Part 25 (1/2)

The whaling season ends at the Azores about the first of October, when the first winter gales begin to blow, and the food becomes scarce. The whales then migrate to other feeding-grounds, and the adventurous whaler follows them. As we were now, in the first days of September, on board the _Alabama_, the reader will see, that we had but a few weeks left, in which to accomplish our purpose of striking a blow at the enemy's whale fishery.

In the afternoon of September 4th, the weather being fine and clear, we made Pico and Fayal, and reducing sail to topsails, lay off and on during the night. The next day, the weather being cloudy, and the wind light from the eastward, we made our first prize, without the excitement of a chase.

A s.h.i.+p having been discovered, lying to, with her foretopsail to the mast, we made sail for her, hoisting the United States colors, and approached her within boarding distance, that is to say, within a few hundred yards, without her moving tack or sheet. She had shown the United States colors in return, as we approached, and proved to be a whaler, with a huge whale, which she had recently struck, made fast alongside, and partially hoisted out of the water by her yard tackles. The surprise was perfect and complete, although eleven days had elapsed since the _Alabama_ had been commissioned at a neighboring island, less than a hundred miles off.

The captured s.h.i.+p proved to be the _Ocmulgee_, of Edgartown, Ma.s.sachusetts, whose master was a genuine specimen of the Yankee whaling skipper; long and lean, and as elastic, apparently, as the whalebone he dealt in. Nothing could exceed the blank stare of astonishment, that sat on his face, as the change of flags took place on board the _Alabama_. He had been engaged, up to the last moment, with his men, securing the rich spoil alongside. The whale was a fine ”sperm,” and was a ”big strike,” and had already been denuded of much of its blubber when we got alongside. He naturally concluded, he said, when he saw the United States colors at our peak, that we were one of the new gunboats sent out by Mr. Welles to protect the whale fishery. It was indeed remarkable, that no protection should have been given to these men, by their Government. Unlike the s.h.i.+ps of commerce, the whalers are obliged to congregate within small well-known s.p.a.ces of ocean and remain there for weeks at a time, whilst the whaling season lasts. It was the most obvious thing in the world, that these vessels, thus cl.u.s.tered together, should attract the attention of the Confederate cruisers, and be struck at. There are not more than half a dozen princ.i.p.al whaling stations on the entire globe, and a s.h.i.+p, of size and force, at each, would have been sufficient protection. But the whalers, like the commerce of the United States generally, were abandoned to their fate. Mr. Welles did not seem capable of learning by experience even; for the _Shenandoah_ repeated the successes of the _Alabama_, in the North Pacific, toward the close of the war. There were Federal steam gunboats, and an old sailing hulk cruising about in the China seas, but no one seemed to think of the whalers, until Waddel carried dismay and consternation among them.

It took us some time to remove the crew of the _Ocmulgee_, consisting of thirty-seven persons, to the _Alabama_. We also got on board from her some beef and pork, and small stores, and by the time we had done this, it was nine o'clock at night; too late to think of burning her, as a bonfire, by night, would flush the remainder of the game, which I knew to be in the vicinity; and I had now become too old a hunter to commit such an indiscretion. With a little management and caution, I might hope to uncover the birds, no faster than I could bag them. And so, hoisting a light at the peak of the prize, I permitted her to remain anch.o.r.ed to the whale, and we lay by her until the next morning, when we burned her; the smoke of the conflagration being, no doubt, mistaken by vessels at a distance, for that of some pa.s.sing steamer.

To those curious in such matters, I may state that a large sperm whale will yield twenty-five barrels of oil from the head alone. The oil is found in its liquid state, and is baled out with buckets, from a hole cut in the top of the head. What can be the uses in the animal economy to which this immense quant.i.ty of oil in the head of the fish is applied?

They are probably twofold. First, it may have some connection with the sustenance of the animal, in seasons of scarcity of food, and secondly, and more obviously, it appears to be a provision of nature, designed on the same principle on which birds are supplied with air-cells in their bones. The whale, though a very intelligent fish, and with an affection for its ”calf,” almost human, has but a small brain, the great cavity of its skull being filled as described. As the specific gravity of oil is considerably less than that of water, we can be at no loss to conjecture why the monster has so bountiful a supply, nor why it is that it carries the supply in its head. As is well known, the whale is a warm-blooded mammal, as much so as the cow that roams our pastures, and cannot live by breathing the water alone. Instead of the gill arrangement of other fishes, which enables them to extract from the water sufficient air to vitalize the blood, it has the lungs of the mammal, and needs to breathe the atmosphere. The oil in the head, acting on the principle of the cork, enables it to ascend very rapidly, from great depths in the ocean, when it requires to breathe, or ”blow.” See how beautiful this oil arrangement is, too, in another aspect. It enables the monster, when it requires rest, to lay its head on the softest kind of a pillow, an ocean wave, and sleep as unconcernedly as the child does upon the bosom of its mother.

On the day after the capture of the _Ocmulgee_, we chased and overhauled a French s.h.i.+p, bound to Ma.r.s.eilles. After speaking this s.h.i.+p, and telling her that we were a United States cruiser, we bore away north, half west, and in a couple of hours made the island of Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, and a favorite island to be sighted by the whalers, for the correction of their chronometers. Approaching it just at nightfall, we shortened sail, and lay off and on during the night. This island is an exceedingly picturesque object. It rises like a huge mountain from the depths of the sea, with the bluest and deepest of water all around it. It is rock-bound, and there is scarcely any part of it, where a s.h.i.+p might not haul alongside of the rocks, and make fast to the sh.o.r.e. It rises to the height of a thousand feet and more, and is covered with a luxuriant vegetation, the substratum of rock being overlaid with a generous soil.

The climate is genial for three-fourths of the year, but almost a perpetual gale howls over it in winter. At a distance, the island appeared like an unbroken mountain, but as we approached it, many beautiful valleys, and gaps in the mountain presented themselves, with the neat white farm-houses of the lonely dwellers peeping out from beneath the dense foliage. It was indeed a beautiful scene to look upon, and such was the air of perfect repose and peace that pervaded it, that a s.h.i.+p of war seemed out of place, approaching its quiet sh.o.r.es.

The next day, Sunday, dawned beautiful and bright, and the _Alabama_ having approached this semi-tropical island, sufficiently near to inhale the fragrance of its shrubs and flowers, mustered her crew for the first time. The reader has now been sufficiently long with us to know, that when we speak of ”muster” on board a s.h.i.+p of war, we do not mean simply the calling of the roll, but a ceremony of dress and inspection. With clean, white decks, with the bra.s.s and iron work glittering like so many mirrors in the sun, and with the sails neatly trimmed, and the Confederate States flag at our peak, we spread our awnings and read the Articles of War to the crew. A great change had taken place in the appearance of the men, since I made that stump speech to them which has been described. Their parti-colored garments had been cast aside, and they were all neatly arrayed in duck frocks and trousers, well-polished shoes, and straw hats.

There was a visible improvement in their health, too. They had been long enough out of Liverpool to recover from the effects of their debauches, and regain their accustomed stamina. This was the first reading of the Articles of War to them, and it was curious to observe the attention with which they listened to the reading, occasionally eying each other, as they were struck by particular portions of them. These Articles, which were copied from similar Articles, for the ”better government of the Navy of the United States,” were quite severe in their denunciations of crime. The penalty of death frequently occurred in them, and they placed the power of executing this penalty in the hands of the captain and a court-martial.

