How singularly devoid some men are of decent feelings! I talked last evening at the pumps with Murphy (he whose nose was pulled) and Rumps. The latter was boasting as to how long he could stay drunk without seeing startling visions, and rejoiced in saying that he had been in the lock-up of more than one city in the United States. Murphy, however, bowled him completely over by remarking quite calmly, “I been in the jail of every large seaport in the world.”

Though the temperature is just as high, 84° at noon on deck, the humidity has almost disappeared and the weather seems clear and settled. Latitude, 2° 49′ north; longitude, 27° west.

June 6

Indications seem to point with certainty to our having taken the southeast Trades, for a strong breeze sprang up at six this morning, descending upon us in a squall. We trembled lest it should prove naught but a puff; but we had the satisfaction of seeing it steadily increase, so that four hours later we had logged thirty-four miles, close-hauled, laying our course, the wind being strong and true at southeast. It might not be thought amiss if I state here what the origin of the trade-winds is. They are due to the inrush of cold air from the poles towards the equator to take the place of the warm current which rises from the latter. Owing to the easterly rotation of the earth on its own axis the air from the north becomes a northeast wind, and that from the south a southeast wind. The hot air flows to the poles as an upper current, and, having been cooled there, it descends to the surface of the earth to form the westerly or anti-trade-winds.

At 8.30 this morning a vessel was sighted to windward, bound north, which soon resolved itself into a tramp steamer. Here was an excellent chance to be reported; so telling the helmsman to hold her up as much as possible, the captain hauled out the flags DRHF, bent them on to the signal-halliards, and when he thought that the steamer had opened out our monkey-gaff, he told the mate to hoist away; which, being a very simple operation, he accomplished without accident; and in a few seconds the flags which spelled our name were fluttering merrily away a hundred feet above the deck. Anxiously we waited, but no answering pennant showed from the steamer, and we were about to blast her skipper with deep-sea anathemas, when she was observed to alter her course at right angles and come bearing down upon us, pushing a big snow-bank of foam ahead of her bluff bows. On she came, as if to lay us aboard, until she was within half a mile, when she shifted her helm again, describing a deep circle, while at the same instant the familiar little red-and-white-striped pennant flew up to her triatic stay, meaning “I understand you”; down came our flags on the run and “Report me all well” was hoisted instead, or rather it wasn’t hoisted until after the skipper had discovered that the miserable Goggins had run up “Steer after me” by mistake, which necessitated some lightning changes, as the stranger was moving rapidly away. Again the gay little triangle fluttered from the latter, while we ran the stars and stripes to the gaff and dipped three times, the other reciprocating with the scarlet ensign of Great Britain. The steamer then kept away, and in half an hour was a blot in the northeast; from her course the skipper thinks that she was from Pernambuco bound to the Cape de Verde. Now, here is a man who deserves to be publicly commended, and I wish that we had caught the steamer’s name, that it might appear in these pages. How many steamer captains are there who will alter the course for the purpose of speaking a mere wind-jammer? This incident seems to refute the assertion which is often made about the careless and what-are-you-to-me-spirit of British ship-masters, for no one could be more civil or polite than the captain of this tramp; rivalling in this respect the Germans, who are said to be the most painstaking of all the nationalities in the reporting of vessels.

I nearly forgot an agreeable break in the monotony of yesterday. We sighted a brig in the forenoon ahead and to windward; and though she had a lot of fore and aft canvas set, which ought to have held her up well, we rapidly ate up towards her, so that at four o’clock she was ahead and a little to leeward. We gradually crawled up on her then, and in another fifteen minutes had her abeam, so close that the features of her helmsman were clearly visible. Then I thought of our megaphone, presented to us just before we sailed, and here was a grand opportunity of putting it to practical use. So I brought it up on deck and the following conversation ensued:

“Hello! what brig is that?”

“The ‘Venturer,’ of Nova Scotia, from Philadelphia for——” Here followed a terrific aggregation of syllables which we couldn’t catch.

“When did you sail?”

“May 7, from Delaware Breakwater. What ship is that?”

“The ‘Hosea Higgins,’ from New York for San Francisco. Please report us all well.” A flourish of the arm from a man on her poop answered our request, which ended the interview. The megaphone worked beautifully, though they are of no use in windy weather. Of course, the mate, never having seen one, felt it his duty to jeer at it, which he did by saying, “That thing, whatever yer call it, ’s no good; I could hear better’n you without it.”

Reference to a copy of the Maritime Register on board showed that the “Venturer” was of one hundred and ninety-three tons, hailed from Weymouth, Nova Scotia, and was bound to Margem do Torquary, Brazil; small wonder that we couldn’t understand it before. It reminds me of an Italian bark which sailed from New York a short time ago for Alexandretta, the “Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuoro di Jesu.”

The “Venturer” was what is usually known as a tidy little vessel, and she made a really fine picture as she surged buoyantly along over the watery hillocks. Accurately, she was a brigantine, and we got several very fair photographs of her, though the light was bad. Altogether, we sight about a dozen vessels a day now, which shows how densely populated the Atlantic is near the equator.

A circumstance quite surprising is the frequency with which the mates leave the poop when on watch; indeed, a good deal more than half of their time is spent on the main-deck; whereas on ships of foreign nations it is the general rule that the officer of the watch shall never leave the poop unless he has some excellent reason; common sense shows the desirability of always keeping an officer where he will have full command of the ship.

Well, we’re doing grandly now, and at noon were only ninety-five miles from the equator, and should cross it between one and two o’clock to-morrow morning. Latitude, 1° 35′ north; longitude, 27° 52′ west.

June 7

South latitude! Our expectations were fulfilled, for we entered the Southern Hemisphere in the morning watch, crossing the great circle which circumscribes the earth at fifteen minutes past four. Thus we have entered upon the second stage of our voyage; and while the first quarter was certainly not everything which could be desired, we reached the line in very good time, twenty-seven days from New York. If we had had even a little better luck in the Doldrums, four days could have been stricken from the twenty-seven; this is a far better passage, though, than we made in the “Mandalore,” when we had been forty-nine days at sea before we finally cut the equator. Perhaps the most comforting part is the fact that the skipper seems to have exhausted his supply of aguardiente, for he has been very solemn and strictly sober for three or four days. Heaven grant that he has no more grog!

This weather is so magnificent now that the memory of our late smothering calms, during which we were eight days in making four degrees of southing, has entirely passed away, for we are humming through the water at eight knots, close-hauled, with streaming scuppers, while the superb southeast trade-wind sings a blithesome tune in the rigging. It is the grandest wind that blows; so cool and steady, and the ocean so sparkles under its influence, with a snow-white crest topping each sea, reflecting the splendid blue of the heavens in its azure depths, that existence becomes an unbounded delight. I think, too, that the finest cloud effects which we saw on our first voyage were in the southeast Trades. True to precedence, yesterday afternoon at four o’clock the northeastern sky was obscured by a huge dark cloud of the color of indigo, and rendered doubly so by the sun shining upon it; this cloud extended almost to the sea-rim, black and frowning, while immediately beneath it, on the horizon, appeared some faraway masses of cumulus cloud of a most beautiful cream color, enchanting the mind with their loveliness and resembling great yellow icebergs.

As we were contemplating this spectacle, MacFoy sung out something which I thought was “Vessel on the lee.” The mate then went aloft for a better view, and when he had come down I asked him if he could see the vessel, to which he replied, “St. Paul’s Rocks.” This excited us at once, and I went up to the cross-jack-yard, from which elevation I plainly saw against a dark cloud what appeared to be twin light-houses, like Thatcher’s Island lights at Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Although fifteen miles distant at the time, and the weather was slightly hazy, these two rocky columns rising from a depth of two thousand fathoms, the only land within hundreds of miles, produced an effect wonderfully majestic and solemn. The exact position of the rocks is 0° 55′ 30′′ north and 29° 22′ west, and they are five in number, though only two are of considerable altitude, the loftiest being one hundred feet in height. They are separated from each other only by narrow chasms, so that until you approach very close the appearance is that of a single island. The whole space occupied by St. Paul’s Rocks does not exceed five hundred yards in length and three hundred in breadth; and while Darwin concluded that they were not of volcanic origin, more modern scientists—Renard, Geikie, and Wadsworth—have decided that they are eruptive. These rocks are totally devoid of vegetation, but are the resort of incredible numbers of sea-birds, both gannets and noddies, as well as a certain spider, while the water in the vicinity swarms with fish, seven varieties having been taken by the “Challenger” during a very short stay.

Captain (afterward Admiral) Fitzroy, when in command of the “Beagle” during her celebrated five years’ voyage, visited these rocks, and wrote an admirable description thereof. Among his observations is the following: “The multitude of birds covering the rocks was astonishing, and they suffered themselves to be kicked about and killed with sticks; at the same time those on the wing even darkened the sky. Numbers of fine fish, like the grouper of Bermuda, bit eagerly at baited hooks; but as soon as a fish was caught a rush of voracious sharks was made at him, and notwithstanding blows of oars and boat-hooks, the ravenous monsters could not be deterred from seizing and taking away more than half the fish that were hooked.”

Had it been earlier in the day we would have stood in toward the rocks to behold the surf which rages incessantly against the weather-side. But it was too late; and even as we looked the lofty obelisks began to fade away, and at 6.15 we had what I hope will not be our last look at the lonely St. Paul’s Rocks. The Atlantic Ocean near the equator, between the meridians of 18° and 23°, is subject to frequent and violent earthquakes, which have the effect upon a vessel like that of being dragged over a reef, or that of a heavy chain-cable being suddenly run out through the hawse-pipes.

The most singular fact in relation to the component parts of sea-water is the variation in the proportion of salt; for every ton of Atlantic water evaporated there is yielded eighty-one pounds of salt; ditto Pacific, seventy-nine pounds; ditto Arctic, eighty-five; while the Dead Sea heads the list with one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, though I have never seen such statistics in regard to our Great Salt Lake.

Although the temperature in the shade to-day was very agreeable, the sun’s heat was terrific. It is customary to refer to a “baking sun,” but I should call that of to-day a boiling sun, on account of the moisture; and it is strange that on a day like this the sun’s rays will not dry out a wet towel, though exposed to them for several hours during the hottest part of the day, so great is the humidity. Latitude, 0° 49′ south; longitude, 29° 53′ west.

June 8

These are fine Trades, though the squalls are severe and sudden. A few words here, in passing, as to squalls. What landsmen often call a squall sailors call a puff, such as are experienced along our coasts with a northwest wind, lasting a few seconds. A sailor’s squall often lasts for thirty minutes and is accompanied with heavy rain, while it can be observed approaching in the form of a nimbus cloud touching the ocean a long while before it reaches the ship.

In this twenty-four hours we did two hundred and thirteen knots, an average of more than nine within the hour, while in many of the squalls we must have been going nearly twelve. How many yachts are there which can equal this on a bowline? Ship-masters, however, cannot realize how fast a yacht can sail with a light wind; they all seem to think that a yacht sails best in a gale. Captain Kingdon often used to say to us in the Southern Ocean, when we were doing twelve knots before a fresh gale, “Ah! this is where I’d like to see an able yacht! Sixteen knots, eh?” And he couldn’t understand that under those conditions a smart yacht could sail but little, if any, faster than we were doing. But what is even more difficult for them to grasp is the speed of a racing yacht in what they call a light air. Sometimes when we were fanning along at, say, five knots, I used to worry Captain Kingdon by telling him that a seventy-footer would run him out of sight in that breeze in a few hours. He refused to believe that any yacht could make nearly ten knots while the “Mandalore” was doing perhaps five.

This morning we had a heavy sunrise squall, for which we had to let go the royal halliards, the sky-sails having been stowed during the night. But, quick as the men were, the wind was swifter yet; for before the clew-lines and buntlines could be manned a great rent was made in the mizzen-royal, and in a few minutes the second mate reported that the upper foretop-sail was in the same condition; both were, therefore, unbent and lowered as such, while a brand new mizzen-royal was sent up, the first of the strong new sails which will be bent before we reach the bad weather. It was the hardest squall which we have had yet, and the wind and rain made a thunderous noise while it lasted; yet, high above the din, could be heard the powerful voice of Mr. Rarx, shouting to the men to bear a hand with the mizzen-royal clew-lines. Though there were plenty of squalls throughout the night, the sky was perfectly clear between them, and thickly studded with fine constellations, while the moon silvered the great wool-packs as they sailed serenely up out of the southeast. Quite a sea had made by eight bells this morning, in which we wallowed a good deal, but lost none of our way. Sea-birds have been very scarce lately, though a single large frigate-bird has sailed all day on motionless wing in wide circles overhead.

I wonder how many perfectly well and healthy deep-water captains there are? This sounds absurd at first, as it is the general opinion that sea-captains are always thoroughly hearty and strong. Of course some of them are, for long-voyage skippers not infrequently live to a very advanced age, proving that they must have always been sound men; yet in most instances it will be found that they suffer from some malady brought about in their profession. Perhaps the most common is liver trouble in conjunction with dyspepsia in some form. Captain Kingdon’s death, it will be remembered, was caused by a cancer or abscess in the liver. Such complaints are due to an inactive life for months at a stretch, for captains, on account of their dignity, cannot take part in the working of a ship or in pumping her out, so that walking the poop must constitute all their exercise. Rheumatism, produced by bad food and exposure, divides the honors with the liver, while from heart-disease but comparatively few long-voyage captains are free. It generally develops in those of a nervous temperament, induced by worry in gales and dread of trouble with the crew if they are unruly, besides a score of reasons only understood by the initiated. Even in my very limited experience, I have known three master-mariners afflicted with cardiac disease. One, a splendid fellow, Coalfleet, of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, died in his bunk in the North Atlantic; another, in the Ward Line service, was grievously stricken in Cuba, and had to retire from the sea; while the third suffered from dreadful intermittent attacks of angina, but I have lost track of him for several years. Latitude, 3° 50′ south; longitude, 31° 35′ west.

June 9

Late yesterday afternoon Captain Scruggs came up and said that Fernando de Noronha was visible to leeward from aloft, and that if we looked hard enough we might be able to see it from the deck. So we gazed long and earnestly over to the westward, and there, sure enough, arose a soft, rose-colored cloud through the mist; and in another half-hour we could perceive the various islands which constitute this group, together with the lofty pyramidal rock one thousand feet above the sea, which crowns the loftiest of the islands, giving it a peculiar individuality, so that it is not possible to mistake this cluster for any other known group. We were near enough to count four distinct islands, the largest of them being twenty miles in circumference, and we could just make out the tremendous walls of sheer, unbroken rock falling into the sea; but beyond this it was not given us to penetrate even with the strongest glasses on board. Would that we had been fifteen miles nearer, that we might have compared this group with Trinidad, which rears its desolate summit two thousand and twenty feet above the sea, fifteen degrees farther south. The spectacle of the surf breaking on Fernando de Noronha must be even grander than on St. Paul’s Rocks; for, lying in the very heart of the strong southeast trade-wind, the full force of the mighty South Atlantic surge dashes ceaselessly against its basaltic walls.

Last evening was very fine indeed, the wind having let go sufficiently to make the deck agreeable; and as the moon shone with great power, it was a night of remarkable beauty even for the Tropics, although some ragged scud which blew swiftly across the moon presaged plenty of wind for to-day. The indications were fulfilled, for it has been very squally since early this morning; all the royals came in at eleven o’clock, and we have been plunging along in a broken sea, through savage blasts which roar in the rigging with an angry voice. The most unfortunate thing is that the wind is heading us by hauling to the southward, and for the greater part of the past twenty-four hours we have been steering well to the westward of southwest; so that, in spite of our weatherly position on the line, we are going to have trouble in getting past that portion of Brazil lying to the southward of San Roque. Indeed, at noon we were only seventy-five miles from the land, a little south of the Great Bugbear, as Maury pertinently styled the famous cape.

For dinner to-day we had canned lobster, which came from the far-distant Cape of Good Hope; at least, the skipper called them lobsters, but the mate disgustedly muttered “Crawfish.” This sort of thing the skipper cannot stand, as he considers it a crime for Mr. Goggins to know more than he does, and actually resents any information which the mate volunteers at table. He generally doesn’t care to exhibit his knowledge in the skipper’s presence, and it is hard to see why to-day he forgot himself in so unusual a manner. Yesterday, for instance, I remarked what a particularly hot day it was for the Trades, and the skipper promptly denied it on principle until furnished with ocular proof by thermometers, while the mate discreetly observed, “I feel like gettin’ out me warmer coat.”

Mr. Goggins is occupied during the first watch every other night in teaching two of the men where the different ropes lead to on deck. One of these hapless individuals is Louis Eckers, who doesn’t understand much English, and the other is John Pettersen, an immensely tall, lean Dane, who lives in such terror of the mate that he utterly loses his head at every command. He is, besides, pitifully anxious to please, and his awkwardness is really remarkable. If there happens to be a rope yarn in his path he is sure to trip on it, and when he starts to move in obedience to an order, he first stares all about as though just recovering consciousness, and then suddenly perceiving that the men are some distance off by this time, he laboriously gets his lank frame under way after heavily tripping over some object, and, with elbows squared and head bent low, he charges like a bull across the deck. Neither of these men has ever been aboard of a square-rigger before, and what little sense they have seems to vanish when anything is to be done. I’ll never forget John’s appearance last night as he clattered heavily forward toward the forecastle when the mate said ferociously, “Show me the spanker-sheet.” Poor fellow! so rattled he knew not whither he was going.

Speaking of ropes a moment ago reminds me of the largest one ever made in England. It was of white manila, weighed five tons, and was twenty-two inches in girth with a breaking strain of eighteen tons. This huge rope was made a short time ago for the express purpose of towing a floating dry-dock from the Tyne to Havana, which itself weighed six thousand tons. Seventy men were required to haul in the hawser and coil it away. Latitude 6° 18′ south; longitude, 33° 58′ west.

June 10

Oh, unhappy day! Oh, joyless hour! We could not weather South America after all! Late yesterday afternoon when I had plotted the run off on our own chart, I sought the skipper and said to him, “Unless my chart is out, we’re not more than forty miles off the land.” “No,” he answered, quietly; “we’re just thirty miles from the beach, and I’m going to wear ship at six.” How bitter was his tone as he said this! Bitter and calm with despair, for that which he said in jest three weeks ago has truly come to pass. Far back in the North Atlantic one morning, when we were not far enough to the eastward for that latitude, I asked the captain if he weren’t generally farther east than we were then. But he made light of it, trusting to his star of luck, as he jocosely answered, “Oh, well, maybe we’ll have a chance to look at Brazil.” Prophetic utterance. No one knows until he has “been there” how it galls a skipper to be caught here, for it often puts two or three weeks on the length of a voyage. At any rate, when six o’clock came last evening we wore ship to a running and complicated accompaniment of boisterous profanity, and stood away east on the starboard tack. If the Trades were where the general average shows that they ought to be at this season, east-southeast instead of south-southeast as they are, we would have fetched by with two or three degrees to spare.

The breeze was pretty strong when we turned in last night, and gave evidence of freshening considerably; but no one looked for any such wind as we had this morning. We were awakened by the loud voice of Captain Scruggs, “Haul up the crojjick, Mr. Rarx,” and five minutes afterwards, “Clew up the t’ga’nt-s’ls fore and aft,” while a sudden headlong dive showed that something more than a strong breeze was blowing. Dressing was difficult, and when we finally emerged from the companion-way, behold the ocean almost white with breaking seas and a moderate gale whistling from south-southeast. The seas were short and we plunged heavily into them with an unpleasant jerk; but it was a glorious sight to watch the billows as they came roaring at us, deep blue in the hollows and crested with hissing froth. We hadn’t been more than half an hour on deck when the captain sung out, “Haul down the maintop-mast stay-sail and clew up the main-sail,” which meant that we were going to wear again and stand in shore. We were nearly in the wind on the other tack, and the second mate had just roared out, “Head-yards now,” when crash! a tall sea fell over the weather side and full upon the wee Chinese cook, the meekest, jolliest little fellow imaginable. He was standing outside of the galley door when that sea claimed him. It slammed him first against the main hatch; washed him back into the scuppers; then aft nearly to the cabin bulkhead, and finally sat him fiercely down by the pumps, during which evolutions the frail little fellow could be perceived shooting about in the surging waters, his long, black, thin pig-tail curling and writhing several feet behind him. After the water had partly run off, half burying the men on the lee foresheet, our little Chinaman lay very still, and we feared that he was badly hurt, though the men were roaring with laughter, while the skipper thundered “Why in h—— don’t yer pick him up?” to the mates, who stood as though petrified, gazing at a cask of sea-water bearing down on the cook which would have flattened him like one of his own pancakes. All at once he came to, however, saw the barrel almost on him, and skilfully rolled out of the way of it, escaping with some painful bruises on his arms.

This was the only sea that boarded us, and we were soon straightened out on the old port tack, steering southwest, and doing scarcely four knots, for we were under short canvas and the seas pounded us back, and even now we will hardly go free of the land; for in spite of our twelve hours of easting during the night, a powerful northwest current has set us back to such an extent that our noon sight showed us that we were only ten miles farther off-shore than at the corresponding hour yesterday, and that we had made only thirty miles of southing. If the wind shifts only a point, though, we might be able to weather the land after all.

