menu_book Chapter 14

Section 14 of By Way of Cape Horn by Paul Eve Stevenson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Barry Eads. Section 14. July 5th. Very light southerly airs and a calm sea have added vastly to our surprise at such weather off Patagonia. How remarkable it is to find these gentle, variable winds here, when the popular notion of this region is a continuous westerly gale. Finley's South Atlantic directory, however, indicates generally fine weather from 40

degrees to 50 degrees south near the land, and this has been our skipper's most invariable experience, except that the wind ought to be to the northward instead of to the southward of west. At the present moment, though, the breeze shows signs of hauling to the northward with the sun instead of against, so perhaps it will stop there for a while. The wind has been so light and contrary for the 24 hours that in that period we made only eight miles of latitude and seven of

longitude. My wife and I have finished reading Nansen's First Crossing of Greenland, and during its perusal we learned some remarkable facts. For instance, it is strange how the body craves fat or grease of any sort when deprived of it for a long while. And it is also very odd to read that a lump of butter eaten alone slakes the thirst of men in the Arctic regions. I wonder why Nansen doesn't undertake the ascent of Mount Everest. It seems to me that he, with all his strength and

vitality, would be peculiarly well fitted for such an expedition, not to mention his being a man of science. How much interest the writings of Sir Joseph Hooker would lack if that great mountaineer had not been a scientist? The amount of risk to Nansen, too, in comparison with an Arctic voyage, would be very small, while the glory of being the first to stand upon the topmost pinnacle of the earth's surface could be dwarfed only by the attainment of the pole itself. I have loaned

the second mate the Greenland book, as Mr. Rarks is deeply interested in such work, and is desirous of joining an expedition to the North Pole. He fears not being able to pass the physical tests necessary before becoming a member of the crew, but as he has considerable knowledge of the Perry Greenland expedition, it is my notion that he tried to join it, but was rejected, and, as he laid stress on the fact that no one would be taken who had any old scars on his person,

it is not unlikely that he was barred for this reason. Considering his lean, powerful frame, he ought to be well able to endure hardships. Looking at the Spencer, which is, of course, brailed up in such light weather, Mr. Rark said, Oh, those are great sails. Wait till it's blowin' and she under that and the top sails.

they'll stand a power of wind, but I've seen them blown away. I was second mate of a Nova Scotia ship, the Mary L. Burrell, a few years ago, and we were bound across this time from Greenock to St. John in February, which isn't necessary for me to say anything more about the weather. We'd been lying, too, for 20 hours under a goose-winged maintop sail in Spencer when the wind all at once rose to a perfect hurricane and hove us down to the hatches, and then the

main top sail and that there Spencer, sir, nearly as hard and thick as a plank, flew away like a muslin handkerchief. And though we had double gaskets on all the sails, four of them was blown loose and ripped off the yards like paper. Now it's blowing pretty hard when a lower main top sail goes, but nothing short of a hurricane can budge a new Spencer. But no canvas ever made will stand a North Atlantic midwinter gale, and you hear me. We sighted a big white star freighter

this day, and she afterward reported the wind 80 miles an hour between the squalls. Not in them, mind. And if you want to see something to put joy in your heart, you ought to see these big white star steamers in a heavy gale. I saw the Kufic once coming across in another cyclone in the J.B. Walker, and the way she kept clear of the seas was a caution. I'm a good enough American, but you can't beat Harland and Wolfe very much. Mr. Rarks is an infinitely more agreeable man to

talk to than the mate, who is the longest-winded and most tiresome old porpoise who ever spun a yarn. His only recommendations are his hideousness, which is positively attractive, and his strange, absurd facial contortions when he doesn't intend to be funny. Sometimes during the first watch, when it is very dark, with the exception of the binnacle lamp which casts its rays upon him as he crosses its path, he is actually weird-looking. His voice, too, is as husky as a rusty hinge now,

