William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.
No. 18

W. H. Macy

Flag of our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 42 (Oct 17, 1868)
p. 670.

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.

No. 18.

OFF THE ROCKS AGAIN. — A BAD LEAK. — ANECDOTES. — THE RUN TO THE CAROLINE ISLANDS.

      "We shall have to heave taut again, Mr. Grafton, and give her another swing," said the old man. "O, if we only had another hawser to hold her stern where it is, and take this one in on the port bow! But I don't like to risk her to swing broadside on."

      At this moment a hand grasping a knife emerged from the water, near the middle of the hawser, and a shaggy head rose partly above the surface. Five or six muskets cracked simultaneously both from the ship and shore. The head and arm disappeared, and the water was discolored where they went down. Another savage had met the reward of his rashness and the hawser was saved again.

      "They wont try that move again right away," said the old man, coolly. "But those canoes are almost here and I am fearful for those men who are on the point, guarding the shore end of the hawser. There she slips a little! Do you feel that, Mr. Grafton? We must risk it. Come up the hawser all together! Lay aft here, every man! Take the bight round outside and lead in on the port bow! Lively, men! You're working for your lives!"

      We knew it, and needed no urging; the heavy rope was passed swiftly from hand to hand, and brought in forward to the fore-rigging; a turn was thrown round the windlass and the brakes were instantly in motion. As she lay now, this was the very pull she wanted. Hardly had we brought a strain when she began to slide and rumble under us, and a wild hurrah burst from all our lips as she settled into her element, and her head paid briskly off, under the power of her foretopsail. But as she did so, her stern swung in violently, and a projecting spur of the rock beneath the water met her under the counter, with a kind of dull, cracking sound that came ominously to our ears.

      We could not stop to think of this now. We looked astern; Mr. Dunham was coming! He had already cut the hawser at the shore end, and his crew were pulling the boat off by it, hand over hand, while he and Fisher stood with muskets keeping their foes at bay; for, maddened with rage and disappointment, they were now beginning to close in upon him.

      "Brace round the yards!" roared the captain. "Steady! meet her with the helm! Keep her right in the channel! All the muskets here now, and open a covering fire for this boat! Pull boys! pull! We'll have you all safe in another minute!"

      We no longer thought of saving powder, but fired away among the thickest of them. A dozen of them were killed or wounded and they soon found the work too hot. They hauled off with hideous yells, and we took all our men safely on board, though Fisher had a bad cut from one of the serrated spears, and the second mate and young Black Hawk were both severely wounded by stones, which had been hurled in great numbers from the canoes, when they closed up around the boat.

      "Is that gun loaded with ball?" asked the old man.

      "Ay, ay, sir!" responded Mr. Grafton. "Say the word!"

      "Luff hard, there!" said the captain. "Let her come up and shiver! Stand by, now, when she bears right — fire! Hard up, and keep full!"

      The old "persuader" did her work as effectually as at Dominica. Two canoes were struck by the discharge, and the yells that rose from the terrified barbarians, now joined by the advance division of the Woodle's Island fleet, rang in our ears, but with no terrors for us, now that we were fairly standing seaward.

      "Try the pumps, now, Mr. Grafton, while I look after these wounded men," said the captain. "I'm afraid we may have started a leak, under the counter, but I hope not a very bad one."

      The first strokes of the pump told us that his fears were not without good foundation. The water gushed from the scuppers bright and clean!

      "Get me a dry ropeyarn," said Father Grafton, quietly. "Draw the boxes, and let's sound the well."

      A plummet was soon extemporized, and lowered into the pump-well. It was drawn carefully up again. O, how anxiously all eyes were riveted upon it, as with suspended breath we awaited the mate's words. "Twenty-five inches."

      "That's not so bad as it might be," he said cheerfully. "It's some time since she struck there. Rig the other pump and man them both!"

      We kept both pumps going fast and strong till they sucked. We then timed her, and when we pumped her again, we made the leak about fifteen hundred strokes an hour.

