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Redburn. His First Voyage

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




But this astonishment of mine was much increased, when some days after,
a storm came upon us, and the captain rushed out of the cabin in his
nightcap, and nothing else but his shirt on; and leaping up on the poop,
began to jump up and down, and curse and swear, and call the men aloft
all manner of hard names, just like a common loafer in the street.

Besides all this, too, I noticed that while we were at sea, he wore
nothing but old shabby clothes, very different from the glossy suit I
had seen him in at our first interview, and after that on the steps of
the City Hotel, where he always boarded when in New York. Now, he wore
nothing but old-fashioned snuff-colored coats, with high collars and
short waists; and faded, short-legged pantaloons, very tight about the
knees; and vests, that did not conceal his waistbands, owing to their
being so short, just like a little boy's. And his hats were all caved
in, and battered, as if they had been knocked about in a cellar; and his
boots were sadly patched. Indeed, I began to think that he was but a
shabby fellow after all; particularly as his whiskers lost their gloss,
and he went days together without shaving; and his hair, by a sort of
miracle, began to grow of a pepper and salt color, which might have been
owing, though, to his discontinuing the use of some kind of dye while at
sea. I put him down as a sort of impostor; and while ashore, a gentleman
on false pretenses; for no gentleman would have treated another
gentleman as he did me.

Yes, Captain Riga, thought I, you are no gentleman, and you know it!




XV. THE MELANCHOLY STATE OF HIS WARDROBE


And now that I have been speaking of the captain's old clothes, I may as
well speak of mine.

It was very early in the month of June that we sailed; and I had greatly
rejoiced that it was that time of the year; for it would be warm and
pleasant upon the ocean, I thought; and my voyage would be like a summer
excursion to the sea shore, for the benefit of the salt water, and a
change of scene and society.

So I had not given myself much concern about what I should wear; and
deemed it wholly unnecessary to provide myself with a great outfit of
pilot-cloth jackets, and browsers, and Guernsey frocks, and oil-skin
suits, and sea-boots, and many other things, which old seamen carry in
their chests. But one reason was, that I did not have the money to buy
them with, even if I had wanted to. So in addition to the clothes I had
brought from home, I had only bought a red shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and a
belt and knife, as I have previously related, which gave me a sea
outfit, something like the Texan rangers', whose uniform, they say,
consists of a shirt collar and a pair of spurs.

But I was not many days at sea, when I found that my shore clothing, or
"long togs," as the sailors call them, were but ill adapted to the life
I now led. When I went aloft, at my yard-arm gymnastics, my pantaloons
were all the time ripping and splitting in every direction, particularly
about the seat, owing to their not being cut sailor-fashion, with low
waistbands, and to wear without suspenders. So that I was often placed
in most unpleasant predicaments, straddling the rigging, sometimes in
plain sight of the cabin, with my table linen exposed in the most
inelegant and ungentlemanly manner possible.

And worse than all, my best pair of pantaloons, and the pair I most
prided myself upon, was a very conspicuous and remarkable looking pair.

I had had them made to order by our village tailor, a little fat man,
very thin in the legs, and who used to say he imported the latest
fashions direct from Paris; though all the fashion plates in his shop
were very dirty with fly-marks.

Well, this tailor made the pantaloons I speak of, and while he had them
in hand, I used to call and see him two or three times a day to try them
on, and hurry him forward; for he was an old man with large round
spectacles, and could not see very well, and had no one to help him but
a sick wife, with five grandchildren to take care of; and besides that,
he was such a great snuff-taker, that it interfered with his business;
for he took several pinches for every stitch, and would sit snuffing and
blowing his nose over my pantaloons, till I used to get disgusted with
him. Now, this old tailor had shown me the pattern, after which he
intended to make my pantaloons; but I improved upon it, and bade him
have a slit on the outside of each leg, at the foot, to button up with a
row of six brass bell buttons; for a grown-up cousin of mine, who was a
great sportsman, used to wear a beautiful pair of pantaloons, made
precisely in that way.

And these were the very pair I now had at sea; the sailors made a great
deal of fun of them, and were all the time calling on each other to
"ftoig" them; and they would ask me to lend them a button or two, by way
of a joke; and then they would ask me if I was not a soldier. Showing
very plainly that they had no idea that my pantaloons were a very
genteel pair, made in the height of the sporting fashion, and copied
from my cousin's, who was a young man of fortune and drove a tilbury.