owing to a severe cold, and last night he vented some curious statements. Neither of us had said a word for maybe five minutes, I watching the compass card, he grinning and mouthing to himself in the moonlight. Presently, he wormed himself over to where I stood, looked earnestly at me a few seconds, and croaked, You'll see plenty of people in California with no teeth. How is that? said I. Don't know, he replied. They do say it's the climate. Anyhow, you'll see lots with nothing

but gums. Then he crawled back to the other side, performed some further silent facial acrobatics, returned and wheezed out mysteriously, you'll be bothered with fleas there. They're that plenty. I always has a regular quadril with them. A remarkable habit the captain has at table of asking the mate if he won't have some of everything in sight. No matter how many dishes there may be on the board, the skipper always gazes fiercely at him for a moment and then says rapidly and

severely, Have some of the salt meat, Mr. Goggins. Have some beans. Have some potatoes. Have some bread. Have some sparrow grass. All this in one breath, to which the mate answers, A little if you please, sir. Or, if it's a second asking, which is merely form, he replies with his droning, No, sir. I thank you, sir. I've had sufficient, sir. I thank you, sir. As though to show how he is depriving himself, for he insists that it is vulgar to enjoy eating. Sometimes the old creature

corners my wife and me and entertains us with anecdotes of his acquaintances in San Francisco, and how excessively numerous his influential friends are there. He will tell us that Aerie Dolan is now getting $75 a month at the Union Ironworks, and when we venture the opinion that he must be a rising young man, he answers, oh, Aries all right, why, I knew him when he was getting only three dollars a week at the works. Here generally follows a genealogical history of

the Dolans for several generations, while their individual characteristics become the subject of minute discussion. Well, we're beating slowly, slowly down the inhospitable shores of Patagonia, and our luck doesn't seem to be much better than it was in the southeast trades. Latitude 44 degrees, 49 minutes south. Longitude 60 degrees, 5 minutes west. July 6th. If our nautical instruments had not assured us that we were at noon in about 45

degrees south, distant 125 miles from Cape Dos Bahios, we might easily have imagined the ship to be lying off Staten Island in New York Harbor. We never but once before saw the sea so free from swell, and that was in the Indian Ocean, 34 miles south of the equator, which position we not only held for 24 hours, but during that entire period no one perceived the least motion in the ship. It is true that today we made nearly 100 miles, but from 8 till 11 this forenoon we were motionless

on the water, while a stage was slung over the stern a foot from the surface on which the mate and carpenter worked for two hours on the rudderhead. It is only once or twice during an entire voyage that a vessel for hours at a time will not rise and fall twelve inches. To us, it is really a remarkable experience to thus float silently along within three hundred and fifty miles of the Falklands, though the skipper says, well, I told you we'd have light weather north of 50 degrees.

At noon today, however, the western sky indicated a breeze, and presently a little breath stole ever so gently over the quiet ocean, scarcely curling the smooth level plane of the sea. And gradually freshening, the ship gathered steerageway in five minutes or so and began to lazily move ahead through a large flock of Cape pigeons, which had settled to feed in great numbers during the calm, though we could perceive nothing edible in the water. The birds seemed to

delight in the breeze as much as we did, for in light weather they seldom rise higher than a few feet above the surface, lacking the force of wind which enables them to rise easily. As in a strong breeze, they make no further effort than to guide themselves, rising and falling without movement of wing. A huge, hoary albatross, a perfect old patriarch, had been with us all day, skimming over the water so closely as to touch it occasionally with his breast and seldom more than a foot

from it. It is wonderful that they can maintain so close and uniform a flight to the surface without movement and in a calm. The day before yesterday, being more exasperated than ever before at the skipper's continuous grumbling at the weather, I told him that I thought that he asked altogether too much in demanding a fair wind all the time, and that when a man began a voyage, he ought to expect more or less headwinds throughout the passage, for they were to be

expected anywhere and at any minute at sea during a whole voyage, even in the trades. Since then, he hasn't said a word against the weather, and is, for him, extremely agreeable. Heavens, How hairy he is! So thickly covered is his whole face that the only visible bare spots are his nose and eyes, for his beard grows right up over his cheekbones and his eyebrows seem to be spreading all over his forehead. So dense are his whiskers that when he comes on deck after a session with his Dutch pipe,

the smoke can still be seen eddying and seething in his beard. Last evening, as we were reading some of Kipling's delightful sea poems, the skipper called down and asked whether we wouldn't like to see a lunar rainbow. We went on deck at once, and there, sure enough, was a perfect specimen of this strange phenomenon, and so clearly defined that the brighter colors were distinctly visible.

We had seen but one lunar rainbow before, and that was a very faint one in the Bay of Bengal, about 100 miles from the Sandheads. It is a curious fact that, like captains, there are comparatively few four-mast hands who remain perfectly strong and well throughout a long passage. At least eight of ours are looking quite seedy, some with bad colds,

others with various disorders of liver and stomach, so that they have to be doctored and fixed up with an assortment of medicines. The way that five-grain blue-mast pills fly around on a deep-water ship is a caution. One would think they were peppermint drops. Latitude 45 degrees, 20 minutes south.

Longitude 62 degrees, 10 minutes west. July 7th. What a change can be wrought at sea in a few hours. At 11 yesterday morning, we were motionless upon a glassy sea. Eight hours later, we were rushing southward under the top sails before a moderate gale.

And now the storm blast came, and he was tireless and strong. He struck with his oar-taking wings and chased us south along. Throughout yesterday afternoon, the breeze steadily freshened, and by four o'clock, the sky sails had been stowed, followed at five by the royals, while after supper, the gaskets were put on the three top-gallant sails,

and the cross-jack was hauled up, The ship logging exactly twelve knots between six and seven o'clock, the best which we have done yet, the wind being true and steady from west-northwest, a little abaft the beam. I have seldom seen a finer sight than that presented by the ship as she went bounding away south by west before this grand breeze blowing straight off the pampas of Patagonia.

The moon, now at first quarter, casting a broad wake of silver radiance over the short, steep, foaming seas, which had arisen as though by magic, and were already snarling and showing their teeth up above the weather quarter. By ten o'clock, the spray had begun to bury the waste of the ship once more, while at intervals during the night, a deep, heavy boom told us that something beside mere spray was tumbling over the weather's side. When we went on deck this morning, there was no diminution in the wind, though it had shifted into the west. But as the captain had kept off to south, it was still on the beam. The main top-mast staysail had been set, and we found the watch in the act of hauling out the spencer on the gaff,

and we presently had an opportunity of seeing this piece of canvas in actual use for the first time. Its cut was excellent, and, together with the staysail, steadied the ship wonderfully. The mainsail was reefed so that the arch of this great sail, which curved over the ship like the crescent of the moon, was fully thirty feet above the deck. Although still carrying the six topsails and the foursail, we were not taking anything but huge volumes of spray aboard, in spite of the fact that the surface of the ocean to windward showed long parallel streaks of foam,

like the cross-section of a rasher of bacon, an appearance observed only when it is really blowing hard. When one has been accustomed to the heavy, rigid mainsails of yachts, a ship's canvas in comparison, bar the Spencer, appears to be, and really is, singularly thin and limp. Even a brand new foresail or mainsail of a square rigger cannot at all approach in thickness or rigidity a yacht's canvas, and it could not for a moment withstand the strain to which the latter's mainsail is subjected,

while being stretched on the boom and gaff, not to mention the sweating up of the sails with the jigs. As for a ship's upper canvas, it has always seemed to me too light, and I shall never forget my first acquaintance with square sails at close quarters. It was at Nassau. Walking one day through a sponge yard, I saw stretched on the ground great squares of smoky hempen canvas, and on feeling the various pieces, which were the top

sails of a vessel that had struck and gone to pieces on Memory Rock, 150 miles northwest of New Providence, I remember thinking that it wasn't at all surprising that the sails of ships blew away if this was what they were made of. At any rate, I put the vessel down as an old, worn-out lumberman, fit for nothing but carrying railway ties from Brunswick or Pensacola to New York. As a matter of truth, these sails belonged to a fine British ship, the Blair Drummond,

and experience has since shown that her canvas was neither better nor worse than the average, though hemp and sails never feel as thick or stout as those made of cotton duck, which our ships use. The advantages claimed for hemp are that it lasts longer, and that sails made thereof are easier to handle than if made of cotton duck, but they do not present nearly so fine an appearance, even when new.

If a ship's canvas were made entirely of number zero, or even number one duck, it would be next to impossible to furl them in a hard blow. As it is, with the soft, pliable duck and hemp, the blood often starts from the men's finger ends, from trying to gather in the bunt of the sail, which bellies out like sheet iron when the halyards have been let go. It was only this morning that the mate told me that once, about thirty years ago,

when a foremast hand in the North Atlantic trade, he was one of thirty men on the main top sail yard, single of the ship Southampton, trying to put the third reef in the sail during a January gale. And sir, said he, we could not have tied the reef in that sail if the ship had been sinking under us, and that with a man for every reef point. It is also surprising how neatly and compactly this thin canvas can be furled on a yard. From the deck, hardly anything at all can be seen on

the Royal and SkySail yards, while even the upper top sails, when in the gaskets, are not anything like as bulky or hammocky as the most fastidiously furled yacht's mainsail. I forgot to say that I gave David, to Scott, a drink on July 4th. He had been throwing out clumsy hints, for one on that day, so I filled a four-ounce bottle with Glenn Levitt and took it to him while he was eating his dinner in his tiny waterlogged cavern forward of the galley. The radiance reflected from his

continents upon the walls as he sighted the grog fairly lit up the gloomy den, and when he had downed the fiery liquid perfectly raw, he put down the bottle and delivered the following oration, his superb figure raised to its supreme height. Wherever ye may go in this world, sir, may good luck go with ye hand in hand. May it not be many years till ye get command of a ship, and the finest one under the flag. I thank ye for the best drink that ever passed me lips. I was quite taken

aback by his earnestness and the depth of feeling with which he uttered these words in the broadest of brogue so pleasant to the ear. And when he hoped that I would soon command a ship, he was wishing me to hold the most exalted position which the mind of a seaman can conceive. By the look of the aneroid we are close to some dirt, as sailors say, for now at 3 p.m. the glass stands at 29.08, a fall of an inch in 20 hours. The sky too has a hard look, the sun at noon being unable to pierce

the gloom, but shining hazy and dim like a gas jet behind frosted glass. The altitude at noon now is only 20 degrees, and the sun's rays are devoid of heat and almost of cheer. Last evening, though, we witnessed another one of those rare and radiant Patagonian sunsets. Everyone who has looked at the illustrations in Nansen's Farthest North will call to mind some strange, impossible looking purple and crimson stratus clouds of the most violent hues. Well, we have actually seen

one of these singular and extremely gorgeous skies, unnatural almost in its transcendent beauty. Nansen has caught perfectly the more delicate tints as well as the most flaming colors. We did fine work today and in the 24 hours logged 240 miles. Latitude 48 degrees, 45 minutes south, Longitude 65 degrees, 5 minutes west July 8th

At some time during the morning watch, we crossed the 50th parallel of south latitude, and have, therefore, now commenced the passage of Cape Horn, the stormiest headland in the world at the worst possible season, in the heart of the Antarctic winter. When a vessel is between 50 degrees south in the Atlantic and 50 degrees south in the Pacific,

she is said to be making the passage of the Horn, and is off the Cape when she is anywhere between those parallels. It matters not how far south she may be blown, she is off Cape Horn from 50 degrees to 50 degrees. I think that I have somewhere before said that an average passage would be about 20 days, though the bad luck of some men is astonishing. On her last westward voyage, for instance, the American ship M.P. Grace was more than six weeks off the Cape, 45 days to be

precise. Late yesterday afternoon, the westerly winds, which we have carried for two days, began to weaken, and at seven last evening had eased down to a gentle breeze. Still, a wind which will drive a vessel 300 miles in 30 hours in this part of the world and allow her to lay her course at the same time is not to be lightly spoken of, and we are all in a happy frame of mind. When the wind had almost let go, however, it began to edge stealthily to the southward,

