SAILORS' RESOURCES.

Fertility of resources is one of the most desirable traits of character to the seaman. His limited means and appliances beget contrivance and invention, and he naturally acquires a facility in accomplishing work under difficulties. His whole mode of life is an exemplification of the possibility of making much out of little. The sailor, with his "chest" for a chair, his knees for a table, the sheath-knife and spoon his only utensils, secures his food with all the necessary benefit. With the scanty sewing materials, buttons, pins and knicknacks jumbled together in his "ditty box," he contrives to mend his clothes or rig the model of a ship in his spare hours.

The carpenter, with his hammer and hatchet, does an amount of execution astonishing to the shore artizan, who has well filled tool-racks. The cook would likewise startle, perhaps offend, the ladies sensibilities by the manner in which his appurtenances do manifold duties, besides those considered appropriate. The mate racks his brain daily to discover how to repair a sail without canvas, mend a chain without spare links, paint ship without brushes, or tar the rigging without tar. The captain is as much put to it as any one in contriving for all the departments under his care. So they become Jacks of all trades, and too often masters of none. One incident of a personal nature will illustrate the manner in which necessity often becomes the mother of invention on shipboard. One day when off the west coast of Sumatra, the carpenter was caulking and paying the deck-seams. I picked up a little bit of his pitch and put it in my mouth, but soon removed it with the gold fillings from two teeth attached. Severe toothache soon followed. At Padang I enquired for a dentist, but to learn that none of those kindly torturers had yet located there. The surgeon of the place would extract the teeth for twenty dollars apiece, but the pleasure of paying this moderate sum was no inducement to lose the "ivories." But the cavities must be filled to exclude the air. Boy Frank had been in a dentist's office, so he was summoned to the council on the old man's toothache. He put in a filling of pitch and then of rubber, but they were not destined to remain. Finally, at sea the pain induced the resolution to part with the teeth. Frank was called again. There were no forceps in the ship, and an investigation of all the implements led to the selection of my spring-punch. The tooth of this was removed, the carpenter filed the lips to make them tenacious of grip, the big Webster's dictionary was laid on the cabin table, and resting my head back upon this, Dr. Frank made a desperate effort to pull out teeth, gum and jaw at one attack. He was speedily driven on deck, and warned not to try that again. At last he thought of an amalgam filling, but how should it be obtained? I possessed a silver "ten-cent piece, saved from the obliterating ravages of the age of Greenbacks. This I filed into dust, and after a serious consideration my thermometer-tube was broken, the mercury was extracted and mingled with the silver. Then laying my head once more on the dictionary, the cavities were effectually filled, the only instruments used by the dentist being a crotchet needle and a screw-driver. It was not till three years after, that other fillings were substituted by an American dentist in China, who laughed as much at my story of the previous operation, as I did at his account of the way the King of Siam tested the set of teeth made for him, by putting this worthy dentist's hand in his mouth, and nearly biting off the fingers. He was not so much injured, however, as to be unable to carry off the bag of a thousand dollars in gold, the price of his work."

Speaking of tarring without tar reminds me how this difficulty was overcome. Having had a great deal of work, turning in and fitting the rigging, the supply of tar gave out, and when we reached the south-east trades in the Atlantic, and were rolling down to St. Helena, an inspection of the tar-barrel showed it was only fit for a bonfire on the next dark night. How should we make the rigging black and shiny? was the query of thoughts, dreams and discussions in succeeding days and nights. I will confess what I did, but do not recommend the process. Two bundles of rattans were chopped up and consumed in the cook's stove with the draft checked. The ashes were placed in a barrel and pounded fine with an impromptu pestle, then linseed oil and varnish were added, and with this production, well stirred, all the ropes were "tarred" with such good effect that many old sailors admired the black gloss of the rigging as they inspected the vessel at Central Wharf. But using up the paint oil for this, brought about another crisis. How should we paint ship? That was most essential to our good appearance. After many experiments the kerosene oil was selected to serve as the substitute, the sailors' whale oil was appropriated to cabin use, and Jack was invited to illuminate his premises with a slush lamp, a wick floated in beef fat contained in a tin can. So the ship was painted! These are samples of the makeshifts of sea life.