When my pantaloons ripped and tore, as I have said, I did my best to
mend and patch them; but not being much of a sempstress, the more I
patched the more they parted; because I put my patches on, without
heeding the joints of the legs, which only irritated my poor pants the
more, and put them out of temper.

Nor must I forget my boots, which were almost new when I left home. They
had been my Sunday boots, and fitted me to a charm. I never had had a
pair of boots that I liked better; I used to turn my toes out when I
walked in them, unless it was night time, when no one could see me, and
I had something else to think of; and I used to keep looking at them
during church; so that I lost a good deal of the sermon. In a word, they
were a beautiful pair of boots. But all this only unfitted them the more
for sea-service; as I soon discovered. They had very high heels, which
were all the time tripping me in the rigging, and several times came
near pitching me overboard; and the salt water made them shrink in such
a manner, that they pinched me terribly about the instep; and I was
obliged to gash them cruelly, which went to my very heart. The legs were
quite long, coming a good way up toward my knees, and the edges were
mounted with red morocco. The sailors used to call them my "gaff-
topsail-boots." And sometimes they used to call me "Boots," and
sometimes "Buttons," on account of the ornaments on my pantaloons and
shooting-jacket.

At last, I took their advice, and "razeed" them, as they phrased it.
That is, I amputated the legs, and shaved off the heels to the bare
soles; which, however, did not much improve them, for it made my feet
feel flat as flounders, and besides, brought me down in the world, and
made me slip and slide about the decks, as I used to at home, when I
wore straps on the ice.

As for my tarpaulin hat, it was a very cheap one; and therefore proved a
real sham and shave; it leaked like an old shingle roof; and in a rain
storm, kept my hair wet and disagreeable. Besides, from lying down on
deck in it, during the night watches, it got bruised and battered, and
lost all its beauty; so that it was unprofitable every way.

But I had almost forgotten my shooting-jacket, which was made of
moleskin. Every day, it grew smaller and smaller, particularly after a
rain, until at last I thought it would completely exhale, and leave
nothing but the bare seams, by way of a skeleton, on my back. It became
unspeakably unpleasant, when we got into rather cold weather, crossing
the Banks of Newfoundland, when the only way I had to keep warm during
the night, was to pull on my waistcoat and my roundabout, and then clap
the shooting-jacket over all. This made it pinch me under the arms, and
it vexed, irritated, and tormented me every way; and used to incommode
my arms seriously when I was pulling the ropes; so much so, that the
mate asked me once if I had the cramp.

I may as well here glance at some trials and tribulations of a similar
kind. I had no mattress, or bed-clothes, of any sort; for the thought of
them had never entered my mind before going to sea; so that I was
obliged to sleep on the bare boards of my bunk; and when the ship
pitched violently, and almost stood upon end, I must have looked like an
Indian baby tied to a plank, and hung up against a tree like a crucifix.

I have already mentioned my total want of table-tools; never dreaming,
that, in this respect, going to sea as a sailor was something like going
to a boarding-school, where you must furnish your own spoon and knife,
fork, and napkin. But at length, I was so happy as to barter with a
steerage passenger a silk handkerchief of mine for a half-gallon iron
pot, with hooks to it, to hang on a grate; and this pot I used to
present at the cook-house for my allowance of coffee and tea. It gave me
a good deal of trouble, though, to keep it clean, being much disposed to
rust; and the hooks sometimes scratched my face when I was drinking; and
it was unusually large and heavy; so that my breakfasts were deprived of
all ease and satisfaction, and became a toil and a labor to me. And I
was forced to use the same pot for my bean-soup, three times a week,
which imparted to it a bad flavor for coffee.

I can not tell how I really suffered in many ways for my improvidence
and heedlessness, in going to sea so ill provided with every thing
calculated to make my situation at all comfortable, or even tolerable.
In time, my wretched "long togs" began to drop off my back, and I looked
like a Sam Patch, shambling round the deck in my rags and the wreck of
my gaff-topsail-boots. I often thought what my friends at home would
have said, if they could but get one peep at me. But I hugged myself in
my miserable shooting-jacket, when I considered that that degradation
and shame never could overtake me; yet, I thought it a galling mockery,
when I remembered that my sisters had promised to tell all inquiring
friends, that Wellingborough had gone "abroad" just as if I was visiting
Europe on a tour with my tutor, as poor simple Mr. Jones had hinted to
the captain.

