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Redburn. His First Voyage

H >> Herman Melville >> Redburn. His First Voyage




And still, beneath a gray, gloomy sky, the doomed craft beat on; now on
this tack, now on that; battling against hostile blasts, and drenched in
rain and spray; scarcely making an inch of progress toward her port.

On the sixth morning, the weather merged into a gale, to which we
stripped our ship to a storm-stay-sail. In ten hours' time, the waves
ran in mountains; and the Highlander rose and fell like some vast buoy
on the water. Shrieks and lamentations were driven to leeward, and
drowned in the roar of the wind among the cordage; while we gave to the
gale the blackened bodies of five more of the dead.

But as the dying departed, the places of two of them were filled in the
rolls of humanity, by the birth of two infants, whom the plague, panic,
and gale had hurried into the world before their time. The first cry of
one of these infants, was almost simultaneous with the splash of its
father's body in the sea. Thus we come and we go. But, surrounded by
death, both mothers and babes survived.

At midnight, the wind went down; leaving a long, rolling sea; and, for
the first time in a week, a clear, starry sky.

In the first morning-watch, I sat with Harry on the windlass, watching
the billows; which, seen in the night, seemed real hills, upon which
fortresses might have been built; and real valleys, in which villages,
and groves, and gardens, might have nestled. It was like a landscape in
Switzerland; for down into those dark, purple glens, often tumbled the
white foam of the wave-crests, like avalanches; while the seething and
boiling that ensued, seemed the swallowing up of human beings.

By the afternoon of the next day this heavy sea subsided; and we bore
down on the waves, with all our canvas set; stun'-sails alow and aloft;
and our best steersman at the helm; the captain himself at his
elbow;--bowling along, with a fair, cheering breeze over the taffrail.

The decks were cleared, and swabbed bone-dry; and then, all the
emigrants who were not invalids, poured themselves out on deck, snuffing
the delightful air, spreading their damp bedding in the sun, and
regaling themselves with the generous charity of the captain, who of
late had seen fit to increase their allowance of food. A detachment of
them now joined a band of the crew, who proceeding into the steerage,
with buckets and brooms, gave it a thorough cleansing, sending on deck,
I know not how many bucketsful of defilements. It was more like cleaning
out a stable, than a retreat for men and women. This day we buried
three; the next day one, and then the pestilence left us, with seven
convalescent; who, placed near the opening of the hatchway, soon rallied
under the skillful treatment, and even tender care of the mate.

But even under this favorable turn of affairs, much apprehension was
still entertained, lest in crossing the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the
fogs, so generally encountered there, might bring on a return of the
fever. But, to the joy of all hands, our fair wind still held on; and we
made a rapid run across these dreaded shoals, and southward steered for
New York.

Our days were now fair and mild, and though the wind abated, yet we
still ran our course over a pleasant sea. The steerage-passengers--at
least by far the greater number--wore a still, subdued aspect, though a
little cheered by the genial air, and the hopeful thought of soon
reaching their port. But those who had lost fathers, husbands, wives, or
children, needed no crape, to reveal to others, who they were. Hard and
bitter indeed was their lot; for with the poor and desolate, grief is no
indulgence of mere sentiment, however sincere, but a gnawing reality,
that eats into their vital beings; they have no kind condolers, and
bland physicians, and troops of sympathizing friends; and they must
toil, though to-morrow be the burial, and their pallbearers throw down
the hammer to lift up the coffin.

How, then, with these emigrants, who, three thousand miles from home,
suddenly found themselves deprived of brothers and husbands, with but a
few pounds, or perhaps but a few shillings, to buy food in a strange
land?

As for the passengers in the cabin, who now so jocund as they? drawing
nigh, with their long purses and goodly portmanteaus to the promised
land, without fear of fate. One and all were generous and gay, the
jelly-eyed old gentleman, before spoken of, gave a shilling to the
steward.

The lady who had died, was an elderly person, an American, returning
from a visit to an only brother in London. She had no friend or relative
on board, hence, as there is little mourning for a stranger dying among
strangers, her memory had been buried with her body.

But the thing most worthy of note among these now light-hearted people
in feathers, was the gay way in which some of them bantered others, upon
the panic into which nearly all had been thrown.

