IT was a blazing hot morning of the first week in September, 1842. The sun was pouring down with the fierce heat that so often marks the departing days of our Northern summers, and the evil smells in the filthy gutters of the southern section of Brooklyn were more than usually noxious.
A Knickerbocker ice-wagon had stopped at the corner beer saloon, and the sturdy, blue-shirted driver was carrying in a great block of ice, while the children of the tenement overhead were picking up the fragments from behind the wagon. Across the street, half a dozen frowsy, tow-headed boys were striving to drive an unwilling goat, harnessed to a soap-box on wheels, in which was seated one of their number, and the little wretches were cheerfully beating the unfortunate animal with a piece of iron hoop, when it stopped, to bleat forth its complaint.
A marine in blue uniform coat and white trousers, on duty at the Navy Yard gate, hard by, walked his beat, keeping close to the grateful shade of the high brick wall of the inclosure, and covertly watching the struggle between the children and the goat. The corporal of the guard lounged on a bench beneath the wooden porch of the guard-house, deeply interested in the morning paper.
Two persons, evidently strangers, came down the street, stopped hesitatingly at the gate, and asked a question of the corporal.
“The Bombay, is it?” said the marine. “You will find her at the dock near the shears. Keep down that path to the right, pass the commandant’s house, then take the first turn to the left, and you will see her.”
The elder of the two strangers, who thanked the corporal, was a grave, respectable, middle-aged man, with the general appearance of a trusted bookkeeper in some mercantile house, as indeed he was; his companion, evidently under his charge, was a bright-looking lad of thirteen, dressed in a blue sailor suit, with a tarpaulin hat with long ribbons hanging down his back. The boy’s fair skin and delicate appearance, however, indicated very plainly that he could not have had a very extended experience as a sailor.
Following the directions given them, the man and the boy soon reached the dock, where a good-sized merchant ship was moored, taking on board the cargo that filled the wharf.
Here we paused. I say we, for the boy was the writer, who is about to tell you his life story; and his companion was Mr. Mason, my uncle’s bookkeeper, sent over from New York to see me safely bestowed on board the good ship Bombay for my first voyage to sea.
“Well, Robert,” said Mr. Mason, “here we are; and now, before I take you on board, I am instructed by your uncle to ask you for the last time if you still persist in your resolution of going to sea. It is a hard life, lad, and I almost wonder that you should desire to undertake it. Come! take my advice; it is not yet too late: hadn’t you better turn around and go back? there is no harm done yet.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Mason, and I thank you for what you have said; but I shan’t change my mind. We will go on board, if you please.”
But before leaving the wharf, as I shall have a long story of my sea life to tell, suppose I go back a bit and explain how I came to be starting out for myself in this manner at such a tender age.
I was always a delicate lad, and had never been very strong, after I recovered from a fever that brought me well-nigh to death’s door several years before, and I had never cared much for the usual out-door sports of boyhood. Then I had an untiring passion for reading; and when I could curl myself up in a big arm-chair with dear old “Robinson Crusoe” or “Midshipman Easy,” I was perfectly happy, and forgot all the world in the adventures of one hero and the frolics of the other.
I have no doubt that my favorite books had something to do with it; for by the time I reached the age of thirteen and had been in the High School a couple of years, I had firmly decided in my own mind that I would be a sailor and nothing else. I had not lived in a seaport, and knew nothing of ships or sailors except what I had gathered from reading, and there seemed to be no very good reason for this decision. But it was just possible that my old grandfather, who was a famous sea captain in his day, had transmitted to me a strain of his sailor blood, rather than my poet father; so instead of fitting for college or going into a counting-room, my parents at last consented that I should go to sea.
My seafaring books had prepared me to expect hardships in the merchant service that I would not find in the navy, and I was boy enough to be thoroughly alive to the attractions of a middy’s uniform and dirk, for they wore dirks in those days; so when it appeared that a midshipman’s warrant might possibly be obtained for me by family influence, I was very anxious to enter the navy. This was before the establishment of the Naval Academy in 1843, and when midshipmen were appointed and sent at once to sea.
But my father wisely said: “No; let Robert try one year in the merchant service, and then if he finds a sea life distasteful he can easily abandon it, without any breach of good faith. But if he enters the navy, he will not feel the same liberty to resign, nor indeed have the opportunity of doing so, until after the expiration of a three years’ cruise.”
So it was settled that I should enter as a boy on board the ship Bombay, Leonard Gay, master, bound from New York to Rio Janeiro with a cargo of naval stores for the Brazil squadron. The ship was owned by a relative of ours.
