The officer was not to be easily balked of his prey. Turning suddenly to one of them, a weather-beaten, case-hardened old tar, who wore a queue, and whose name was borne on the shipping paper as Harry Johnson, he sternly asked, "How long is it since you left His Majesty"s service?"
The poor fellow turned pale as death. He lifted his hand to his hat, in a most anti-republican style, and stammered out something indistinctly.
""Tis of no use, Johnson," exclaimed the officer. "I see how it is; and we must be better acquainted. Your protection was obtained by perjury.
Get ready to go in the boat."
In vain Captain Tilton represented that Johnson was sailing under the American flag; that he had the usual certificate of being an American citizen; that his vessel was already short manned, considering the peculiar character of the cargo, and if his crew should be reduced, he might find himself unable to manage the brig in heavy weather, which there was reason to expect at that season in the lat.i.tude of the West Indies.
To these representations the lieutenant replied in a brief and dry manner. He said the man was an Englishman, and was wanted. He repeated his orders to Johnson, in a more peremptory tone, to "go in the boat."
To the threats of the captain that he would lay the matter before Congress, and make it a national affair, the officer seemed altogether indifferent. He merely bade his trembling victim "bear a hand," as he wished to return to the brig without delay.
When Johnson saw there was no alternative, that his fate was fixed, he prepared to meet it like a man. He looked at the American ensign, which was waving over his head, and said it was a pity the American flag could not protect those who sailed under it from insult and outrage. He shook each of us by the hand, gave us his best wishes, and followed his baggage into the boat, which immediately shoved off.
The officer told Captain Tilton that when the British ensign was hauled down, he might fill away, and proceed on his voyage. In about fifteen minutes the ensign was hauled down. Orders were given to fill away the foretopsail. The helm was put up, and we resumed our course for Demarara.
Steering to the southward, we reached that narrow belt of the Atlantic, called "the doldrums," which lies between the variable and the trade winds. This tract is from two to three degrees in width, and is usually fallen in with soon after crossing the thirtieth degree of lat.i.tude.
Here the wind is apt to be light and baffling at all seasons; and sometimes calms prevail for several days. This tract of ocean was once known as the "horse lat.i.tudes," because many years ago vessels from Connecticut were in the habit of taking deck-loads of horses to the West India islands, and it not unfrequently happened that these vessels, being for the most part dull sailers, were so long detained in those lat.i.tudes that their hay, provender, and water were expended, and the animals died of hunger and thirst.
The Dolphin was a week in crossing three degrees of lat.i.tude. Indeed it was a calm during a considerable portion of that time. This drew largely on the patience of the captain, mate, and all hands. There are few things so annoying to a sailor at sea as a calm. A gale of wind, even a hurricane, with its life, its energy, its fury, though it may bring the conviction of danger, is preferred by an old sailor to the dull, listless monotony of a calm.
These slow movements in the "horse lat.i.tudes" were not distasteful to me. A calm furnished abundant food for curiosity. The immense fields of gulf-weed, with their parasitical inhabitants, that we now began to fall in with; the stately species of nautilus, known as he Portuguese man-of-war, floating so gracefully, with its transparent body and delicate tints; and the varieties of fish occasionally seen, including the flying-fish, dolphin, boneta, and shark, all furnish to an inquiring mind subjects of deep and abiding interest. My wonder was also excited by the singularly gla.s.sy smoothness of the surface of the water in a dead calm, while at the same time the long, rolling waves, or "seas,"
kept the brig in perpetual motion, and swept past as if despatched by some mysterious power on a mission to the ends of the earth.
Several kinds of fish that are met with on the ocean are really palatable, and find a hearty welcome in the cabin and the forecastle. To capture these denizens of the deep, a line, to which is attached a large hook baited with a small fish, or a piece of the rind of pork, shaped to resemble a fish, is sometimes kept towing astern in pleasant weather.
