CHAPTER XXVIII.
EDGING AWAY.
Right before the wind! Ay, blow, blow, ye breezes; so long as ye stayfair, and we are homeward bound, what care the jolly crew?
It is worth mentioning here that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, apassage from the Pacific round the Cape is almost sure to be muchshorter, and attended with less hardship, than a passage undertakenfrom the Atlantic. The reason is, that the gales are mostly from thewestward, also the currents.
But, after all, going before the wind in a frigate, in such a tempest,has its annoyances and drawbacks, as well as many other blessings. Thedisproportionate weight of metal upon the spar and gun decks induces aviolent rolling, unknown to merchant ships. We rolled and rolled on ourway, like the world in its orbit, shipping green seas on both sides,until the old frigate dipped and went into it like a diving-bell.
The hatchways of some armed vessels are but poorly secured in badweather. This was peculiarly the ease with those of the Neversink. Theywere merely spread over with an old tarpaulin, cracked and rent inevery direction.
In fair weather, the ship's company messed on the gun-deck; but as thiswas now flooded almost continually, we were obliged to take our mealsupon the berth-deck, the next one below. One day, the messes of thestarboard-watch were seated here at dinner; forming little groups,twelve or fifteen men in each, reclining about the beef-kids and theirpots and pans; when all of a sudden the ship was seized with such aparoxysm of rolling that, in a single instant, everything on theberth-deck--pots, kids, sailors, pieces of beef, bread-bags,clothes-bags, and barges--were tossed indiscriminately from side toside. It was impossible to stay one's self; there was nothing but thebare deck to cling to, which was slippery with the contents of thekids, and heaving under us as if there were a volcano in the frigate'shold. While we were yet sliding in uproarious crowds--all seated--thewindows of the deck opened, and floods of brine descended,simultaneously with a violent lee-roll. The shower was hailed by thereckless tars with a hurricane of yells; although, for an instant, Ireally imagined we were about being swamped in the sea, such volumes ofwater came cascading down.
A day or two after, we had made sufficient Easting to stand to thenorthward, which we did, with the wind astern; thus fairly turning thecorner without abating our rate of progress. Though we had seen no landsince leaving Callao, Cape Horn was said to be somewhere to the west ofus; and though there was no positive evidence of the fact, the weatherencountered might be accounted pretty good presumptive proof.
The land near Cape Horn, however, is well worth seeing, especiallyStaten Land. Upon one occasion, the ship in which I then happened to besailing drew near this place from the northward, with a fair, freewind, blowing steadily, through a bright translucent clay, whose airwas almost musical with the clear, glittering cold. On our starboardbeam, like a pile of glaciers in Switzerland, lay this Staten Land,gleaming in snow-white barrenness and solitude. Unnumbered whitealbatross were skimming the sea near by, and clouds of smaller whitewings fell through the air like snow-flakes. High, towering in theirown turbaned snows, the far-inland pinnacles loomed up, like the borderof some other world. Flashing walls and crystal battlements, like thediamond watch-towers along heaven's furthest frontier.
After leaving the latitude of the Cape, we had several storms of snow;one night a considerable quantity laid upon the decks, and some of thesailors enjoyed the juvenile diversion of snow-balling. Woe unto the"middy" who that night went forward of the booms. Such a target forsnow-balls! The throwers could never be known. By some curious sleightin hurling the missiles, they seemed to be thrown on board by somehoydenish sea-nymphs outside the frigate.
At daybreak Midshipman Pert went below to the surgeon with an alarmingwound, gallantly received in discharging his perilous duty on theforecastle. The officer of the deck had sent him on an errand, to tellthe boatswain that he was wanted in the captain's cabin. While in thevery act of performing the exploit of delivering the message, Mr. Pertwas struck on the nose with a snow-ball of wondrous compactness. Uponbeing informed of the disaster, the rogues expressed the liveliestsympathy. Pert was no favourite.
After one of these storms, it was a curious sight to see the menrelieving the uppermost deck of its load of snow. It became the duty ofthe captain of each gun to keep his own station clean; accordingly,with an old broom, or "squilgee," he proceeded to business, oftenquarrelling with his next-door neighbours about their scraping theirsnow on his premises. It was like Broadway in winter, the morning aftera storm, when rival shop-boys are at work cleaning the sidewalk.
Now and then, by way of variety, we had a fall of hailstones, so bigthat sometimes we found ourselves dodging them.
The Commodore had a Polynesian servant on board, whose services he hadengaged at the Society Islands. Unlike his countrymen, Wooloo was of asedate, earnest, and philosophic temperament. Having never been outsideof the tropics before, he found many phenomena off Cape Horn, whichabsorbed his attention, and set him, like other philosophers, to feigntheories corresponding to the marvels he beheld. At the first snow,when he saw the deck covered all over with a white powder, as it were,he expanded his eyes into stewpans; but upon examining the strangesubstance, he decided that this must be a species of super-fine flower,such as was compounded into his master's "_duffs_," and other dainties.In vain did an experienced natural philosopher belonging to thefore-top maintain before his face, that in this hypothesis Wooloo wasmistaken. Wooloo's opinion remained unchanged for some time.
As for the hailstones, they transported him; he went about with abucket, making collections, and receiving contributions, for thepurpose of carrying them home to his sweethearts for glass beads; buthaving put his bucket away, and returning to it again, and findingnothing but a little water, he accused the by-standers of stealing hisprecious stones.
This suggests another story concerning him. The first time he was givena piece of "duff" to eat, he was observed to pick out very carefullyevery raisin, and throw it away, with a gesture indicative of thehighest disgust. It turned out that he had taken the raisins for bugs.
In our man-of-war, this semi-savage, wandering about the gun-deck inhis barbaric robe, seemed a being from some other sphere. His tasteswere our abominations: ours his. Our creed he rejected: his we. Wethought him a loon: he fancied us fools. Had the case been reversed;had we been Polynesians and he an American, our mutual opinion of eachother would still have remained the same. A fact proving that neitherwas wrong, but both right.
White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Page 31