Still, in spite of the melancholy which sometimes overtook me, there
were several little incidents that made me forget myself in the
contemplation of the strange and to me most wonderful sights of the sea.

And perhaps nothing struck into me such a feeling of wild romance, as a
view of the first vessel we spoke. It was of a clear sunny afternoon,
and she came bearing down upon us, a most beautiful sight, with all her
sails spread wide. She came very near, and passed under our stern; and
as she leaned over to the breeze, showed her decks fore and aft; and I
saw the strange sailors grouped upon the forecastle, and the cook
look-cook-house with a ladle in his hand, and the captain in a green
jacket sitting on the taffrail with a speaking-trumpet.

And here, had this vessel come out of the infinite blue ocean, with all
these human beings on board, and the smoke tranquilly mounting up into
the sea-air from the cook's funnel as if it were a chimney in a city;
and every thing looking so cool, and calm, and of-course, in the midst
of what to me, at least, seemed a superlative marvel.

Hoisted at her mizzen-peak was a red flag, with a turreted white castle
in the middle, which looked foreign enough, and made me stare all the
harder.

Our captain, who had put on another hat and coat, and was lounging in an
elegant attitude on the poop, now put his high polished brass trumpet to
his mouth, and said in a very rude voice for conversation, "Where from?"

To which the other captain rejoined with some outlandish Dutch
gibberish, of which we could only make out, that the ship belonged to
Hamburg, as her flag denoted.

Hamburg!

Bless my soul! and here I am on the great Atlantic Ocean, actually
beholding a ship from Holland! It was passing strange. In my intervals
of leisure from other duties, I followed the strange ship till she was
quite a little speck in the distance.

I could not but be struck with the manner of the two sea-captains during
their brief interview. Seated at their ease on their respective "poops"
toward the stern of their ships, while the sailors were obeying their
behests; they touched hats to each other, exchanged compliments, and
drove on, with all the indifference of two Arab horsemen accosting each
other on an airing in the Desert. To them, I suppose, the great Atlantic
Ocean was a puddle.




XVI. AT DEAD OF NIGHT HE IS SENT UP TO LOOSE THE MAIN-SKYSAIL


I must now run back a little, and tell of my first going aloft at middle
watch, when the sea was quite calm, and the breeze was mild.

The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is the fifth and
highest sail from deck. It was a very small sail, and from the
forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric pocket-handkerchief. But I
have heard that some ships carry still smaller sails, above the skysail;
called moon-sails, and skyscrapers, and cloud-rakers. But I shall not
believe in them till I see them; a skysail seems high enough in all
conscience; and the idea of any thing higher than that, seems
preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven, to brush
the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of the stars out; when a
flaw of wind, too, might very soon take the conceit out of these
cloud-defying cloud-rakers.

Now, when the order was passed to loose the skysail, an old Dutch sailor
came up to me, and said, "Buttons, my boy, it's high time you be doing
something; and it's boy's business, Buttons, to loose de royals, and not
old men's business, like me. Now, d'ye see dat leelle fellow way up
dare? dare, just behind dem stars dare: well, tumble up, now, Buttons, I
zay, and looze him; way you go, Buttons."

All the rest joining in, and seeming unanimous in the opinion, that it
was high time for me to be stirring myself, and doing boy's business, as
they called it, I made no more ado, but jumped into the rigging. Up I
went, not dating to look down, but keeping my eyes glued, as it were, to
the shrouds, as I ascended.

It was a long road up those stairs, and I began to pant and breathe
hard, before I was half way. But I kept at it till I got to the Jacob's
Ladder; and they may well call it so, for it took me almost into the
clouds; and at last, to my own amazement, I found myself hanging on the
skysail-yard, holding on might and main to the mast; and curling my feet
round the rigging, as if they were another pair of hands.

For a few moments I stood awe-stricken and mute. I could not see far out
upon the ocean, owing to the darkness of the night; and from my lofty
perch, the sea looked like a great, black gulf, hemmed in, all round, by
beetling black cliffs. I seemed all alone; treading the midnight clouds;
and every second, expected to find myself falling--falling--falling, as I
have felt when the nightmare has been on me.