This was the custom on board the Dolphin; and one afternoon, when the brig, fanned by gentle zephyrs, hardly had "steerage way," my attention was aroused by an exulting shout from the man at the helm, followed by a solemn a.s.serveration, that "a fish was hooked at last."
All was bustle and excitement. Discipline was suddenly relaxed, and the captain, mate, and crew mounted the taffrail forthwith to satisfy their curiosity in regard to the character of the prowling intruder, which was distinctly seen struggling in the wake. It proved to be a shark. But the fellow disdained to be captured by such ign.o.ble instruments as a cod line and a halibut hook. He remained comparatively pa.s.sive for a time, and allowed himself to be hauled, by the united efforts of the crew, some three or four fathoms towards the brig, when, annoyed by the restraint imposed upon him, or disliking the wild and motley appearance of the ship"s company, he took a broad sheer to starboard, the hook snapped like a pipestem, and the hated monster swam off in another direction, wagging his tail in the happy consciousness that he was "free, untrammelled, and disinthralled."
"Never mind," said Mr. Thompson, making an effort to console himself for the disappointment, "we"ll have the rascal yet."
The shark manifested no disposition to leave our neighborhood, or in any other way showed displeasure at the trick we had played him. On the contrary, he drew nearer the vessel, and moved indolently and defiantly about, with his dorsal fin and a portion of his tail above the water.
He was undoubtedly hungry as well as proud, and it is well known that sharks are not particular with regard to the quality of their food.
Every thing that is edible, and much which is indigestible, is greedily seized and devoured by these voracious fish.
We had no shark hook on board; nevertheless, the mate lost no time in making arrangements to capture this enemy of sailors. He fastened a piece of beef to the end of a rope and threw it overboard, letting it drag astern. This attracted the attention of the shark, who gradually approached the tempting morsel, regarding it with a wistful eye, but with a lurking suspicion that all was not right.
It was now seen that the shark was not alone, but was attended by several fish of small size, beautifully mottled, and measuring from four to eight or ten inches in length. They swam boldly around the shark, above and beneath him, and sometimes pa.s.sed directly in front of his jaws, while the shark manifested no desire to seize his companions and satisfy his hunger. These were "pilot fish," and in the neighborhood of the tropics a shark is seldom seen without one or more attendants of this description.
Two of these pilot fish swam towards the beef, examined it carefully with their eyes, and rubbed it with their noses, and then returned to their lord and master. It required but a slight stretch of the imagination to suppose that these well-meaning servants made a favorable report, and whispered in his ear that "all was right," and thus unwittingly betrayed him to his ruin.
Be that as it will, the shark now swam boldly towards the beef, as if eager to devour it; but Mr. Thompson hauled upon the rope until the precious viand was almost directly beneath the taffrail. In the mean time the mate had caused a running bowline, or noose, to be prepared from a small but strong rope. This was lowered over the stern into the water, and by a little dexterous management, the shark was coaxed to enter it in his eagerness to get at the beef. The mate let fall the running part of the bowline and hauled upon the other, and to the utter bewilderment of the hungry monster, he found himself entrapped in the power of his mortal enemies being firmly and ingloriously fastened by the tail. When he discovered the inhospitable deception of which he was the victim he appeared angry, and made furious efforts to escape; but the rope was strong, and his struggles served only to draw the noose tighter.
The shark was hauled on board, and made a terrible flouncing on the quarter-deck before he could be despatched. It was interesting to witness the eagerness with which he was a.s.sailed by the sailors. This animal is regarded as their most inveterate foe, and they seize with avidity any chance to diminish the numbers of these monsters of the deep. It was some time before he would succ.u.mb to the murderous attacks of his enemies. He wreaked his vengeance on the ropes around him, and severed them with his sharp teeth as completely and smoothly as if they had been cut with a knife. But when his head was nearly cut off, and his skull beat in by the cook"s axe and handspikes, the shark, finding further resistance impossible as well as useless, resigned himself to his fate.
