Two Years Before the Mast quotes

Yet I believe that, with the single exception which I have mentioned, there has not been a book written, professing to give their life and experiences, by one who has been of them, and can know what their life really is.

A voice from the forecastle has hardly yet been heard.

In the following pages I design to give an accurate and authentic narrative of a little more than two years spent as a common sailor, before the mast, in the American merchant service.

My little knowledge of a vessel was all at fault. Unintelligible orders were so rapidly given and so immediately executed; there was such a hurrying about, and such an intermingling of strange cries and stranger actions, that I was completely bewildered.

There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor’s life.

At length those peculiar, long-drawn sounds, which denote that the crew are heaving the windlass, began, and in a few moments we were underway.

As we had now a long “spell” of fine weather, without any incident to break the monotony of our lives, there can be no better place to describe the duties, regulations, and customs of an American merchantman, of which ours was a fair specimen.

The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount.

He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything, without a question, even from his chief officer.

for the captain does not condescend to joke with the men, and the second mate no one cares for; so that when “the mate” thinks fit to entertain “the people” with a coarse joke or a little practical wit, everyone feels bound to laugh.

The second mate’s is proverbially a dog’s berth. He is neither officer nor man.

The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the rest.

but I found that it continued so for two years, and at the end of the two years there was as much to be done as ever.

As has often been said, a ship is like a lady’s watch, always out of repair.

When first leaving port, studding sail gear is to be rove, all the running rigging to be examined, that which is unfit for use to be got down, and new rigging rove in its place:

This is nothing more than flour boiled with water, and eaten with molasses. It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork.

Many a rascally captain has made friends of his crew by allowing them duff twice a week on the passage home.

On board some vessels this is made a day of instruction and of religious exercises; but we had a crew of swearers, from the captain to the smallest boy;

We had now got hardened to Cape weather, the vessel was under reduced sail, and everything secured on deck and below, so that we had little to do but steer and to stand our watch.

Our clothes were all wet through, and the only change was from wet to more wet.

It was in vain to think of reading or working below, for we were too tired, the hatchways were closed down, and everything was wet and uncomfortable, black and dirty, heaving and pitching.

But nothing could ever daunt him, or overcome, for a moment, his habitual good humor. Regaining his legs, and shaking his fist at the man at the wheel, he rolled below, saying, as he passed,

“A man’s no sailor, if he can’t take a joke.”

The ducking was not the worst of such an affair, for, as there was an allowance of tea, you could get no more from the galley;

… of water, and passing forward, dropping it down again, threw the steps from their place, and I came down into the steerage a little faster than I meant to, with the kid on top of me, and the whole precious mess scattered over the floor.

Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of everything at sea; and if you were to fall from aloft and be caught in the belly of a sail, and thus saved from instant death, it would not do to look at all disturbed, or to make a serious matter of it.

Friday, Nov. 14th. We were now well to the westward of the Cape and were changing our course to the northward as much as we dared, since the strong southwest winds, which prevailed then, carried us in toward Patagonia.

At length we turned the boat’s head and made towards the vessel.

Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea.

A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and “the mourners go about the streets”;

… going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley, talked to the crew about spending their Sabbaths badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared.

Yet a sailor’s life is at best, but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain.

The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.

Yet a sailor’s life is at best, but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain.

The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.

We had hardly returned on board with our sad report, before an auction was held of the poor man’s clothes.

In this manner I tarred down all the head stays, but found the rigging about the jibbooms, martingale, and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest.

Here you have to hang on with your eyelids and tar with your hands.

This dirty work could not last forever, and on Saturday night we finished it, scraped all the spots from the deck and rails, and, what was of more importance to us, cleaned ourselves thoroughly, rolled up our tarry frocks and trousers and laid them away …

We had on oilcloth suits and southwester caps, and had nothing to do but to stand bolt upright and let it pour down upon us.

There are no umbrellas, and no sheds to go under, at sea.

While we were standing about on deck, we saw the little brig drifting by us, hove to under her fore topsail double reefed; and she glided by like a phantom.

The only reason in this case was, that the captain had determined to have the customhouse officers on board on Monday, and wished to have his brig in order.

Jack is a slave aboard ship; but still he has many opportunities of thwarting and balking his master.

When there is danger, or necessity, or when he is well used, no one can work faster than he; but the instant he feels that he is kept at work for nothing, no sloth could make less headway.

For a week or ten days all was life on board. The people came off to look and to buy—men, women, and children; and we were continually going in the boats, carrying goods and passengers—for they have no boats of their own.

Everything must dress itself and come aboard and see the new vessel, if it were only to buy a paper of pins.

The agent and his clerk managed the sales, while we were busy in the hold or in the boats. Our cargo was an assorted one; that is, it consisted of everything under the sun.

The women carry this peculiarity of speaking to a much greater extreme than the men, who have more evenness and stateliness of utterance. A common bullock driver, on horseback, delivering a message, seemed to speak like an ambassador at an audience.

In fact, they sometimes appeared to me to be a people on whom a curse had fallen, and stripped them of everything but their pride, their manners, and their voices.

Another thing that surprised me was the quantity of silver that was in circulation. I certainly never saw so much silver at one time in my life, as during the week that we were at Monterey.

Trappers and hunters, who occasionally arrive here from over the Rocky mountains, with their valuable skins and furs, are often entertained with every sort of amusement and dissipation, until they have wasted their time and their money, and go back, stripped of everything.

Nothing but the character of the people prevents Monterey from becoming a great town.

The soil is as rich as man could wish; climate as good as any in the world; water abundant, and situation extremely beautiful. The harbor, too, is a good one, being subject only to one bad wind, the north;

It is strange that one should be so minute in the description of an unknown, outcast sailor, whom one may never see again, and whom no one may care to hear about; but so it is.

Some people we see under no remarkable circumstances, but whom, for some reason or other, we never forget.

He called himself Bill Jackson; and I know no one of all my accidental acquaintances to whom I would more gladly give a shake of the hand than to him. Whoever falls in with him will find a handsome, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate.

… the nature of the country, which caused us to feel that we had nowhere to go for redress, but were entirely at the mercy of a hard master, made the captain feel, on the other hand, that he must depend entirely upon his own resources.

Severity created discontent, and signs of discontent provoked severity.

Then, too, ill-treatment and dissatisfaction are no “linimenta laborum”;

I shall never forget the delightful sensation of being in the open air, with the birds singing around me, and escaped from the confinement, labor, and strict rule of a vessel—of being once more in my life, though only for a day, my own master.

A sailor’s liberty is but for a day; yet while it lasts it is perfect.

He is under no one’s eye, and can do whatever, and go wherever, he pleases. This day, for the first time, I may truly say, in my whole life, I felt the meaning of a term which I had often heard—the sweets of liberty.

There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics. American shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries.

Yankees don’t keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all.

About noon, a man aloft called out “Sail ho!” and looking round, we saw the head sails of a vessel coming round the point. As she drew round, she showed the broadside of a full-rigged brig, with the Yankee ensign at her peak.

For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much for being Protestants.

There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics.

American shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries.

and, though much smaller than we, yet she had three times the number of men; and she needed them, for her officers were Californians.

No vessels in the world go so poorly manned as American and English; and none do so well.

A Yankee brig of that size would have had a crew of four men, and would have worked round and round her. The Italian ship had a crew of thirty men;

He was so near that we had a perfect view of him and as may be supposed, had no desire to see him nearer.

He was a disgusting creature; with a skin rough, hairy, and of an iron-grey color.

This kind differs much from the sperm, in color and skin, and is said to be fiercer. We saw a few sperm whales;

We were glad of the opportunity to examine this singular place, and hauling the boat up and making her well fast, took different directions up and down the beach, to explore it.

San Juan is the only romantic spot in California.

The country here for several miles is high tableland, running boldly to the shore, and breaking off in a steep hill, at the foot of which the waters of the Pacific are constantly dashing.

Mannini—and was known all over California. Through him, the captain offered them fifteen dollars a month, and one month’s pay in advance; but it was like throwing pearls before swine, or rather, carrying coals to Newcastle.

So long as they had money, they would not work for fifty dollars a month, and when their money was gone, they would work for ten.

“What do you do here, Mr. Mannini?” said the captain.

… American consul, without clothing to his back or shoes to his feet, and was obliged to go about London streets in his stocking feet three or four days, in the month of January, until the consul could have a pair of shoes made for him.

His strength was in proportion to his size, and his ignorance to his strength⁠—“strong as an ox, and ignorant as strong.”

He neither knew how to read nor write. He had been to sea from a boy, and had seen all kinds of service, and been in every kind of vessel: merchantmen, men-of-war, privateers, and slavers;

Their costumes, and manner of treating one another, show a simple, primitive generosity, which is truly delightful; and which is often a reproach to our own people.

Whatever one has, they all have.

Money, food, clothes, they share with one another; even to the last piece of tobacco to put in their pipes. I once heard old Mr.

I bore it off, and for two days I was up early and late, reading with all my might, and actually drinking in delight.

It is no extravagance to say that it was like a spring in a desert land.

From the sublime to the ridiculous—so with me, from Mandeville to hide curing, was but a step; for

No one has ever been on distant voyages, and after a long absence received a newspaper from home, who cannot understand the delight that they give one. I read every part of them—the houses to let; things lost or stolen; auction sales, and all.

Nothing carries you so entirely to a place, and makes you feel so perfectly at home, as a newspaper.

The very name of “Boston Daily Advertiser” “sounded hospitably upon the ear.”

The only object, of course, is the loaves and fishes; and instead of caucusing, paragraphing, libelling, feasting, promising, and lying, as with us, they take muskets and bayonets, and seizing upon the presidio and customhouse, divide the spoils, and declare a new dynasty.

As for justice, they know no law but will and fear.

A Yankee, who had been naturalized, and become a Catholic, and had married in the country, was sitting in his house at the Pueblo de los Angelos, with his wife and children, when a Spaniard, with whom he had had a difficulty, entered the house, …

free from all manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are ready to say.

Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a country?

The Americans (as those from the United States are called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Spaniards;

and I, of course, wished to know whether the order had been received, and what was the destination of the ship.

One year more or less might be of small consequence to others, but it was everything to me.

It was now just a year since we sailed from Boston, and at the shortest, no vessel could expect to get away under eight or nine months, which would make our absence two years in all.

To come across anything with the slightest claims to literary merit, was so unusual, that this was a perfect feast to me. The brilliancy of the book, the succession of capital hits, lively and characteristic sketches, kept me in a constant state of pleasing sensations.

It was far too good for a sailor.

I could not expect such fine times to last long.

The brilliancy of the book, the succession of capital hits, lively and characteristic sketches, kept me in a constant state of pleasing sensations. It was far too good for a sailor.

I could not expect such fine times to last long.

While on deck, the regular work of the ship went on. The sailmaker and carpenter worked between decks, and the crew had their work to do upon the rigging, drawing yarns, making spun yarn, etc., as usual in merchantmen.

When Captain T⸺ was in command of the Pilgrim, there was as much preparation and ceremony as there would be in getting a seventy-four underway.

Captain Faucon was a sailor, every inch of him; he knew what a ship was, and was as much at home in one, as a cobbler in his stall.

I wanted no better proof of this than the opinion of the ship’s crew, for they had been six months under his command, and knew what he was;

Day after day, the sun shone clear and bright upon the wide bay and the red roofs of the houses; everything being as still as death, the people really hardly seeming to earn their sunlight.

Daylight actually seemed thrown away upon them.

We had a few visitors, and collected about a hundred hides, and every night, at sundown, the gig was sent ashore, to wait for the captain, who spent his evenings in the town.

He knew every lunar star in both hemispheres, and was a perfect master of his quadrant and sextant.

Such was the man, who, at forty, was still a dog before the mast, at twelve dollars a month.

The reason of this was to be found in his whole past life, as I had it, at different times, from himself.

After leaving home, he had spent nearly twenty years, sailing upon all sorts of voyages, generally out of the ports of New York and Boston.

Twenty years of vice! Every sin that a sailor knows, he had gone to the bottom of.

Several times he had been hauled up in the hospitals, and as often, the great strength of his constitution had brought him out again in health.

The date of his resolution he knew, of course, to the very hour. It was three years before I knew him, and during all that time, nothing stronger than cider or coffee had passed his lips.

The sailors never thought of enticing Tom to take a glass, any more than they would of talking to the ship’s compass.

He was now a temperate man for life, and capable of filling any berth in a ship, and many a high station there is on shore which is held by a meaner man.

and no one who has not been on a long, dull voyage, shut up in one ship, can conceive of the effect of monotony upon one’s thoughts and wishes.

The prospect of a change is like a green spot in a desert, and the remotest probability of great events and exciting scenes gives a feeling of delight, and sets life in motion, so as to give a pleasure, which anyone not in the same state would be entirely unable to account for.

In fact, a more jovial night we had not passed in the forecastle for months. Everyone seemed in unaccountably high spirits.

While we were on the yards, we saw the Loriotte underway, and before our yards were mastheaded, the Ayacucho had spread her wings, and, with yards braced sharp up, was standing athwart our hawse.

There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged, clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind.

In a moment, our slip rope was gone, the head yards filled away, and we were off. Next came the whaler;

… our studding sails, and gave us the chance of beating round the Point, which we were now just abreast of, and which stretched off into the Pacific, high, rocky and barren, forming the central point of the coast for hundreds of miles north and south.

A capful of wind will be a bagful here, and before night our royals were furled, and the ship was laboring hard under her topgallant sails.

At eight bells our watch went below, leaving her with as much sail as she could stagger under, the water flying over the forecastle at every plunge.

It was a clear, and rather a chilly night; the stars were twinkling with an intense brightness, and as far as the eye could reach, there was not a cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a defined line.

A painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck upon it.

Yet it was blowing great guns from the northwest. When you can see a cloud to windward, you feel that there is a place for the wind to come from; but here it seemed to come from nowhere.

The horizon met the sea in a defined line. A painter could not have painted so clear a sky. There was not a speck upon it. Yet it was blowing great guns from the northwest.

When you can see a cloud to windward, you feel that there is a place for the wind to come from; but here it seemed to come from nowhere.

No person could have told, from the heavens, by their eyesight alone, that it was not a still summer’s night.

… upon a deck), sprang aloft, and, by the help of his long arms and legs, succeeded, after a hard struggle—the sail blowing over the yardarm to leeward, and the skysail blowing directly over his head—in smothering it, and frapping it with long pieces of sinnet.

He came very near being blown or shaken from the yard, several times, but he was a true sailor, every finger a fishhook.

Having made the sail snug, he prepared to send the yard down, which was a long and difficult job;

From us, he went to one and another of the crew, but the joke had got before him, and he found everybody busy and silent. Looking over the rail a few moments afterward, we saw him at the galley door talking to the cook.

This was a great comedown, from the highest seat in the synagogue to a seat in the galley with the black cook.

At night, too, when supper was called, he stood in the waist for some time, hoping to be asked down with the officers, but they went below, one after another, and left him.

so that, when the steward came forward with letters for the crew, each man took his letters, carried them below to his chest, and came up again immediately; and not a letter was read until we had cleared up decks for the night.

An overstrained sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men, or, rather, of life on board ship.

This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or cut;

A man, too, can have nothing peculiar or sacred on board ship; for all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others.

A thin-skinned man could not live an hour on shipboard.

One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox. A moment of natural feeling for home and friends, and then the frigid routine of sea life returned.

A man, too, can have nothing peculiar or sacred on board ship; for all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others. A thin-skinned man could not live an hour on shipboard.

One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox.

A moment of natural feeling for home and friends, and then the frigid routine of sea life returned.

for all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others. A thin-skinned man could not live an hour on shipboard. One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox.

A moment of natural feeling for home and friends, and then the frigid routine of sea life returned.

Jokes were made upon those who showed any interest in the expected news, and everything near and dear was made common stock for rude jokes and unfeeling coarseness, to which no exception could be taken by anyone.

and no skulking!” I took mine and went into the sailmaker’s berth, where I could read it without interruption. It was dated August, just a year from the time I had sailed from home; and everyone was well, and no great change had taken place.

Thus, for one year, my mind was set at ease, yet it was already six months from the date of the letter, and what another year would bring to pass, who could tell?

Everyone away from home thinks that some great thing must have happened, while to those at home there seems to be a continued monotony and lack of incident.

and everyone was well, and no great change had taken place. Thus, for one year, my mind was set at ease, yet it was already six months from the date of the letter, and what another year would bring to pass, who could tell?

Everyone away from home thinks that some great thing must have happened, while to those at home there seems to be a continued monotony and lack of incident.

As much as my feelings were taken up by my own intelligence from home, I could not but be amused by a scene in the steerage.

One file was of all the Boston Transcripts for the month of August, 1835, and the rest were about a dozen Daily Advertisers and Couriers, of different dates.

After all, there is nothing in a strange land like a newspaper from home.

Even a letter, in many respects, is nothing, in comparison with it. It carries you back to the spot, better than anything else. It is almost equal to clairvoyance.

for the duckings in your surf; and for the long days and longer nights passed on your desolate hill, watching piles of hides, hearing the sharp bark of your eternal coati, and the dismal hooting of your owls.

As I bade goodbye to each successive place, I felt as though one link after another were struck from the chain of my servitude.

Having kept close in shore, for the land breeze, we passed the mission of San Juan Capistrano the same night, and saw distinctly, by the bright moonlight, the hill which I had gone down by a pair of halyards in search of a few paltry …

The burden is usually sung, by one alone, and, at the chorus, all hands join in—and the louder the noise, the better. With us, the chorus seemed almost to raise the decks of the ship, and might be heard at a great distance, ashore.

A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier.

They can’t pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like “Heave, to the girls!” “Nancy oh!” “Jack Crosstree,” etc., has put life and strength into every arm.

… by all the crew, be correct, I cannot understand why Captain Arthur should have refused to let him go, especially being a captain who had the name, not only with that crew, but with all whom he had ever commanded, of an unusually kindhearted man.

The truth is, the unlimited power which merchant captains have, upon long voyages on strange coasts, takes away a sense of responsibility, and too often, even in men otherwise well-disposed, substitutes a disregard for the rights and feelings of others.

The lad was sent on shore to join the gang at the hide house; from whence, I was afterwards rejoiced to hear, he effected his escape, and went down to Callao in a small Spanish schooner; and from Callao, he probably returned to England.

We could now see how much she was cramped and deadened by her cargo; for with a good breeze on her quarter, and every stitch of canvas spread, we could not get more than six knots out of her.

She had no more life in her than if she were waterlogged.

The log was hove several times; but she was doing her best. We had hardly patience with her, but the older sailors said—“Stand by!

The poor fellow wished very much to come home in the ship; and he ought to have been brought home in her.

But a live dog is better than a dead lion, and a sick sailor belongs to nobody’s mess; so he was sent ashore with the rest of the lumber, which was only in the way.

By these diminutions, we were short-handed for a voyage round Cape Horn in the dead of winter. Besides S⸺ and myself, there were only five in the forecastle; who, together with four boys in the steerage, the sailmaker, carpenter, etc., composed the whole crew.

a yarn round the windlass-end; or, as was generally my way, a solitary walk fore and aft, in the weather waist, between the windlass-end and the main tack.

Every wave that she threw aside brought us nearer home, and every day’s observation at noon showed a progress which, if it continued, would in less than five months, take us into Boston Bay.

This is the pleasure of life at sea—fine weather, day after day, without interruption—fair wind, and a plenty of it—and homeward bound. Everyone was in good humor; things went right; and all was done with a will.

… but little relief to me, for I lay awake in my berth, the whole time, from the pain in my face, and heard every bell strike, and, at four o’clock, turned out with the watch, feeling little spirit for the hard duties of the day.

Bad weather and hard work at sea can be borne up against very well, if one only has spirit and health; but there is nothing brings a man down, at such a time, like bodily pain and want of sleep.

There was, however, too much to do to allow time to think;

while Jack, who has to stand through everything, and work in wet and cold, can have nothing to wet his lips or warm his stomach.

This was a “temperance ship,” and, like too many such ships, the temperance was all in the forecastle.

The sailor, who only takes his one glass as it is dealt out to him, is in danger of being drunk;

while the captain, who has all under his hand, and can drink as much as he chooses, and upon whose self-possession and cool judgment the lives of all depend, may be trusted with any amount, to drink at his will.

Sailors will never be convinced that rum is a dangerous thing, by taking it away from them, and giving it to the officers; nor that temperance is their friend, which takes from them what they have always had, and gives them nothing in the place of it.

By seeing it allowed to their officers, they will not be convinced that it is taken from them for their good; and by receiving nothing in its place, they will not believe that it is done in kindness.

or even for our common beverage—“water bewitched, and tea begrudged,” as it was.

The temperance reform is the best thing that ever was undertaken for the sailor; but when the grog is taken from him, he ought to have something in its place.

As it is now, in most vessels, it is a mere saving to the owners; and this accounts for the sudden increase of temperance ships, which surprised even the best friends of the cause.

that the ship was in the greatest danger; any cake of ice might knock a hole in her, or she might run on an island and go to pieces.

No one could tell whether she would be a ship the next morning.

The lookouts were then set, and every man was put in his station.

Sailors are willing enough; but it is true, as is often said—No one ships for nurse on board a vessel. Our merchant ships are always undermanned, and if one man is lost by sickness, they cannot spare another to take care of him.

