on our hopes.

      "Right whales!" said the old man. "Brace up and let her come to again!"

      "Let's go down and try 'em?" petitioned Mr. Dunham.

      "No, I sha'n't bother with 'em. If we can't get sperm oil, we'll go home empty-handed. Keep her along full and by! Look sharp there aloft for another kind. These whales have got too many spout-holes for my use."

      It was even so with Nantucket whalemen at the period of which I am writing. A whale who showed evidence of having two spiracles was not worth bothering about. And even for years after the great North-west whaling grounds were opened, and rich returns were pouring into New Bedford, New London and other whaling ports, the islanders, the pioneers of whaling, still clung to their old faith and plodded on over their old grounds, picking up a sperm whale now and then, and spending four years or more to get, in most instances, about half a cargo. They ignored the great Nor'west; it was a myth; the very sound of it a great bugbear. "Spermaceti or empty casks" was their platform for many years; and then at last they woke from this delusion, it was too late; the cream had been skimmed from the northern grounds, and the palmiest days of right whaling were over.

      "Have you ever been right whaling, Cooper?" I asked after the stir was over and all was quiet again.

      "Right whaling? yes, two voyages on the Banks. Talk about fighting whales! You ought to see one of those fellows pick his teeth with the corner of his flukes."

      "How's dat, when dey's got no teeth?" asked the cook, who stood within hearing.

      "They've no teeth, strictly speaking, that's true; but they've slabs of bone which amounts to the same thing for all the purposes of the story. I've seen 'em do it many a time — slat their flukes from eye to eye. Whip-lashes are nothing to 'em."

      "Make more oil than sperm whales, don't they?" I asked.

      "Yes, such as 'tis — make four or five hundred barrels sometimes!"

      "Do they ever eat up boats?" I inquired.

      "No, never fight with their heads; they wear 'bonnets' on their heads, and I suppose they don't like to rumple them."

      "What are they made of?" asked Fisher. "Gauze and ribbons?"

      "No — lice and barnacles," said the cooper.

      "Do the bulls wear bonnets, too?"

      "Yes, of course."

      "Do they have new bonnets as often as the fashions change?"

      The only answer was a warlike demonstration with a squilgee that lay at hand; and Fisher beat a retreat.

      We met the strong westerly winds as we approached the latitude of the dreaded Horn, which is seldom to be caught asleep on the outward passage, the prevailing winds having almost the regularity of trades as to direction; and for three weeks they blew south-west and west, so that all hands were well initiated to the beauties of this delectable corner of the world. We were obliged to keep mostly on the starboard tack, and stretch to the southward nearly to the latitude of sixty degrees, which brought us completely out of the track of homeward-bound ships, who, with the same winds would hug the land and give it the go-by under a press of canvas. "Begins with strong gales from west-south-west and rugged sea," became a standing form of entry in our journals till we tired of the sight of the words; and day by day our stout ship struggled, and wallowed and tumbled about, till our patience was well-nigh exhausted. Heavy squalls, accompanied by a peculiar, sharp hail, which cut our flesh like small shot, sometimes varied the entertainment. Yarns, as usual, whiled away the dreary night watches; the experiences of former voyages were referred to, and the changes rung upon them; the cooper drew his bow with a strong hand and heaped Pelion upon Ossa in the way of falsehood; while Father Grafton entertained us with more reliable stories, not only of his own experiences, but of those of other voyagers, going back to the days of LeMaire and Schouten, who gave the cape its name, and coming down through the eras of Anson and Cook to the voyage of the little ship Beaver, of Nantucket, the pioneer of Pacific whaling, which doubled the Horn in 1791, and made her voyage in seventeen months. His memory was well stored with facts of this kind, and so arranged that he could draw freely upon them as they were wanted. A most entertaining companion was our worthy chief officer, and the night watches slipped away much more pleasantly to me since my change of station had brought me nearer to him.

      After standing so far south, we could do something on the other tack, taking the advantage of slants of wind. Our progress was slow and wearisome; but perseverance at last prevailed over all obstacles, the redoubtable headland was doubled without further accident than the loss of another boat washed off the waist cranes in a gale, and a few days more saw the gallant Arethusa doing her best to make up for her lost time; as, seemingly conscious of her tardiness, and rejoicing in her freedom from Antarctic thraldom, she went rolling down the coasts of Patagonia and Chili before a "long and strong souther."

Source:

W. H. Macy.
"Leaves from the Arethusa's Log - No. 11."
      Flag of Our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 35 (Aug 29, 1868)
p. 558.

William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite