Part 13 (1/2)
By the way, that figure-head was a pa.s.senger I forgot to make mention of before.
He was a gallant six-footer of a Highlander ”in full fig,” with bright tartans, bare knees, barred leggings, and blue bonnet and the most vermilion of cheeks. He was game to his wooden marrow, and stood up to it through thick and thin; one foot a little advanced, and his right arm stretched forward, daring on the waves. In a gale of wind it was glorious to watch him standing at his post like a hero, and plunging up and down the watery Highlands and Lowlands, as the s.h.i.+p went roaming on her way. He was a veteran with many wounds of many sea-fights; and when he got to Liverpool a figure-head-builder there, amputated his left leg, and gave him another wooden one, which I am sorry to say, did not fit him very well, for ever after he looked as if he limped. Then this figure-head-surgeon gave him another nose, and touched up one eye, and repaired a rent in his tartans. After that the painter came and made his toilet all over again; giving him a new suit throughout, with a plaid of a beautiful pattern.
I do not know what has become of Donald now, but I hope he is safe and snug with a handsome pension in the ”Sailors'-Snug-Harbor” on Staten Island.
The reason why they gave me such a slender chance of learning to steer was this. I was quite young and raw, and steering a s.h.i.+p is a great art, upon which much depends; especially the making a short pa.s.sage; for if the helmsman be a clumsy, careless fellow, or ignorant of his duty, he keeps the s.h.i.+p going about in a melancholy state of indecision as to its precise destination; so that on a voyage to Liverpool, it may be pointing one while for Gibraltar, then for Rotterdam, and now for John o' Groat's; all of which is worse than wasted time. Whereas, a true steersman keeps her to her work night and day; and tries to make a bee-line from port to port.
Then, in a sudden squall, inattention, or want of quickness at the helm, might make the s.h.i.+p ”lurch to”--or ”bring her by the lee.” And what those things are, the cabin pa.s.sengers would never find out, when they found themselves going down, down, down, and bidding good-by forever to the moon and stars.
And they little think, many of them, fine gentlemen and ladies that they are, what an important personage, and how much to be had in reverence, is the rough fellow in the pea-jacket, whom they see standing at the wheel, now c.o.c.king his eye aloft, and then peeping at the compa.s.s, or looking out to windward.
Why, that fellow has all your lives and eternities in his hand; and with one small and almost imperceptible motion of a spoke, in a gale of wind, might give a vast deal of work to surrogates and lawyers, in proving last wills and testaments.
Ay, you may well stare at him now. He does not look much like a man who might play into the hands of an heir-at-law, does he? Yet such is the case. Watch him close, therefore; take him down into your state-room occasionally after a stormy watch, and make a friend of him. A gla.s.s of cordial will do it. And if you or your heirs are interested with the underwriters, then also have an eye on him. And if you remark, that of the crew, all the men who come to the helm are careless, or inefficient; and if you observe the captain scolding them often, and crying out: ”Luff, you rascal; she's falling off!” or, ”Keep her steady, you scoundrel, you're boxing the compa.s.s!” then hurry down to your state- room, and if you have not yet made a will, get out your stationery and go at it; and when it is done, seal it up in a bottle, like Columbus'
log, and it may possibly drift ash.o.r.e, when you are drowned in the next gale of wind.
XXV. QUARTER-DECK FURNITURE
Though, for reasons hinted at above, they would not let me steer, I contented myself with learning the compa.s.s, a graphic facsimile of which I drew on a blank leaf of the ”Wealth of Nations,” and studied it every morning, like the multiplication table.
I liked to peep in at the binnacle, and watch the needle; arid I wondered how it was that it pointed north, rather than south or west; for I do not know that any reason can be given why it points in the precise direction it does. One would think, too, that, as since the beginning of the world almost, the tide of emigration has been setting west, the needle would point that way; whereas, it is forever pointing its fixed fore-finger toward the Pole, where there are few inducements to attract a sailor, unless it be plenty of ice for mint-juleps.