How well I remember one fine summer day, fifty years ago, going down on Commercial Street in Boston with my father to order my outfit. I never pass along there now and inhale the mingled odors of tarred rigging, salt fish and New England rum, that seem perennial in that locality, that this important visit to the outfitter is not recalled. The mist of half a century of years rolls back, and I, a grave, gray-haired, somewhat rheumatic old man, seem for a moment a light-hearted boy again.
My father had been directed to the establishment of an old sailor turned tradesman, quite an original character in his way, and very well known in those days for his good wares and honest dealing. He was instructed to provide me with everything necessary for a voyage to the tropics and a winter on the English coast; and while my father was discussing the requisites for such a cruise with the proprietor, I was taking in the strange surroundings of the shop, so novel to a boy just down from Vermont.
It was a small, irregular shaped store, very low studded, which had enabled the old fellow to avail himself of the beams, from which hung specimens of his wares, all of them new to me. Upon one hook was a complete suit of oil clothing, southwester (as the head covering is called) and all, dangling and swaying about in the summer breeze and looking very much indeed like some mutinous tar or heavy weather pirate expiating his nautical crimes upon a gallows. Brilliant red flannel shirts were stacked up in great piles upon the shelves, and formidable sea boots overflowed from boxes ranged beneath the counter; gay bandanna handkerchiefs and glossy black silk neckerchiefs were temptingly displayed in the showcase; while on one side was a miscellaneous assortment of ironmongery utterly strange to me at that time, that I afterward came to know better as marline-spikes, prickers, fids, palms and sail needles, and sheath knives and belts.
Jack’s lass had not been forgotten; for in the window were hung, as a special attraction, certain printed handkerchiefs with pictorial representations of the “Sailor’s Farewell,” the “Jolly Tar’s True Love,” and other subjects of a sentimental character. In the rear of the store was an old-fashioned desk, with a fly-blown calendar hanging above it, and a ship’s chronometer ticking away in its case on one side; while above it, hung a spy-glass in brackets, and upon the shelf were an odd looking mahogany case and a ponderous leather-bound volume. These I came to know better, subsequently, as a sextant and the sailors’ vade mecum, “Bowditch’s Epitome of Navigation.”
This collection interested me amazingly, but I was soon called upon to select my “chist,” as the dealer called the gayly painted box he exhibited for my inspection. It was dark blue with vermilion trimmings, and had green-covered “beckets,” as the handles are called. This one, he said, “was neat and not gaudy, and had a secret till where a feller could stow away his tobacco and his ditty box,” which he seemed to think a very important consideration. This ditty box, by the way, is not, as one might well suppose, a special receptacle for ballads, but is for the thread, needles, buttons, etc., which are such necessaries on a long voyage, where every man is perforce his own tailor.
Into my chest were packed, under the advice of the proprietor, an assortment of red flannel shirts and drawers, with thick woolen stockings for cold weather and blue drilling trousers and white duck frocks for the tropics. Stout shoes and sea boots and a full suit of oil-clothes were provided for rainy weather, and two suits of blue cloth went in—one for ordinary wear of satinet, the other of broadcloth, with brass anchor buttons, for a Sunday go-ashore suit. These, with a tin cup and plate, a spoon, and fork for my mess, and a belt and sheath knife, completed the outfit, to which the dealer added, as a gratuity or “lanyap,” as he called it, a dozen clay pipes, a pound package of smoking tobacco, and a bundle of matches, “to make the fit out reglar.”
These gifts, rather scorned at the time, came in good play at a later date, and gained me many desired favors with my future shipmates.
By the time my chest was filled, locked, and the key deposited in my pocket, I was full of excitement and crazy to have it sent home for my mother’s inspection. The business completed by paying the bill, we returned home to Summer Street, where we were staying for a week with my uncle, and I answered every ring at the bell myself until the anxiously expected box was at last received.
Nothing then would do but I must try everything on for my cousin’s delectation, and the entire afternoon was devoted to a series of dress rehearsals with the different costumes. Poor, dear, little mother! many a tear she shed that night as she repacked those strange, rough garments that were to take the place in the future of the delicately made clothing it had been her pride and joy to fashion for her dearly loved boy.
The days now flew swiftly while I made my farewell visits to friends and relations, and my chest was filled in every corner with their last offerings. These, in most cases, took the form of rich cakes, mittens, or comforters for my neck; but I well remember an eccentric uncle bringing down a pair of dueling pistols as his parting gift, to the great horror of my mother, but to my infinite delight, as all boys can well understand.
Under the excitement of these preparations I had kept my courage up very bravely, but I almost broke down when the time came for parting and my mother clasped me in her arms in an agony of grief, exclaiming, “I cannot let him go from me!”