and at 8.30 was at southwest, the dreaded point blowing in unsteady jerks. We had nothing above the topsails on the ship, though she could easily have carried the royals, but there was no use in plying on the canvas with the look that there was in the southern sky. When the glass stands at 29.00, bad weather must be expected, and when the captain left the deck at 8.45, the moon was peering dimly through a gray, thin squall, bleared and sickly. The sea was coming up from various points in short,

convulsive, oily heaves, and a frowning rampart of dark cloud was rising in the south. I'm going below now for a wink, said the skipper to Mr. Rarks on watch. Keep your eye open, for when it comes, it'll be sharp work. He had been down half an hour when, as the second mate and I stood watching the cloud approach nearer, an angry white glare now below it, suddenly, without a second's warning, like a blast from a cannon, the wind fell upon us, laying the ship far over, although the

spars were almost naked. In a few moments Captain Scruggs rose out of the companionway and stood for an instant, considering the best move. I have never yet seen him act without thinking, and it doesn't take him long to decide. Shall we double reef him, sir? said Mr. Rarks, meaning the upper top sails. No, sir, replied the captain. Let the yards run down, and then tie up the sails. Call the port watch, sir. All hands, short and sail. Aye, aye, sir, heartily. And the next moment, the second

mate swung himself down the weather poop ladder, stopped for a second to wrap on the mate's door, and then disappeared forward in the wet and gloom, while we could hear his clear, strong voice crying out above the howling wind. All hands, short and sail. And now, what an inspiring scene is enacted as the big ship plunges forward, now on an upright keel, now heeled far down to leeward by the fierce puffs which streak through the rigging with a din which is absolutely infernal.

Standing by the weather quarter bits looms up the burly form of Captain Scruggs, whose keen, vigilant eye takes in every detail of the ship and the weather, while the gaunt, motionless face of the helmsman can be seen through the wheelhouse windows, illumined by the glow from the binnacle light. In another moment, a dull, rumbling sound is heard forward. It is the upper foretop sail yard running down, and then the dim figures of fifteen or sixteen yellow-clad sailors can be perceived

as they jump into the rigging and claw out along the yard to windward and to leeward, utterly unmindful of the pelting rain which stings their faces, or the quick tremendous rolls which one would think must whip them off into the sea. Oh, bold and valiant seamen, toiling so well and so silently up there in the gale and darkness, truly ye are the bravest and the least rewarded of men. In another hour the ship was under the shortest canvas thus far, lower topsail, foresail,

reefed mainsail and spencer, bending over to the blast, the wind now rushing through the shrouds with that grand deep hum like the whir of powerful machinery. Throughout the night we kept plowing ahead through an ever-increasing sea, with showers of buckshot hail rattling overhead like storms of bullets, varied now and then with heavy dashes of spray against the cabin house. At eight this morning, though, the wind had so moderated that we set the upper top sails, the ship wallowing

continuously in a big head sea which had made during the night. At noon, though, it began to breeze up once more, and at one o'clock the cry rang through the ship, All hands reef the main top sail. Again, the men trotted up the weather rigging and turned in a double reef in less than twenty minutes. Not bad for merchantmen. It is curious to see the delight with which an order to shorten sail is invariably received by a ship's company on the approach of heavy weather.

No matter what their humor at the moment may be, they always seem actually pleased when the expected order comes from the after guard, and, with eager glances over their shoulders at the approaching squall, they leap into the shrouds and race aloft to see who shall be the first over the rim of the top. For the first time, we today had stocking-leg duff for dinner. It consists usually of a quantity of stewed dried apples wrapped up in a roll of dough and boiled in a

piece of cheesecloth. It is by no means a bad substitute for apple dumpling and, with good sauce, is always hailed at sea with extravagant joy. The name originated in the forecastle, where the duff is always boiled in the leg of a stocking. Latitude 50 degrees, 48 minutes south. Longitude 64 degrees, 34 minutes west.

End of section 14.