Jack had already had a little foretaste of discipline, in the two weeks he had been on board; the first lieutenant having brought several of them to the ”mast,” whence they had been sent into confinement by me, for longer or shorter intervals, according to the grade of their offences; and he now began more distinctly to perceive that he had gotten on board a _s.h.i.+p of war_, instead of the privateer he had supposed the _Alabama_ to be, and that he would have to toe a pretty straight mark. It is with a disorderly crew, as with other things, the first blows are the most effective. I had around me a large staff of excellent officers, who always wore their side arms, and pistols, when on duty, and from this time onward we never had any trouble about keeping the most desperate and turbulent characters in subjection. My code was like that of the Medes and Persians--it was never relaxed. The moment a man offended, he was seized and confined in irons, and, if the offence was a grave one, a court-martial was sitting on his case in less than twenty-four hours. The willing and obedient were treated with humanity and kindness; the turbulent were jerked down, with a strong hand, and made submissive to discipline. I was as rigid with the officers as with the crew, though, of course, in a different way, and, both officers and men soon learning what was required of them, everything went on, on board the _Alabama_, after the first few weeks, as smoothly, and with as little jarring as if she had been a well-constructed and well-oiled machine.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

CAPTURE OF THE STARLIGHT, OCEAN ROVER, ALERT, WEATHER-GAUGE--A RACE BY NIGHT--CAPTURE OF THE ALTAMAHA, VIRGINIA, AND ELIJA DUNBAR--A ROUGH SEA, TOILING BOATS, AND A PICTURESQUE BURNING OF A s.h.i.+P IN A GALE.

We were running in, while the muster described in the last chapter was going on, for the little town, or, rather, sea-side village of Lagens, on the south side of the island of Flores, and, having approached the beach quite near, we hove the s.h.i.+p to, and hauling alongside, from the stern, where they had been towing, the whale-boats of the captured s.h.i.+p, which we had brought away from the prize for this purpose, we paroled our prisoners, and, putting them in possession of their boats, shoved them off for the sh.o.r.e. I had two motives in thus landing my prisoners in their own boats, or, to speak more properly, in the boats which had once belonged to them. It saved me the trouble of landing them myself; and, as the boats were valuable, and I permitted the prisoners to put in them as many provisions as they desired, and as much other plunder as they could pick up about the decks of their s.h.i.+ps--excepting always such articles as we needed on board the _Alabama_--the sale of their boats and cargoes to the islanders gave them the means of subsistence, until they could communicate with their consul in the neighboring island of Fayal.

We had scarcely gotten through with the operation of landing our prisoners, before the cry of ”sail ho!” came to us from the mast-head; and we made sail in chase of a schooner which was approaching the island, hoisting the English colors to throw the stranger off his guard. As the two vessels were sailing toward each other, they approached very rapidly, and in the course of an hour we were within a mile of each other. Still the schooner did not show any colors. The reason was quite plain; she was American in every feature, and could show us no other colors than such as would subject her to capture, in case we should prove to be her enemy, of which she seemed to be suspicious. Indeed, the gallant little craft, with every st.i.tch of canvas set, sails well hoisted, and sheets a little eased, was now edging off a little from us, and endeavoring to gain the shelter of the well-known marine league, the land being distant only about five miles. Perceiving her object, and seeing that I had only a couple of miles to spare, I kept my own s.h.i.+p off, the better to throw myself across the stranger's path, changed my colors, and fired a blank cartridge to heave her to. But she neither hove to, nor showed colors, being evidently intent upon giving me a race. Although I already had the little craft under my guns, I humored her for a few minutes, just to show her that I could beat her in a fair trial of speed, and when I had proved this, by gaining rapidly upon her, I sent a round shot from one of the bow guns between her masts, a few feet only over the heads of her people. If the reader has heard a 32-pounder whistle, in such close proximity, he knows very well what it says, to wit, that there must be no more trifling. And so the captain of the schooner understood it, for in a moment afterward we could see the graceful little craft luffing up in the wind, brailing up her foresail, and hauling her jib sheet to windward. The welcome stars and stripes fluttered soon afterward from her peak. The master being brought on board with his papers, the prize proved to be the schooner _Starlight_, of Boston, from Fayal, bound to Boston by the way of Flores, for which island she had some pa.s.sengers, several ladies among the number.

The crew consisted of seven persons--all good Yankee sailors. Having heard, by this time, full accounts of the shameful treatment of my paymaster of the _Sumter_, which has been described, in a former chapter, I resolved to practise a little retaliation upon the enemy, and ordered the crew of the _Starlight_ put in irons. I pursued this practice, painful as it was, for the next seven or eight captures, putting the masters and mates of the s.h.i.+ps, as well as the crews, in irons. The masters would frequently remonstrate with me, claiming that it was an indignity put upon them; and so it was, but I replied to them, that their countrymen had put a similar indignity upon an officer and a gentleman, who had worn the uniform of the navies of both our countries. By the time that the capture of the _Starlight_ had been completed, the sun was near his setting, and it was too late to land the pa.s.sengers. I therefore sent a prize crew on board the captured s.h.i.+p, directing the prize-master to lie by me during the night, and giving him especial charge to inform the pa.s.sengers that they should be safely landed in the morning, and, in the meantime, to quiet the fears of the ladies, who had been much alarmed by the chase and the firing, we hoisted a light at the peak of the _Alabama_, and lay to, all night, in nearly a calm sea. There were some dark clouds hanging over the island, but they had apparently gone there to roost, as no wind came from them. Among the papers captured on board the _Starlight_ were a couple of despatches from the Federal Consul at Fayal, to the Sewards--father and son--in which there was the usual amount of stale nonsense about ”rebel privateers,” and ”pirates.”

The weather proved fine, the next morning, and standing in, within a stone's throw of the little town of Santa Cruz, we landed both pa.s.sengers and prisoners, putting the latter, as usual, under _parole_. In the meantime, the Governor of the island, and a number of the dignitaries came off to visit us. They were a robust, farmer-looking people, giving evidence, in their persons, of the healthfulness of the island, and were very polite, franking to us the ports of the island, and informing us that supplies were cheap, and abundant. Their visit was evidently one of curiosity, and we treated his Excellency with all due ceremony, notwithstanding the smallness of his dominions. We talked to him, however, of bullocks, and sheep, fish and turtles, yams and oranges, rather than of the war between the States, and the laws of nations. Bartelli made the eyes of the party dance with flowing goblets of champagne, and when I thought they had remained long enough, I bowed them out of the cabin, with a cigar all round, and sent them on sh.o.r.e, with rather favorable impressions, I do not doubt, of the ”pirate.”

Hauling off, now, from the island, and running seaward for a s.p.a.ce, we chased and overhauled a Portuguese whaling brig. Seeing by her boats and other indications that she was a whaler, I thought, at first, that I had a prize, and was quite disappointed when she showed me the Portuguese colors. Not being willing to trust to the verity of the flag, I sent a boat on board of her, and invited the master to visit me with his papers, which he did. The master was himself a Portuguese, and I found his papers to be genuine. Thanking him for his visit, I dismissed him in a very few minutes. I had no right to command him to come on board of me--he being a neutral, it was my business to go on board of him, if I desired to examine his papers, but he waived ceremony, and it was for this that I had thanked him. I may as well remark here, in pa.s.sing, that this was the only foreign whaling-s.h.i.+p that I ever overhauled; the business of whaling having become almost exclusively an American monopoly--the monopoly not being derived from any sovereign grant, but resulting from the superior skill, energy, industry, courage, and perseverance of the Yankee whaler, who is, perhaps, the best specimen of a sailor, the world over.