Our binnacle, by the way, the place that holds a s.h.i.+p's compa.s.ses, deserves a word of mention. It was a little house, about the bigness of a common bird-cage, with sliding panel doors, and two drawing-rooms within, and constantly perched upon a stand, right in front of the helm.
It had two chimney stacks to carry off the smoke of the lamp that burned in it by night.
It was painted green, and on two sides had Venetian blinds; and on one side two glazed sashes; so that it looked like a cool little summer retreat, a snug bit of an arbor at the end of a shady garden lane. Had I been the captain, I would have planted vines in boxes, and placed them so as to overrun this binnacle; or I would have put canary-birds within; and so made an aviary of it. It is surprising what a different air may be imparted to the meanest thing by the dainty hand of taste. Nor must I omit the helm itself, which was one of a new construction, and a particular favorite of the captain. It was a complex system of cogs and wheels and spindles, all of polished bra.s.s, and looked something like a printing-press, or power-loom. The sailors, however, did not like it much, owing to the casualties that happened to their imprudent fingers, by catching in among the cogs and other intricate contrivances. Then, sometimes in a calm, when the sudden swells would lift the s.h.i.+p, the helm would fetch a lurch, and send the helmsman revolving round like Ixion, often seriously hurting him; a sort of breaking on the wheel.
The harness-cask, also, a sort of sea side-board, or rather meat-safe, in which a week's allowance of salt pork and beef is kept, deserves being chronicled. It formed part of the standing furniture of the quarter-deck. Of an oval shape, it was banded round with hoops all silver-gilt, with gilded bands secured with gilded screws, and a gilded padlock, richly chased. This formed the captain's smoking-seat, where he would perch himself of an afternoon, a ta.s.seled Chinese cap upon his head, and a fragrant Havanna between his white and canine-looking teeth.
He took much solid comfort, Captain Riga.
Then the magnificent capstan! The pride and glory of the whole s.h.i.+p's company, the constant care and dandled darling of the cook, whose duty it was to keep it polished like a teapot; and it was an object of distant admiration to the steerage pa.s.sengers. Like a parlor center- table, it stood full in the middle of the quarter-deck, radiant with brazen stars, and variegated with diamond-shaped veneerings of mahogany and satin wood. This was the captain's lounge, and the chief mate's secretary, in the bar-holes keeping paper and pencil for memorandums.
I might proceed and speak of the b.o.o.by-hatch, used as a sort of settee by the officers, and the fife-rail round the mainmast, inclosing a little ark of canvas, painted green, where a small white dog with a blue ribbon round his neck, belonging to the dock-master's daughter, used to take his morning walks, and air himself in this small edition of the New York Bowling-Green.
XXVI. A SAILOR A JACK OF ALL TRADES
As I began to learn my sailor duties, and show activity in running aloft, the men, I observed, treated me with a little more consideration, though not at all relaxing in a certain air of professional superiority.
For the mere knowing of the names of the ropes, and familiarizing yourself with their places, so that you can lay hold of them in the darkest night; and the loosing and furling of the canvas, and reefing topsails, and hauling braces; all this, though of course forming an indispensable part of a seaman's vocation, and the business in which he is princ.i.p.ally engaged; yet these are things which a beginner of ordinary capacity soon masters, and which are far inferior to many other matters familiar to an ”able seaman.”
What did I know, for instance, about striking a top-gallant-mast, and sending it down on deck in a gale of wind? Could I have turned in a dead-eye, or in the approved nautical style have clapt a seizing on the main-stay? What did I know of ”pa.s.sing a gammoning,” ”reiving a Burton,”
”strapping a shoe-block,” ”clearing a foul hawse,” and innumerable other intricacies?
The business of a thorough-bred sailor is a special calling, as much of a regular trade as a carpenter's or locksmith's. Indeed, it requires considerably more adroitness, and far more versatility of talent.