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Redburn. His First Voyage

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When we were but a few days from port, a comical adventure befell this
cabin-passenger. There is an old custom, still in vogue among some
merchant sailors, of tying fast in the rigging any lubberly landsman of
a passenger who may be detected taking excursions aloft, however
moderate the flight of the awkward fowl. This is called "making a spread
eagle" of the man; and before he is liberated, a promise is exacted,
that before arriving in port, he shall furnish the ship's company with
money enough for a treat all round.

Now this being one of the perquisites of sailors, they are always on the
keen look-out for an opportunity of levying such contributions upon
incautious strangers; though they never attempt it in presence of the
captain; as for the mates, they purposely avert their eyes, and are
earnestly engaged about something else, whenever they get an inkling of
this proceeding going on. But, with only one poor fellow of a
cabin-passenger on board of the Highlander, and he such a quiet,
unobtrusive, unadventurous wight, there seemed little chance for levying
contributions.

One remarkably pleasant morning, however, what should be seen, half way
up the mizzen rigging, but the figure of our cabin-passenger, holding on
with might and main by all four limbs, and with his head fearfully
turned round, gazing off to the horizon. He looked as if he had the
nightmare; and in some sudden and unaccountable fit of insanity, he must
have been impelled to the taking up of that perilous position.

"Good heavens!" said the mate, who was a bit of a wag, "you will surely
fall, sir! Steward, spread a mattress on deck, under the gentleman!"

But no sooner was our Greenland sailor's attention called to the sight,
than snatching up some rope-yarn, he ran softly up behind the passenger,
and without speaking a word, began binding him hand and foot. The
stranger was more dumb than ever with amazement; at last violently
remonstrated; but in vain; for as his tearfulness of falling made him
keep his hands glued to the ropes, and so prevented him from any
effectual resistance, he was soon made a handsome spread-eagle of, to
the great satisfaction of the crew.

It was now discovered for the first, that this singular passenger
stammered and stuttered very badly, which, perhaps, was the cause of his
reservedness.

"Wha-wha-what i-i-is this f-f-for?"

"Spread-eagle, sir," said the Greenlander, thinking that those few words
would at once make the matter plain.

"Wha-wha-what that me-me-mean?"

"Treats all round, sir," said the Greenlander, wondering at the other's
obtusity, who, however, had never so much as heard of the thing before.

At last, upon his reluctant acquiescence in the demands of the sailor,
and handing him two half-crown pieces, the unfortunate passenger was
suffered to descend.

The last I ever saw of this man was his getting into a cab at Prince's
Dock Gates in Liverpool, and driving off alone to parts unknown. He had
nothing but a valise with him, and an umbrella; but his pockets looked
stuffed out; perhaps he used them for carpet-bags.

I must now give some account of another and still more mysterious,
though very different, sort of an occupant of the cabin, of whom I have
previously hinted. What say you to a charming young girl?--just the girl
to sing the Dashing White Sergeant; a martial, military-looking girl;
her father must have been a general. Her hair was auburn; her eyes were
blue; her cheeks were white and red; and Captain Riga was her most
devoted.

To the curious questions of the sailors concerning who she was, the
steward used to answer, that she was the daughter of one of the
Liverpool dock-masters, who, for the benefit of her health and the
improvement of her mind, had sent her out to America in the Highlander,
under the captain's charge, who was his particular friend; and that now
the young lady was returning home from her tour.

And truly the captain proved an attentive father to her, and often
promenaded with her hanging on his arm, past the forlorn bearer of
secret dispatches, who would look up now and then out of his reveries,
and cast a furtive glance of wonder, as if he thought the captain was
audacious.

Considering his beautiful ward, I thought the captain behaved
ungallantly, to say the least, in availing himself of the opportunity of
her charming society, to wear out his remaining old clothes; for no
gentleman ever pretends to save his best coat when a lady is in the
case; indeed, he generally thirsts for a chance to abase it, by
converting it into a pontoon over a puddle, like Sir Walter Raleigh,
that the ladies may not soil the soles of their dainty slippers. But
this Captain Riga was no Raleigh, and hardly any sort of a true
gentleman whatever, as I have formerly declared. Yet, perhaps, he might
have worn his old clothes in this instance, for the express purpose of
proving, by his disdain for the toilet, that he was nothing but the
young lady's guardian; for many guardians do not care one fig how shabby
they look.