Sharks not unfrequently follow a vessel in moderate weather for several days, and in tropical lat.i.tudes sometimes lurk under a ship"s bottom, watching a chance to gratify their appet.i.tes. For this reason it is dangerous for a person to bathe in the sea during a calm, as they are by no means choice in regard to their food, but will as readily make a meal from the leg of a sailor as from the wing of a chicken.
Mr. Thompson related a case which occurred on board a vessel belonging to Portsmouth, the year before, and to which he was a witness. One Sunday morning, in the warm lat.i.tudes, while the sea was calm, a young man, on his first voyage, quietly undressed himself, and without a word to any one, thoughtlessly mounted the cathead and plunged into the water. He swam off some distance from the ship, and laughing and shouting, seemed greatly to admire the refreshing exercise. The captain, on being informed of his imprudent conduct, called to him, rebuked him severely, and ordered him to return immediately to the ship. The young sailor turned about, wondering what impropriety there could be in taking a pleasant bath during such sultry weather. He swam beneath the fore-chain-wales, and took hold of a rope to aid him in getting on board. A couple of his shipmates also seized him by the wrists to a.s.sist him in climbing up the side. For a moment he remained motionless, with half his body in the water, when a huge shark, that had been lying in wait under the ship"s bottom, seized him by the leg. The unfortunate young man uttered the most piteous screams, and every one was instinctively aware of the cause of his terrible agony. The captain ordered the men who held the arms of the sufferer to "hold on," and jumped in the chain-wale himself to a.s.sist them. By main strength the poor fellow was dragged fainting on board; but his foot was torn off, together with a portion of the integuments of the leg, and the bones were dreadfully crushed. He lived in agony a few days, when he expired.
Incidents of this nature will satisfactorily account for the hatred which a sailor bears towards a shark.
Chapter IV. LAND, HO!
On the day succeeding the capture of the shark a fine breeze sprung up. Once more the white foam appeared beneath the bows, as the old brig plunged, and rolled, and wriggled along on her way towards Demarara.
With a strong breeze on the quarter, it required not only labor, but skill, to steer the interesting craft. One of the "old salts," having been rebuked by the captain for steering wildly, declared, in a grave but respectful tone, that he could steer as good a trick at the helm as any man who ever handled a marlinspike; but he "verily believed the old critter knew as much as a Christian, and was obstinately determined to turn round and take a look at her starn!"
The regular "trade wind" now commenced, and there was a prospect, although still a distant one, of ultimately reaching the port to which we were bound. The trade winds blow almost constantly from one direction, and prevail in most parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, between the lat.i.tudes of twenty-eight degrees north and twenty-eight degrees south. In northern lat.i.tudes the trade wind blows from north-east, or varies but a few points from that direction. South of the equator it blows constantly from the south-east; and the "south-east trade" is more steady than the trade wind north of the line.
It often happens that vessels bound to the United States from India, after pa.s.sing the Cape of Good Hope, steer a course nearly north-west, carrying studding-sails on both sides, uninterruptedly, through fifteen or twenty degrees of lat.i.tude.
The cause of the trade winds is supposed to be the joint influence of the higher temperature of the torrid zone and the rotation of the earth on its axis. On the equator, and extending sometimes a few degrees on either side, is a tract where light easterly winds, calms, and squalls, with thunder, lightning, and inundating rains, prevail.
From what I have said, it will be seen that vessels bound from the American coast to the West Indies or Guiana should steer to the eastward in the early part of their pa.s.sage, while they have the advantage of variable winds. And this precaution is the more important, as these vessels, being generally dull sailers and deeply laden, will fail to reach their port if they fall to leeward, unless by returning north into the lat.i.tude of the variable winds, and making another trial, with the benefit of more experience.
