William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.
No. 9

W. H. Macy

Flag of our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 33 (Aug 15, 1868)
p. 526.

Leaves from the Arethusa's Log.

No. 9.

"GAMMING" WITH A "HOMEWARD-BOUNDER."

      When in the latitude of Cape St. Augustine, being close-hauled, with light breezes at east-south-east a ship was "raised" in the afternoon, under a cloud of light canvas, steering to the northward. As she gradually neared us, she was made out by her boats and other significant marks to be a homeward-bound whaler, and by altering her course a little, showed her intention of passing within hail and speaking us. The order was given to haul the mainsail up and square the mainyard, and the good ship, arrested in her course, seemed to sit in state, like a hostess, to receive company. The decks were cleared up, and work knocked off at an earlier hour than usual; and the slowly approaching stranger now became the centre of attraction, and the subject of much argument and speculation, each of the old hands recognizing her as some ship he knew or had sailed in, so that in half an hour, she had been christened by more names than would have fitted half the Nantucket fleet, which at that period was no inconsiderable number. Old Jeff knew it was the Colossus by something peculiar about her spritsail-yard; a very reasonable supposition, inasmuch as the Colossus was only four months from Nantucket, outward bound, while the copper, or rather the want of it, on the stranger's bottom, showed unmistakable signs of at least three years' wear and tear. The cooper was morally certain it was the Deucalion, for no other ship ever had, or possibly could have, a pair of anchor-stocks of that shape; but when reminded that she was only one year out, and her voyage probably not completed, compromised the matter by the hypothesis that the ship in sight must have spoken the Deucalion, and bought her anchor; a case which was voted to be far more possible than probable. The old man and his mates were thinking of all the ships that ought to be homeward-bound at that time, and calling her first one and then another; but the conclusion arrived at was that she must be some "outlandishman," as the islanders then termed the New London and Sag Harbor whalers, who defiled their ships with "right whale glue," rather than cruise four years exclusively for sperm.

      The meeting of two ships at sea is a beautiful and imposing affair. I was deeply interested in the sight, as the stranger drew nearer and nearer. He had hauled in his studdingsails, and brailed up both courses, seeming at times to slide down to leeward on a declivity, and then to stop suddenly, as if arrested by some unseen power. The breeze was light, and the sea comparatively smooth, but I was surprised to see how considerable her rolling motion was, even under these circumstances. Rough-looking men, clad in garments of more colors than the coat of Joseph ever boasted, could be seen clustered round the bows, and stretching their heads over the bulwarks, and two or three had climbed into the waist-boat, to get a better view. The skipper, a large, dark-looking man, sat in the head of the labored quarter-boat, from time to time turning his head to speak to his helmsman, and waving his brass trumpet to enforce the order. Captain Upton, with a similar instrument, was mounted on the taffrail, his mates standing near him, a little in the background. The stillness, as the ships neared each other, was unbroken now, save by the occasional rustle of a sail aloft, or the slight washing of the water under the bows of the stranger. Some one was seen to run forward with a spyglass, and, after bringing it to bear for a moment upon our stern, to hurry aft again with a report to the strange captain. The ship appeared at this moment to be heading directly into us, as though bent on striking us amidships and running us down. Some of us, clustered at the weather rail, involuntarily began to draw back, fearing a collision; but again, at a wave of the dark man's trumpet the ship, obedient to her helm, fell slowly off, so as to pass just clear, across our stern. Silence more profound than ever.

      "Who commands the Arethusa?" shouted a hoarse voice, through the brass tube.

      "Upton!" responded the other brass tube.

      "Hope you're very well, Captain Upton!" said brass tube number one, obscuring the face of the speaker like a total eclipse.

      "Very well, thank you," answered tube number two in the same style. "What ship is that, pray?"

      "Mandarin, of Nantucket."

      "Hope to see you well, Captain Barney."

      Much muttering now ensued among our wiseacres, each of whom had known it was the Mandarin all along, and had told all the rest so, half an hour ago. Anybody might have known that was the Mandarin's figure-head. All which somewhat interfered with the clear understanding of the rest of the dialogue, which was now carried on between the brass tubes at a furious rate. "What success? — Sixteen hundred. — What port are you from last? — Oahu. — How long are you from home? — Forty-five days. — Got any letters for us? — Yes. Come aboard. — Thank you, I will." A flourish of the trumpet, and the Mandarin's crew are seen running to the braces, as her helm is clapped a starboard, and she rounds to the wind at a handsome distance under our lee, with her maintopsail thrown aback for an old-fashioned "gam."