Later in the same afternoon, we chased a large s.h.i.+p, looming up almost like a frigate, in the northwest, with which we came up about sunset. We had showed her the American colors, and she approached us without the least suspicion that she was running into the arms of an enemy; the master crediting good old Mr. Welles, as the master of the _Ocmulgee_ had done, with sending a flashy-looking Yankee gunboat, to look out for his whalebone and oil. This large s.h.i.+p proved to be, upon the master being brought on board with his papers, the _Ocean Rover_, of New Bedford, Ma.s.sachusetts. She had been out three years and four months, cruising in various parts of the world, had sent home one or two cargoes of oil, and was now returning, herself, with another cargo, of eleven hundred barrels.

The master, though anxious to see his wife, and dandle on his knee the babies that were no longer babies, with true Yankee thrift thought he would just take the Azores in his way home, and make another ”strike,” or two, to fill up his empty casks. The consequence was, as the reader has seen, a little disappointment. I really felt for the honest fellow, but when I came to reflect, for a moment, upon the diabolical acts of his countrymen of New England, who were out-heroding Herod, in carrying on against us a vindictive war, filled with hate and vengeance, the milk of human kindness which had begun to well up in my heart disappeared, and I had no longer any spare sympathies to dispose of.

It being near night when the capture was made, I directed the prize to be hove to, in charge of a prize crew until morning. In the meantime, however, the master, who had heard from some of my men, that I had permitted the master of the _Ocmulgee_, and his crew, to land in their own boats, came to me, and requested permission to land in the same manner. We were four or five miles from the land, and I suggested to him, that it was some distance to pull. ”Oh! that is nothing,” said he, ”we whalers sometimes chase a whale, on the broad sea, until our s.h.i.+ps are hull-down, and think nothing of it. It will relieve you of us the sooner, and be of some service to us besides.” Seeing that the sea was smooth, and that there was really no risk to be run, for a Yankee whale-boat might be made, with a little management, to ride out an ordinary gale of wind, I consented, and the delighted master returned to his s.h.i.+p, to make the necessary preparations. I gave him the usual permission to take what provisions he needed, the whaling gear belonging to his boats, and the personal effects of himself and men. He worked like a beaver, for not more than a couple of hours had elapsed, before he was again alongside of the _Alabama_, with all his six boats, with six men in each, ready to start for the sh.o.r.e. I could not but be amused when I looked over the side into these boats, at the amount of plunder that the rapacious fellow had packed in them. They were literally loaded down, with all sorts of traps, from the seamen's chests and bedding, to the tabby cat and parrot. Nor had the ”main chance” been overlooked, for all the ”cabin stores” had been secured, and sundry barrels of beef and pork, besides. I said to him, ”Captain, your boats appear to me, to be rather deeply laden; are you not afraid to trust them?” ”Oh! no,” he replied; ”they are as buoyant as ducks, and we shall not s.h.i.+p a drop of water.” After a detention of a few minutes, during which my clerk was putting the crew under _parole_, I gave the master leave to depart.

The boats, shoving off from the side, one by one, and falling into line, struck out for the sh.o.r.e. That night-landing of this whaler's crew was a beautiful spectacle. I stood on the horse-block, watching it, my mind busy with many thoughts. The moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly, though there were some pa.s.sing clouds sailing lazily in the upper air, that fleckered the sea.

Flores, which was sending off to us, even at this distance, her perfumes of shrub and flower, lay sleeping in the moonlight, with a few fleecy, white clouds wound around the mountain-top, like a turban. The rocky islets that rise like so many shafts out of the sea, devoid of all vegetation, and at different distances from the sh.o.r.e, looked weird and unearthly, like sheeted ghosts. The boats moving swiftly and mysteriously toward the sh.o.r.e, might have been mistaken, when they had gotten a little distance from us, for Venetian gondolas, with their peaked bows and sterns, especially when we heard coming over the sea, a song, sung by a powerful and musical voice, and chorussed by all the boats. Those merry fellows were thus making light of misfortune, and proving that the sailor, after all, is the true philosopher. The echo of that night-song lingered long in my memory, but I little dreamed, as I stood on the deck of the _Alabama_, and witnessed the scene I have described, that four years afterward, it would be quoted against me as a violation of the laws of war! And yet so it was. It was alleged by the malice of my defamers, who never have, and never can forgive me for the destruction of their property, that miles away at sea, in rough and inclement weather, I _compelled_ my prisoners to depart for the sh.o.r.e, in leaky and unsound boats, at the hazard of their lives, designing and desiring to drown them!