And since, if the extremest fear of a crowd in a panic of peril, proves
grounded on causes sufficient, they must then indeed come to
perish;--therefore it is, that at such times they must make up their
minds either to die, or else survive to be taunted by their fellow-men
with their fear. For except in extraordinary instances of exposure,
there are few living men, who, at bottom, are not very slow to admit
that any other living men have ever been very much nearer death than
themselves. Accordingly, craven is the phrase too often applied to any
one who, with however good reason, has been appalled at the prospect of
sudden death, and yet lived to escape it. Though, should he have
perished in conformity with his fears, not a syllable of craven would
you hear. This is the language of one, who more than once has beheld the
scenes, whence these principles have been deduced. The subject invites
much subtle speculation; for in every being's ideas of death, and his
behavior when it suddenly menaces him, lies the best index to his life
and his faith. Though the Christian era had not then begun, Socrates
died the death of the Christian; and though Hume was not a Christian in
theory, yet he, too, died the death of the Christian,--humble, composed,
without bravado; and though the most skeptical of philosophical
skeptics, yet full of that firm, creedless faith, that embraces the
spheres. Seneca died dictating to posterity; Petronius lightly
discoursing of essences and love-songs; and Addison, calling upon
Christendom to behold how calmly a Christian could die; but not even the
last of these three, perhaps, died the best death of the Christian.

The cabin passenger who had used to read prayers while the rest kneeled
against the transoms and settees, was one of the merry young sparks, who
had occasioned such agonies of jealousy to the poor tailor, now no more.
In his rakish vest, and dangling watch-chain, this same youth, with all
the awfulness of fear, had led the earnest petitions of his companions;
supplicating mercy, where before he had never solicited the slightest
favor. More than once had he been seen thus engaged by the observant
steersman at the helm: who looked through the little glass in the cabin
bulk-head.

But this youth was an April man; the storm had departed; and now he
shone in the sun, none braver than he.

One of his jovial companions ironically advised him to enter into holy
orders upon his arrival in New York.

"Why so?" said the other, "have I such an orotund voice?"

"No;" profanely returned his friend--"but you are a coward--just the man
to be a parson, and pray."

However this narrative of the circumstances attending the fever among
the emigrants on the Highland may appear; and though these things
happened so long ago; yet just such events, nevertheless, are perhaps
taking place to-day. But the only account you obtain of such events, is
generally contained in a newspaper paragraph, under the shipping-head.
There is the obituary of the destitute dead, who die on the sea. They
die, like the billows that break on the shore, and no more are heard or
seen. But in the events, thus merely initialized in the catalogue of
passing occurrences, and but glanced at by the readers of news, who are
more taken up with paragraphs of fuller flavor; what a world of Me and
death, what a world of humanity and its woes, lies shrunk into a
three-worded sentence!

You see no plague-ship driving through a stormy sea; you hear no groans
of despair; you see no corpses thrown over the bulwarks; you mark not
the wringing hands and torn hair of widows and orphans:--all is a blank.
And one of these blanks I have but filled up, in recounting the details
of the Highlander's calamity.

Besides that natural tendency, which hurries into oblivion the last woes
of the poor; other causes combine to suppress the detailed circumstances
of disasters like these. Such things, if widely known, operate
unfavorably to the ship, and make her a bad name; and to avoid detention
at quarantine, a captain will state the case in the most palliating
light, and strive to hush it up, as much as he can.

In no better place than this, perhaps, can a few words be said,
concerning emigrant ships in general.

Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes
of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive
it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have
God's right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with
them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is
no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China. But we
waive all this; and will only consider, how best the emigrants can come
hither, since come they do, and come they must and will.

Of late, a law has been passed in Congress, restricting ships to a
certain number of emigrants, according to a certain rate. If this law
were enforced, much good might be done; and so also might much good be
done, were the English law likewise enforced, concerning the fixed
supply of food for every emigrant embarking from Liverpool. But it is
hardly to be believed, that either of these laws is observed.

But in all respects, no legislation, even nominally, reaches the hard
lot of the emigrant. What ordinance makes it obligatory upon the captain
of a ship, to supply the steerage-passengers with decent lodgings, and
give them light and air in that foul den, where they are immured, during
a long voyage across the Atlantic? What ordinance necessitates him to
place the galley, or steerage-passengers' stove, in a dry place of
shelter, where the emigrants can do their cooking during a storm, or wet
weather? What ordinance obliges him to give them more room on deck, and
let them have an occasional run fore and aft?--There is no law concerning
these things. And if there was, who but some Howard in office would see
it enforced? and how seldom is there a Howard in office!

We talk of the Turks, and abhor the cannibals; but may not some of them,
go to heaven, before some of us? We may have civilized bodies and yet
barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to
its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that one grief
outweighs ten thousand joys, will we become what Christianity is
striving to make us.




LIX. THE LAST END OF JACKSON


"Off Cape Cod!" said the steward, coming forward from the quarter-deck,
where the captain had just been taking his noon observation; sweeping
the vast horizon with his quadrant, like a dandy circumnavigating the
dress-circle of an amphitheater with his glass.

"Off Cape Cod!"

and in the shore-bloom that came to us--even from that desert of
sand-hillocks--methought I could almost distinguish the fragrance of the
rose-bush my sisters and I had planted, in our far inland garden at
home. Delicious odors are those of our mother Earth; which like a
flower-pot set with a thousand shrubs, greets the eager voyager from
afar.

The breeze was stiff, and so drove us along that we turned over two
broad, blue furrows from our bows, as we plowed the watery prairie. By
night it was a reef-topsail-breeze; but so impatient was the captain to
make his port before a shift of wind overtook us, that even yet we
carried a main-topgallant-sail, though the light mast sprung like a
switch.

In the second dog-watch, however, the breeze became such, that at last
the order was given to douse the top-gallant-sail, and clap a reef into
all three top-sails.

While the men were settling away the halyards on deck, and before they
had begun to haul out the reef-tackles, to the surprise of several,
Jackson came up from the forecastle, and, for the first time in four
weeks or more, took hold of a rope.

Like most seamen, who during the greater part of a voyage, have been off
duty from sickness, he was, perhaps, desirous, just previous to entering
port, of reminding the captain of his existence, and also that he
expected his wages; but, alas! his wages proved the wages of sin.

At no time could he better signalize his disposition to work, than upon
an occasion like the present; which generally attracts every soul on
deck, from the captain to the child in the steerage.

His aspect was damp and death-like; the blue hollows of his eyes were
like vaults full of snakes; and issuing so unexpectedly from his dark
tomb in the forecastle, he looked like a man raised from the dead.

Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson was tottering
up the rigging; thus getting the start of them, and securing his place
at the extreme weather-end of the topsail-yard--which in reefing is
accounted the post of honor. For it was one of the characteristics of
this man, that though when on duty he would shy away from mere dull work
in a calm, yet in tempest-time he always claimed the van, and would
yield it to none; and this, perhaps, was one cause of his unbounded
dominion over the men.

Soon, we were all strung along the main-topsail-yard; the ship rearing
and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man gripping his
reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over toward Jackson,
whose business it was to confine the reef corner to the yard.

His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning
backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope, like a bridle. At
all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with sailors, whose
spirits seem then to partake of the commotion of the elements, as they
hang in the gale, between heaven and earth; and then it is, too, that
they are the most profane.

"Haul out to windward!" coughed Jackson, with a blasphemous cry, and he
threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle in his hand.
But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth, when his hands dropped
to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered with a torrent of blood
from his lungs.

As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell headlong
from the yard, and with a long seethe, plunged like a diver into the
sea.

It was when the ship had rolled to windward, which, with the long
projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him strike far out upon
the water. His fall was seen by the whole upward-gazing crowd on deck,
some of whom were spotted with the blood that trickled from the sail,
while they raised a spontaneous cry, so shrill and wild, that a blind
man might have known something deadly had happened.

Clutching our reef-points, we hung over the stick, and gazed down to the
one white, bubbling spot, which had closed over the head of our
shipmate; but the next minute it was brewed into the common yeast of the
waves, and Jackson never arose. We waited a few minutes, expecting an
order to descend, haul back the fore-yard, and man the boat; but instead
of that, the next sound that greeted us was, "Bear a hand, and reef
away, men!" from the mate.

Indeed, upon reflection, it would have been idle to attempt to save
Jackson; for besides that he must have been dead, ere he struck the
sea--and if he had not been dead then, the first immersion must have
driven his soul from his lacerated lungs--our jolly-boat would have
taken full fifteen minutes to launch into the waves.

And here it should be said, that the thoughtless security in which too
many sea-captains indulge, would, in case of some sudden disaster
befalling the Highlander, have let us all drop into our graves.

Like most merchant ships, we had but two boats: the longboat and the
jolly-boat. The long boat, by far the largest and stoutest of the two,
was permanently bolted down to the deck, by iron bars attached to its
sides. It was almost as much of a fixture as the vessel's keel. It was
filled with pigs, fowls, firewood, and coals. Over this the jolly-boat
was capsized without a thole-pin in the gunwales; its bottom bleaching
and cracking in the sun.

Judge, then, what promise of salvation for us, had we shipwrecked; yet
in this state, one merchant ship out of three, keeps its boats. To be
sure, no vessel full of emigrants, by any possible precautions, could in
case of a fatal disaster at sea, hope to save the tenth part of the
souls on board; yet provision should certainly be made for a handful of
survivors, to carry home the tidings of her loss; for even in the worst
of the calamities that befell patient Job, some one at least of his
servants escaped to report it.

In a way that I never could fully account for, the sailors, in my
hearing at least, and Harry's, never made the slightest allusion to the
departed Jackson. One and all they seemed tacitly to unite in hushing up
his memory among them. Whether it was, that the severity of the bondage
under which this man held every one of them, did really corrode in their
secret hearts, that they thought to repress the recollection of a thing
so degrading, I can not determine; but certain it was, that his death
was their deliverance; which they celebrated by an elevation of spirits,
unknown before. Doubtless, this was to be in part imputed, however, to
their now drawing near to their port.




LX. HOME AT LAST


Next day was Sunday; and the mid-day sun shone upon a glassy sea.

After the uproar of the breeze and the gale, this profound, pervading
calm seemed suited to the tranquil spirit of a day, which, in godly
towns, makes quiet vistas of the most tumultuous thoroughfares.

The ship lay gently rolling in the soft, subdued ocean swell; while all
around were faint white spots; and nearer to, broad, milky patches,
betokening the vicinity of scores of ships, all bound to one common
port, and tranced in one common calm. Here the long, devious wakes from
Europe, Africa, India, and Peru converged to a line, which braided them
all in one.

Full before us quivered and danced, in the noon-day heat and mid-air,
the green heights of New Jersey; and by an optical delusion, the blue
sea seemed to flow under them.

The sailors whistled and whistled for a wind; the impatient cabin-
passengers were arrayed in their best; and the emigrants clustered
around the bows, with eyes intent upon the long-sought land.

But leaning over, in a reverie, against the side, my Carlo gazed down
into the calm, violet sea, as if it were an eye that answered his own;
and turning to Harry, said, "This America's skies must be down in the
sea; for, looking down in this water, I behold what, in Italy, we also
behold overhead. Ah! after all, I find my Italy somewhere, wherever I
go. I even found it in rainy Liverpool."

Presently, up came a dainty breeze, wafting to us a white wing from the
shore--the pilot-boat! Soon a monkey-jacket mounted the side, and was
beset by the captain and cabin people for news. And out of bottomless
pockets came bundles of newspapers, which were eagerly caught by the
throng.

The captain now abdicated in the pilot's favor, who proved to be a tiger
of a fellow, keeping us hard at work, pulling and hauling the braces,
and trimming the ship, to catch the least cat's-paw of wind.

When, among sea-worn people, a strange man from shore suddenly stands
among them, with the smell of the land in his beard, it conveys a
realization of the vicinity of the green grass, that not even the
distant sight of the shore itself can transcend.