But when I was at last in the cars and had really started off on my journey, I felt that I must put aside all childish feelings and show myself a man and an American sailor. I had insisted upon traveling in full sea rig, and I wore my new blue suit, with white shirt and black silk neckerchief tied in a sailor’s knot, and a shiny tarpaulin hat, with long streaming ribbons hanging down my neck. I was, in fact, a veritable nautical dandy.
As I was only thirteen and small for my age, I have no doubt I presented rather a noticeable appearance. At any rate I know that quite a number of passengers spoke to me very pleasantly on board the Sound boat; and as I was walking through the saloon an old lady called me to her, and, after asking me no end of questions, gave me a kiss and a warm, motherly hug, rather to my mortification, I must confess.
The day after my arrival in New York I was sent over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard with my uncle’s bookkeeper to report for duty, and here we were.
As I walked up the Bombay’s gang-plank a rough looking man in his shirt sleeves eyed me rather sharply, and said, “Well, youngster, what do you want?”
“I wish to see the captain, sir.”
“What do you want of him? The captain isn’t on board, but I am the mate.”
“I am Robert Kelson, sir, and I am sent to go to sea in this ship. Mr. Mason, here, has a letter to the captain.”
At this juncture my companion interposed and explained the matter to the mate, giving him the letter to the captain, and then, evidently very much disgusted at our reception, endeavored again to dissuade me from my project; but I would not listen to him, and, shaking his hand, bade him good-by and accompanied him on shore.
When I returned the mate said: “Go down in the steerage; you will find your chest there; it came early this morning; get those longshore togs off and put on your working clothes. Then come up here, and I will find something for you to do.”
I looked about, not discovering anything answering at all to my idea of a stairway, when the mate, evidently understanding my dilemma, shouted: “You Jim! come here and take this greenhorn down into the steerage and show him his chest, and be quick about it! do you hear? Don’t you two boys stay loafing down there spinning yarns!”
I had never been spoken to so roughly before in my life, and for a moment I half regretted that I had not listened to Mr. Mason’s advice; but it was now too late, so I choked down a sob and followed Jim into that portion of the between decks from the mainmast aft which was called the steerage.
My companion informed me that I was to sleep and mess there with him and the ship’s carpenter. After looking about for a time we discovered my chest, half hidden beneath a pile of sails, and proceeded to pull it out to the light.
“What in thunderation have you got in this dunnage barge?” said Jim, as he sat down on the hatch coaming and looked at my beloved chest, half in admiration at its brilliant coloring and half in scorn at its size and weight. “Why, it weighs pretty nigh half a ton, and it’s big enough to hold a fit-out for a three years’ v’y’ge!”
As I deemed it advisable to placate Jim at the outset, I unlocked the chest, and hunting out one of the plum-cakes, divided it with my comrade, who watched this proceeding with ill-concealed anxiety and interest.
“Well, by gosh, you’re a lucky feller; how many more of these ’ere you got, anyhow? Lem’me look at your knife,” as my new sheath knife turned up; “what did you give for that knife? I got mine down by Fulton Market for a quarter, and I’ll bet it’s as good as yours! Yes, sir!” he shouted, in response to an imperative call from the mate above; “I’m coming right along!” And he half choked himself in his effort to swallow the rich cake as he said, “Look here, young feller, you’d better hurry up too; old Bowker will give you rats if you don’t get on deck mighty quick!”
I put on my second best suit, all too good, as it proved, for what was expected of me, and hurried on deck. Mr. Bowker hunted up a scraper, which is a triangular piece of steel with a wooden handle, and initiated me into its use in scraping the pitch from a portion of the decks that had lately been calked; and this, the first real work I had ever done in my life, was also my first lesson in “the sailor’s art.”
At noon Jim and I were “knocked off,” as stopping work is termed, and told to go to the galley and carry the dinner down into the steerage. Jim seized the kid, a small wooden tub containing a rough piece of boiled beef, and left me to bring the “spuds,” as he called the potatoes. While the cook, who was as black as the ace of spades, was fishing these out of the coppers, he looked me over critically and said, “Wot’s yo’ name, boy?”
“Robert Kelson,” I replied.
“Look yere, boy, we don’t pomper no boys here wid no ‘Roberts.’ Yo’ name’s Bob ’board dis ship; you understand? Now, Bob, is dis yo’ fust voyage to sea?”
“Yes.”
“Co’se it is; any one can see dat. Well, Bob, if you ’haves yo’se’f and don’t cut up monkey shines, like dat boy Jim does, I no doubt you’ll get on very well. But you mus’n’t ’spect to be pompered. I reckon you done had too much ob dat a’ready by yo’ looks. Now you go ’long down and eat yo’ dinner, and den you come up and pick dis chicken fer me, and I gwine gib you dese tapioca puddin’ scrapin’s fer yo’ dessert. I likes yo’ looks, and I gwine stand friend to you, boy!”