The first moonless evening was appointed for the final ending of the tar-barrel. It was sawn in two, the smaller half being chopped up and deposited with the carpenter's chips and shavings in the remaining part. A bit of old rope from the "shakings barrel" suspends it over the side, while the cook with a fire-brand ignites the contents. As the flames gather volume the barrel is dropped into the sea. The sailors spring to the rail or into the rigging to watch it as it emerges from under the ship's counter and is left astern in the wake. For awhile it blazes fiercely and continuously, then it disappears—ah, it's gone! No, the swell hides it. There it is again! Its disappearances and reappearances occur at gradually lengthening intervals till it no longer can be seen from deck. The second mate runs half way up the mizzen-rigging and exclaims, "I see it." Soon he shouts "I can just see it from the topmast cross-trees." Then it is given up, faces are turned from the stern to the bow, for the gaze on shipboard is always forward, seldom backwards, and as the ship presses on into the dark night, we think with subdued feelings of the lost light, and fall to moralizing or musing as the disposition of each inclines him.

The south-east trades took us to the line and then the doldrums raged again, but instead of giving a repetition of the miseries of this region I will relate the second mate's yarn about a "Wild Ship."

One calm night in the doldrums I went on deck in the middle watch to see if there were any signs of a breeze. The moon "had scoffed the clouds," and shone brilliantly upon the glassy sea. The courses were hauled up, jib and staysails hauled down, and the vessel made no motion ahead. I felt that I could not sleep till a breeze came and thought I would stay on deck and help the second mate keep his watch; so I called him to me, and as we leaned over the rail, I said, "Mr. Bangs, I believe you told me you sailed in the 'Bloodhound' once. I should like to hear about your voyage."

So he told the following yarn:

"When I got home from Australia in the 'Grace Darling,' after I'd had a lively time on the Cape, and my money began to get low, I went up to Boston to the Sailors' Home and began to look for a ship. My chum Bill Holmes and I made up our minds we would sail together again, and as we cruised about the wharves, we came across the ship 'Bloodhound' lying at India wharf. She was an extreme clipper, eighteen hundred tons register, and the handsomest vessel I ever clapped eyes on. I was told she was bound out to 'Frisco,' and that evening I asked the Superintendent of the Home about her, for I felt rather shy of those crack California clippers. I had been shipmates with a man who was with Bully Woodman in the 'Sea Witch.' He had a fashion of shooting at the men aloft with a revolver, or would let go the topsail halyards when men were on the yard and shake them overboard. His owners paid him five thousand dollars a year and fighting expenses, and sometimes these were pretty heavy. They used to clear the ship out with another captain, and put Woodman aboard at Sandy Hook, for it was hard to ship a crew to sail with him. There were several men of that style in those clippers, and I thought the Superintendent would know if the 'Bloodhound' was a safe boat to go in. He said she belonged to Jones and Thompson one of the most respectable firms in Boston. Deacon Jones was a member of Old South church, a tip-top man. He often gave lectures to young men about good principles and success in life, and it was certain he wouldn't allow any 'bullyragging' in one of his ships, for he was a good friend of sailors.

"We went to the shipping-office next day and found the articles just opened, and Bill and I were the first ones that signed. In a week we went on board, and just as we hauled out from the wharf the mate came over the rail with his duds.

"'Halloa!' said one of the men; 'I'll be blowed if we haven't Johnny Clarkson for mate, and he's the biggest rascal that ever walked a ship's deck.'

"It seemed that the reason why the mate didn't join the ship any sooner, was, because he was such a notorious scoundrel that it would be very hard to ship a crew if it was known that he was to go in her; so the captain or owners kept him out of sight, until the last moment, when all the crew were on board, and the steam-tug alongside, and then he made his appearance.

"The ship came to anchor in the stream as the wind was ahead, and when we got below that night into the forecastle, there were great yarns a-going about the mate. The Dutchmen got scared half out of their wits, and made up their minds to be murdered before they were a month older.

"There was a man named Jackson on board, who was boatswain of the 'Flying Cloud,' in Hong Kong, when Clarkson was there, mate of the 'Black Squall.'

"He was the chap that first spotted him when he came on board, and he told hard stories about his carryings on and the number of sailors he had murdered.

"The old man stayed ashore, and that night the mate and passenger got to drinking in the cabin, and about ten o'clock the mate came forward, 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth shaking.' He couldn't find any one on the watch, and while he was prying about forward, he tumbled over the chain-cable, and hurt himself some, I guess, by the noise he made. Then he called all hands, and got the whole thirty of us out on deck. He gave us a lecture in rather a different style from the owner's speeches. He called us all 'the sons of sea-cooks,' that he could twist round his tongue, and cursed us in a way that made our blood run cold; about all we could make out was, that he was Johnny Clarkson, and was going to jump down our throats, drive us around, play the mischief, and kill Injuns generally. At last, he set the watch and sent us below saying, 'Remember, I'm Johnny Clarkson.'

"We thought we'd got enough of an introduction, and if we could have helped ourselves we wouldn't have continued the acquaintance; but there was no backing out then.

"The next morning the captain and his wife came off in a steam-tug, and we got underway and towed out past the light.

"The 'old man' was a Dane, or some kind of a Dutchman, named Johnson; that's all I know about him or his wife, except that the passenger told me in 'Frisco,' that he wrote home to his friends, that the captain was a demon and his wife was a she devil.

"While we were making sail on the ship, the mate travelled about the decks, raving like a madman. He thought one man didn't haul hard enough on the main-topsail halyards, so he cursed him and called him a bad name. The man gave him a 'black look' in return, and Clarkson knocked him down senseless, with a big gash cut in his head, with an iron belaying-pin. When the yard was mastheaded he sung out, 'haul that thing out of the way and belay.'

"All hands were kept up in the afternoon and, if there was any excuse to be found for doing it, the watch below would often be called out in the forenoon. Every order was accompanied by an oath, and belaying-pins, and leading-blocks were hurled about the deck at any one that didn't move on the 'clean jump.' Things went on this way for about a fortnight, without anything very particular happening, except that somebody got licked nearly every watch, and then we had a little the biggest row that ever I saw aboard of a ship.

"We were running down the north-east trades with all our port stu'n'sails set, and at eleven o'clock one night in the second mate's watch, a very heavy squall struck her. The mate jumped out on deck and called all hands, without saying anything to the 'old man.' We didn't get out of the forecastle quick enough for him, and he and the third mate stood by the door on one side, and the second mate and boatswain on the other side of the deck, and every man as he came out got struck.

"Jackson said to me, 'Hold on, Bangs, don't you go out till I do.'

"Just then the mate looked in and said, 'Bangs you hurry, get out on deck!'

"'He's coming out when I do,' said Jackson.

"'Jackson,' said the mate, 'when you're ready come out on deck,' and he went away. He never tried to impose on Jackson, and I thought I'd keep close to him to secure my own safety. As the third mate struck one of the sailors, the man drew his sheath-knife and cut him slightly. Then there was a race. The man ran aft and the third mate after him. Away they went around the poop and forward again, until the third mate tumbled over a man that the second mate had knocked down, and so lost the chase.

"When Jackson and I got out there was a general fight going on; some of the watch on deck had pitched in, and belaying-pins and handspikes were flying round at a lively rate. The 'old man' got on deck in the midst of all this, and I guess he thought the Old Nick was let loose, or else his officers had gone crazy. The man at the wheel had run her off before the wind to save the sails, but there hadn't been the first thing done about taking in anything.

"'Haul down that main-topmast studding-sail,' shouted the captain; for the tack had parted and the sail was blowing all to pieces.

"The fighting stopped now, I hardly know how. But several of the sailors were 'ended over' on deck with broken heads, and some of us were at the main-hatch keeping clear of the 'muss.' I believe the rest gave it up and ran forward of the foremast.

"The 'old man' kept singing out his orders, and at last the mate went aft and had some words with him, while we went to work and saved the pieces. The man at the wheel said the mate cursed the 'old man' all up in a heap, and told him to go below and he'd look out for the ship, and after a little jaw, the captain backed down and went into the cabin. We blew away a lot of sails that night; one topmast and two top-gallant stu'n'sails, a flying-jib, main-topmast staysail, fore royal, and broke off the foretopmast stu'n'sail-boom, which tore an awful big hole in the foresail. I guess if the owner knew how much that fight cost him he would be still more of a sailors' friend. I never could quite account for the officers not taking in sail sooner, unless it was they had been drinking.

"Besides having all hands, we used to be kept going all night long in the watch on deck, and after we got round the Cape into the south-east trades we had to work every minute, either doing necessary duty, or else performing military drill with handspikes, or something of that sort. Night times our principal work was polishing the iron belaying-pins and eye-bolts, for when we went into 'Frisco' every piece of iron-work about deck shone like silver. We all had our stations rubbing the iron with our sheath-knives, and every half hour, when the bell struck, we had to call out like sentinels. This is the way it would go: First, the man on the forward house, who was polishing the cook's stove-pipe, would sing out: 'Cook's stove-pipe, one bell and all's well!' Then would come, 'Starboard main-topmast staysail sheet iron belaying-pin, one bell and all's well;' 'starboard eye-bolts main-rigging;' 'strap of main-topsail halyard block;' and so on. When all the workmen had sung out, you'd hear, 'Starboard handspike gangway sentinel, one bell and all's well;' and then the port side the same. These were two men that had to walk with shouldered handspikes on the bridges that went from the top of the after-house to the boat's gallows. At the last the mate would hail the skysail-yard, and a voice would come down, 'Man in the moon, one bell and all's well.' This would be some unlucky chap who was lowest down in the mate's good graces, but got kept highest up in the air.

