“Now I’ll spin that yarn, if you would like to hear it,” said Jerry, after tea. “I suppose you don’t want to hear about the voyage out, for nothing very remarkable happened, only we came amazing near getting wrecked, and I believe I wrote you something about it.”

“Yes, begin at the beginning, and tell us the whole story,” said Emily, and Hattie seconded the request.

“It would take me more than a week to do that,” replied Jerry, “if I talked as fast as I could. I can’t tell the whole story now; but I’ll tell you about some of the most important events of the voyage, and save the rest for another time.

“Well, I went straight to Boston, after I left home, and the first thing I did was to try to get a chance to go to sea. As luck would have it, I fell in with the brig Susan, bound for Valparaiso, just as she was hauling off from the wharf. They had shipped a boy the day before, but he went ashore, and hadn’t come back, and the captain told me I might take his place. So I bundled right in, without stopping to think. I didn’t know the name of the vessel, nor where she was bound, nor what wages I was to have, nor anything else. I only knew I was going to sea, and that was all I cared about.

“Before I got out of sight of land, I began to be dreadful seasick; but it isn’t worth while to tell you about that now. And, if you’ll believe me, the very first job I had to do, on board the Susan, was to clear out the pigsty! and I had to do it every day through the voyage!”

“Why, do they have pigsties on board vessels?” inquired Harriet.

“Yes, sometimes,” continued Jerry. “But our pigs were not to be killed for fresh meat,—they were a choice kind, that somebody was sending out to Valparaiso for breeding. But I thought it was rather queer, after I had run away from home to get rid of such work, that I should have to feed pigs and clean out their pen at sea. And it wasn’t many days, I tell you, before I wished myself home again. Everybody, from the captain down, cursed and cuffed and kicked me, because I was so green,—just as if I ought to have known every rope of the brig, when I never saw a brig before. If I didn’t happen to do a thing just right, down would come a rope’s-end across my shoulders, as like as not; and if I dared to say a word, I would find myself sprawling on the deck the next minute. The men, too, played off all sorts of tricks upon me.[2] And then the living was enough to sicken anybody. It was salt beef and hard bread morning, noon, and night, and week after week, only, once in a while, we were treated with stewed beans or peas, or boiled rice, or duff,—a kind of pudding made of flour. And I wish you could have seen the place where we slept. The forecastle is the name of it. It was a little, narrow, dark, and dirty hole, with berths on the sides, like shelves, where the men slept. Why, our cock-loft is a perfect parlor compared with it.”

“No wonder you wished yourself home, poor fellow!” said Mrs. Preston.

“Well, after all, mother,” continued Jerry, “it wasn’t so dreadful bad, when a fellow got used to it. In a few weeks I kind of got the hang of things, and made the best of them, and after that I got along a good deal easier. My sea-sickness went off, and I could eat my allowance with the smartest of them, salt-junk or anything they’d a mind to bring on. The weather was fine for several weeks; we’d got into a warm latitude, and the old brig made a handsome run. There was one time that we didn’t shorten sail once for a week,—she kept right along on her course, with a fair wind, without starting tack or sheet. We had some rare sport, too, about that time. We killed a shark that was hanging around the brig, for one thing. One of the men heated a brick as hot as he could, and then wrapped it up in some greasy cloths, and chucked it to him. Sharks, you know, will jump at anything you throw at them, and this fellow smelt the grease, and down went the brick, before you could say Jack Robinson. And then you ought to have seen him thrash round. Why, it looked as if the water was boiling, where he was, he lashed it so, and the spray came down upon us like a shower. But in a few minutes it was all over, and his ugly carcass rose to the top and floated off.”

“Oh, that was cruel!” said Mrs. Preston.

“Well, mother, the sharks are cruel, too,” said Jerry; “and the sailors don’t have any love for them, I can tell you. The rascals would eat a man just as quick as anything else, if they could get a chance. They’d snap a leg off just as a boy bites a stick of candy, and they’d finish the rest of him in two or three mouthfuls.

“A day or two after that, we caught an albatross. There were several of them that had been following us three or four days. They are a curious bird. They are very large, and their wings opened from twelve to fifteen feet. We sailed at the rate of about two hundred miles a day, for several days running, and yet these birds kept up with us all the time. But they went more than double the distance that we did, because they kept making circles round us for miles, and then coming back in our wake. They follow vessels to pick up the stuff that is thrown overboard. One of our men baited a hook with a piece of salt pork, and towed it from the stern by a strong line. In a few minutes one of the birds swallowed the bait, and we pulled him on deck. He was a monstrous fellow, but he didn’t try to defend himself only by biting at us a little. He was so clumsy he couldn’t stand up on the deck. He had great webbed feet. The sailors began to skin his feet, to make purses, before the poor fellow was dead.”

“Oh, what hard-hearted wretches!” exclaimed Emily.

“Well, I must hurry along with my yarn,” said Jerry, “or I shan’t get through to-night. We crossed the line,—the equator, I suppose you call it,—and I was introduced to King Neptune, and was shaved and washed by him in great style; but I can’t stop to tell you about that, now. Every greenhorn has to go through the ceremony the first time he crosses the line. We didn’t have any very rough weather till after we had passed Cape St. Roque. Do you know where that is, Emily? Get your atlas, and I’ll show you.”

Emily brought her school atlas, and found Cape St. Roque, the extreme eastern point of South America, about five degrees below the equator.