      "That will keep us pretty busy pumping," said the old man, "until we get in somewhere where we can stop it. However, we may thank God we came off as well as we did. We can keep the leak under till we reach one of the Carolines, and as for the three men, I don't consider either of them wounded seriously, though they may be disabled from duty for some days. We'll break out in the starboard side of the run this afternoon, and see if we can make any discoveries."

      We broke out, accordingly, and judging by the sound, where the leak was, we cut out a piece of the ceiling. We found a place crushed in two planks in width, the broken wood still remaining, though much shattered, and forced out of its place. With a "fothering" of canvas and oakum, and some boards nailed to the timbers to hold all in place, we reduced the leak considerably. This was all that could be done to it from the inside, but we were satisfied that we could get at it, by careening the ship in a smooth harbor, and repair it, as we did the former leak at Hanayapa; as the timbers did not appear to be materially injured. We timed her again in our watch that night, and found we pumped only about nine hundred strokes an hour.

      "Well," said Father Grafton, "that's much better than fifteen hundred, for it's a kind of labor that seamen abominate, and no wonder at it. There's a sameness about it that is not at all agreeable. I must say that I dislike such jobs as pumping, sawing wood, and turning grindstones."

      Of course I agreed with him entirely in this antipathy.

      "I don't think," continued the mate, "that there is any other leak in her beside that one under the counter. It's likely that the copper and sheathing are much torn up under the bows, but the ledge appeared to be pretty smooth, and the pumps threw no water, up to just before the time we hauled her afloat."

      "I suppose," said I, "the cooper will admit now that she leaks enough to keep her sweet. Ah! here he is, on deck, and his pipe loaded, too. Say, Cooper, have you seen any flying fish come from the pump yet?"

      "No," answered the cooper, gruffly. "She don't leak much, now, that is, comparatively speaking. She's tight, compared to the old Harbinger. But we didn't mind it so much in those days, as we should now."

      "No, that's true," said the mate, "and, to go twenty or thirty years still further back, they minded it still less, and seemed to look upon pumping as a matter of course, a part of the regular routine of ship's duty. I recollect a case in point. When I was a young fellow, I happened to be present in court when a case was being tried involving the insurance on the ship Tarquin, sunk at sea on her homeward passage. It appeared that the Tarquin, when off Cape Horn, leaked a smart thousand strokes an hour; that after getting down into the trades on the Atlantic side, they had tinkered some of their leaks, and also, being in lighter weather, she made less water, so that they pumped only three or four hundred strokes an hour when off Cape St. Augustine. Well, they held on their course, and, between there and home, she gave out entirely, and sunk from under 'em. The underwriters refused to pay, and the ground taken by them was, that the captain ought to have gone into a port in Brazil, and overhauled his ship. Well, several old sea-captains were called on the stand to give their opinions. I remember one in particular, who is still living. The question was put to him, whether, in his judgment, it was prudent for the captain of the Tarquin, with his ship leaking some three or four hundred strokes, and Pernambuco under his lee, to continue on towards home? 'Prudent!' said the old gentleman. 'Yes, why not? Why,' said he, proudly, 'I sailed out of New Bedford in a ship leaking five hundred strokes an hour to start on a voyage!'"

      "Yes, that was in what they call, 'the good old times,'" said the cooper. "And that reminds me of a circumstance that happened many years ago in which an uncle of mine was one of the parties concerned. He was homeward bound in an old ship, I think it was the Criterion. They got in on the coast, made Block Island, and took a pilot. It came on to blow very heavily from the northward, and they were blown off the coast and the ship leaked so that they found it impossible to free her, and decided that the only safety for them was to put her off before it and run her — somewhat. Well, they let her slide to leeward with both pumps going, and when the weather moderated, they found themselves so far to the southward that they kept on, and made a port at the French island of Martinique. Here they discharged the oil, hove the ship out, stopped the leaks, and took in their cargo again. In those days, you will remember, communications with the West Indies was not an every-day thing as it is now, and nothing was heard from that particular island for a long time. Well, in the mean time the pilot-boat reported putting a pilot on board ship Criterion, off Block island, such a date. Of course, it was supposed she had foundered in the gale, and all had perished. Well, four months afterwards, away along in the summer, the Criterion came down to the bar, and when my uncle went ashore he found his wife in mourning, having given him up for dead long before."