Last night the mate and I had a conversation about fast passages, and he said to me, “I can tell yer, there was plenty of smart ships thirty or forty years ago that yer never hear tell of nowadays. There’s the Boston ship ‘Siren,’ as I was mate of; we were comin’ around from Coquimbo, bound to Liverpool, when we were caught in a pampero off the river Plate. It come in a squall as usual, and the fust thing I know, there was the fore- and maint’-gallant-masts over the side. We didn’t have no spare spars aboard, but, in spite of that, we went from 3° south right into Liverpool in nineteen days. Pretty good for a lame duck, and considering the Doldrums, too.

“Then there was a smart passage I heered tell of the other day about a modern ship, the British ship ‘King George’; she went from Cape Town up to the Delaware Capes in forty-seven days.”

This last was really a fine performance, for the distance which she covered was six thousand eight hundred miles. Compare this passage with the voyages of sailing vessels to the westward across the North Atlantic in winter. They are nearly always fifty days coming across, and not infrequently seventy, or nearly a month longer than the “King George” was from South Africa, while the distance is less than half.

In the Gulf of Mexico trade there is a wonderfully fast little fore-and-aft schooner called the “Margaret S. Smith,” of Portland, Maine. This vessel ran on one occasion from Ruatan, Honduras, to Mobile in seventy-two hours, which was an hourly average of twelve and one-half knots; and considering that the net tonnage of this schooner is only one hundred and twelve, her performance must be regarded as almost phenomenal. There are not very many large sailing ships in these days which can show a record of three hundred miles per diem for three consecutive days; yet the “Smith” is doubtless less than one hundred feet long.

The other day I managed to get a large dollop of slush on a pair of thick trousers, and I asked the skipper if Sammie, the boy, couldn’t get it out, thinking that he could do so with some soap and a little warm water. But lo! fifteen minutes later I saw my trousers soaking away in a tub of water like a pair of dungaree breeches! This, as I observed before, is the way with seafaring people: whenever there is aught amiss with a garment, pop it goes into the wash-tub. Latitude, 6° 49′ south; longitude, 33° 48′ west.

June 11

“All hands wear ship; all hands ’bout ship.” These are the cries which ring constantly through the vessel now. Woful to tell, the Trades are still from the south-southeast, though the captain in some way has contrived to control his temper to a wonderful degree; such unlooked-for and devilish a performance of the Trades is enough to finally ruin any skipper’s chances of entrance into Heaven’s Gate, or the Golden Gate either.

Last evening at five o’clock we descried the land from aloft on the lee or starboard bow, and after supper it was very plain from the deck, so that at six we tacked and stood off shore again. At that time the sun had just sank behind the sandy wastes of the Brazilian coast, casting a deep crimson light over the sea; while dead ahead, at the extremity of a profound curve in the coast-line, Point Pedras rose out of the ocean in a low headland, with a tremendous mass of gloomy cloud above it, lending to that part of the scene a sombre and awful aspect. Though the land did not show up sufficiently well to allow us to perceive any of its characteristics, it was plain enough to permit us to say that we distinctly saw the shore-line of this vast and torrid land. Point Pedras, it might be well to state, is not only the easternmost point of Brazil, but of the entire Western Hemisphere, being forty-five miles farther east than Cape San Roque.

This afternoon we perceived a disturbance at the end of the fishing-line which is always towing astern, and it was presently seen that we had hooked a fine specimen of the sailor’s dolphin, the most beautiful in coloring of all deep-water fish. I think that it might be as well to apply the name dolphin to this fish from now forward, if there should be occasion to mention one again. Of course it isn’t a dolphin at all, but as sailors call it so, and this is supposed to be a book about sailors, this name is as good as any other.

Carefully we coaxed him up beneath the counter and then tried to kill him by holding his mouth out of water, for he would have parted the line if we had attempted to haul him aboard. As he sheared about on the end of the line he presented a spectacle which was actually gorgeous, and, being immediately above him, our view was perfect. His motions were the very ideal of grace, and as he moved swiftly from side to side he exhibited in succession all of his wonderful hues, vivid greens and yellows merging into silver and Prussian blue. His antics were cut short, however, by the arrival of the mate with the grains, which he skilfully drove into the creature’s side (what a useless slaughter!), and he was hauled up over the stern. Then we stood by for the dying colors. Out upon them! Not for a single instant can they compare with those of the fish in his natural condition, when, darting about a fathom or so beneath the surface, he positively enchants the eye with his brilliancy. He will yield us fresh food for supper, such as it is; but all deep-sea fish are poor and dry, save one, the flying-fish, which, if served in a restaurant with tartare sauce, I’m sure could not be detected from a smelt.

One often hears the discussion in shipping and yachting circles as to the seaworthiness of fore-and-aft schooners in comparison with square-riggers for deep-water work, and the question is often raised, “Which would make the faster passage to San Francisco from New York, the ship or the schooner?” Naturally there are points in favor of each; the advantage lying with the ship when off the wind in strong breezes, and with the schooner when by the wind. In the case of a voyage to, say, Hong-Kong, in the southwest monsoons, the ship would probably arrive at her destination ahead of the other, as there would be five thousand miles of hard westerly (fair) winds in the Southern Ocean, and another long stretch of free wind from the Straits of Sunda to Hong-Kong. On the other hand, in a westerly passage of Cape Horn, in which the vessel would be probably close-hauled for two or three weeks in the Southern Ocean, or perhaps more than a month, the schooner would have an immense advantage in being able to lie at least two points closer than the ship, if the wind allowed her to carry enough sail to go ahead. The wind is generally too heavy in the vicinity of Cape Horn, though, to allow a small vessel to show much canvas when close-hauled, and the passages of four schooners to San Francisco found below indicate that in reality there is not much difference between the voyages of these schooners and the average of square-riggers. They were all Gloucester fishermen, and were sent out by Mr. Horatio Babson, of Boston, loaded with fishing supplies, rosin, pork, and hardware, between 1868 and 1873.

The average of these vessels was one hundred and thirty-four days, as against one hundred and forty-five for square-riggers; so that whatever advantage they may have gained off Cape Horn and in the northeast Trades in the Pacific, they, doubtless, lost in the long stretches of southeast Trades on both sides of the continent. It must also be added that all the schooners sailed during the month of November, so as to reach Cape Horn in the middle of the southern summer. This fact seems to me to be a good answer to those ship-masters who are wont to assert that they would rather double Cape Horn in July than in January,—i.e., in winter than in summer,—saying that the gales are harder in the latter month than in June and July. But the fact that November was chosen for the schooners by a man who was no doubt familiar with the Southern Ocean would indicate that the weather there is better in January.

To-day Mr. Rarx told me of a novel and very successful way of manning a vessel with what is known as a checker-board crew. Two forecastles are necessary, or one with a dividing bulkhead, all the men of one watch being white and the others black. If they were together in one forecastle, violent hostilities would continuously prevail; but if separated, they will work against and try to outdo each other; so that, with a little judicious flattery or word of encouragement, such work as the making and shortening of sail, tacking and wearing, will be done with incredible alacrity. All-negro crews are held in esteem by some long-voyage skippers, but the men are said to be very unruly at sea, though fearless sailors; while the singing on board of a ship manned by darkies, both chanties and otherwise, is said to be wonderfully good. Latitude, 7° 35′ south; longitude, 34° 20′ west.

June 12

No abatement of the southerly wind. We thought this morning that the breeze was certainly going to haul to the eastward; but the wind, though strong enough, yet hangs in the south-southeast, and we are, therefore, still hammering away at it, tacking or wearing four times in each twenty-four hours, so that in four days we have made only ninety-eight miles of southing, a rate of nearly exactly a mile an hour. Apropos of which Rumps made quite an original remark last evening. For the full comprehension of the observation it must be explained that if there is much wind and sea a ship will not make better than a seven-point course,—that is, with the wind at south she will do about west by south, or almost at a right angle. So the bosun remarked, “Well, here we are, walking up and down the avenue, eh?” It described what we were doing perfectly.

This morning, while on the starboard tack, the skipper, who has now lost every vestige of the patience which he formerly exhibited, thought that at last the wind was going to shift to southeast at least, so he sung out to wear round; but when we were snugged down on the port tack, we fell off to southwest half west, exactly as before. It seemed impossible that a human being could have shown such boundless rage as the captain did then. We could hear him muttering away at the farther side of the poop, “What’s the use? No sort of use; no sort of use at all.” And then, in a frenzy of sudden wrath, he stamped lustily upon the deck and swore like the mouth of the pit, his wiry whiskers bristling as though electrified, as he fiercely wagged his head; for he wot not that we were hard by. Then his eye wandered to the main-deck, and down the weather poop-ladder he clattered, looking for trouble, for we could hear him growling and mumbling at the galley door.

In rough weather, instead of ordinary teacups we have large, flat, china utensils, which look like shaving-mugs, so that at first I seemed to miss the brush. The mate, thinking to have another go at merrie England, cried, triumphantly, “I’ll bet you had nothin’ like them on the ‘Mandalore.’” But we quite shocked him with the information that on that good ship we were furnished not only with these useful pieces of crockery, but with some which held an imperial quart, from which we drank our soup in heavy weather as from Brobdingnagian teacups. Perhaps Mr. Goggins was never so absurd as to-day after dinner, when he confidentially called to me and said, “Say, did yer hear the cap’n say ‘pressperation’ instead of ‘perspiration’ just now? There ain’t no such a word, yer know”; this with an urbanity which would have floored a Chinaman.

Mr. Rarx, too, sometimes favors us with some observations entirely sui generis, and particularly droll in that he has a well-inflated opinion of his own choice of English. He was telling of a painful accident which happened to him several years ago, in which his back was wrenched; “and, sir,” he concluded, “I didn’t know what to do; I couldn’t stand, and I couldn’t lay, and I couldn’t set.” We wondered whether he were possessed of any sort of ornithological accomplishments.

In windy weather wearing stirs up a lively scene. This is how it is done on the “Higgins”: The skipper is pacing athwartships, undecided whether to hold on any longer or not; then suddenly he stops, walks to the break of the poop, and says quietly to the mate, “See the braces clear for running, Mr. Goggins.” In five minutes or so the mate catches the captain’s eye, and asks, “Are you ready, sir?”

“Am I ready, sir!” repeats the latter, who will have nothing suggested to him; “most certainly I am not ready; don’t you see that squall to windward?”

The mate withers; and when it has passed the idea of having to break tacks again seems to have festered in the skipper’s mind, for he suddenly snaps out, “All hands wear ship,” like a bunch of fire-crackers going off. “All h-a-n-d-s wear ship” roar the mates, running forward to rouse out the men, and aft they tumble and take up their positions at the various ropes. Then the skipper begins his harangue with voice of thunder and wind-mill arms: “Haul away on your main and crojjick buntlines and clew-garnets; square the crojjick-yard; you at the wheel, hard up yer hellum. Weather main-braces now; haul away, you blasted old women; come in on those tops’l-braces. Head-yards now; let go the foretack; foresheet now, all hands; forebraces; steady your wheel.” The ship by this time has fallen off dead before the wind, and the old man is in the zenith of his passion, whirling back and forth across the poop, belching perfect volcanoes of profanity.

“Main-braces again now; overhaul those spilling-lines and that main lee inner buntline; again your main-braces; crojjick-tack, —— —— it; look alive there and get that main-sheet aft; lead it to the capstan; heave; in she comes, that’s well. Main and crojjick bowlines now; that’s the style. Haul taut the weather-braces fore and aft, and clear up the decks.”

This oration is delivered in a hurricane voice to an accompaniment of roaring wind and flying spray, which sometimes enshrouds the whole forecastle like a snow-squall; and the mates whiz about, driving the men before them, and they in turn rend the air with their cries as they come in on the braces. Each man seems to have an individual ejaculation when hauling away, only one man, of course, singing out at each rope; but as there are often half a dozen knots of men at work, there are as many strange yells. Louis, the Frenchman, says, “Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho,” beginning very deep and ending in a falsetto; Broadhead, one of the youngest and smartest seamen in the ship, eases his mind with “Hoo-oop, come in with her; oh, fiddle-strings; oh, split the wind”; Olafsen cries, “Ha-joop, ha-joop”; while Timothy Powers, the wild, carrot-topped Irishman, screams, “Yah ha-a-a-a, yah ha-a-a-a,” like a freight train with the brakes on.

Best of all, though, are the chanties; and as the men know each other well by this time, there are plenty of them; and good old songs they are, songs of the days of ’49, into which the men throw heart and soul. Some of the best ones for hauling are, “Blow, my Bully Boys, Blow,” “A Long Time Ago,” and “A Poor Old Man,” which latter two I believe that I mentioned before; while some of the melodies sung to pumping ship are even better. One is “The Plains of Mexico,” entirely in the minor, with a weird effect; another, “The Banks of the Sacramento,” each verse of which ends,—

Still another, “The Girls of Dublin Town,” is sung to the Southern tune of the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” the final words of each stanza being,—

“John Brown’s Whiskey-Bottle’s Empty on the Shelf” and “Give a Man Time to Roll a Man Down” are too well known to need comment. It is a fine sight to see eight muscular fellows at the pump-handles in the dusk of the evening, their broad backs standing forth against the dark recesses, rising and falling as they sing their favorite choruses, MacFoy of the port watch and Murphy of the starboard always supplying the solo parts. Latitude, 7° 56′ south; longitude, 30° 4′ west.

June 13

Worse and worse! The wind is more ahead than ever, and in the last twenty-four hours we made six thousand and eighty feet of southing, or precisely one sea-mile. Between yesterday noon and six in the evening we did make a few miles of latitude, for we tacked ship at the latter hour close to Cape St. Agostinho in 8° 40′ south; but after standing over on the starboard tack till one o’clock to-day, we went back again to the northward, and at mid-day the sun told us that we had made only one mile of latitude to the good. I thought that the captain intended to stand off shore this time for at least two hundred and fifty miles; but when both watches had dined at one o’clock, we wore round again and once more stood in for the beach. What a pity it is that we can’t make better use of this magnificent breeze, which is too strong for even a main-royal! Free, eleven knots would be our speed now, instead of which we go diving hard into it jammed on the wind, pegging along at never more than six knots, four points off our course on the most favorable tack.