But for all this, the passage out was one long paternal sort of a shabby
flirtation between this hoydenish nymph and the ill-dressed captain. And
surely, if her good mother, were she living, could have seen this young
lady, she would have given her an endless lecture for her conduct, and a
copy of Mrs. Ellis's Daughters of England to read and digest. I shall
say no more of this anonymous nymph; only, that when we arrived at
Liverpool, she issued from her cabin in a richly embroidered silk dress,
and lace hat and veil, and a sort of Chinese umbrella or parasol, which
one of the sailors declared "spandangalous;" and the captain followed
after in his best broadcloth and beaver, with a gold-headed cane; and
away they went in a carriage, and that was the last of her; I hope she
is well and happy now; but I have some misgivings.

It now remains to speak of the steerage passengers. There were not more
than twenty or thirty of them, mostly mechanics, returning home, after a
prosperous stay in America, to escort their wives and families back.
These were the only occupants of the steerage that I ever knew of; till
early one morning, in the gray dawn, when we made Cape Clear, the south
point of Ireland, the apparition of a tall Irishman, in a shabby shirt
of bed-ticking, emerged from the fore hatchway, and stood leaning on the
rail, looking landward with a fixed, reminiscent expression, and
diligently scratching its back with both hands. We all started at the
sight, for no one had ever seen the apparition before; and when we
remembered that it must have been burrowing all the passage down in its
bunk, the only probable reason of its so manipulating its back became
shockingly obvious.

I had almost forgotten another passenger of ours, a little boy not four
feet high, an English lad, who, when we were about forty-eight hours
from New York, suddenly appeared on deck, asking for something to eat.

It seems he was the son of a carpenter, a widower, with this only child,
who had gone out to America in the Highlander some six months previous,
where he fell to drinking, and soon died, leaving the boy a friendless
orphan in a foreign land.

For several weeks the boy wandered about the wharves, picking up a
precarious livelihood by sucking molasses out of the casks discharged
from West India ships, and occasionally regaling himself upon stray
oranges and lemons found floating in the docks. He passed his nights
sometimes in a stall in the markets, sometimes in an empty hogshead on
the piers, sometimes in a doorway, and once in the watchhouse, from
which he escaped the next morning, running as he told me, right between
the doorkeeper's legs, when he was taking another vagrant to task for
repeatedly throwing himself upon the public charities.

At last, while straying along the docks, he chanced to catch sight of
the Highlander, and immediately recognized her as the very ship which
brought him and his father out from England. He at once resolved to
return in her; and, accosting the captain, stated his case, and begged a
passage. The captain refused to give it; but, nothing daunted, the
heroic little fellow resolved to conceal himself on board previous to
the ship's sailing; which he did, stowing himself away in the
between-decks; and moreover, as he told us, in a narrow space between
two large casks of water, from which he now and then thrust out his head
for air. And once a steerage passenger rose in the night and poked in
and rattled about a stick where he was, thinking him an uncommon large
rat, who was after stealing a passage across the Atlantic. There are
plenty of passengers of that kind continually plying between Liverpool
and New York.

As soon as he divulged the fact of his being on board, which he took
care should not happen till he thought the ship must be out of sight of
land; the captain had him called aft, and after giving him a thorough
shaking, and threatening to toss her overboard as a tit-bit for John
Shark, he told the mate to send him forward among the sailors, and let
him live there. The sailors received him with open arms; but before
caressing him much, they gave him a thorough washing in the
lee-scuppers, when he turned out to be quite a handsome lad, though thin
and pale with the hardships he had suffered. However, by good nursing
and plenty to eat, he soon improved and grew fat; and before many days
was as fine a looking little fellow, as you might pick out of Queen
Victoria's nursery. The sailors took the warmest interest in him. One
made him a little hat with a long ribbon; another a little jacket; a
third a comical little pair of man-of-war's-man's trowsers; so that in
the end, he looked like a juvenile boatswain's mate. Then the cook
furnished him with a little tin pot and pan; and the steward made him a
present of a pewter tea-spoon; and a steerage passenger gave him a jack
knife. And thus provided, he used to sit at meal times half way up on
the forecastle ladder, making a great racket with his pot and pan, and
merry as a cricket. He was an uncommonly fine, cheerful, clever, arch
little fellow, only six years old, and it was a thousand pities that he
should be abandoned, as he was. Who can say, whether he is fated to be a
convict in New South Wales, or a member of Parliament for Liverpool?
When we got to that port, by the way, a purse was made up for him; the
captain, officers, and the mysterious cabin passenger contributing their
best wishes, and the sailors and poor steerage passengers something like
fifteen dollars in cash and tobacco. But I had almost forgot to add that
the daughter of the dock-master gave him a fine lace pocket-handkerchief
and a card-case to remember her by; very valuable, but somewhat
inappropriate presents. Thus supplied, the little hero went ashore by
himself; and I lost sight of him in the vast crowds thronging the docks
of Liverpool.

I must here mention, as some relief to the impression which Jackson's
character must have made upon the reader, that in several ways he at
first befriended this boy; but the boy always shrunk from him; till, at
last, stung by his conduct, Jackson spoke to him no more; and seemed to
hate him, harmless as he was, along with all the rest of the world.

As for the Lancashire lad, he was a stupid sort of fellow, as I have
before hinted. So, little interest was taken in him, that he was
permitted to go ashore at last, without a good-by from any person but
one.




XXIV. HE BEGINS TO HOP ABOUT IN THE RIGGING LIKE A SAINT JAGO's MONKEY


But we have not got to Liverpool yet; though, as there is little more to
be said concerning the passage out, the Highlander may as well make sail
and get there as soon as possible. The brief interval will perhaps be
profitably employed in relating what progress I made in learning the
duties of a sailor.

After my heroic feat in loosing the main-skysail, the mate entertained
good hopes of my becoming a rare mariner. In the fullness of his heart,
he ordered me to turn over the superintendence of the chicken-coop to
the Lancashire boy; which I did, very willingly. After that, I took care
to show the utmost alacrity in running aloft, which by this time became
mere fun for me; and nothing delighted me more than to sit on one of the
topsail-yards, for hours together, helping Max or the Green-lander as
they worked at the rigging.

At sea, the sailors are continually engaged in "parcelling," "serving,"
and in a thousand ways ornamenting and repairing the numberless shrouds
and stays; mending sails, or turning one side of the deck into a
rope-walk, where they manufacture a clumsy sort of twine, called
spun-yarn. This is spun with a winch; and many an hour the Lancashire
boy had to play the part of an engine, and contribute the motive power.
For material, they use odds and ends of old rigging called "junk," the
yarns of which are picked to pieces, and then twisted into new
combinations, something as most books are manufactured. This "junk" is
bought at the junk shops along the wharves; outlandish looking dens,
generally subterranean, full of old iron, old shrouds, spars, rusty
blocks, and superannuated tackles; and kept by villainous looking old
men, in tarred trowsers, and with yellow beards like oakum. They look
like wreckers; and the scattered goods they expose for sale,
involuntarily remind one of the sea-beach, covered with keels and
cordage, swept ashore in a gale.

Yes, I was now as nimble as a monkey in the rigging, and at the cry of
"tumble up there, my hearties, and take in sail," I was among the first
ground-and-lofty tumblers, that sprang aloft at the word.

But the first time we reefed top-sails of a dark night, and I found
myself hanging over the yard with eleven others, the ship plunging and
rearing like a mad horse, till I felt like being jerked off the spar;
then, indeed, I thought of a feather-bed at home, and hung on with tooth
and nail; with no chance for snoring. But a few repetitions, soon made
me used to it; and before long, I tied my reef-point as quickly and
expertly as the best of them; never making what they call a "granny-
knot," and slipt down on deck by the bare stays, instead of the shrouds.
It is surprising, how soon a boy overcomes his timidity about going
aloft. For my own part, my nerves became as steady as the earth's
diameter, and I felt as fearless on the royal yard, as Sam Patch on the
cliff of Niagara. To my amazement, also, I found, that running up the
rigging at sea, especially during a squall, was much easier than while
lying in port. For as you always go up on the windward side, and the
ship leans over, it makes more of a stairs of the rigging; whereas, in
harbor, it is almost straight up and down.

Besides, the pitching and rolling only imparts a pleasant sort of
vitality to the vessel; so that the difference in being aloft in a ship
at sea, and a ship in harbor, is pretty much the same, as riding a real
live horse and a wooden one. And even if the live charger should pitch
you over his head, that would be much more satisfactory, than an
inglorious fall from the other.

I took great delight in furling the top-gallant sails and royals in a
hard blow; which duty required two hands on the yard.

There was a wild delirium about it; a fine rushing of the blood about
the heart; and a glad, thrilling, and throbbing of the whole system, to
find yourself tossed up at every pitch into the clouds of a stormy sky,
and hovering like a judgment angel between heaven and earth; both hands
free, with one foot in the rigging, and one somewhere behind you in the
air. The sail would fill out Eke a balloon, with a report like a small
cannon, and then collapse and sink away into a handful. And the feeling
of mastering the rebellious canvas, and tying it down like a slave to
the spar, and binding it over and over with the gasket, had a touch of
pride and power in it, such as young King Richard must have felt, when
he trampled down the insurgents of Wat Tyler.

As for steering, they never would let me go to the helm, except during a
calm, when I and the figure-head on the bow were about equally employed.

By the way, that figure-head was a passenger I forgot to make mention of
before.

He was a gallant six-footer of a Highlander "in full fig," with bright
tartans, bare knees, barred leggings, and blue bonnet and the most
vermilion of cheeks. He was game to his wooden marrow, and stood up to
it through thick and thin; one foot a little advanced, and his right arm
stretched forward, daring on the waves. In a gale of wind it was
glorious to watch him standing at his post like a hero, and plunging up
and down the watery Highlands and Lowlands, as the ship went roaming on
her way. He was a veteran with many wounds of many sea-fights; and when
he got to Liverpool a figure-head-builder there, amputated his left leg,
and gave him another wooden one, which I am sorry to say, did not fit
him very well, for ever after he looked as if he limped. Then this
figure-head-surgeon gave him another nose, and touched up one eye, and
repaired a rent in his tartans. After that the painter came and made his
toilet all over again; giving him a new suit throughout, with a plaid of
a beautiful pattern.

I do not know what has become of Donald now, but I hope he is safe and
snug with a handsome pension in the "Sailors'-Snug-Harbor" on Staten
Island.

The reason why they gave me such a slender chance of learning to steer
was this. I was quite young and raw, and steering a ship is a great art,
upon which much depends; especially the making a short passage; for if
the helmsman be a clumsy, careless fellow, or ignorant of his duty, he
keeps the ship going about in a melancholy state of indecision as to its
precise destination; so that on a voyage to Liverpool, it may be
pointing one while for Gibraltar, then for Rotterdam, and now for John
o' Groat's; all of which is worse than wasted time. Whereas, a true
steersman keeps her to her work night and day; and tries to make a
bee-line from port to port.

Then, in a sudden squall, inattention, or want of quickness at the helm,
might make the ship "lurch to"--or "bring her by the lee." And what those
things are, the cabin passengers would never find out, when they found
themselves going down, down, down, and bidding good-by forever to the
moon and stars.

And they little think, many of them, fine gentlemen and ladies that they
are, what an important personage, and how much to be had in reverence,
is the rough fellow in the pea-jacket, whom they see standing at the
wheel, now cocking his eye aloft, and then peeping at the compass, or
looking out to windward.

Why, that fellow has all your lives and eternities in his hand; and with
one small and almost imperceptible motion of a spoke, in a gale of wind,
might give a vast deal of work to surrogates and lawyers, in proving
last wills and testaments.

Ay, you may well stare at him now. He does not look much like a man who
might play into the hands of an heir-at-law, does he? Yet such is the
case. Watch him close, therefore; take him down into your state-room
occasionally after a stormy watch, and make a friend of him. A glass of
cordial will do it. And if you or your heirs are interested with the
underwriters, then also have an eye on him. And if you remark, that of
the crew, all the men who come to the helm are careless, or inefficient;
and if you observe the captain scolding them often, and crying out:
"Luff, you rascal; she's falling off!" or, "Keep her steady, you
scoundrel, you're boxing the compass!" then hurry down to your state-
room, and if you have not yet made a will, get out your stationery and
go at it; and when it is done, seal it up in a bottle, like Columbus'
log, and it may possibly drift ashore, when you are drowned in the next
gale of wind.




XXV. QUARTER-DECK FURNITURE


Though, for reasons hinted at above, they would not let me steer, I
contented myself with learning the compass, a graphic facsimile of which
I drew on a blank leaf of the "Wealth of Nations," and studied it every
morning, like the multiplication table.

I liked to peep in at the binnacle, and watch the needle; arid I
wondered how it was that it pointed north, rather than south or west;
for I do not know that any reason can be given why it points in the
precise direction it does. One would think, too, that, as since the
beginning of the world almost, the tide of emigration has been setting
west, the needle would point that way; whereas, it is forever pointing
its fixed fore-finger toward the Pole, where there are few inducements
to attract a sailor, unless it be plenty of ice for mint-juleps.

Our binnacle, by the way, the place that holds a ship's compasses,
deserves a word of mention. It was a little house, about the bigness of
a common bird-cage, with sliding panel doors, and two drawing-rooms
within, and constantly perched upon a stand, right in front of the helm.
It had two chimney stacks to carry off the smoke of the lamp that burned
in it by night.

It was painted green, and on two sides had Venetian blinds; and on one
side two glazed sashes; so that it looked like a cool little summer
retreat, a snug bit of an arbor at the end of a shady garden lane. Had I
been the captain, I would have planted vines in boxes, and placed them
so as to overrun this binnacle; or I would have put canary-birds within;
and so made an aviary of it. It is surprising what a different air may
be imparted to the meanest thing by the dainty hand of taste. Nor must I
omit the helm itself, which was one of a new construction, and a
particular favorite of the captain. It was a complex system of cogs and
wheels and spindles, all of polished brass, and looked something like a
printing-press, or power-loom. The sailors, however, did not like it
much, owing to the casualties that happened to their imprudent fingers,
by catching in among the cogs and other intricate contrivances. Then,
sometimes in a calm, when the sudden swells would lift the ship, the
helm would fetch a lurch, and send the helmsman revolving round like
Ixion, often seriously hurting him; a sort of breaking on the wheel.

The harness-cask, also, a sort of sea side-board, or rather meat-safe,
in which a week's allowance of salt pork and beef is kept, deserves
being chronicled. It formed part of the standing furniture of the
quarter-deck. Of an oval shape, it was banded round with hoops all
silver-gilt, with gilded bands secured with gilded screws, and a gilded
padlock, richly chased. This formed the captain's smoking-seat, where he
would perch himself of an afternoon, a tasseled Chinese cap upon his
head, and a fragrant Havanna between his white and canine-looking teeth.
He took much solid comfort, Captain Riga.

Then the magnificent capstan! The pride and glory of the whole ship's
company, the constant care and dandled darling of the cook, whose duty
it was to keep it polished like a teapot; and it was an object of
distant admiration to the steerage passengers. Like a parlor center-
table, it stood full in the middle of the quarter-deck, radiant with
brazen stars, and variegated with diamond-shaped veneerings of
mahogany and satin wood. This was the captain's lounge, and the chief
mate's secretary, in the bar-holes keeping paper and pencil for
memorandums.

I might proceed and speak of the booby-hatch, used as a sort of settee
by the officers, and the fife-rail round the mainmast, inclosing a
little ark of canvas, painted green, where a small white dog with a blue
ribbon round his neck, belonging to the dock-master's daughter, used to
take his morning walks, and air himself in this small edition of the New
York Bowling-Green.




XXVI. A SAILOR A JACK OF ALL TRADES


As I began to learn my sailor duties, and show activity in running
aloft, the men, I observed, treated me with a little more consideration,
though not at all relaxing in a certain air of professional superiority.
For the mere knowing of the names of the ropes, and familiarizing
yourself with their places, so that you can lay hold of them in the
darkest night; and the loosing and furling of the canvas, and reefing
topsails, and hauling braces; all this, though of course forming an
indispensable part of a seaman's vocation, and the business in which he
is principally engaged; yet these are things which a beginner of
ordinary capacity soon masters, and which are far inferior to many other
matters familiar to an "able seaman."

What did I know, for instance, about striking a top-gallant-mast, and
sending it down on deck in a gale of wind? Could I have turned in a
dead-eye, or in the approved nautical style have clapt a seizing on the
main-stay? What did I know of "passing a gammoning," "reiving a Burton,"
"strapping a shoe-block," "clearing a foul hawse," and innumerable other
intricacies?

The business of a thorough-bred sailor is a special calling, as much of
a regular trade as a carpenter's or locksmith's. Indeed, it requires
considerably more adroitness, and far more versatility of talent.

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