In those days there were no chronometers in use, and but few of our West India captains were in possession of a s.e.xtant, or indeed able to work a lunar observation. The lat.i.tude was accurately determined every day by measuring the alt.i.tude of the sun as it pa.s.sed the meridian. To ascertain the longitude was a more difficult matter. They were obliged to rely mainly on their dead reckoning; that is, to make a calculation of the course and distance run daily, from the points steered by the compa.s.s and the rate as indicated by the log-line and half-gla.s.s. A reckoning on such a basis, where unknown currents prevail, where a vessel is steered wildly, or where the rate of sailing may be inaccurately recorded, is liable to many errors; therefore it was customary with all prudent masters, in those days, especially if they distrusted their own skill or judgment in keeping a reckoning to KEEP WELL TO THE EASTWARD. This was a general rule, and looked upon as the key to West India navigation. Sometimes a vessel bound to the Windward Islands, after reaching the lat.i.tude of her destined port, found it necessary to "run down," steering due west, a week or ten days before making the land.
An incident occurred in those waters, a few weeks after we pa.s.sed over them, which will ill.u.s.trate this mode of navigation, and the consequences that sometimes attend it. A large brig belonging to an eastern port, and commanded by a worthy and cautious man, was bound to St. Pierre in Martinico. The lat.i.tude of that island was reached in due time, but the island could not bee seen, the captain having steered well to the eastward. The brig was put before the wind, and while daylight lasted every st.i.tch of canvas was spread, and every eye was strained to catch a glimpse of the high land which was expected to loom up in the western horizon. This proceeding continued for several days; the brig carrying a press of sail by day, and lying to by night, until patience seemed no longer a virtue. The worthy captain began to fear he had not steered far enough to the eastward, but had been carried by unknown currents to leeward of his port, and that the first land he should make might prove to be the Musquito coast on the continent. He felt anxious, and looked in vain for a vessel from which he could obtain a hint in regard to his true position. Neither land nor vessel could he meet with.
At the close of the fifth day after he had commenced "running down," no land, at sunset, was in sight from the top-gallant yard; and at eight o"clock the brig was again hove to. The captain declared with emphasis, that unless he should make the island of Martinico on the following day, he would adopt some different measures. The nature of those measures, however, he never was called upon to explain. In the morning, just as the gray light of dawn was visible in the east, while a dark cloud seemed to hang over the western horizon, all sail was again packed on the brig. A fresh breeze which sprung up during the night gave the captain a.s.surance that his pa.s.sage would soon be terminated; and terminated it was, but in a manner he hardly antic.i.p.ated, and which he certainly had not desired. The brig had not been fifteen minutes under way when the dreadful sound of breakers was heard a sound which strikes dismay to a sailor"s heart. The dark cloud in the west proved to be the mountains of Martinico, and the brig was dashed upon the sh.o.r.e. The vessel and cargo were lost, and it was with difficulty the crew were saved.
Captain Tilton, however, was a good navigator. He had been a European trader, understood and practised "lunar observations," and always knew with sufficient accuracy the position of the brig.
Few things surprised me more on my first voyage to sea than the sudden and mysterious manner in which the coverings of the head were spirited away from the decks of the Dolphin. Hats, caps, and even the temporary apologies for such articles of costume, were given unwittingly and most unwillingly to the waves. A sudden flaw of wind, the flap of a sail, an involuntary jerk of the head, often elicited an exclamation of anger or a torrent of invectives from some unfortunate being who had been cruelly rendered bareheaded, attended with a burst of laughter from unsympathizing shipmates.
The inimitable d.i.c.kens, in his best production, says, with all the shrewdness and point of a practical philosopher, "There are very few moments in a man"s existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat." But, unfortunately, on shipboard, if a man"s hat is taken off by the wind, he cannot chase it and recover it; nor is it swept from his sight into the DEPTHS of the sea. On looking astern, he will see it gracefully and sportively riding on the billows, as if unconscious of any impropriety, reckless of the inconvenience which such desertion may cause its rightful proprietor, and an object of wonder, it may be, to the scaly inhabitants of old Neptune"s dominions.