      "I believe that's a true yarn, Cooper, if you did tell it," said the mate — "This way the watch! Pump ship!"

      We still held on our course to the westward, to make a port at one of the Carolines or Ladrones, and made good progress with the trade winds in our favor. Our men soon recovered from their injuries, and resumed their duties, rather priding themselves upon the ugly scars received in the conflict. Whether the old man ever said anything in the way of reprimand to the second mate, I never knew. If he did, the whole matter was kept to themselves; and, indeed, it was not his habit to find fault with an officer in the presence or hearing of any subordinate. Perhaps he thought it best to overlook his almost fatal want of vigilance, in view of his gallant conduct afterwards in charge of the forlorn hope on the point, and trusted that the peril through which he had just passed would prove a salutary lesson to him for the future. If so, he judged correctly, for the young officer's eyes were opened to his own carelessness; and, in a literal sense, he kept them open the remainder of the voyage. As I learned from others in his watch, he never was known, after this affair, to sit down during his hours of duty at night.

      "We are drawing down near to the Carolines," said the mate to me one evening, about a week after the accident. "I think we shall make Strong's Island to-morrow."

      "Have you ever been there, sir?" I asked.

      "Not to go ashore," said Mr. Grafton. "I have passed in sight of it, and I have been in and anchored at Ascension, which is beyond it to the northward and westward. I hear that ships visit Strong's Island quite frequently of late. I suppose the people are similar in appearance and character to those of Ascension. We shall reconnoitre there a little, and perhaps the old man will decide to go in, if he finds it a good harbor to stay our leak in; if not, we shall keep on to Ascension or Guam."

      "Are these people anything like those at Kingsmill's Group?"

      "Not at all," replied the mate. "Neither in appearance, language nor general character. There is something very interesting about them; at least, those that I have seen at Ascension. They are handsomer, and lighter in color than those islanders we have left behind; and they are also more intelligent and ingenious. The women, especially, are more delicate, with good figures; some of them are really pretty. Then, in place of the gibberish of uncouth sounds spoken in most parts of Polynesia, these people have a musical language, full of soft liquids and ringing consonants, that seems more like Chinese than like anything we are accustomed to recognize as a 'Kanaka language.'"

      "Are they safe people to deal with?" I asked.

      "Well, no more so than the generality of savages. Indeed I think they are quite as treacherous, though not as hardy and warlike as Marquesans or New Zealanders. None of these races are to be trusted, and we must be always on our guard in our intercourse with them; treating them well, but never placing ourselves entirely in their power."

      "Power makes right, with them, as it does with civilized nations," I answered, "and the same rule of diplomacy which you have mentioned will apply to our dealings with the best of them, I think."

      "That's true," said Father Grafton, reflectively. "I suppose, after all, we are no better than they are, only we have a more genteel way of doing things and do them on a larger scale. We should not kill and eat a man or two whom we caught on board our ship; but if it suited our purposes, we should very likely take possession of a whole island or group of islands, and kill the people in a legal way, if they resisted; as is being done even now, by enlightened France, at the Marquesas and Society Islands."

      "And if they don't take possession of all Oceanica," said I, "it is only because it is not worth their while, or as we Yankees would say, 'it wont pay.'"

      "Just so," assented the mate. "And if, as some think, England will protest against this occupation by the French, it will not be because of any injustice done to the natives but because it might be thought dangerous to her interests to permit France to have these naval stations in the Pacific."