A sailor is always presumed to be well, and if he’s sick, he’s a poor dog.

One has to stand his wheel, and another his lookout, and the sooner he gets on deck again, the better.

And I should have been perfectly useless; for, from having eaten nothing for nearly a week, except a little rice, which I forced into my mouth the last day or two, I was as weak as an infant.

To be sick in a forecastle is miserable indeed. It is the worst part of a dog’s life; especially in bad weather.

The forecastle, shut up tight to keep out the water and cold air;—the watch either on deck, or asleep in their berths;—no one to speak to;—the pale light of the single lamp, swinging to and fro from the beam, so dim that one can scarcely …

never say die! That sounds like the old crew!” and the captain came up, on hearing the song, and said to the passenger, within hearing of the man at the wheel—“That sounds like a lively crew.

They’ll have their song so long as there’re enough left for a chorus!

”

In a picture, they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea, while their chief beauty and grandeur—their slow, stately motion; the whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and cracking of their parts—the picture cannot give.

This is the large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating on the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little floating fairy isles of sapphire.

From a northeast course we gradually hauled to the eastward, and after sailing about two hundred miles, which brought us as near to the western coast of Terra del Fuego as was safe, and having lost sight of the ice altogether—for the third time we …

for it required but little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which had broken loose from the “thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,” and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone, and some in fleets, to milder climes.

No pencil has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg.

In a picture, they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea, while their chief beauty and grandeur—their slow, stately motion; the whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and cracking of their parts—the picture cannot give.

and in an hour more, we lay hove to under a close-reefed main topsail, drifting bodily off to leeward before the fiercest storm that we had yet felt, blowing dead ahead, from the eastward.

It seemed as though the genius of the place had been roused at finding that we had nearly slipped through his fingers, and had come down upon us with tenfold fury.

The sailors said that every blast, as it shook the shrouds, and whistled through the rigging, said to the old ship, “No, you don’t!”—“No, you don’t!”

We had less snow and hail than when we were farther to the westward, but we had an abundance of what is worse to a sailor in cold weather—drenching rain.

Snow is blinding, and very bad when coming upon a coast, but, for genuine discomfort, give me rain with freezing weather.

A snowstorm is exciting, and it does not wet through the clothes (which is important to a sailor); but a constant rain there is no escaping from. It wets to the skin, and makes all protection vain.

and thus we made a good promenade, where we walked fore and aft, two and two, hour after hour, in our long, dull, and comfortless watches.

The bells seemed to be an hour or two apart, instead of half an hour, and an age to elapse before the welcome sound of eight bells.

The sole object was to make the time pass on. Any change was sought for, which would break the monotony of the time;

The bells seemed to be an hour or two apart, instead of half an hour, and an age to elapse before the welcome sound of eight bells.

The sole object was to make the time pass on.

Any change was sought for, which would break the monotony of the time; and even the two hours’ trick at the wheel, which came round to each of us, in turn, once in every other watch, was looked upon as a relief.

and glad enough we were to get it, for no nectar and ambrosia were sweeter to the lazy immortals, than was a pot of hot tea, a hard biscuit, and a slice of cold salt beef, to us after a watch on deck.

To be sure, we were mere animals and had this life lasted a year instead of a month we should have been little better than the ropes in the ship.

Not a razor, nor a brush, nor a drop of water, except the rain and the spray, had come near us all the time; for we were on an allowance of fresh water;

We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for if he slipped, he was a gone man. All the boats were hoisted in on deck, and there was nothing to be lowered for him.

We had need of every finger God had given us.

Several times we got the sail upon the yard, but it blew away again before we could secure it.

We were glad enough to get on deck, and still more, to go below. The oldest sailor in the watch said, as he went down—“I shall never forget that main yard;—it beats all my going a fishing.

Fun is fun, but furling one yardarm of a course, at a time, off Cape Horn, is no better than man-killing.

”

and with this sail added to her, the ship sprang through the water like a thing possessed. The sail being nearly all forward, it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed actually to jump from sea to sea.

From the time her keel was laid, she had never been so driven; and had it been life or death with every one of us, she could not have borne another stitch of canvas.

Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands were sent below, and our watch remained on deck.

… so lost in the sight, that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said (for he, too, rough old man-of-war’s-man as he was, had been gazing at the show), half to himself, still looking at the marble sails—“

How quietly they do their work!