Last evening we were presented with a most exquisite panorama of the Brazilian coast. At noon we were immediately east of Pernambuco, about thirty-five miles off shore; and, continuing on our southwesterly course, we brought the land aboard twenty-five miles south of that city at five o’clock. All that we could make out of the shore at that time was that it consisted of a succession of lofty hills; and it was not until we came up from supper at six o’clock that we saw the land distinctly enough to appreciate aught of its beauty, lying as it did at that hour broad on the starboard beam and ahead. On the quarter appeared dimly the snow-white angular walls of a little town lying snugly on an arm of the sea, glowing warm and mellow in the rich light; while by the aid of glasses we perceived, shrouded in the mists of a thundering surf, broad stretches of coral sand fringed at high-water mark with clusters of palmettos and cabbage-palms; back of these, dancing and shimmering in heat-waves, rolled the sand-dunes; and then came the series of lovely hills rising tier on tier into the interior, rich in that wonderfully luxuriant vegetation that clothes the surface of equatorial Brazil, with the veils of night mist just beginning to form in the valleys and deep ravines. The whole of this fascinating scene lay steeped in the after-glow of a superb sunset, which touched everything with a reddish-golden tinge to be observed only in the tropics.

Lying almost entirely within the torrid zone, the climate of Brazil is naturally a very hot one, and is also extremely humid, the rainfall for the year at Maranhão amounting to the enormous total of two hundred and eighty inches, or seven times greater than that of New York. Such an excess of moisture has a corresponding effect upon its plant life, and has given Brazil a wealth of vegetation not excelled by any country of the world. Travellers assert that it is utterly beyond description, and that in the ravines and passes near the coast, where the humidity is intense, it defies man’s utmost efforts at restraint. Even as far south as Rio, trees split for palings send forth shoots and branches immediately; and on the banks of the Amazon, the level of which mighty stream is yearly raised forty feet by the immense rainfall, the loftiest trees destroy each other by their proximity, and are literally bound together by rich vines and lianes. In the province of Maranhão, the grasses, roots, and other plants extending from the brinks of pools in time weave themselves into vegetable bridges, along which the traveller wends his way, unaware that he has left terra firma until he perceives the scaly jaws of an alligator protruding through the herbage before him. On all sides the vegetation is bewildering, and every representative of plant life is of a gigantic size.

But to return to ourselves. Happening to glance ahead a little later we caught a glimpse of the great light-house on the extremity of Cape St. Agostinho just as its beacon flashed over the sea, sending its brilliant needles of light far out over the moon-lit ocean. Just at dusk a large coasting steamer came unexpectedly out from under the hills, in whose stern waved the green-and-gold flag of Brazil; and, heading south across the wide wake of the moon, suddenly vanished in the gloom beyond the sombre headland. The light on Cape St. Agostinho, by the way, can compare favorably with our most powerful ones, for its rays are visible twenty-five miles at sea; the tower being in the form of a white iron tripod one hundred and sixty feet high, whose apex is three hundred and sixty feet above the ocean. Indeed, on the whole of the South American seaboard, from the Guianas to Cape Horn, there is only one other light which equals it, and that is on Cape Frio, just to the eastward of Rio Janeiro.

Speaking of Cape Horn, I wonder when we’re going to see that famous rock? At this present rate we would be several months in beating down the coast; if we were only as far south now as the Abrolhos Islands, we could begin to keep off a little, that being about the first point at which ships bound to the westward begin to think of bearing away. The old mate told us the other day that coming to the eastward towards New York this last time, they unbent the foresail and made some repairs to it on the main-deck with Cape Horn in sight! This means that there was not enough sea there at the time to wet the decks, for a sail is never stretched there if there is any probability of water coming aboard.

The sea has now returned to its usual Prussian blue, for, being on soundings yesterday afternoon, it changed to a most beautiful, pale, transparent green, owing to the white, sandy bottom over which we sailed, only twenty fathoms away; our least distance from the land having been about eight miles. Latitude, 7° 57′ south; longitude, 32° 47′ west.

June 14

Though the Trades are still from the south-southeast, we have done very well, as an offing of one hundred and thirty miles has enabled us to hold on to the port tack all day; and as the coast-line south of Maceió trends slightly to the westward, we may be able to go free of the land until we reach the Abrolhoses, for which it will no doubt be necessary for us to make a slight hitch. We were more than seven days in making nine degrees of latitude; for, a week ago last night, we passed the St. Paul’s Rocks fifty-five miles north of the line, and yesterday we had not quite reached the eighth parallel. Can the reader duplicate this tortoise-like progression in the southeast trade-wind? It is more like the Doldrums in spite of a spanking breeze. Sometimes when there is a lull in the wind the deep voice of Captain Scruggs will be heard, “Loose the main-royal”; but five minutes later will come the order, “Let go the main-royal-halliards; and you can put the gaskets on, Mr. Rarx, we won’t want it any more.” This word “loose” is almost invariably used at sea, and you never hear “Set the mizzen-t’-gallant-s’l” or “Hoist the fore-sky-s’l”; they are always “loosed.”

At dinner to-day the skipper said, “I’ll bet they’ve been having trouble off the river Plate lately.” “Why?” said I. “Don’t you see this swell a-heavin’ up?” he replied; “they’ve been having a southerly buster down there.” Now, that portion of the South Atlantic in the vicinity of that vast estuary, the Rio de la Plata, is subject to terrific gales of wind known as pamperos, because they blow off the pampas or plains of the Argentine; but the skipper, having lived long on the coast of Australia, where the hardest gales are called southerly busters, usually gives that name to the pampero.

The Rio de la Plata should never be called the Plat River, pronouncing it as we do the Platte River in Nebraska; if the English form is used at all, it should be called Plate, which is so universal that one of the largest, if not the largest, shipping-houses doing business in South America is known as the Brazil and River Plate Steamship Company.

A rather singular fact in connection with the skipper is that he has never been to any one of the three largest and most important ports between Cancer and Capricorn,—Calcutta, Bombay, or Rio Janeiro. This is really astonishing, as it would be hard indeed to find another American sailor brought up in the last generation who had never been to either Calcutta or Rio; Bombay is more modern. Captain Scruggs is quite interested in the Nicaraguan Canal project, and he insists that with its completion will pass away the sailing ship from the face of the waters, though I do not entirely agree in this theory. People also thought that when the Suez Canal was cut through it would kill the long-voyage trade to the East; yet what are the facts? It is probable that nearly double the number of sailing vessels pass Agulhas per year as pass Cape Horn, fully eight hundred rounding Africa in both directions in a twelvemonth. The amount of case oil alone from New York and Philadelphia which goes East in sail bottoms is enormous. Few people, though, realize how much cheaper it is to ship goods from New York to either San Francisco or China in sailing vessels than by rail or steamer. For instance, the railway freights from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans averages about fifteen dollars per ton; sailing ship rates, from seven to eight dollars per ton, and often less. Eighty thousand cases of oil, which would be the cargo of a modern two-thousand net ton iron sailing vessel, are transported to Shanghai around Good Hope for seventeen thousand dollars; but if they were sent overland to San Francisco from New York, and then by steamer to destination, the freight charges would be trebled, for they would amount to fifty thousand dollars.

We have just finished reading aloud the book which contains perhaps the finest descriptions of tropical scenery in English,—Kingsley’s “Westward Ho.” Nothing could be more charming than the picture of the delight of the scurvy-ridden fellow-voyagers of Amyas Leigh upon first landing in the West Indies; while the description of a Barbadian sunrise is positively entrancing. Latitude, 10° 15′ south; longitude, 34° 35′ west.

June 15

Another very excellent run was the result of yesterday’s work, even though we could not steer a better course than southwest, for we made not far from three degrees of latitude, finding at noon that Bahia bore west, distant one hundred and twenty miles, so that we are at the moment some distance off the land. Last night was one of the grandest that we ever remember at sea. A strong breeze whistled from the southeast at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the long southerly swell, making a rather confused sea in which we sheared about considerably, our high, powerful bows crushing the steep head seas which came rushing ceaselessly at us, piling up on either hand a hissing wall of foam and then flinging it far away on both bows, which, meeting the next on-rushing wave, and impinging one against the other, would shoot up to an astonishing height, to be driven back again in a perfect hurricane of spray, which drenched the forecastle-head, completely obliterating for the moment the lookout, who emerged from these showers like the shade of Neptune, with the water dripping from his oil-skins in the moonlight in glistening rivulets. The moon herself was full almost at the moment of rising, shining with so great an effulgence as to necessitate the partial closing of the eyelids if one looked at the disk, and casting a weird light upon the abysses of a heavy rain-squall crossing our stern. I don’t know when we have enjoyed an evening as much as this one, lying at full length in deck-chairs, watching the mizzen-truck roll through the stars in tremendous arcs, and listening to the bursting of the seas against the bows and the hissing of the water as it rushed under the counter. There is but one word which describes it,—ideal.

Has any one ever seen a keg of root-beer tapped in hot weather after it has been well shaken up? Or has any one ever heard of a keg of root-beer at all. I have always thought of it in bottles. However, we have one on board, and if the expansive force of a superheated, well-agitated barrel of root-beer can be appreciated, it will be understood that we had a very animated and sprightly thirty minutes this forenoon. Ever since the commencement of the voyage a beer-keg of this fluid has been churning and rattling away under one of the alley-ways which extend aft on either side of the cabin-house. For some time past the skipper has been cautioning us to save all the Apollinaris bottles, as he wanted to fill them, in cool weather, with the root-beer. But he grew impatient, and concluded to broach the keg this morning, after the contents had been well shaken up for a week in equatorial heat. Therefore he gathered round about him a phalanx of empty bottles, and, assisted by the second mate and the boy Sammie, advanced hardily against the passive “kag.” After much ado, and the use of sundry expletives and the dripping of perspiration, they got it mounted on its side upon a low wooden box, wedged it, held a bottle under the spigot, turned the faucet, and stood by. But something was wrong; no liquor flowed, so that the spigot must have been plugged with something. “Mr. Rarx,” said the skipper, “go and get a bit of stiff wire.” Back came the second mate at the end of a minute, during which Captain Scruggs was engaged in impotently kicking and pounding the keg; and when Mr. Rarx had brought the wire, he spent ten minutes jabbing away with it, eliciting with great force now and then a little jet of brown foam, which generally hit him somewhere in the face, which he persisted in holding in front of the spigot. Tiring of this, which gave promise of lasting all day without bearing fruit, he despatched the carpenter for an auger, having finally reached the conclusion that it was for lack of a vent that nothing would flow. The second mate was intrusted with its manipulation, and very confidently proceeded to bore a hole in the bung in the upper side. The wildest dream could not have pictured huger success. No sooner had the instrument pierced the wood than, with a hissing shriek, a column of dark liquid as big as a pencil shot high into the air like the spouting of a whale, breaking full against Mr. Rarx’s head, after blowing the auger out of the hole. Then there were frantic shoutings for a plug, while the little cascade played merrily away, falling in a gentle shower of amber froth upon those who tried in vain to stay its impetuous flow. Finally it was plugged, and the skipper called for a tumbler, that he might draw a glassful of the godly nectar, and, sipping it, gain courage for the bottling operation. But, oh, misery! No sooner was the faucet turned than out shot a horizontal stream of root-beer as large as a garden-hose, and with such incredible force that the liquid was blown into a sticky foam a few inches from the spigot. Then there was a rush for utensils on every one’s part but the skipper’s, who stuck fearlessly to his post in spite of the thick jet of mucilaginous steam, trying to turn the faucet with a monkey-wrench. During this exhibition my wife and I stood at the break of the poop, looking down upon the actors, and simply howling at the old man, who, crouched low upon the deck, wrestled like a gladiator with the unruly “kag”; and when he finally emerged from his vapor-bath, with dripping beard and garments soaked to the skin, I feared that the second mate would die of apoplexy. However, most of the beer was saved, and we filled and corked away fully seventy-five bottles of the bubbling mixture. Latitude, 12° 51′ south; longitude, 36° 2′ west.

June 16

Most doleful to disclose, the Trades began to let go this morning, and at ten o’clock the sky-sails were set for the first time in several days, while at the present moment, the middle of the afternoon, we are doing wretchedly, even though we have come up to south-southwest. As for the day, it was really magnificent; temperature of the air, 80°; of the sea, 78°, while the breeze was of that singular mixture of vigor and balm so often observed in the southeast trade-wind. Not a cloud specked the deep cobalt of the heavens all day save some feathery mare’s-tails near the zenith and a few clusters of pearly clouds on the southeastern horizon.

As usual, though, there was something to mar the serenity of the day; how many days are there without some untoward incident to cast its fell shadow? In this case it was the temper of Captain Scruggs, who no sooner did he perceive that the wind was letting go than he at once began to blackguard the men and the weather in wild, lurid language. Perhaps he wanted to catch up with himself, for it must be chronicled that three days, actually three long days, seventy-two hours, have passed without his having consigned any one’s immortal parts to the fathomless pit! Last evening my wife asked him if about 20° south wasn’t the average spot to lose the Trades; this, in truth, is about the usual place at which the southeast winds vanish, but the disagreeable man glared at us for a few seconds and then snapped, “How do I know? You’re liable to lose ’m anywhere,” with an explosion on the final word.

It is strange how he always tries to show that he knows just a little bit better than any one else; if, for instance, I asked him if Montevideo wasn’t in 34° 50′ south, he would be certain to reply, “No; 34° 55′,” on which occasions the mate usually gazes in wonder at him, and then smiles gently at us, as though to say, “You see, you can’t teach him.”

Ahead of us, distant from fifty to two hundred miles, lie a number of shoal spots, called the Royal Charlotte, David Scott, Hotspur, Busbridge, Victoria, and Fly Banks. There are more than twenty fathoms on all of them, though, except on a certain unnamed shoal, thirty miles south-southeast of the Fly Bank, on which the ship “Professor Airy” struck in 1875. I wonder whether the water is discolored on these spots? It would be rather strange to come suddenly upon a stretch of green sea surrounded on all sides by water of the darkest blue.

In a copy of Harper’s Round Table on board I found an amusing article called “A Yankee Skipper’s Trick,” which seemed good enough to transcribe, so here it is: “A good anecdote is told illustrating the superior enterprise of the Yankee skippers years ago. The New Bedford whalers left port for many a long voyage, sometimes to the far north, at other times to the far south. These intrepid followers of the sea sought and pursued the whale into the ice-clad latitudes about the poles with a natural fearlessness. A squadron sent out by Russia to explore the south seas, and reach the pole if possible, had attained a degree of latitude which the commodore proudly told himself had never been reached before by white man or other human beings. While he reflected upon the fame which would surely embellish his name, his sailors cried, ‘Land ho!’ Off to the south he descried a long, low-lying bit of land, and hastened to shape his course to reach it, there to plant the Russian standard on its highest point, claiming it in the name of His Majesty.

“What was his disgust and astonishment when, as his vessel approached the shore, he observed, over a bit of headland, a flag fluttering from a mast-head. In a few minutes a little schooner poked her nose around the point and came sailing smartly over the waves towards his vessel. The lean, Yankee captain, who was standing in the rigging as the schooner came up in the wind, yelled,—

“‘Ahoy there! What ship is that?’

“‘His Majesty’s ship the ——.’

“‘Well, this is the ‘Nantucket’ from Massachusetts. We’re doing a little piloting in these latitudes, and if you want to run in the cove yonder, why, we’ll pilot you in for a small charge.’

“The commodore’s disgust caused him to square his yards and shape his course to Russia.” Latitude, 16° 11′ south; longitude, 37° 15′ west.

June 17

I don’t expect that we will weather the Abrolhoses after all; we might be able to scrape along, but that would be taking chances, which Captain Scruggs never does. The chief danger in holding on to this course would be that of drifting foul of the reefs which stud the ocean in the vicinity of these islands. Therefore at eight o’clock this evening we will go around on the other tack, and it is to be hoped that we’ll do better than we did yesterday, with only ninety miles of latitude to our credit. This day was even finer than its predecessor, and we had some very grand cloud scenery, the eastern horizon being covered at five in the afternoon with great cirro-cumulus clouds in which we could perceive a number of bright luminous spots on the sea-line, called by sailors “sun-dogs”; being the bases of brilliant rainbows whose arches were concealed by the heavy clouds, producing a strange appearance.

The carpenter is now engaged in hewing out a new maintop-gallant-yard, a slow but interesting piece of work. The old one is weak and may not withstand the heavy weather of Cape Horn, and the maintop-gallant-sail is a very important one. It is as well to observe here, that whenever anything carries away aboard of this ship it is never spliced and forced to do further duty, as is the case on many vessels; the sheet, clew-line, or whatever has parted, is at once unrove, and a brand-new rope takes its place. The first illustration which we had of this was one morning in the Doldrums, when the maintop-gallant-stay-sail-halliards parted with a crack, and the half-dozen men on the end of it, among whom was myself, went down in a heap. Without a word a new piece of manila was rove in its place; and the same thing happened to the spanker-sheet a few nights ago. Indeed, this is one of the distinguishing marks of a Yankee ship. You will rarely find a piece of old running-gear aboard of a square-rigger flying the stars and stripes.

Late yesterday afternoon we caught another dolphin, a small one, weighing about fifteen pounds. He showed none of the splendid blues of our first fish, though the yellows and greens were very fine. Indeed, this dolphin, as he was towed through the water under the counter, resembled nothing so much as a strip of gorgeous, glittering satin, particularly whenever, as the fish rose slightly above the surface, a glossy sheen irradiated his lithe, elegant body. And immediately afterward we captured a bonito, about as large as a bluefish.

And now we have come to the first piece of inhumanity or gross cruelty of which either of us has been a witness on board. What we saw before was not much out of the way, except in regard to the bad language and the general atmosphere of “toughness” that pervaded the encounters; but even they were nothing to speak of when the character of the mates on American sailing ships is taken into consideration. That which I saw this afternoon, though, went far beyond hazing, for it assumed the form of full-fledged brutality. I want to begin at the commencement, so as to bring the whole affair to light and allow the reader to judge for himself.

The actors in the little drama which just escaped being a tragedy were Mr. Rarx and the Finn, Karl Karlsen. This fellow is slow and thick-headed, with a very hazy idea of English, but is always one of the first to jump if he understands the order. He was told this afternoon at about three o’clock to overhaul a certain tackle, one block of which was belayed to a pin in the rail, while the second mate stood by, having in his hand another massive block of a threefold purchase. The captain was below asleep, and I was standing at the forward end of the poop, not twenty feet from Karl. Suddenly Mr. Rarx, who was in a very bad humor, as I could see, walked close up to Karl and picked up a small coil of rope from the deck, and yelling, “You ain’t doin’ that right, d—— you,” made as though he were going to hit him. The man at once set about the job in another way; but the second mate’s temper was so ungovernable that he stepped up to Karl with an expression in his eyes which I never saw before in any man’s, gave him a terrific kick with his “letter-carrier” boots, and as the luckless fellow swung round under the shock and impetus, Rarx drew back the ponderous block which he still held, and which must have weighed nearly fifteen pounds, and flung it full against the sailor’s face. I could hear the thud distinctly, while with a sharp cry the big, powerful man reeled across the deck and would have fallen prone had it not been for the main fife-rail, against which he sunk gradually down, the blood pouring from a wide gash in his nose and forehead, and rapidly forming a little pond on the deck, while a crimson track stretched from where he crouched to the second mate, who stood over by the rail with the block raised above his head, as though challenging any other of the men hard by to take up the row. Half the watch saw the affair, and if looks could have annihilated him, Rarx would have dropped dead on the spot; and I saw Broadhead and the Frenchman, who were putting an eye-splice into the end of a wire rope, flush crimson and bend hard over their work at this miserable act of cruelty.

Meanwhile Karl remained where he fell, groaning, trying to stop the flow of blood which was rapidly saturating his clothes; why the block didn’t crack his head like a walnut will ever remain a mystery to me; it would have broken the skull of any one but a Russian seaman. For some few minutes there was a dead silence fore and aft; then Rarx walked up to Karl, shook him heavily, and cried, “Now, then, get away out o’ this, you —— —— ——; fine mess you’ve made on the deck. Go wipe the blood out o’ yer eyes, and bring a swab and get this out the deck, and don’t you be long about it, neither.” It struck me that this was rather hard lines, having to mop up your own blood; but in a few minutes more Karl recovered enough to totter forward, and when he next appeared he had a bucket of sand and water and a broom, and at the end of half an hour no trace of the assault remained save a large gloomy stain, which will have to wear out.

Later in the evening I remarked to MacFoy that this was the most villanous and unprovoked piece of brutality that I ever imagined, and that it was astonishing that a man who appeared to be such a well-principled fellow as Rarx would do such a thing. “Well-principled, is it? Huh,” was David’s comment; “peaceable enough to you aft I guess, but you’d think different if you could see him dark nights on the main-deck wearin’ ship. Did you ever see a Yankee second mate that wasn’t a hound?” “I don’t know very much about them personally,” I answered, “but they certainly have a hard name; the only other American second mate whom I ever knew was on a foreign ship, where he had to treat the sailors like men.” “Oh,” said MacFoy, “what do you think o’ what you saw this afternoon?” “Well, about the only thing anybody could say about it is that it was damnable,” I answered. Here the bosun looked steadily at me and said, “If you’d seen what I have in these ships for four years you’d think no more o’ that than steppin’ on a cockroach.”

At any rate, I’ll never forget the scene at the instant before the block struck Karl’s face: about half the watch in the rigging looking angrily down, the clumsy form of the Russian spinning round from the kick, and the second mate standing over him, red with anger, in the act of swinging the block well back to gather force for the blow. And this is what is known as “discipline” in Yankee deep-water men! Well, my only comment is, thank God that my wife wasn’t on deck to see it. Latitude, 17° 45′ south; longitude, 38° 5′ west.