"That was the way every half hour at night when we were not pulling and hauling. You wouldn't think men would stand such nonsense? I assure you they did though, and they didn't dare to growl even in the forecastle, for there was some one prowling about outside, pretty often, listening to what was said; and if a man growled he was very apt to get licked next watch. The second mate gave one man an awful thrashing, for no other reason I believe than because he overheard him saying in his watch below, 'This is a humbugging old workhouse.'

"There were lots of other moves they put up with. There were five or six men in our watch that didn't know much, and the mate took a particular fancy to hazing them. One morning he came forward with some canvas for fools' caps, and made these men sew them in their watch below. Then he took some empty flour barrels, knocked the heads out, and cut holes each side of the top. We all wondered what was to pay now, and at night we found out. He called these men aft, made them put on the fools' caps and dismount one of the guns that stood by the after-hatch. Then each man got into a barrel and ran his arms through the holes, so that he had a kind of wooden shirt on. The mate made a rope fast to the gun-carriage, and taking his seat, he made the men grab the rope and haul him fore and aft the deck. He sat on the carriage, holding a long stick with a sail-needle in the end, with which he pricked up all the men he could reach, wherever the barrels didn't protect them, and he cursed the rest in a way that hurt most as bad."

"Mr. Bangs, didn't the captain have anything to say to all this?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. I believe it just suited him. He didn't do any fighting himself, but he'd get on top of the house and everlastingly curse us."

"Did you ever get struck?" I asked.

"No sir."

"I suppose not," said I. "I never heard a man tell a yarn yet about a wild ship, but he always went clear himself."

"But it's a fact," said the second mate, "Bill Holmes and I were about the only ones in the crew, except Jackson, that didn't get a rap on the head before the ship got to 'Frisco.' I expect we got spared because we were Yankee boys, but I came pretty near catching it once or twice.

"Some of the men were shamefully beaten for no cause whatever, except that they were good-natured Dutchmen. The mate used to fight with a belaying-pin, or else use his fists, but the second and third mates always carried brass knuckles in their pockets, and when they cut a man's face open it sometimes made an ugly sore. But the fighting didn't worry me as much as the blackguardism, for sometimes we'd go along a few days without a blow being struck. There was no let up, though, to bad words. Every order was followed up with oaths and vile language. All the officers from mate to boatswain were tarred with the same brush, and when all hands were on deck shortening sail, or tacking ship, I don't believe hell could have furnished worse talk. I often wondered what Mr. Jones would have thought if he could have dropped down aboard, and Bill Holmes used to say that he thought Mr. Jones would have done service to the cause of humanity if he'd taken a little pains to pick out a decent captain and mate to oversee his sailors in the 'Bloodhound,' in addition to his speech-making.

"We had a quick passage of one hundred and five days, but we didn't get to Frisco any too soon to suit us, and we all cleared out bag and baggage as soon as the ship got to the wharf.

"The ship anchored in the stream first; the mate got a boatman to take him across the Bay, and he hid up country somewhere for awhile, to keep clear of the police. Then he got aboard of a ship, just as she was going out of the harbor, and went second mate of her over to China.

"When we hauled into the wharf on a Sunday afternoon, there were about a thousand people down to see 'the blood boat' as they called her, for the boarding-house runners had reported her character. The men got out warrants against the officers, but none of them were arrested, for they kept out of sight for awhile and the sailors all had a good drunk, and what didn't go up to the mines were all shipped off again in less than ten days, and the affair blew over.

"The next I heard of Clarkson he was mate of the ship 'Fantail' with Capt. Harry Saunders, and went from Boston to Frisco in her. One day he punished the 'galoots' by making them jump overboard in a calm, and straddle a long plank made fast at one end by a rope from the ship. He had made them some paddles and they had to work them as though they were towing the ship ahead. Another time he lashed six of them, head and heels together, laid them along the deck in a line, lashed the heels of the last one to a ringbolt and putting a rope around the shoulders of the first one he took it to the capstan and made some of the sailors heave taut till the poor fellows on the stretch cried out blue murder.