I could but just perceive the ship below me, like a long narrow plank in
the water; and it did not seem to belong at all to the yard, over which
I was hanging. A gull, or some sort of sea-fowl, was flying round the
truck over my head, within a few yards of my face; and it almost
frightened me to hear it; it seemed so much like a spirit, at such a
lofty and solitary height.

Though there was a pretty smooth sea, and little wind; yet, at this
extreme elevation, the ship's motion was very great; so that when the
ship rolled one way, I felt something as a fly must feel, walking the
ceiling; and when it rolled the other way, I felt as if I was hanging
along a slanting pine-tree.

But presently I heard a distant, hoarse noise from below; and though I
could not make out any thing intelligible, I knew it was the mate
hurrying me. So in a nervous, trembling desperation, I went to casting
off the gaskets, or lines tying up the sail; and when all was ready,
sung out as I had been told, to "hoist away!" And hoist they did, and me
too along with the yard and sail; for I had no time to get off, they
were so unexpectedly quick about it. It seemed like magic; there I was,
going up higher and higher; the yard rising under me, as if it were
alive, and no soul in sight. Without knowing it at the time, I was in a
good deal of danger, but it was so dark that I could not see well enough
to feel afraid--at least on that account; though I felt frightened enough
in a promiscuous way. I only held on hard, and made good the saying of
old sailors, that the last person to fall overboard from the rigging is
a landsman, because he grips the ropes so fiercely; whereas old tars are
less careful, and sometimes pay the penalty.

After this feat, I got down rapidly on deck, and received something like
a compliment from Max the Dutchman.

This man was perhaps the best natured man among the crew; at any rate,
he treated me better than the rest did; and for that reason he deserves
some mention.

Max was an old bachelor of a sailor, very precise about his wardrobe,
and prided himself greatly upon his seamanship, and entertained some
straight-laced, old-fashioned notions about the duties of boys at sea.
His hair, whiskers, and cheeks were of a fiery red; and as he wore a red
shirt, he was altogether the most combustible looking man I ever saw.

Nor did his appearance belie him; for his temper was very inflammable;
and at a word, he would explode in a shower of hard words and
imprecations. It was Max that several times set on foot those
conspiracies against Jackson, which I have spoken of before; but he
ended by paying him a grumbling homage, full of resentful reservations.

Max sometimes manifested some little interest in my welfare; and often
discoursed concerning the sorry figure I would cut in my tatters when we
got to Liverpool, and the discredit it would bring on the American
Merchant Service; for like all European seamen in American ships, Max
prided himself not a little upon his naturalization as a Yankee, and if
he could, would have been very glad to have passed himself off for a
born native.

But notwithstanding his grief at the prospect of my reflecting discredit
upon his adopted country, he never offered to better my wardrobe, by
loaning me any thing from his own well-stored chest. Like many other
well-wishers, he contented him with sympathy. Max also betrayed some
anxiety to know whether I knew how to dance; lest, when the ship's
company went ashore, I should disgrace them by exposing my awkwardness
in some of the sailor saloons. But I relieved his anxiety on that head.

He was a great scold, and fault-finder, and often took me to task about
my short-comings; but herein, he was not alone; for every one had a
finger, or a thumb, and sometimes both hands, in my unfortunate pie.




XVII. THE COOK AND STEWARD


It was on a Sunday we made the Banks of Newfoundland; a drizzling,
foggy, clammy Sunday. You could hardly see the water, owing to the mist
and vapor upon it; and every thing was so flat and calm, I almost
thought we must have somehow got back to New York, and were lying at the
foot of Wall-street again in a rainy twilight. The decks were dripping
with wet, so that in the dense fog, it seemed as if we were standing on
the roof of a house in a shower.

It was a most miserable Sunday; and several of the sailors had twinges
of the rheumatism, and pulled on their monkey-jackets. As for Jackson,
he was all the time rubbing his back and snarling like a dog.

I tried to recall all my pleasant, sunny Sundays ashore; and tried to
imagine what they were doing at home; and whether our old family friend,
Mr. Bridenstoke, would drop in, with his silver-mounted tasseled cane,
between churches, as he used to; and whether he would inquire about
myself.

But it would not do. I could hardly realize that it was Sunday at all.
Every thing went on pretty much the same as before. There was no church
to go to; no place to take a walk in; no friend to call upon. I began to
think it must be a sort of second Saturday; a foggy Saturday, when
school-boys stay at home reading Robinson Crusoe.