Before we reached Demarara every hat and cap belonging to the ship"s company, with a single exception, had been involuntarily given, as a propitiatory offering, to the G.o.d of Ocean. This exception was a beaver hat belonging to the captain; and this would have followed its leaders, had it not been kept in a case hermetically sealed. After the captain"s stock of sea-going hats and caps had disappeared he wore around his head a kerchief, twisted fancifully, like a turban. Others followed his example, while some fashioned for themselves skullcaps of fantastic shapes from pieces of old canvas; so that when we reached Demarara we looked more like a ship"s company of Mediterranean pirates than honest Christians.
I became accustomed to a sea life, and each succeeding day brought with it some novelty to wonder at or admire. The sea is truly beautiful, and has many charms, notwithstanding a fresh-water poet, affecting to be disgusted with its monotony, has ill naturedly vented his spleen by describing the vanities of a sea life in two short lines:
"Where sometimes you ship a sea, And sometimes see a ship."
Yet in spite of its attractions, there are few persons, other than a young enthusiast on his first voyage, who, after pa.s.sing several weeks on the ocean, are not ready to greet with gladness the sight of land, although it may be a desolate sh.o.r.e or a barren island. Its very aspect fills the heart with joy, and excites feelings of grat.i.tude to Him, whose protecting hand has led you safely through the dangers to which those who frequent the waste of waters are exposed.
The gratification of every man on board the Dolphin may therefore be conceived, when, after a pa.s.sage of FIFTY-THREE DAYS, in a very uncomfortable and leaky vessel, a man, sent one morning by the captain to the fore-top-gallant yard, after taking a bird"s eye view from his elevated position, called out, in a triumphant voice, LAND, HO!
The coast of Guiana was in sight.
Guiana is an extensive tract of country, extending along the sea coast from the Orinoco to the Amazon. When discovered in 1504, it was inhabited by the Caribs. Settlements, however, were soon made on the sh.o.r.e by the Dutch, the French, and the Portuguese; and the country was divided into several provinces. It was called by the discoverers "the wild coast," and is accessible only by the mouths of its rivers the sh.o.r.es being every where lined with dangerous banks, or covered with impenetrable forests. Its appearance from the sea is singularly wild and uncultivated, and it is so low and flat that, as it is approached, the trees along the beach are the first objects visible. The soil, however, is fertile, and adapted to every variety of tropical production, sugar, rum, mola.s.ses, coffee, and cacao being its staple commodities.
To the distance of thirty or forty miles from the sea coast the land continues level, and in the rainy season some districts are covered with water. Indeed, the whole country bordering on the coast is intersected with swamps, marshes, rivers, artificial ca.n.a.ls, and extensive intervals. This renders it unhealthy; and many natives of a more genial clime have perished in the provinces of Guiana by pestilential fevers.
These marshes and forests are nurseries of reptiles. Alligators of immense size are found in the rivers, creeks, and pools, and serpents are met with on the swampy banks of the river, as large as the main-topmast of a merchant ship, and much larger! The serpents being amphibious, often take to the water, and being driven unconsciously down the rivers by the currents, have been fallen in with on the coast several miles from the land.
An incident took place on this coast in 1841, on board the bark Jane, of Boston, Captain Nickerson, which created quite a sensation on the decks of that vessel. The bark was ready for sea, and had anch.o.r.ed in the afternoon outside the bar at the mouth of the Surinam River, when the crew turned in and the watch was set that night. The bark was a well-conditioned, orderly vessel, harboring no strangers, interlopers, or vagrants of any description.
The next morning, soon after daybreak, the mate put his hand into an open locker, at a corner of the round-house, for a piece of canvas, when it came in contact with a soft, clammy substance, which, to his consternation and horror, began to move! He drew back, uttering an exclamation, in a voice so loud and startling as to alarm the captain and all hands, who hastened on deck in time to see an enormous serpent crawl sluggishly out of the closet, and stretch himself along the deck, with as much coolness and impudence as if he thought he really belonged to the brig, and with the monkeys and parrots, const.i.tuted a portion of the ship"s company!