”

This may give a landsman some notion of what is done on board ship.—All the first part of a passage is spent in getting a ship ready for sea, and the last part in getting her ready for port.

She is, as sailors say, like a lady’s watch, always out of repair.

The new, strong sails, which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in their place; all the rigging to be set up, fore and aft;

However, “a miss is as good as a mile”; a saying which sailors very often have occasion to use. An escape is always a joke on board ship. A man would be ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it.

A sailor knows too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish to be always reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it to himself, or makes a joke of it.

I have often known a man’s life to be saved by an instant of time, or by the merest chance—the swinging of a rope—and no notice taken of it.

or, what is worse, upon the deck. However, “a miss is as good as a mile”; a saying which sailors very often have occasion to use.

An escape is always a joke on board ship. A man would be ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it.

A sailor knows too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish to be always reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it to himself, or makes a joke of it.

The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of South latitude, were sunk in the horizon, and the north star, the Great Bear, and the familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens.

Next to seeing land, there is no sight which makes one realize more that he is drawing near home, than to see the same heavens, under which he was born, shining at night over his head.

The weather was extremely hot, with the usual tropical alternations of a scorching sun and squalls of rain;

It is not easy to sleep, when the very next flash may tear the ship in two, or set her on fire; or where the deathlike calm may be broken by the blast of a hurricane, taking the masts out of the ship.

But a man is no sailor if he cannot sleep when he turns in, and turn out when he’s called.

And when, at seven bells, the customary “All the larboard watch, ahoy?” brought us on deck, it was a fine, clear, sunny morning, the ship going leisurely along, with a good breeze and all sail set.

… him of things at home, and who were waiting there to see him, that he could realize where he was, and feel interest enough to put him in motion toward that place for which he had longed, and of which he had dreamed, for years.

There is probably so much of excitement in prolonged expectation, that the quiet realizing of it produces a momentary stagnation of feeling as well as of effort.

It was a good deal so with me.

and many are the boys, in every seaport, who are drawn away, as by an almost irresistible attraction, from their work and schools, and hang about the decks and yards of vessels, with a fondness which, it is plain, will have its way.

No sooner, however, has the young sailor begun his new life in earnest, than all this fine drapery falls off, and he learns that it is but work and hardship, after all.

This is the true light in which a sailor’s life is to be viewed;

… difficult to engage their attention in mere essays and arguments, but the simplest and shortest story, in which home is spoken of, kind friends, a praying mother or sister, a sudden death, and the like, often touches the heart of the roughest and most abandoned.

The Bible is to the sailor a sacred book.

It may lie in the bottom of his chest, voyage after voyage; but he never treats it with positive disrespect. I never knew but one sailor who doubted its being the inspired word of God;

The most abandoned man of our crew, one Sunday morning, asked one of the boys to lend him his Bible. The boy said he would, but was afraid he would make sport of it.

“No!” said the man, “I don’t make sport of God Almighty.”

This is a feeling general among sailors, and is a good foundation for religious influence.

So, refusing a horse or carriage, I walk down, not unwilling to be a little early, that I may pace up and down the beach, looking off to the islands and the points, and watching the roaring, tumbling billows.

How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections.

I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear—the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates.

How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear—the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates.

Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing from the vulgar, wearisome toil of uninteresting, forced manual labour.

The breeze freshened as we stood out to sea, and the wild waves rolled over the red sun, on the broad horizon of the Pacific; but it is summer, and in summer there can be no bad weather in California. Every day is pleasant.

Fugit, interea fugit irreparabile tempus.

The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellant.

I saw the big ships lying in the stream, the Alert, the California, the Rosa, with her Italians; then the handsome Ayacucho, my favorite; the poor, dear old Pilgrim, the home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro;

I surveyed him from head to foot, and said to him, “

Foster, you were not a formidable man when I last knew you, and I don’t believe you are now.

” Either he was of my opinion, or thought I had spoken of him well enough, for the next (and last) time I met him he was civil and pleasant.

“Oh! first-rate usage, sir; not a hand’s turn to do, and all your grub brought to you, sir.” This is a sailor’s paradise—not a hand’s turn to do, and all your grub brought to you.

But an earthly paradise may pall.

Bennett got tired of indoors and stillness, and was soon out again, and set up a stall, covered with canvas, at the end of one of the bridges, where he could see all the passersby, and turn a penny by cakes and ale.