And this was all the thanks I received for setting some of these fellows up as nabobs, among the islanders. Why, the master of the _Ocean Rover_, with his six boats, and their cargoes, was richer than the Governor, when he landed in Flores; where the simple islanders are content with a few head of cattle, a cast-net, and a canoe.

The _Alabama_ had now two prizes in company, with which she lay off and on the island during the night, and she was destined to secure another before morning. I had turned in, and was sleeping soundly, when about midnight, an officer came below to inform me that there was another large s.h.i.+p close on board of us. I was dressed and on deck in a few minutes. The stranger was plainly visible, being not more than a mile distant. She was heading for the island. I wore s.h.i.+p, as quietly as possible, and followed her, but she had, in the meantime, drawn some distance ahead, and an exciting chase now ensued. We were both close-hauled, on the starboard tack, and the stranger, seeing that he was pursued, put every rag of sail on his s.h.i.+p that he could spread. I could but admire her, with her square yards and white canvas, every sheet home, and every leach taut. For the first half hour, it was hard to tell which s.h.i.+p had the heels of the other, but at the end of that time, we began to head-reach the chase very perceptibly, though the latter rather ”eat us out of the wind,” or, to speak more conformably with the vocabulary of the land, went to windward of us. This did not matter much, however, as when we should be abreast of her, we would be near enough to reach her with a shot. After a chase of about four hours, day broke, when we hoisted the English ensign. This was a polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, but she declined to do so. We now felt sure that she was an enemy, and a prize, and as we were still gaining on her, it was only a matter of an hour or two, when she would fall into our hands. Our polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, not succeeding, we became a little more emphatic, and fired a blank cartridge. Still she was obstinate. She was steering for Flores, and probably, like the _Starlight_, had her eye on the marine league. Having approached her, in another half hour, within good round-shot range, I resolved to treat her as I had treated the _Starlight_, and threw a 32-pounder near enough to her stern to give the captain a shower-bath.

Shower-baths are very efficacious, in many cases, and we found it so in this, for in a moment more, we could see the stars and stripes ascending to the stranger's peak, and that he had started his tacks and sheets, and was in the act of hauling up his courses. This done, the main-yard was swung aback, and the prize had surrendered herself a prisoner.

Bartelli now came to tell me, that my bath was ready, and descending to the cabin, I bathed, and dressed for breakfast, whilst the boarding-officer was boarding the prize. She proved to be the _Alert_, of, and from New London, and bound, by the way of the Azores, and Cape de Verde Islands, to the Indian Ocean. She was only sixteen days from port, with files of late newspapers; and besides her own ample outfit for a large crew, and a long voyage, she had on board supplies for the group known as the Navigators' Islands, in the South Indian Ocean, where among icebergs and storms, the Yankees had a whaling and sealing station. This capture proved to be a very opportune one, as we were in want of just such a lot of clothing, for the men, as we found on board the prize; and the choice beef, and pork, nicely put up s.h.i.+p-bread, boxes of soap, and tobacco, and numerous other articles of seaman's supplies did not come amiss. We had been particularly short of a supply of tobacco, this being a costly article in England, and I could see Jack's eye brighten, as he rolled aft, and piled up on the quarter-deck, sundry heavy oaken boxes of good ”Virginia twist.” That night the pipes seemed to have wonderfully increased in number, on board the _Alabama_, and the song and the jest derived new inspiration from the fragrance of the weed. We paroled the officers and crew of the _Alert_, and sent them ash.o.r.e, in their own boats, as we had done the others.