The steerage was now as a bedlam; trunks and chests were locked and tied
round with ropes; and a general washing and rinsing of faces and hands
was beheld. While this was going on, forth came an order from the
quarter-deck, for every bed, blanket, bolster, and bundle of straw in
the steerage to be committed to the deep.--A command that was received by
the emigrants with dismay, and then with wrath. But they were assured,
that this was indispensable to the getting rid of an otherwise long
detention of some weeks at the quarantine. They therefore reluctantly
complied; and overboard went pallet and pillow. Following them, went old
pots and pans, bottles and baskets. So, all around, the sea was strewn
with stuffed bed-ticks, that limberly floated on the waves--couches for
all mermaids who were not fastidious. Numberless things of this sort,
tossed overboard from emigrant ships nearing the harbor of New York,
drift in through the Narrows, and are deposited on the shores of Staten
Island; along whose eastern beach I have often walked, and speculated
upon the broken jugs, torn pillows, and dilapidated baskets at my feet.

A second order was now passed for the emigrants to muster their forces,
and give the steerage a final, thorough cleaning with sand and water.
And to this they were incited by the same warning which had induced them
to make an offering to Neptune of their bedding. The place was then
fumigated, and dried with pans of coals from the galley; so that by
evening, no stranger would have imagined, from her appearance, that the
Highlander had made otherwise than a tidy and prosperous voyage. Thus,
some sea-captains take good heed that benevolent citizens shall not get
a glimpse of the true condition of the steerage while at sea.

That night it again fell calm; but next morning, though the wind was
somewhat against us, we set sail for the Narrows; and making short
tacks, at last ran through, almost bringing our jib-boom over one of the
forts.

An early shower had refreshed the woods and fields, that glowed with a
glorious green; and to our salted lungs, the land breeze was spiced with
aromas. The steerage passengers almost neighed with delight, like horses
brought back to spring pastures; and every eye and ear in the Highlander
was full of the glad sights and sounds of the shore.

No more did we think of the gale and the plague; nor turn our eyes
upward to the stains of blood, still visible on the topsail, whence
Jackson had fallen; but we fixed our gaze on the orchards and meads, and
like thirsty men, drank in all their dew.

On the Staten Island side, a white staff displayed a pale yellow flag,
denoting the habitation of the quarantine officer; for as if to
symbolize the yellow fever itself, and strike a panic and premonition of
the black vomit into every beholder, all quarantines all over the world,
taint the air with the streamings of their f ever-flag.

But though the long rows of white-washed hospitals on the hill side were
now in plain sight, and though scores of ships were here lying at
anchor, yet no boat came off to us; and to our surprise and delight, on
we sailed, past a spot which every one had dreaded. How it was that they
thus let us pass without boarding us, we never could learn.

Now rose the city from out the bay, and one by one, her spires pierced
the blue; while thick and more thick, ships, brigs, schooners, and sail
boats, thronged around. We saw the Hartz Forest of masts and black
rigging stretching along the East River; and northward, up the stately
old Hudson, covered with white sloop-sails like fleets of swans, we
caught a far glimpse of the purple Palisades.

Oh! he who has never been afar, let him once go from home, to know what
home is. For as you draw nigh again to your old native river, he seems
to pour through you with all his tides, and in your enthusiasm, you
swear to build altars like mile-stones, along both his sacred banks.

Like the Czar of all the Russias, and Siberia to boot, Captain Riga,
telescope in hand, stood on the poop, pointing out to the passengers,
Governor's Island, Castle Garden, and the Battery.

"And that" said he, pointing out a vast black hull which, like a shark,
showed tiers of teeth, "that, ladies, is a line-of-battle-ship, the
North Carolina."

"Oh, dear!"--and "Oh my!"--ejaculated the ladies, and--"Lord, save us,"
responded an old gentleman, who was a member of the Peace Society.

Hurra! hurra! and ten thousand times hurra! down goes our old anchor,
fathoms down into the free and independent Yankee mud, one handful of
which was now worth a broad manor in England.

The Whitehall boats were around us, and soon, our cabin passengers were
all off, gay as crickets, and bound for a late dinner at the Astor
House; where, no doubt, they fired off a salute of champagne corks in
honor of their own arrival. Only a very few of the steerage passengers,
however, could afford to pay the high price the watermen demanded for
carrying them ashore; so most of them remained with us till morning. But
nothing could restrain our Italian boy, Carlo, who, promising the
watermen to pay them with his music, was triumphantly rowed ashore,
seated in the stern of the boat, his organ before him, and something
like "Hail Columbia!" his tune. We gave him three rapturous cheers, and
we never saw Carlo again.

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