"Clarkson could always get more wages from the religious shipowners of Boston than any mate sailing out of the port; he was considered such a smart officer.

"They complain that there are no American seamen to man our ships, and if the truth were known it would be found that the decent lads are driven out of the service, in disgust, by the brutality of the officers, or if they get through the forecastle they find it useless to become officers unless they are qualified to be prize-fighters. The boys on Cape Cod are going into stores in the cities, or on to farms out West, instead of going to sea as they used to do.

"I've often wished I could have a word with Mr. Jones about that voyage. I don't profess to love sailors much and I think sometimes that the better you treat them the worse they are. But if a man really wants to do them good, I should think he would do it at sea as well as on shore."

"Rather," I said, "he should do more at sea than on shore. A sailor spends three-fourths of his life on board ship and, if one wishes to subject him to good influences, it would seem reasonable to bring them to bear upon him where he passes most of his time. But Mr. Jones' style seemed to be to build bethels and homes for him to benefit by in the two weeks he is on shore, and then leave him for months in entire neglect to hear only curses and blackguardism, and suffer tyranny.

"Besides, a sailor is more open to good impressions at sea than he is ashore. There, his mind is full of novelties and pleasures and has little room for good counsels, but on board ship in a long dreary voyage, he reflects upon his past life, sees his follies and is disposed to make resolutions of reform."

"Well," said I, "that yarn seems to have raised the wind; there appears to be a light air on the port-quarter. You may square in the yards."

The second mate assured me so positively that his story was true, that I wrote it out while fresh in my memory, word for word as he told it.

The last day of the "doldrums" brought about an event which had a great effect in reviving our spirits. In the morning we made a ship ahead, bound the same way, and at noon we caught up with her and spoke her. It was the "Renown," from Calcutta bound to New York, ninety days out. After dinner we spied a sail on our starboard bow bound to the southward. She slowly drew down towards us and at two o'clock we saw a boat put off from the "Renown" to board her. It was now nearly calm and I thought I would imitate the example. So our quarter-boat was lowered, and the mate and four men pulled away towards the stranger. They reached her in about an hour and at four o'clock were again on board, with a large roll of Boston newspapers, and what was still better in the sailors estimation, a few pounds of tobacco. The mate reported her to be the bark "Nonantum," from Boston, bound to Buenos Ayres, twenty-six days out. He said the captain was in a dreadful stew about falling to leeward of Cape St. Roque. He had only had E.S.E. winds in place of north-east trades and had been unable to gain any longitude. Now he expected nothing less than a fortnight's dead beat. This had not put him in very good humor, and our men were told by his sailors that one of the crew had just upset a tar-bucket on deck, and the "old man" had been making the mate clean it up himself. The mate said the captain had his wife aboard and that she was cross-eyed and "as homely as a hedge-fence," but for all that he enjoyed making his best bow to her, and asking her how she liked going to sea, which he said was the only polite speech he could think of.

"What a little world a ship is," I thought. "There they are in that bark shut up by themselves and engrossed with their own concerns as though there were nothing and nobody else in existence. They have their trials and growls and disagreements, just as we do and as the "Renown" does, but each of us as isolated as is one star from another. Well, poor fellow, I hope he'll fetch by St. Roque!"

There were fifteen newspapers in the bundle, and for the next week we all took something of a vacation from our little world and enjoyed a view of the larger one. A multitude of topics were discussed both aft and forward, and had a good effect in stimulating our minds, and diverting our thoughts from their well-worn channels, in which they were moving with but a sluggish drift.

The same evening that we boarded the bark, the north-east trades came in a squall, and started us again on our homeward course. They brought with them also a more bracing air, which had a great effect in restoring the elasticity of our spirits. On we sped, averaging two hundred miles a day until we reached lat. 26° N. in lon. 65° W., where the trades left us and the variable winds of the "horse latitudes" set in.

The bark was now in fine order. She had been tarred down, painted inside and out, and her masts and yards were all scraped bright and had received good coats of oil and varnish. The yards we had scraped in Padang when the sails were unbent, but the masts were done on the passage. We all declared she looked as fine as a new fiddle. But there was still plenty of work to be done in the way of small jobs, and in keeping in order what was finished, though the main work being completed we all felt easier in mind and more pleased to see her move rapidly towards port. The sailors were very lively and every occasion was seized for a song at their work.