I had learned at boarding-school the lesson that it is a good thing to be friends with the cook, so I assented to this proposal and went below with the potatoes.
“Chips,” as the carpenter is called on shipboard, although we boys were not permitted to take this liberty, was a gaunt, red-headed, surly, opinionated Dane, a good mechanic and a splendid seaman, but anything but an agreeable messmate. As I came down he hailed me: “Vot, in de name of Heffen, you been doin’ all dis time wid dose potatoes, you boy? You ’spose I am goin’ to wait all day for my dinner while you’re gorming ’round the galley, you lazy hound? If you try any of your games on me, my lad, I’ll warm you up wid a fathom of rattlin’ stuff!” and so he grumbled on, while I endeavored to explain that the cook had detained me.
“Vell, don’t you do it again; that’s all,” and he picked out the best of the potatoes and cut off the choicest part of the beef, leaving me the fat, which I detested, for my share.
After we had finished eating this meal, which nothing but a healthy young appetite, strengthened by my morning’s unaccustomed work, could have rendered endurable, I was instructed by Jim that it was the duty of the new boy to carry up the pots and pans to the galley to be washed, and Chips told me to hurry up and bring him a light for the pipe he was then industriously filling for an after-dinner smoke.
I submitted to these orders with an ill grace; and when I had seated myself on the spare spars lashed by the side of the galley, with the cook, whom I instinctively felt was a friend, I put the case to him and asked his advice.
“Now, Bob,” said he, “I tole you I gwine to be yo’ friend, and I means what I said. I done tuck yo’ measure, my son, soon’s you come on board, and I know’d you’se a quality youngster immegitely. You’se different breed o’ dog fum dat low-down Jim, and dat’s why I tole you dat you wasn’t gwine to be pompered here, cos I wanted to prepare you fer what was comin’. Bob, you’se like a young bar; yo’ trouble’s all befo’ you. But you des keep a quiet tongue in yo’ head, and watch out wid yo’ eyes open, and learn all you can, and ’fore you know it you’ll be jest as good as any ob ’em!”
“Yes, cook, that’s all right, but I can’t let Jim impose on me, you know.”
The old darky grinned from ear to ear. “Dat’s so, honey! Blood will tell, sho’s you born, and you’se got some of what my ole marse used to call ‘diwine ’flatus’; wotever dat is, dat belongs to quality folks and always fotches ’em on top ob de heap. So if dat Jim runs you too hard, why I ’speck you’se duty bound to take yo’ own part. You know wot de good S’marikan said: ’Ef de Farisee hit you on one cheek, you hit him on de udder.’ Now Bob, here’s yo’ pudden’, and don’t let de mate see you eatin’ it on deck.”
The doctor, as the cook is always called on board ship, had been a plantation darkey, and possessed that keen insight peculiar to his race in certain matters. He recognized at once that I was of gentle birth, and attached himself to me from the first. He was my firm friend as long as we were shipmates together, and many a surreptitious pot of coffee in the morning watch and plate of “menavalins” from the cabin table I owed to his kind offices during the voyage.
For the remainder of the week I was kept busily engaged from early morning until dark, so that I was only too glad to crawl into my hammock soon after our simple evening meal each day, and I was not sorry when at last our hold was filled, our hatches calked down, and a gang of riggers bent our sails, and we were ready for sea. Then one afternoon our crew was brought down by a shipping-master, a tug came alongside, we cast off our fasts from the Navy Yard wharf, and steamed down the bay.
As all my good-bys had been made in Boston, I experienced no particular feelings of regret as we passed down the harbor and bay, and at last made sail, cast off the tug, dropped the pilot, and saw Sandy Hook light sink away below the horizon. I had indeed no time for much sentiment; for as the good ship began to rise and fall to the long ocean swell, increased by the strong breeze that was blowing from the southeast, I soon became oblivious to everything, for I was quickly in the agony of seasickness.
Meanwhile the wind was freshening, and, the top-gallant sails having been taken in, the ship was plunging into the head beat sea and creaking and groaning in what seemed to me a very ominous manner. I had already paid my devoirs to Neptune several times until I was fearfully weak; and the last time, as I came from the lee rail, I fell prone into a convenient tub that contained a large coil of rope—the main topsail halyards, as it proved, unfortunately.
Just then a stronger flaw of wind struck the ship, and the mate, coming into the waist, shouted out: “All hands stand by to reef topsails! Let go the topsail halyards! Clew down and haul out the reef-tackles! Be sharp, men! Be sharp!”
The words were meaningless to me, but I saw a form near me casting off a rope from a belaying pin over my head; there was a whizzing sound; I was thrown from the tub into the air with great violence, and I knew nothing further!