      Supper is delayed for the guests to arrive; several of us dive below, embracing the opportunity to write a few lines to our friends at home; Old Jeff growls at us for being in such a hurry, and says there's plenty of time between now and midnight; for we are sure to "gam" till that time.

      "Captain Barney and the old man are cronies, and they'll have to kill all the whales in the ocean across the cabin table, before they part company."

      A light whaleboat is presently seen to drop from under the Mandarin's lee-quarter, and comes bounding to windward under the powerful impulse of her oars, the sturdy and regular strokes telling of old and trained hands who wield them. A petty officer is steering, while his majesty the captain stands firmly planted in the stern sheets, with his legs spread apart in an attitude suggestive of an inverted letter Y, and benignly regards his loyal subjects at the oars, who stretch to their work in gallant style, as if conscious that they "bear Cæsar and his fortunes." The principal impelling motive, however, is their eagerness to levy contributions upon the "greenies." Already they imagine themselves returning with bundles of books and papers tied up with rope-yarns, and shirt-bosoms corpulent with new tobacco, a luxury to which their teeth have been strangers for many a day.

      "Ship in, harp'neer! way enough! Look out for the warp in the waist!"

      "Halloo, old man!" says Captain Barney, as he recognizes Father Grafton at the man-ropes, "you out here again?"

      Then as his head rises above the rail, "How goes it, Upton? S'pose you've got a crack ship here by the look of things. Well, how did you leave old Nantucket? 'Taint sunk yet, has it?" A common question with whalemen when they meet, and asked with as much gravity as that of the noble Thane, Macduff, "Stands Scotland where it did?" or as though islands were in the habit of submerging themselves every day in the week.

      A hearty greeting and hand-shaking follows, with a few hurried questions and replies, an introduction to the other officers, and an invitation to our mate to go on board and spend the evening with Mr. Joy.

      "Do you swap boats' crews, Upton?"

      "Yes, I don't care; let them go."

      So the boat is manned with a crew of Arethusas, myself among the number, and Mr. Grafton steers himself, not yet having arrived at the dignity of a body guard. It was nearly dark when we arrived alongside, and as soon as the boat was on the cranes and secured, all hands made a "grand forward movement" to supper, and I now had leisure to look about me, and to compare the vessel and her veteran looking crew with the Arethusa and my own shipmates.

      The forecastle of the Mandarin was small, dingy and dark, even in the daytime, having only two small decklights and no sidelights, a modern luxury which had not then come into general use. She had boasted a steerage in the early part of the voyage, but this had been broken up, and all hands quartered in the forecastle — sixteen men in twelve bunks, some of them turning in and out, watch and watch. An old battered blubber-room lamp hung from a beam overhead, and gave just sufficient light to make darkness visible. Two little ones, of the kind known as "petticoat lamps," were now added, and each furnished light enough to see that the other was burning. The old adage that "a farrier's mare and a cobbler's wife are always slipshod" is fully verified in the case of a whaleman's lamp; for those who supply the world with oil burn it in its crude state.

      There was room enough in the forecastle, small as it was; for not half the crew had chests, and their goods and chattels could be compressed into a very small compass. The supper was not exactly what would have tempted a gourmand; still it was all that could be expected on board a ship forty-four months from home. The cows must have gone astray, for the supply of milk had failed: domestic coffee, compounded of burnt peas and corn, had usurped the place of the imported article; while it was evident that the visitors, if in time for supper, had come too late for tea. The bread was thickly colonized, and the salt junk better adapted for the manufacture of fancy carved work and articles of virtu than for purposes of mastication. It was, of course, a point of honor with us green hands to overlook these little drawbacks, and even to affect an eccentric taste for the ancient viands; but our hosts were not at all backward in expressing their dissatisfaction with this state of things.

      This crew were mostly "beach-combers," men who had joined the ship during the voyage, many of them in the last port, and knew little and cared less about the history of the voyage previous to the time they shipped. They were full of tales of their adventures in other vessels from which they had deserted or been discharged, and of encounters with consuls, captains of the port, vigilantes, and other functionaries, commonly regarded as Jack's natural enemies; while those luckless shipmasters who had availed themselves of their services must have lived in perpetual jeopardy during the time they remained on board.

      I inquired of the man upon whom I was quartered at supper, "how long the ship was out."

      "That's more than I can tell you," returned the cruiser. "I've been only four months in this hooker. There's Dan and 'Shorty,' they are the only two men in the fo'c'stle that came from home in her. They can tell you; all the rest of us are cruisers."

      "Where did you join her?" I asked.

      "In Oahu. I ran away from the Cambridge, of New Bedford, and stowed away here in the fore peak. The 'kikos' came aboard three times, hunting for runaway men; but I'll defy any kiko to catch me."

      "What's a kiko?" I inquired.

      "That's what they call the Kanaka policemen. They used to come down and take off the fore peak scuttle, and look down, and shove their sticks in; but you see they don't have but one pair of white trousers apiece, and don't mean to get 'em dirty. But if any kiko had crawled in where I was, he wouldn't have got out again alive."

      "Why not?" I inquired, innocently.

      "'Cause I'd have let daylight through him!"

      I looked at the speaker reflectively, and involuntarily hitched a little further from him on the chest, feeling somewhat doubtful of close companionship with so dangerous a character. Yet the probability is, this man was as arrant a Falstaff as could be found in a day's journey.

      "What made you run away from the Cambridge?"

      "O, me and the old man had a row. Besides, I had been eight months in her, and that's long enough to be in one craft. I'd like to see the —— hooker that would keep me a year."

      The speaker prefixed to the word hooker a sanguinary adjective, which is not applicable to ships except after a hard-fought action.

      "Do you expect to stay out the voyage in that hooker?" inquired the beach-comber.

      "Yes," said I, "I think I shall. I've been well used so far, and have nothing to complain of. I don't see any reason to leave the ship, with the chance of getting into a worse one."

      "Ah, my lad, you're green yet. Wait awhile till you've seen more service, and you'll get tired of staying so long in one craft. I say, shift about and go by the cruise. Six months is plenty long enough in one hooker."

      Some of the green hands were swallowing this kind of poison by wholesale; each one listening to a yarn of how the narrator had humbugged a shipping master, or bullied an American "counsle," or knocked over an officer of a ship in the discharge of his duty. The pleasures of a drunken spree and row with the police of a foreign port were duly set forth, and the peculiar delights of life in a calaboose depicted in glowing colors. But this species of conversation flagged after a time. The Mandarins boasted no musical instrument; but that curse and abomination of the forecastle, a greasy pack of cards, was produced, and furnished pastime for a small knot in one corner for a short time.

      Dan and "Shorty," the two "voyagers," brought up from the depths of their chests some canes, busks, and other fancy articles or "scrimshonting," as it is termed by whalers, ingeniously fabricated from whales' teeth and jaw bones, some of which they were willing to exchange for tobacco, the principal necessary of life among seamen on long voyages, and their universal circulating medium and standard of value. An article of traffic at sea, instead of being estimated at so many dollars and cents, is rated at so many pounds of tobacco; a thing which is nearly worthless is "not worth a chaw of tobacco;" a disputed question is generally settled by betting a certain quantity of tobacco, and a notorious romancer is often interrupted in the midst of a thrilling story, with the inquiry, "How much tobacco have you got?" meaning, "How much can you give us to believe it? We'll believe anything, if you've got tobacco enough to put it through."

      And yet, through all the rough entertainment there shone a vein of politeness and deference to their guests, a certain delicacy which never deserts the sailor, and which might be studied with profit by many accustomed to the most courtly circles. A man who should overstep certain bounds in his intercourse with visitors from a strange ship, or be guilty of the slightest breach of a certain etiquette, not defined by Chesterfield's laws, but natural and of spontaneous growth, as it were, would be taken to task unmercifully by his shipmates; and slights which would pass current in a fashionable evening party, with both nobs and snobs, would never be overlooked in a whalemen's "gam."