      "It is a delicate matter, any way," he resumed, "to do justice in dealing with these savages. We must secure the safety of our own lives, if possible, and of our property, too. Of course I am speaking, now, of the case of isolated ships, like our own. It seems cruel to kill or wound a savage for pilfering, especially when we remember that a plug of tobacco or a knife may appear as great a treasure to his simple mind, as a mine of gold or a fertile province to our more enlightened capacities. And yet how else are we to prevent the annoyance, and secure our property? We cannot reason with them, nor can we punish them according to any civilized form of law. And if we kill or maltreat them, it's ten to one they will retaliate upon some other white men who may be thrown in their way at a future time. It's a difficult subject, to make the best of it," said the mate, dismissing the matter in an unsatisfied way, as hundreds of others have done; and taking up another.

      "There is evidence to prove," said he, "that the Caroline Islands were once inhabited by a race of people far superior to those now found here. The ruins of a large stone building, apparently a religious temple of some sort, still stand on the island of Ascension, away up in the interior, showing beyond all question that those who reared it possessed a knowledge of arts and of mechanical powers far beyond the capacity of the present owners of the soil. I am told that similar evidences are to be found at Strong's Island, in the form of stone walls, running in various directions about the island, which never could have been built by the present inhabitants."

      "What account do they give of them?" I asked.

      "So far as I can learn, it is as great a mystery to the present generation of them as it is to us; and I have never heard that they have even any traditions to account for them. But there they are," said he, dismissing this subject, like the other, unsatisfied.

      "But it is time to set these faithful pumps going again; that's a practical matter, with not much of interesting speculation about it. Pump ship!"

      We made Strong's Island the next day, as expected, and running down for it, saw two ships lying at anchor in a bay on the weather side of it, making in from the south-east. The old man lowered his boat and went in, leaving us to lie off and on for his return. Soon afterwards a canoe was seen coming out with three men. They paddled alongside very quietly, in marked contrast with the jabbering barbarians whom I had been accustomed to hear at the other group, or even to the Portuguese boatmen at the Azores. I was looking at them over the rail in the waist, and wondering how the first words of their language would sound in my ears, when the man in the head of the canoe spoke up, in clear and distinct English, "Give us a rope, if you please." The crew of the Topez could hardly have been more surprised when they discovered Pitcairn's Island, and were addressed in their own language by the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, than were we at hearing this polite request.

      The men came on board, and it appeared that they all spoke a good smattering of English, though the first speaker took the lead, he having made a short cruise in a whaler. He told us one of the ships in the bay was American and the other English. The mate asked him if he knew the name of either of the ships, thinking at most, that he might get some clew to guess from; but, to our further astonishment, he replied, "Ship Leonidas, of New Bedford, Captain Taber, and Ship Seringapatam, of London, Captain Courtenay," pronouncing all the names with the greatest care and distinctness. He already knew the name of our ship and captain, having spoken the boat going into the bay.

      "Well," said Mr. Grafton, "they ought to establish a newspaper here, and secure this man as marine news reporter. It's not one white man in twenty could have given us these particulars, and done it in as good shape;" for we had learned how much oil these ships has taken, where they were bound, and many other things of interest concerning them.

      "Why, either of these men talk better English than any ordinary Kanaka who has made a four years' voyage in a whaler."

      Our boat was seen returning, and the old man came on board with a favorable report. He gave orders to get the chains up and the anchors off the bow at once, having made up his mind to go in.

      "It's a snug harbor," I heard him telling the mate, "and it's easy getting into it. I have some doubts about getting out again as easy, but I guess we shall have a slant of wind. Taber went in only yesterday and is bound on Japan too. He wants a consort, and will stay as long as we do, in case our job of stopping the leak should detain us. The Englishman is all ready for sea, now, but he can't get out with this wind."

      Within an hour we were riding quietly at anchor in six fathoms, but a short distance from the beach, and in a convenient place for heeling the ship to repair the injury which had caused us so much monotonous and fatiguing labor at the pumps.

Source:

W. H. Macy.
"Leaves from the Arethusa's Log - No. 18."
      Flag of Our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 42 (Oct 17, 1868)
p. 670.

William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite