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Redburn. His First Voyage

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This galley was a large open stove, or iron range--made expressly for
emigrant ships, wholly unprotected from the weather, and where alone the
emigrants are permitted to cook their food while at sea.

After two days' work, every thing was in readiness; most of the
emigrants on board; and in the evening we worked the ship close into the
outlet of Prince's Dock, with the bow against the water-gate, to go out
with the tide in the morning.

In the morning, the bustle and confusion about us was indescribable.
Added to the ordinary clamor of the docks, was the hurrying to and fro
of our five hundred emigrants, the last of whom, with their baggage,
were now coming on board; the appearance of the cabin passengers,
following porters with their trunks; the loud orders of the
dock-masters, ordering the various ships behind us to preserve their
order of going out; the leave-takings, and good-by's, and
God-bless-you's, between the emigrants and their friends; and the cheers
of the surrounding ships.

At this time we lay in such a way, that no one could board us except by
the bowsprit, which overhung the quay. Staggering along that bowsprit,
now came a one-eyed crimp leading a drunken tar by the collar, who had
been shipped to sail with us the day previous. It has been stated
before, that two or three of our men had left us for good, while in
port. When the crimp had got this man and another safely lodged in a
bunk below, he returned on shore; and going to a miserable cab, pulled
out still another apparently drunken fellow, who proved completely
helpless. However, the ship now swinging her broadside more toward the
quay, this stupefied sailor, with a Scotch cap pulled down over his
closed eyes, only revealing a sallow Portuguese complexion, was lowered
on board by a rope under his arms, and passed forward by the crew, who
put him likewise into a bunk in the forecastle, the crimp himself
carefully tucking him in, and bidding the bystanders not to disturb him
till the ship was away from the land.

This done, the confusion increased, as we now glided out of the dock.
Hats and handkerchiefs were waved; hurrahs were exchanged; and tears
were shed; and the last thing I saw, as we shot into the stream, was a
policeman collaring a boy, and walking him off to the guard-house.

A steam-tug, the Goliath, now took us by the arm, and gallanted us down
the river past the fort.

The scene was most striking.

Owing to a strong breeze, which had been blowing up the river for four
days past, holding wind-bound in the various docks a multitude of ships
for all parts of the world; there was now under weigh, a vast fleet of
merchantmen, all steering broad out to sea. The white sails glistened in
the clear morning air like a great Eastern encampment of sultans; and
from many a forecastle, came the deep mellow old song Ho-o-he-yo,
cheerily men! as the crews called their anchors.

The wind was fair; the weather mild; the sea most smooth; and the poor
emigrants were in high spirits at so auspicious a beginning of their
voyage. They were reclining all over the decks, talking of soon seeing
America, and relating how the agent had told them, that twenty days
would be an uncommonly long voyage.

Here it must be mentioned, that owing to the great number of ships
sailing to the Yankee ports from Liverpool, the competition among them
in obtaining emigrant passengers, who as a cargo are much more
remunerative than crates and bales, is exceedingly great; so much so,
that some of the agents they employ, do not scruple to deceive the poor
applicants for passage, with all manner of fables concerning the short
space of time, in which their ships make the run across the ocean.

This often induces the emigrants to provide a much smaller stock of
provisions than they otherwise would; the effect of which sometimes
proves to be in the last degree lamentable; as will be seen further on.
And though benevolent societies have been long organized in Liverpool,
for the purpose of keeping offices, where the emigrants can obtain
reliable information and advice, concerning their best mode of
embarkation, and other matters interesting to them; and though the
English authorities have imposed a law, providing that every captain of
an emigrant ship bound for any port of America shall see to it, that
each passenger is provided with rations of food for sixty days; yet, all
this has not deterred mercenary ship-masters and unprincipled agents
from practicing the grossest deception; nor exempted the emigrants
themselves, from the very sufferings intended to be averted.

No sooner had we fairly gained the expanse of the Irish Sea, and, one by
one, lost sight of our thousand consorts, than the weather changed into
the most miserable cold, wet, and cheerless days and nights imaginable.
The wind was tempestuous, and dead in our teeth; and the hearts of the
emigrants fell. Nearly all of them had now hied below, to escape the
uncomfortable and perilous decks: and from the two "booby-hatches" came
the steady hum of a subterranean wailing and weeping. That irresistible
wrestler, sea-sickness, had overthrown the stoutest of their number, and
the women and children were embracing and sobbing in all the agonies of
the poor emigrant's first storm at sea.

Bad enough is it at such times with ladies and gentlemen in the cabin,
who have nice little state-rooms; and plenty of privacy; and stewards to
run for them at a word, and put pillows under their heads, and tenderly
inquire how they are getting along, and mix them a posset: and even
then, in the abandonment of this soul and body subduing malady, such
ladies and gentlemen will often give up life itself as unendurable, and
put up the most pressing petitions for a speedy annihilation; all of
which, however, only arises from their intense anxiety to preserve their
valuable lives.

How, then, with the friendless emigrants, stowed away like bales of
cotton, and packed like slaves in a slave-ship; confined in a place
that, during storm time, must be closed against both light and air; who
can do no cooking, nor warm so much as a cup of water; for the drenching
seas would instantly flood their fire in their exposed galley on deck?
How, then, with these men, and women, and children, to whom a first
voyage, under the most advantageous circumstances, must come just as
hard as to the Honorable De Lancey Fitz Clarence, lady, daughter, and
seventeen servants.

Nor is this all: for in some of these ships, as in the case of the
Highlander, the emigrant passengers are cut off from the most
indispensable conveniences of a civilized dwelling. This forces them in
storm time to such extremities, that no wonder fevers and plagues are
the result. We had not been at sea one week, when to hold your head down
the fore hatchway was like holding it down a suddenly opened cesspool.

But still more than this. Such is the aristocracy maintained on board
some of these ships, that the most arbitrary measures are enforced, to
prevent the emigrants from intruding upon the most holy precincts of the
quarter-deck, the only completely open space on ship-board.
Consequently--even in fine weather--when they come up from below, they are
crowded in the waist of the ship, and jammed among the boats, casks, and
spars; abused by the seamen, and sometimes cuffed by the officers, for
unavoidably standing in the way of working the vessel.

The cabin-passengers of the Highlander numbered some fifteen in all; and
to protect this detachment of gentility from the barbarian incursions of
the "wild Irish" emigrants, ropes were passed athwart-ships, by the
main-mast, from side to side: which defined the boundary line between
those who had paid three pounds passage-money, from those who had paid
twenty guineas. And the cabin-passengers themselves were the most urgent
in having this regulation maintained.

Lucky would it be for the pretensions of some parvenus, whose souls are
deposited at their banker's, and whose bodies but serve to carry about
purses, knit of poor men's heartstrings, if thus easily they could
precisely define, ashore, the difference between them and the rest of
humanity.

But, I, Redburn, am a poor fellow, who have hardly ever known what it is
to have five silver dollars in my pocket at one time; so, no doubt, this
circumstance has something to do with my slight and harmless indignation
at these things.




XLVIII. A LIVING CORPSE


It was destined that our departure from the English strand, should be
marked by a tragical event, akin to the sudden end of the suicide, which
had so strongly impressed me on quitting the American shore.

Of the three newly shipped men, who in a state of intoxication had been
brought on board at the dock gates, two were able to be engaged at their
duties, in four or five hours after quitting the pier. But the third man
yet lay in his bunk, in the self-same posture in which his limbs had
been adjusted by the crimp, who had deposited him there.

His name was down on the ship's papers as Miguel Saveda, and for Miguel
Saveda the chief mate at last came forward, shouting down the
forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his instant presence on deck. But the
sailors answered for their new comrade; giving the mate to understand
that Miguel was still fast locked in his trance, and could not obey him;
when, muttering his usual imprecation, the mate retired to the
quarterdeck.

This was in the first dog-watch, from four to six in the evening. At
about three bells, in the next watch, Max the Dutchman, who, like most
old seamen, was something of a physician in cases of drunkenness,
recommended that Miguel's clothing should be removed, in order that he
should lie more comfortably. But Jackson, who would seldom let any thing
be done in the forecastle that was not proposed by himself, capriciously
forbade this proceeding.

So the sailor still lay out of sight in his bunk, which was in the
extreme angle of the forecastle, behind the bowsprit-bitts--two stout
timbers rooted in the ship's keel. An hour or two afterward, some of the
men observed a strange odor in the forecastle, which was attributed to
the presence of some dead rat among the hollow spaces in the side
planks; for some days before, the forecastle had been smoked out, to
extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the larboard watch,
to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every man waked, he
exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by the
shaking up the bilge-water, from the ship's rolling.

"Blast that rat!" cried the Greenlander.

"He's blasted already," said Jackson, who in his drawers had crossed
over to the bunk of Miguel. "It's a water-rat, shipmates, that's dead;
and here he is"--and with that, he dragged forth the sailor's arm,
exclaiming, "Dead as a timber-head!"

Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the light, which he
held to the man's face.

"No, he's not dead," he cried, as the yellow flame wavered for a moment
at the seaman's motionless mouth. But hardly had the words escaped,
when, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a
forked tongue, darted out between the lips; and in a moment, the
cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of wormlike flames.

The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; while covered all
over with spires and sparkles of flame, that faintly crackled in the
silence, the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, precisely
like phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea.

The eyes were open and fixed; the mouth was curled like a scroll, and
every lean feature firm as in life; while the whole face, now wound in
curls of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim defiance, and eternal
death. Prometheus, blasted by fire on the rock.

One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man's name,
tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle joint; and as if
there was something peculiar in the painted flesh, every vibrating
letter burned so white, that you might read the flaming name in the
flickering ground of blue.

"Where's that d--d Miguel?" was now shouted down among us from the
scuttle by the mate, who had just come on deck, and was determined to
have every man up that belonged to his watch.

"He's gone to the harbor where they never weigh anchor," coughed
Jackson. "Come you down, sir, and look."

Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate sprang down in a
rage; but recoiled at the burning body as if he had been shot by a
bullet. "My God!" he cried, and stood holding fast to the ladder.

"Take hold of it," said Jackson, at last, to the Greenlander; "it must
go overboard. Don't stand shaking there, like a dog; take hold of it, I
say! But stop"--and smothering it all in the blankets, he pulled it
partly out of the bunk.

A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the phosphorescent
sparkles of the damp night sea, leaving a coruscating wake as it sank.

This event thrilled me through and through with unspeakable horror; nor
did the conversation of the watch during the next four hours on deck at
all serve to soothe me.

But what most astonished me, and seemed most incredible, was the
infernal opinion of Jackson, that the man had been actually dead when
brought on board the ship; and that knowingly, and merely for the sake
of the month's advance, paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill
he presented, the body-snatching crimp had knowingly shipped a corpse on
board of the Highlander, under the pretense of its being a live body in
a drunken trance. And I heard Jackson say, that he had known of such
things having been done before. But that a really dead body ever burned
in that manner, I can not even yet believe. But the sailors seemed
familiar with such things; or at least with the stories of such things
having happened to others.

For me, who at that age had never so much as happened to hear of a case
like this, of animal combustion, in the horrid mood that came over me, I
almost thought the burning body was a premonition of the hell of the
Calvinists, and that Miguel's earthly end was a foretaste of his eternal
condemnation.

Immediately after the burial, an iron pot of red coals was placed in the
bunk, and in it two handfuls of coffee were roasted. This done, the bunk
was nailed up, and was never opened again during the voyage; and strict
orders were given to the crew not to divulge what had taken place to the
emigrants; but to this, they needed no commands.

After the event, no one sailor but Jackson would stay alone in the
forecastle, by night or by noon; and no more would they laugh or sing,
or in any way make merry there, but kept all their pleasantries for the
watches on deck. All but Jackson: who, while the rest would be sitting
silently smoking on their chests, or in their bunks, would look toward
the fatal spot, and cough, and laugh, and invoke the dead man with
incredible scoffs and jeers. He froze my blood, and made my soul stand
still.




XLIX. CARLO


There was on board our ship, among the emigrant passengers, a rich-
cheeked, chestnut-haired Italian boy, arrayed in a faded, olive-hued
velvet jacket, and tattered trowsers rolled up to his knee. He was not
above fifteen years of age; but in the twilight pensiveness of his full
morning eyes, there seemed to sleep experiences so sad and various, that
his days must have seemed to him years. It was not an eye like Harry's
tho' Harry's was large and womanly. It shone with a soft and spiritual
radiance, like a moist star in a tropic sky; and spoke of humility,
deep-seated thoughtfulness, yet a careless endurance of all the ills of
life.

The head was if any thing small; and heaped with thick clusters of
tendril curls, half overhanging the brows and delicate ears, it somehow
reminded you of a classic vase, piled up with Falernian foliage.

From the knee downward, the naked leg was beautiful to behold as any
lady's arm; so soft and rounded, with infantile ease and grace. His
whole figure was free, fine, and indolent; he was such a boy as might
have ripened into life in a Neapolitan vineyard; such a boy as gipsies
steal in infancy; such a boy as Murillo often painted, when he went
among the poor and outcast, for subjects wherewith to captivate the eyes
of rank and wealth; such a boy, as only Andalusian beggars are, full of
poetry, gushing from every rent.

Carlo was his name; a poor and friendless son of earth, who had no sire;
and on life's ocean was swept along, as spoon-drift in a gale.

Some months previous, he had landed in Prince's Dock, with his hand-
organ, from a Messina vessel; and had walked the streets of Liverpool,
playing the sunny airs of southern chines, among the northern fog and
drizzle. And now, having laid by enough to pay his passage over the
Atlantic, he had again embarked, to seek his fortunes in America.

From the first, Harry took to the boy.

"Carlo," said Harry, "how did you succeed in England?"

He was reclining upon an old sail spread on the long-boat; and throwing
back his soiled but tasseled cap, and caressing one leg like a child, he
looked up, and said in his broken English--that seemed like mixing the
potent wine of Oporto with some delicious syrup:--said he, "Ah! I succeed
very well!--for I have tunes for the young and the old, the gay and the
sad. I have marches for military young men, and love-airs for the
ladies, and solemn sounds for the aged. I never draw a crowd, but I know
from their faces what airs will best please them; I never stop before a
house, but I judge from its portico for what tune they will soonest toss
me some silver. And I ever play sad airs to the merry, and merry airs to
the sad; and most always the rich best fancy the sad, and the poor the
merry."

"But do you not sometimes meet with cross and crabbed old men," said
Harry, "who would much rather have your room than your music?"

"Yes, sometimes," said Carlo, playing with his foot, "sometimes I do."

"And then, knowing the value of quiet to unquiet men, I suppose you
never leave them under a shilling?"

"No," continued the boy, "I love my organ as I do myself, for it is my
only friend, poor organ! it sings to me when I am sad, and cheers me;
and I never play before a house, on purpose to be paid for leaving off,
not I; would I, poor organ?"--looking down the hatchway where it was.
"No, that I never have done, and never will do, though I starve; for
when people drive me away, I do not think my organ is to blame, but they
themselves are to blame; for such people's musical pipes are cracked,
and grown rusted, that no more music can be breathed into their souls."

"No, Carlo; no music like yours, perhaps," said Harry, with a laugh.

"Ah! there's the mistake. Though my organ is as full of melody, as a
hive is of bees; yet no organ can make music in unmusical breasts; no
more than my native winds can, when they breathe upon a harp without
chords."

Next day was a serene and delightful one; and in the evening when the
vessel was just rippling along impelled by a gentle yet steady breeze,
and the poor emigrants, relieved from their late sufferings, were
gathered on deck; Carlo suddenly started up from his lazy reclinings;
went below, and, assisted by the emigrants, returned with his organ.

Now, music is a holy thing, and its instruments, however humble, are to
be loved and revered. Whatever has made, or does make, or may make
music, should be held sacred as the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of
Persia's horse, and the golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod.
Musical instruments should be like the silver tongs, with which the
high-priests tended the Jewish altars--never to be touched by a hand
profane. Who would bruise the poorest reed of Pan, though plucked from a
beggar's hedge, would insult the melodious god himself.

And there is no humble thing with music in it, not a fife, not a
negro-fiddle, that is not to be reverenced as much as the grandest
architectural organ that ever rolled its flood-tide of harmony down a
cathedral nave. For even a Jew's-harp may be so played, as to awaken all
the fairies that are in us, and make them dance in our souls, as on a
moon-lit sward of violets.

But what subtle power is this, residing in but a bit of steel, which
might have made a tenpenny nail, that so enters, without knocking, into
our inmost beings, and shows us all hidden things?

Not in a spirit of foolish speculation altogether, in no merely
transcendental mood, did the glorious Greek of old fancy the human soul
to be essentially a harmony. And if we grant that theory of Paracelsus
and Campanella, that every man has four souls within him; then can we
account for those banded sounds with silver links, those quartettes of
melody, that sometimes sit and sing within us, as if our souls were
baronial halls, and our music were made by the hoarest old harpers of
Wales.

But look! here is poor Carlo's organ; and while the silent crowd
surrounds him, there he stands, looking mildly but inquiringly about
him; his right hand pulling and twitching the ivory knobs at one end of
his instrument.

Behold the organ!

Surely, if much virtue lurk in the old fiddles of Cremona, and if their
melody be in proportion to their antiquity, what divine ravishments may
we not anticipate from this venerable, embrowned old organ, which might
almost have played the Dead March in Saul, when King Saul himself was
buried.

A fine old organ! carved into fantastic old towers, and turrets, and
belfries; its architecture seems somewhat of the Gothic, monastic order;
in front, it looks like the West-Front of York Minster.

What sculptured arches, leading into mysterious intricacies!--what
mullioned windows, that seem as if they must look into chapels flooded
with devotional sunsets!--what flying buttresses, and gable-ends, and
niches with saints!--But stop! 'tis a Moorish iniquity; for here, as I
live, is a Saracenic arch; which, for aught I know, may lead into some
interior Alhambra.

Ay, it does; for as Carlo now turns his hand, I hear the gush of the
Fountain of Lions, as he plays some thronged Italian air--a mixed and
liquid sea of sound, that dashes its spray in my face.

Play on, play on, Italian boy! what though the notes be broken, here's
that within that mends them. Turn hither your pensive, morning eyes; and
while I list to the organs twain--one yours, one mine--let me gaze
fathoms down into thy fathomless eye;--'tis good as gazing down into the
great South Sea, and seeing the dazzling rays of the dolphins there.

Play on, play on! for to every note come trooping, now, triumphant
standards, armies marching--all the pomp of sound. Methinks I am Xerxes,
the nucleus of the martial neigh of all the Persian studs. Like gilded
damask-flies, thick clustering on some lofty bough, my satraps swarm
around me.

But now the pageant passes, and I droop; while Carlo taps his ivory
knobs; and plays some flute-like saraband--soft, dulcet, dropping sounds,
like silver cans in bubbling brooks. And now a clanging, martial air, as
if ten thousand brazen trumpets, forged from spurs and swordhilts,
called North, and South, and East, to rush to West!

Again-what blasted heath is this?--what goblin sounds of Macbeth's
witches?--Beethoven's Spirit Waltz! the muster-call of sprites and
specters. Now come, hands joined, Medusa, Hecate, she of Endor, and all
the Blocksberg's, demons dire.

Once more the ivory knobs are tapped; and long-drawn, golden sounds are
heard-some ode to Cleopatra; slowly loom, and solemnly expand, vast,
rounding orbs of beauty; and before me float innumerable queens, deep
dipped in silver gauzes.

All this could Carlo do--make, unmake me; build me up; to pieces take me;
and join me limb to limb. He is the architect of domes of sound, and
bowers of song.

And all is done with that old organ! Reverenced, then, be all street
organs; more melody is at the beck of my Italian boy, than lurks in
squadrons of Parisian orchestras.

But look! Carlo has that to feast the eye as well as ear; and the same
wondrous magic in me, magnifies them into grandeur; though every figure
greatly needs the artist's repairing hand, and sadly needs a dusting.

His York Minster's West-Front opens; and like the gates of Milton's
heaven, it turns on golden binges.

What have we here? The inner palace of the Great Mogul? Group and gilded
columns, in confidential clusters; fixed fountains; canopies and
lounges; and lords and dames in silk and spangles.

The organ plays a stately march; and presto! wide open arches; and out
come, two and two, with nodding plumes, in crimson turbans, a troop of
martial men; with jingling scimiters, they pace the hall; salute, pass
on, and disappear.

Now, ground and lofty tumblers; jet black Nubian slaves. They fling
themselves on poles; stand on their heads; and downward vanish.

And now a dance and masquerade of figures, reeling from the side-doors,
among the knights and dames. Some sultan leads a sultaness; some
emperor, a queen; and jeweled sword-hilts of carpet knights fling back
the glances tossed by coquettes of countesses.

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