      A song was called for by somebody; the motion was seconded and carried, nem. con.; cards were thrown aside, "scrimshonting" articles returned to their depositories; and after some little clamor, it was decided that "Old Scotty," a tall, sunburned salt, who had served, according to his own statement, in one of the maintops of his most nautical majesty William the Fourth, should open the musical programme with that delectable chorus, "The stormy winds how they blow, blow, blow," which he executed after the most approved and orthodox style, rolling up the whites of his eyes at the carlines overhead, as though he expected that the roaring chorus in which all lands joined, would lift the deck off, and afford him a view of the heavens. A burst of applause followed the last verse, which I must confess I construed to be a manifestation of joy that it was finished, and of gratitude that there was no more of it to be endured. The Arethusas were now called upon to respond, and after some comparing of notes and prompting each other, Farrell struck up the time-honored confession of the misguided Irish youth who committed matrimony at the tender age of sixteen, and "died forlorn on Steven's Green," and afterwards wrote his autobiography in common metre, his last earthly request being that his pall might be borne by six disconsolate young ladies, all dressed in white gowns and pink ribbons. This song is a stock article with Irish and seamen, for what reason it would be hard to tell. A stout, jolly-looking Mandarin next electrified the auditors with the sentimental refrain of "O no, we never mention her!" with original quavers and variations, chanted in a voice of thunder; and was followed by Old Scotty, who rolled his eyes higher than ever as he poured himself out in a heartrending ballad, describing the fate of a certain Miss Caroline of Edinboro town, who at an untimely age "shuffled off this mortal coil," and "plunged her body down," after giving precisely three shrieks for Henry, neither more nor less. This pathetic outbreak again brought up the Arethusas in force, and the entertainment was sustained with great vigor on both sides, the songs being of various descriptions, and some, like newspaper novelettes, broken off in the middle of a verse, "to be continued hereafter." Some of the volunteer performers would have passed for good singers where tunes were not in fashion, while others, if they had fitted all the snatches together into one, might have furnished a medley of a highly original character. The veritable history of that unfortunate mariner, William Taylor, who was sent to his last account by the contents of a brace of pistols in the hands of his slighted "ladie love," having been caught in flagrante delicto, basking in the smiles of another fair one, was interrupted at a most thrilling crisis by the cry of "Brace forward the mainyard!" for the Arethusa had forged considerably ahead, while both ships were lying aback. It took some time to do this, as by a singular fatality, nobody had a watch on deck; all the men who should by any possibility have had one had gone gamming. The denouement of the fickle Taylor's story was lost, as the helm required the singer's services.

      The last act of the evening partook much of the nature of the first, being filled with marvellous tales of exploits, and "moving accidents by flood," and comparison of notes touching the respective merits of ships, captains and officers. The cry of "Haul aback" cut short several half-finished stories, and brought everybody on deck to look at the Arethusa, now running to leeward with a light set as a signal of recall for her mate and boat's crew. A murmur of admiration went round among us, at the appearance of the crack ship looming in the clear moonlight, as, having assumed the lee position, she rounded gracefully to again, when the boat was cleared away and manned, with hearty farewells on both sides.

      "Good-night, Joy," said Father Grafton, as he descended the man-ropes. "Short passage home to you. Deliver my letter yourself when you get there."

      "Ay, ay," returned the Mandarin's mate. "Greasy luck to you!"

      "Thank you," said Grafton. "A large whale for you to-morrow," with the additional reservation, "and two for us. Let go the warp! out oars — pull ahead!"

      We arrived on board our own ship to find a scene similar to that we had just left. Some of the Mandarins had found a congenial spirit in the sea-lawyer Burley, and others had fulfilled their mission by "bumming" considerable quantities of tobacco and literature from the younger lads. Manoel and Antone had monopolized a Portuguese boatsteerer, and formed a trio aside for a conference highly interesting to themselves and possessing the additional merit of being unintelligible to all the rest.

      The Mandarin having run to leeward in her turn, the word was passed to "man the boat;" and, for a wonder, they waited alongside only three quarters of an hour. But Captain Barney was an uncommonly prompt man in his movements; the usual standard in such cases being one hour and a quarter.

      In a few minutes, the rusty-looking ship was off on her northerly course for "home, sweet home," bearing messages to gladden the hearts of many interested in the fate of those on board her late consort, who was again standing by the wind to the southward.

      The first inoculation of what may be designated "salt poison" had taken effect among our crew, and much mischief had been done by this apparently harmless visit. Those who had hitherto been cheerful and satisfied with all around them, now began to discover flaws and defects, viewing things and actions through new and distorted lenses; instituting parallels between the methods of doing the most trifling duties on board different vessels, and discoursing nautical wisdom at second hand with all the gravity and dogmatism of experienced tars. Truly may it be said in connection that "comparisons are odious."

Source:

W. H. Macy.
"Leaves from the Arethusa's Log - No. 9."
      Flag of Our Union.
Vol. 23, No. 33 (Aug 15, 1868)
p. 526.

William H. Macy  Source  Whalesite