“A day or two after we passed the cape,” continued Jerry, “it grew rough and stormy, and finally settled down into a regular gale. The sea ran as high as the mast-head, and I thought we should be swallowed up every moment. The brig lay down on her side so that you couldn’t stand still nor walk without holding on to something. The wind blew terribly, the rain poured down in torrents, the sea dashed over the deck, and every rope and plank seemed to creak as though the brig was just going to pieces. It was pretty shaky business, I can tell you, going up aloft then, and hanging to the yards and ropes, but we had to do it. And for two days we didn’t one of us get any rest or put on a rag of dry clothing. In the height of the storm, our maintop and topgallant masts, with the yards and rigging, came down with a crash to the deck, and nearly killed one of the crew. I thought our time had come then, certainly, but we cut away the wreck, and made everything all snug again. Soon after that, the captain discovered that we had sprung a leak, and all hands had to take their turn at the pumps. That came pretty hard, worn out as we were, but it was pump or sink with us, and there was no get-off.

“The next day after we sprung a leak, the gale began to die away, and our captain made up his mind to run into Rio for repairs. Do you know where that is, Emily?”

“Rio Janeiro? Yes; here it is,—it’s the capital of Brazil,” replied Emily, looking upon the map.

“That’s the place I wrote my first letter from,” resumed Jerry. “We lay by there about a week, and had a chance to go ashore. It was the last of March, but it was the latter part of their summer. When it’s winter here, it’s summer there. We had plenty of fruit while we stopped there,—such as oranges, plantains, pineapples, bananas, and mangoes. And the monkeys and parrots that we saw there I guess would have made you open your eyes. They say they grow wild in the woods there. Just as soon as we got anchored, the natives began to come out in canoes, with fruits and poultry and monkeys and parrots and all sorts of knickknacks, to sell. Rio looks real handsome from the water, but it’s a queer place when you get into it. The houses are high, and most of the streets are so narrow that two carriages can’t pass without running upon the sidewalk. The streets are full of slaves, and they seem to do all the work. You will see them with great boxes and bales on their backs, and they take the place of horses and drag heavy carts loaded with goods. A party of us walked out into the country one day; and such splendid forests as we saw I never had any idea of before. The trees were nearly all strange to us, and there was no end to the different kinds. Everything grows rank there. The woods were full of the handsomest birds I ever saw, and there was about every kind of insect that ever was thought of, I should think.

“After we left Rio, we made a pretty good run, until we got in the neighborhood of Cape Horn, and then we had a rough time of it for five weeks. It was about the first of May when we rounded the cape, which is the beginning of winter there. The days were short and cold, and we had gales and rain, snow or hail storms, pretty much all the time. It’s the stormiest place I ever got into. One night we saw a bright-red light in the west, that seemed to be only ten or twelve miles off; but the captain said it was all of a hundred miles distant. It was a burning volcano, in Terra del Fuego. The next day we saw land, for the first time since we left Rio. It was the coast of Terra del Fuego and Staten Land, and it was about as desolate a looking place as you can imagine. It was rocky, mountainous, and barren, and the sight of it was enough to give a fellow the blues.

“Cape Horn itself is a great black rock, high and steep, and extending out into the sea. We were within sight of it when we passed it. It is a terrible bleak place. We had about a dozen hail and snow storms that day, and they say it’s always rough there, where the two oceans meet. Our decks and shrouds and rigging were coated with ice, and the sails were as stiff as sheet-iron. We were all glad enough when we knew we were in the Pacific Ocean; but we hadn’t got through our troubles even then, for we had a very rough time, for two or three weeks, in sailing up the coast. About all the amusement we had at that time was catching cape pigeons, which followed us in great flocks. We caught them with a hook, just as we did the albatross. They look very much like our common pigeons, only they are web-footed.

“Well, at last we dropped our anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, in a little more than three months from the time we left Boston. Here it is,—it’s the capital of Chili,” added Jerry, pointing out its location on the map. “It isn’t so pleasant a place as Rio. The main part of the town is built along the beach, for about two miles. Right back of the city there is high land, where most of the foreign merchants live. There are three hills that rise above the southern end of the city, which they call the ‘Fore,’ ‘Main,’ and ‘Mizzen Tops.’ This is where the sailors go on their sprees, after they are paid off. They drink and fight and gamble and rob and commit every sin you can think of. I suppose some of the worst dens in the world are on those hills.”

“I hope you kept clear of such places,” said Mrs. Preston, rather anxiously.

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid to risk me, mother,” replied Jerry; “I didn’t have much to do with them, I can assure you. I went around among them a little, just to see what sort of places they were, that’s all.”

“But you couldn’t go near such places without danger; it’s contaminating to approach them,” replied his mother.

“I don’t think they harmed me much,” continued Jerry; “but one of our crew got drunk, up on the Main Top, and was robbed of all his wages, and then pitched head-first down the precipice, and almost killed. I guess he won’t forget the Main Top very soon.

“When we arrived at Valparaiso, the crew were discharged; but the captain said he wanted me to stay with the brig, and so I did. We didn’t know where we should go next, as we had no cargo engaged. We some expected to go to San Francisco, but freights were dull, and after waiting about four weeks, the captain finally engaged a cargo of hides for Boston. It took about a fortnight to load and get ready for sea, so our whole stop in Valparaiso was about six weeks.”

Here we will pause, and resume Jerry’s narrative in the next chapter.