The only man who seemed to be taking his ease that day, was our black
cook; who according to the invariable custom at sea, always went by the
name of the doctor.

And doctors, cooks certainly are, the very best medicos in the world;
for what pestilent pills and potions of the Faculty are half so
serviceable to man, and health-and-strength-giving, as roasted lamb and
green peas, say, in spring; and roast beef and cranberry sauce in
winter? Will a dose of calomel and jakp do you as much good? Will a
bolus build up a fainting man? Is there any satisfaction in dining off a
powder? But these doctors of the frying-pan sometimes loll men off by a
surfeit; or give them the headache, at least. Well, what then? No
matter. For if with their most goodly and ten times jolly I medicines,
they now and then fill our nights with tribulations, and abridge our
days, what of the social homicides perpetrated by the Faculty? And
when you die by a pill-doctor's hands, it is never with a sweet relish
in your mouth, as though you died by a frying-pan-doctor; but your last
breath villainously savors of ipecac and rhubarb. Then, what charges
they make for the abominable lunches they serve out so stingily! One of
their bills for boluses would keep you in good dinners a twelve-month.

Now, our doctor was a serious old fellow, much given to metaphysics, and
used to talk about original sin. All that Sunday morning, he sat over
his boiling pots, reading out of a book which was very much soiled and
covered with grease spots: for he kept it stuck into a little leather
strap, nailed to the keg where he kept the fat skimmed off the water in
which the salt beef was cooked. I could hardly believe my eyes when I
found this book was the Bible.

I loved to peep in upon him, when he was thus absorbed; for his smoky
studio or study was a strange-looking place enough; not more than five
feet square, and about as many high; a mere box to hold the stove, the
pipe of which stuck out of the roof.

Within, it was hung round with pots and pans; and on one side was a
little looking-glass, where he used to shave; and on a small shelf were
his shaving tools, and a comb and brush. Fronting the stove, and very
close to it, was a sort of narrow shelf, where he used to sit with his
legs spread out very wide, to keep them from scorching; and there, with
his book in one hand, and a pewter spoon in the other, he sat all that
Sunday morning, stirring up his pots, and studying away at the same
time; seldom taking his eye off the page. Reading must have been very
hard work for him; for he muttered to himself quite loud as he read; and
big drops of sweat would stand upon his brow, and roll off, till they
hissed on the hot stove before him. But on the day I speak of, it was no
wonder that he got perplexed, for he was reading a mysterious passage in
the Book of Chronicles. Being aware that I knew how to read, he called
me as I was passing his premises, and read the passage over, demanding
an explanation. I told him it was a mystery that no one could explain;
not even a parson. But this did not satisfy him, and I left him poring
over it still.

He must have been a member of one of those negro churches, which are to
be found in New York. For when we lay at the wharf, I remembered that a
committee of three reverend looking old darkies, who, besides their
natural canonicals, wore quaker-cut black coats, and broad-brimmed black
hats, and white neck-cloths; these colored gentlemen called upon him,
and remained conversing with him at his cookhouse door for more than an
hour; and before they went away they stepped inside, and the sliding
doors were closed; and then we heard some one reading aloud and
preaching; and after that a psalm was sting and a benediction given;
when the door opened again, and the congregation came out in a great
perspiration; owing, I suppose, to the chapel being so small, and there
being only one seat besides the stove.

But notwithstanding his religious studies and meditations, this old
fellow used to use some bad language occasionally; particularly of cold,
wet stormy mornings, when he had to get up before daylight and make his
fire; with the sea breaking over the bows, and now and then dashing into
his stove.

So, under the circumstances, you could not blame him much, if he did rip
a little, for it would have tried old Job's temper, to be set to work
making a fire in the water.

Without being at all neat about his premises, this old cook was very
particular about them; he had a warm love and affection for his
cook-house. In fair weather, he spread the skirt of an old jacket before
the door, by way of a mat; and screwed a small ring-bolt into the door
for a knocker; and wrote his name, "Mr. Thompson," over it, with a bit
of red chalk.

The men said he lived round the corner of Forecastle-square, opposite
the Liberty Pole; because his cook-house was right behind the foremast,
and very near the quarters occupied by themselves.

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